'I bent over to pick up a paper plate and all of sudden my
sister nudges me, asking to attend to a child who wanted another plate of
goodies. I turned back and before I could even notice who it was, the little
boy stretched out his hand, wanting to get a bite of that tasty egg puff.
Though he was only two years old and the most talkative kid, I couldn't stop
myself from the overflowing sympathy that came after seeing a tube attached to his hand.
It was a tube meant for vein location, when in need for extracting blood. He
is suffering from blood cancer.'
I entered the 'Pediatrics Oncology Department' inside the
RCC. It was one of the most colourful rooms I had seen in a long, long time.
One of the walls had been painted over with the four cute characters from Madagascar.
There was a huge pineapple cake with my name inscribed on it, looking as
delicious as ever. There was even a paper cut out that read 'Happy Bday' stuck
on a cupboard. Excitement turned into empathy on seeing a bunch of little
kids undergoing cancer treatment, who were seated with their mothers. It is one of those days where I found it to
be a life changing experience. It's not the pain or fear of death. Everyone
goes through a lot of pain in different ways, right? But what hit me was their
indifference towards their situation. They were all too young to realize what
pain is, yet most of them were too mature. If I were them, I would have walked
up to the birthday girl and given her a piece of my mind for being so stupid to
rejoice over turning a year old at a place where celebration is a term seldom felt. But I was the birthday girl, and as I felt heavy hearted
celebrating my 23rd year, I felt it was time to behave my age.
I had a rewind and replay session of few sulky moments in my
life, where I felt God was being too unreasonable. Forget counting my
blessings, I started weighing my life on the basis of these problematic
situations, which weren't that bad coming to think of it now. As much as a self-boosting
process that day (at the Cancer centre) had been, everyone deserves happiness
at any cost. But we belong to an unbalanced universe, where it's the
imperfections that complete the viscious circle of life. I understood how hard
it was for me to acknowledge the gift of life as a boon, rather than a tally
board between who is right and wrong. Rumi was so precise when he said we'll
meet in a field beyond right and wrong doings. And here I am, in that field,
looking at the unclear shadows of the sunny side of life :)
