Destitute of Hope
Human being is the only animal that thinks about future. Some other animals too, appear to care for the time ahead. Squirrels store food before winter, rats dig burrows for cold season. But these are instinctive behaviours triggered by the changing hours of daylight or temperature as seasons change. No animal looks at its dying progeny and sees a bleak future for itself. No animal cares for old members of the pack because such practice will ensure its own survival in dotage.
This unique endowment of
human mind, capacity to run ahead of time, is both a blessing and a curse. We
plan and try to ensure a comfortable future – a major share of our savings goes
in this kitty.
But this singular
capacity of the mind is also responsible for much human suffering. We
continuously speculate on the time to come. And we ceaselessly fret and fear a
future that forebodes ill.
I have practiced medicine
for three decades. In medical school we were taught that the cornerstone of the
management of a disease is formulation of a plan of action. A major component
of the plan is to envisage the course of ailment, complications that may ensue,
and be prepared to deal with them. This preoccupation with the future behaviour
of the malady was emphasised incessantly, almost brutally, during my
post-graduate training in Anaesthesia. I learnt, practice of safe Anaesthesia
hinges on foreseeing, as clearly as possible, how a patient would behave during
surgery, and equipping for all that may come about. Over the years this became
an instinctual behaviour.
Avalanche of misery
crushing us Indians today, as the reincarnated virus surges triumphantly,
forces me to unlearn this instinct. I welter in darkness, in a sea of
uncertainty, robbed of every possible recourse to plan for future adversity.
My son registers a
temperature of 1040 F. I am recuperating from the infection, but
immediately jump up like a jack-in-the-box. I consult my physician friends. No
pharmacy, near my house, has any of the required drugs. My friends come to
rescue. I cannot help but think about the course of son’s illness. Will his condition
worsen? Only ten percent of infected people need hospitalisation. But there is
no indication that he may not be that one in ten. I ring my friends again. Will
they procure my son a bed if he needs one? They would start looking for one
when the need arises. Can I get an Oxygen cylinder? Oxygen is more difficult
than a hospital bed. I have read innumerable accounts of people – highly
connected and privileged – die in their cars as they are ferried from one
hospital to another. I know large hospitals, like ones my wife and I work, which
have a ceaseless horde of 20-30 critically ill patients, panting, waiting in
ambulances or on roads outside emergency, some with oxygen, some without. Many
will perish in this wait. Their children, parents, or spouses, will then wait
in another que; for a pyre in the burial ground and then for wood for the pyre.
Overnight, I cannot
instruct my mind to unlearn the lessons it learned in millions of years. I
cannot banish the spectre of these dark images as they clutter my mind. I
tip-toe to my son’s bedroom and put my ear to the door. He coughs. Is it the
sign of worsening lung? I see myself running helter-skelter for bed. My friends
making hectic calls to their hospitals. It’s deep in the night. I wait for few
more minutes. He doesn’t cough again. I turn back.
This is the tragedy of
the present catastrophe. We are bereft of every shred of succour in this hour
of a bottomless agony. We are denied today one means human beings had learned
to cope with misfortune; Hope.
Robert Burn’s poem,
written in 1785, comes to mind. Burn laments this aspect of human nature, as he
commiserates with a field mouse, whose nest he has inadvertently destroyed.
But
little mouse, you are not alone,
In
proving foresight may be vain:
The
best laid schemes of mice and men
Go
often askew.
And
leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For
promised joy!
Still,
you are blessed, compared with me!
The
present only touches you:
But
oh! I backward cast my eye,
On
prospects dreary!
And
forward, though I cannot see,
I
guess and fear!
Abandoned in this crisis,
my suffering countrymen, can only curse and bewail their forward-looking mind.
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