The Summer of '98 - Part3

During this period, I visited Amma's 13th day after passing away in Gokarna. First exposure to the world after surgery. I do not remember much of anything. We came back to Manipal, this time only me and father. I was at the other end of the hospital. This time my doctor was Dr. Ramanujam - Radio oncologist. The part of the infected area which as to be irradiated to kill any remaning trace of cancer cells. They had marked all the portion on m neck with a type of ink. Ever since I had learnt about radiation in my high school I had come to think that it was something cool. But the days ahead were to reveal the unimaginably harsh thing called 'radiation' to me. Everyday I had to recieve 2 dosages, each lasting for 5-10 mins. Radiation in itself doesn't cause any pain, but the effects it has on metabolism and the body as a whole are bizzare. First of all the burning of the skin. The dosages are are so less and subtle that one would feel nothing, absolutely nothing when under the machine inside the radiation chamber. But gradually the radiation has burnt the skin beyonf recognition, as good a burn as caused by fire. This is ok if it is a part of the body which can be hidden by clothes, but not parts like neck,head etc. Second complication is the stomach and digestion. May be I tried almost all types of food during those days, with all types of combinations. Nothing would go in, and I would always have this nauseatic feeling in my stomach. Sometimes I would come running back from the restaurent to the ward to throw up everything I had gulped in. It is a very embarassing situation. You feel hungry but if you start eating there is some uneasiness in the stomach and you feel like vomitting. Meanwhile one more guy who was may be a year or two younger than me, was admitted near my bed. He was also from Kadra near Karwar. He had comains of frequent bouts of fever nad nausea. His father once had told us that his was a case of leukaemia. That day I was very sad on hearing this. He was so young for a disease like that.I had asked this boy once about this and he didn't seem to be aware of this fact and had only told me his compication. I had also seen kids of 2-3 year who were recieving radiation for brain tumour and others. It's a bad place to be. You start feeling that god is cruel or there is nothing called as god. We would occassionally go home to Karwar on sundays since it was a off day for radiation. Even there I would not like home food. The smell of sambar caused nausea. I was told not to take bath for duration of the therapy. The maximum I could do was to get a wet towel bath below my chest. This was one more discomfort added to the summer heat. Even after the therapy I could not take bath till the burns had healed. They would ooze out puss at times and the complete lack of sensation in those parts resulted in them flowing down till I somehow felt it and wiped them with cotton. Meanwhile I had got my SSLC results and I had passed with a percentage of 85.12%. I had topped the two Kannada medium divisions. Nothing was joyful anymore in my life. The radiation which lasted for one and half months finally ended and I was discharged. I cannot describe the joy that I felt that day. I was going back home, to X-Files, friends and beach. I had to rush for the admission for the college since the last dates for application were nearing. The thought of dropping a year never crossed my mind, and I am grateful to my parents for not having put me to think in that direction even though they had such thoughts in mind. They were obviously anxious since I had not yet completely recovered. They were even thinking of putting me into Commerce stream since science would prove too hectic for me. But all these intentions were revealed to me after I had got a seat in science thankfully. I think I would not have chosen anything else , because I wanted to become a scientist :). The phase after this was the most challenging I think. All my classmates and friends were shocked and sad after I had narrated my summer holiday adventure and after seeing what was left of me. But I too was emotionally not mature and all this started to take a toll on me. I started to avoid the company of people except a few close friends from my school. Thus I never enjoyed those college days nor did I make any good friends. Besides, I was still recovering from the shock and coming to terms with the world which used to give me pitiful and at times yucky glances. Someone sneering at me made me very sad and uncomfortable though I pretended not having observed them. To this date I am yet to accept this fact completely , though offlate there have been some positive signs. The pain I have gone through has been immense. I still am fighting my own identity. I dont know how to describe this. But all these years, somehow I have been lucky enough to have succeeded to some extent in my studies and having landed a job too. I am totally grateful to god for what I am today. And I hae never had a single instance of people making fun my condition or passing remarks atleast before me. But it pains when I can't mix with new people with the same friendliness a normal guy would do. I cannot pursue all that I want for the same reason of people not easily mixing up with me. Some people deliberately try to ignore me even if I want to talk to them. This hurts a lot, but I have to live with this , since this appears to be my Karma. So this pretty much sums up that dark phase of my life. Sorry if I made you puke. There is no way I could have described this than what I have written. Nothing artificial or untrue. So keep reading .. bye..

The Summer of 98 - Part2

So the exams were over and as planned , I had to go to Manipal to see the doctor. We went in a week or so, and this time we met the doc.He was a nice person and at a later stage we came to learn that he was a distant relative of ours :).This time they did some diagnosis and FNAC(Fine needle aspiration cytology). The diagnosis would take a week and they asked us to come back a week later. Those days there was no cell phone nor was there a practice of informing people on phone.A week later we went again this time mom and brother also came along. The diagnosis was out. I was only told that its some minor thing.But it was a malignant tumor,called muco epidermoid carcenoma.It is obvious why I was not told about this.I was admitted and the surgery was to be performed to remove the tumour and it was scheduled for April 20th. It was the day finally. I was given a dose of sedatives in the morning so that I would sleep off and there is no pre surgical anxiety running high. I do not clearly remember whem my normal clothes where removed and a white cotton shirt and paijama were put on. This was like preparing a bakra before sacrifice. So there I lay on the cold table in a lose white shirt and a paijama,with heavy eyes,trying to embrace onto sleep at the same time wondering what will happen when I will be on the other side of this deep trance. Anasthesia was administered. The doc asked me to count 1,2,3 .. and thats it I was knocked unconscious. It was a 13 hour surgery and my dad had cried many times during the surgery , I was told. The tumor was the size of a small sized tomato it seems. They had also performed some microscopic surgery on the neck region. I remember lying with a heavy head and face and a feel of thick layer of bandages around my head, Lying on a table in a dimly lit,cold room, I do not remember when I clearly regained consciousness. I saw a nurse standing beside my bed and I asked her if the surgery was over and she nodded or said "Yes". I sighed. A little later mother was there standing beside nodding her head. Her expressions were so decieving, I would not sense a thing about the grave situation. I had come literally out of the mouth of death. Sometimes in ignorance,I ask in return was I really supposed to live?. Who would answer such things?, forget it!. I can faintly recall a night a when I was moaning in sleep because of the pain. At that time pain had been so immense and wide spread that my body had gone numb. They had strapped a sensor kind of thing on my left arm which would indicate if I was experiencing a lot of pain. I do not remember the date or the day. The next morning, I was trying to get out of bed and lay my feet onto the ground probably after 2 days. But I could not move my feet. They were dropping lifeless . I had lost control over them. I could not rest my body on them and stand on them. They simply would not respond. I was kind of shocked. I was carried to the toilet with the help of others while I rested my hands on their shoulders and tried to walk. Doctor said this was something serious , a GB syndrome possibly. My dad started crying inconsolably as the doc said this, since he knew how serious a disease that is. I can sense his desperateness. A helpless father who could do nothing to save his son from slipping into the hands of death. I was sitting there, shell shocked, staring in complete disbelief towards my dad, who through out my childhood had embodied a strong character with lots of principles and values,who would not budge under any fear or pressure,was crying like child. I could do nothing, not saying a word to console him. I needed someone to shake me out of all this. I was lost in all this drama.Even today what happened to me doesn't make me all that sad,except this day or all those times my parents have had to bear so much pain,which made them cry. My eyes well up in tears and I get depressed at the picture of this event. A fit of rage takes me over and I feel like smashing everything around me or hurting myself. It has left a permanent scar in my mind. The doctor uttered, "Well!! this is a million dollar situation!" and called the nurse to instruct her something. I would practice walking with the help of others,who would hold a bottle which was connected to a hole in my neck through a pipe, meant to suck out the fluid waste, in a bucket. This was an extra appendage to my body for a few days. Thankfully in a course of few days I regained control over my feet and could walk normally. It was simply because of a condition developed after a long spell of anesthasia. All the muscles would totally relax and would drop almost lifeless. So did my feet during the long surgery, and it had taken little late to recover from the slumber. Things were actually getting worse and one more shocker was waiting for me. One early morning, I had faintly woken up from sleep and I saw mom talking over the phone near the reception and dad trying to console her. Later in the day mom left to Agasur(her maternal home)telling me that, " Amma(grandma) was not feeling well and I need to see her". It was only when she returned a day later, I came to know that it was not the truth. One more of my uncles had come to see me, dad was standing near the bed and he said in a low tone," Amma is no more in this world!" . That sounded like a dialogue from a movie. But it was truth and nothing less than that. Far away from the fake of movies. It was like a sudden lightning in a calm sky. My eyes were popped out, in shock. I had not a lost a loved one till then and it was more than shocking to hear such a thing under the circumstances. I still feel guilty, since I somehow feel, she had worried too much on me and that caused it. She was a beloved gradma for all of us. She had raised me as a new born and given me a lot of love throughout my child hood.I still wonder at my mom's strength, when she could only see her mother being cremated and not a single day to mourn with her sisters when on the other hand she had a son who had been just slicked away from death. What pain it must have been! Like always she emerged from it all. My brother Suvrat was there in Agasur, going through all this. Probably his childhood rescued him from all the pain at that tender age away from parents alone in all this. Meanwhile the main cuplrit and the protagonist of the story , thats me ,was slowly recovering from the post surgical blues. I was popping many tablets, all of different color and taste. I was discharged from the surgical ward. I was given a break of few days and I had to return back for radiotherapy for the next one and half months.

The Summer of 98 - Part1

In all these 24 years of my life so far, I have faced ups and downs like every individual. My life was normal till the age of 16 like everyone. But then there was something else in store for me for the important years of my life to come ahead. This is a sincere attempt to describe the events that kind of changed my life. I didn't wish to write this initially, but I thought it's time I shared some sour part of my life. I would not like to call it that way now, since I have begun to see the good things behind every which happens in your life and I have come to learn how trivial my troubles are. I do not wish to make this a tear jerker, just writing things on impulse.

It was March 4th 1998. Me and my father had reached Kasturba hospital, Manipal, surgical OPD. I remember it was a wednesday. I will digress a little here. Every wednesday was exciting for me, as X-Files, which was my favorite would be aired on that night. I would sit glued to the TV throughout trying to decipher the dialogues with the limited knowledge of English I had. We were waiting in the hall, whole afternoon and then my father asked a nurse there, if they would let us know if Dr. Ramchandra had come. But they would put off. We would eagerly keep looking at every other doctor who passed by , trying to imagine if he was the doc we were waiting for. After a couple of hours,sister told that doc wouldn't come to OPD since his child was sick. We had come all the way from Karwar to hear this. I was in my 10th standard and board exams were less than a month away. This sudden lump like growth under my right ear had caused anxiety and the doctors in Karwar had suggested to see someone in Manipal or Hubli. March 4th was a special day. It was the annual prize distribution ceremony and I was notified that I had won first prize in Sanskrit like the year before. This year I had also won best all rounder of the year along with some other prizes. I had missed that event because we had to come to see the doctor in Manipal, and I think that was the last felicitation I would have ever attended for my lifetime. I really miss it to date. I used to buy books from the prize money I had won. The previous year I had bought books on Thomas alva edison, Stephen hawking and books related to machines ,magnetism. Those days my dream was to build a flying object which would have its own magnetic field around it and since similar poles repel , this thing would have a field against earth's and glide easily without any resistance. This basically is flawed, but as a high schooler, this was my fantasy which was obviously influenced by X-Files. Back to March 4th Manipal. I asked my father to leave as soon as possible, so that we can reach home before 9 and I would catch X-Files. So desperate ! hehe!. But we could only start from Udupi( Town near Manipal) at 10 in the night. After this day I do not remember what went on till my board exams were over. I had studied hard and in those days there was no issue of lack of concentration. I would just sit on a bed and start studying and get lost with it. I was pretty nervous during the exams not because of the usual exam fear. Infact I used to love exams, may be because of the holidays that lay on the other side of it :). The reason for fear was beacuse I had heard these stories of people using unfair means to copy in the exams and to escape from it they would pass it onto someone sitting nearby. Like they would throw the chits under someone else's bench. This had caused a lot of worry for me. What if I was made the scape goat for some one else's sin? The anti copying squad would simply whisk me away. But nothing of that sort happened and I finished my exams, and if I remember correctly I did not regret for having done any one exam bad. Like I said, the holidays were important to me :D.
That very same day one of my friends Vivek was leaving Karwar and he had asked all friends for a photo session. We were probably 5-6 of us. I had to finish this quickly since me and father had planned to see a doctor in Kaiga. Hence I rushed to the studio. I remember it was cloudy and humid on an early April afternoon. We the teenagers had nothing else than to discuss except movies atleast on the day exams had ended, and we were discussing every other movie that released; Jeans to Ishq. After the photo session we departed, and it was the last time I have seen of Vivek. Few weeks back I heard his voice on phone after 8 years, it was totally different. It's strange you bump into people after a long time and things have changed so much about that person that you wish it were the same person once again. Same evening we went to Kaiga to see that homeopathy doctor and came back at night. There is only one good hangout place in Karwar which is the beach. Except rainy season it is the best place you can on a sombre evening gazing at the sunset. You, the horizon and that huge red ball sinking into the water, and nothing else in between. I used to meet my langotiya yaar( close friend) and classmate Nagraj, everyday on the beach, during holidays. We had never a dearth of topic to talk about. Obviously girls and crushes were a major hot topic in our talks. This was all that I was, a very common small town guy dreaming about stars , space and Indian institute of Astronomy. I can sense that frustration building inside you if you are reading this expecting some twist in the story..I want to apologise for this. I am telling this story only to give you a small picture of my life before the summer of '98. Keep reading..

Questions

After some time again..
This time I have musings about myself. I am in an introspective mode.
I have a few questions for me..
1. Why am I shy to mix with people?
2. Why am I wary of showing my talents? What prevents me?
3. Why do I always not take action on any good idea I have? Why is it that my brainstorming session on the new idea ends up in negative result?
4. Why cannot I act on one thing at a time not bothering about anything else?
5. What is purpose of my life?
The last one was a bit too common question. Everyone has this question I suppose.