A year of anger

2012 had been a year of uprising and anger. Whether it was against a defunct government, social injustice or violent men, there was always an undercurrent of animosity that defined the popular response.

Anger is the most visible symptom of a turbulent mind rendered impotent by irrational thoughts. When justice has been thwarted and legitimate protests suppressed, what has not been allowed to be articulated peacefully finds expression through violent means. As a society, we Indians are prone to repressing difficult emotions and need to be taught to communicate our grievances effectively without aggression. Scientifically, it has been proven beyond doubt that exposure to aggressive role models influences the behaviour of observers negatively. As such, the whole world is witness to the effects of a global gun culture that breeds young murderers. Even more baffling is the solution of fighting this, not with abolishing guns but with providing more ammunition. Our knee-jerk responses to rape betray the same insanity.

Complex issues like violence against women, corruption or terrorism obligate careful deliberation by a mind steeped in equanimity and purified by wisdom. These are essentially social problems that demand a social solution. As the building blocks of society, every family has a significant part to play in social transformation. What we require desperately are enlightened social reformers who can gently nudge us in the right direction. 

I fervently hope and pray that 2013 will usher in an era of peaceful and meaningful public involvement in politics that is worthy of a maturing democracy. 

In Modi Mode

Media is rife with Modi stories. A day does not pass by wherein the Gujarat Chief Minister does not attract attention to himself. I am stupefied by the responses that the article on Mr. Narendra Modi in The Hindu has generated especially the ones that laud the Gujarat Chief Minister’s self-acclaimed developmental agenda. Is this a window to India’s general opinion on Mr. Modi? Has the Congress with its innumerable scams so disillusioned the minds of the average middle class Indian that he is now not averse to an alternative like Mr. Modi? Do people actually believe that “Gujarat riots” is only a stick to beat Mr. Modi with? Can we so easily deny the fact that at the very least a doubt has been cast on Mr. Modi’s ability to protect the minorities? Have we become so numbed by the oft-repeated accusations that we are now prepared to condone them?

The mirage of poetry

Poem is a subjective portrait of a poet’s mental landscape. What woes lurk beneath that calm visage? The poet feels deeply and in a precious moment of inspiration ventures out from his inner shell to part with the pearls of his solitude. To him, every word rings true, each an embodiment of a deep-seated emotion. What sense does it make to the uninterested onlooker or the enthusiastic browser? Does the poet care whether he is understood? Does he yearn for a soul that resonates with his own to come along? In the secret altar where the muse resides, what tempests rage hidden? Does his heart quiver as they break away from every shackle of reason and bursts forth laden with the seeds of passion? Does nature hold her breath when the poet writhes in agony as the pangs of a poem’s birth rends him asunder? Will she shed a tear for the stillborn words that fail to touch upon any heart? Will she rejoice when his words quench an inner hunger and ideas come alive in a flash of brilliance to impregnate the hapless world that awaits his seeds breathlessly? Or is it a schizophrenic delusion of grandeur that the poet suffers from? Does the world really take heed? Yet, so tempting is the mirage of poetry that the poet wanders on thirsting after its bewitching evanescent waters!  

Weeks and months ebb away tidily,

The pen I wield not

Nor the painting brush.

There is only stillness;

Peaceful yet uneasy

For even in this silence

The lure of words endures,

Hidden in that empty space

Where only the blessed ones can enter. 

A Cloudy Day

Dark clouds have drifted past the horizon
And descended into the clear blue sky:
Soon the hope of light will fade
And gloom will descend upon
The soothing warmth of sunshine
Extinguishing it mercilessly.

Not a single life in sight, alas!
Even the omnipresent crow has disappeared.
Moments trickle past in haste;
The day will soon vanish
Into the realm of history.
It will never see another bird
In flight or a colourful sight;
Its dreams of glory die a silent death
As reams of clouds scurry
Past the horizon and into the clear blue sky.

Being an LBD caregiver

Living with an LBD patient day in and out or even just visiting him is not easy to say the very least. It is heart wrenching to see a loved one slowly being eaten away by this dreadful disease. However when you love someone, you know that you have to be there for them in their hour of need. Tear-filled eyes cannot see the truth.

With LBD, getting a diagnosis itself is a struggle. If you suspect your loved one to have LBD, it is better to write down all the symptoms and a proper history before consulting a neurologist. This saves the tragedy of omitting precious details that often results in a misdiagnosis. Proper diagnosis is of utmost importance to prevent untimely death.

The relief of clinching the diagnosis fades away as soon as you realize you are struggling down the slippery slope of uncertainty and poor prognosis. Increasingly there is a lot of information on the Net that is reliable and this helps to understand what future has in store for us. Coming to terms with possibility of early death or prolonged suffering is very difficult but it is the stepping stone to preparing an environment of love and patience for your loved one. The one thing that you can keep in mind to make you feel better is that, as the disease progresses your loved one will not know that he is ill and he will be quite happy and peaceful most of the time. He also virtually has no pain.

It is the caregivers who suffer terribly unable to reconcile to the changes that occur to their loved ones. Seven months after his diagnosis and almost a year after I first suspected LBD, my father is but a shadow of his former self. He retains his core personality yet rarely comes out of his world and genuine contact and transmission of ideas becomes increasingly impossible.

For me, it is like being caught in the land of the living dead. I mourn his death everyday; yet retain the relief of being able to see him or hug him. This might seem morbid to those who do not know what LBD is. We caregivers are in a world of our own. No one else can never truly understand our suffering. LBD breaks our heart little by little. The world seems to go on for all while we seem to be caught in an eternal moment of bereavement.

Caregivers need to reconcile to the fact early on that we are really on our own. In spite of explaining countless times what LBD is, people will still ask you whether your L.O. is improving and even if you want to shout from the rooftops that “No, Don’t you understand that he is never going to improve. He is just dying,” you do not have the heart to say that.

Then there is the casual “How is he?” which you hear all the time and you learn soon enough that the questioners are not really interested in hearing the whole truth. They often leave you hanging in mid sentence and move on to other subjects while you are still crying inside.

This is a good time however to be closer to God and the few people who really care and we can just be grateful for all that we do have. The ability to remember and recognize our loved ones, to know the name of our favorite food, to comprehend what others are communicating to us- all these countless blessings that people usually take for granted, we truly recognize to be precious. In that gratitude, life blooms anew.

The Torment

I just cannot sleep. Words knock about inside my brain and cry out for their freedom of expression! They come like a torrent and wash away any vestige of sleep from my distressed eyes. Night cannot hold them hostage and before daylight sweeps in, they force me back to the keyboard. “Freedom of expression! Freedom of expression!”-The clamour grows ever so loud and I dare not deny this literary downpour.

Fingers stealthily work the keyboard lest its drumbeat awaken my clueless husband. Anxiously they await the next idea to form in my mind. “Do not be a prisoner of past words,” they admonish me. “Be the fertile ground for reams of new ones.” I concur and listen earnestly to the inner voices. Fear has no place in a writer’s mind. Truth is foremost and must be bravely told. Any self-doubt or visions of crumbling respectability have to be firmly shown the door.

When everything seems to have fallen into place, there is the nagging feeling that words may run out, they may wander aimlessly without a clue or just plain disappear. During these brief moments of humility and total helplessness arise awe for the wonder of creation, of being an instrument in His hands (hopefully well tuned and graciously receptive).

As mind inevitably loses its concentration and starts to spread out, the invisible mynah of Aldous Huxley’s Island coos gently into my ears, “Attention to the here and the now” and so it shall be.

Will and Grace

It takes my breath away. Sometimes you get a glimpse of the elaborate machinations that go into assembling the many seemingly arbitrary moments of life into a meaningful purpose and you are awestruck by the miracle of it all.

At first when we took papa to a neurologist, the doctor sort of mumbled to us that he had early stages of Parkinson’s disease, hydrocephalus (water brain), and dementia. If it was not for God’s grace, I would have completely missed the significance of this. Somehow the word dementia caught my imagination and I started reading about it profusely. There were so many types of dementia and papa did not seem to fit the bill with any of them. Then God goes ahead and takes my breath away by bringing LBD to my attention. I could not believe how much all his symptoms matched and thus began a jihad to clinch the diagnosis.

It is not easy being totally unqualified and trying to tell a medical professional or anyone who thinks they have half a brain that you suspect your father has a major neurological disease called LBD which is seldom diagnosed because of its complexity and uncertainty. I felt like Galileo trying to bring the truth to an obstinate world and almost got ostracized. Thankfully mom and Zak immediately saw the merit in this and backed me fully.

I would take papa to different neurologists and freeze midway whenever they asked for his history. It was so complicated that I knew I was not able to articulate everything and God knows I am not the most lucid conversationalist. There was also the problem of letting the doctor know all the facts without hurting papa. I was getting desperate but I knew it would be unethical to force a diagnosis. I had to make them see what I was looking at and let them come to the same conclusion on their own. Meanwhile time was running out and it was imperative to get the right diagnosis for the wrong drug administered to an LBD patient can kill him (which is often the case) and this thought was haunting me.

I am humbled by the guidance that God gave me then, how He steered me through numerous obstacles, and made it permeate through my thick skull that I had to just write it all down. The solution was so simple that it was brilliant. Already the years that I slaved at medical transcription had armed me with all the right terms and format. I had already collected all the information that I had about papa. All I had to do was put it all together into one medical file with all the history, symptoms, records, test results, etc. something that would automatically have been done in a developed country but here it was unheard of.

Even the most mundane act is seldom that. One fine morning when I set about to write this document I felt like I was finally serving God’s will, fulfilling my destiny. Zak joked that I looked like Karate Kid preparing for the final battle! And what a war it has been!