Samta is 64 years old and the mother of a marketing executive
working with a bank. Little on the heavier side for her height of just above
five feet, she consulted me for an ankle injury she sustained just as she was
to alight the bus that was bringing her from the aircraft to the airport
terminal here in our city as she was looking forward to rejoining with her family
of three: her son Chirag, Jasmin- Chirag’s
wife and their son Kahaan- after a gap
of six months. This was the first time in her life that she had ventured out of
her house for so long. She was returning after this stay with her daughter as
well as with other family members spread across the United Kingdom.
I have known this family for over a decade now. Chirag would
often consult me for his father’s orthopaedic issues. This elder gentleman was
housebound for the past several years from the residua of stroke suffered at
the height of his own career. Chirag had to take up a job rather early in
life to augment his family’s finances. His father’s indispensation and frequent
medical consultations posed significant challenges to Chirag on his career
path.
Once in a while Samta would also seek appointment along with
her husband, for her arthritic knees. Samta’s demeanor was always reserved, and
her face bore the marks of the strain put on her by having to look after her
husband at home. ‘Gravitas’ was the word I associated with Samta’s facial expression.
I had noted that none of them- including Chirag, a marketing executive- ever
smiled; not even the invariable smile that accompanies the “bye bye” at the end
of a consulting session. However it was
not out of lack of manners; they had, between the three of them, quite a lot to
bear so that it perhaps rendered them that much inattentive to other aspects of
interpersonal behavior. Caring for a person rendered paralysed by stroke is not
only physically demanding but also emotionally draining because the stroke
affected person has, often, an altered sense of reality and is quite insecure.
About seven years
back, Chirag had invited our family for
his wedding to his beloved, a girl from a well educated family of a minority
community. The parents on both sides had given in to their wards’ demands after
some struggle with their choices, going against the community guidelines on
both sides. The last few years had gone by without any major marital discord,
apparently, and the couple’s son Kahaan was now in pre nursery. All this and more had transpired between the
last time Samta came along with her husband, and today, when she had come with her
daughter-in-law, Jasmin. Samta had lost
her husband about a year back.
This time, unlike the other times, Chirag had refrained from
taking a few hours off from his new and
better job, not because he did not like to or that he did not get permission
to, but because Samta was quite comfortable with just Jasmin in coming to
consult me.
Thankfully the injury Samta had sustained in her right ankle
was nothing very serious and it was expected that she would do well in course
of time. As I was conveying this to Samta, I had to make a determined effort
not to be agog with wonder as I saw a lightness of expression on Samta’s face,
adorned with a pleasant smile. I wondered whether it was a smile only because
of knowing that it was just a minor injury, or whether it was majorly from the
relief of being unburdened of a lifetime of some heavy responsibility that she
could not have turned her face away from. As she walked out from my office, I
noted that her previous limp was now hardly noticeable-certainly a sign of
improvement, or, atleast a sign of being less weighed down than before.
Long lasting emotional states can alter your sense of wellbeing-either
way. A sense of felt helplessness in altering one’s situation, as in Samta’s
case, can add to one’s woes. There is a third way here, if one makes space for it.
That way is of developing a Mindfulness practice even as one is in the throes
of the woes!
The prescription is to die to the 'I' in contrast to being weighed down by that alphabet- like all prescriptions, this one too is easier read and said than practiced and done.
