My health condition demanded immediate action. With my siblings’ help, I was admitted to hospital.
The doctor’s instruction — “Get her in ICU” — stunned me.
That was the beginning of shocks, protests, helplessness, reflections, reconciliations, and finally, the restoration of faith.
I protested when they dressed me in the hospital robe. It felt as if my dignity was being stripped away.
Then came the channels, masks, drips. _Are they preparing me for a film shoot?_ I asked myself. When the blood transfusion completed the picture, I cried out silently: “Camera, lights, action!”
I tried to calm my mind by recalling my Acharya’s mother, Ma Manikarnika, a realised soul. Acharya had told us how she said to her doctor, “Though my body is in pain, I am in bliss.” I told myself: _Be in साक्षिभाव। Do विचार। For fleeting moments, I almost succeeded.
My last class before all this was on प्रत्यभिज्ञा and प्रत्यक्ष, and how they relate. Lying there, staring at machines I couldn’t recognise, I thought: _Is this because प्रत्यभिज्ञा is absent? Could this be दृष्टि -सृष्टि- समकालीनता -creation simultaneous with perception?_
Otherwise I was भहिर्मुखी watching everything around me. ICU gave me firsthand experience of the selfless service of nurses and attendants.
My ICU had nine beds. Three were empty. Four patients slept most of the time. Two beds away was an old man. Actually, we were all old, including me. He found fault with everything. At first I watched him with irritation. Then I chose to enjoy the scene.
The peak came when he demanded the AC be switched off. The attendant replied that he had to consider other patients’ comfort too. The old man went on and on, but the attendant wouldn’t give in. Though I was struggling to sleep, his tantrums became a welcome distraction from myself.
I was grinning from ear to ear like a Cheshire cat. My mask hid the expression. 😋
Reflecting later, I realised how fear makes us react. Perhaps he felt vulnerable and wanted to reassert authority. Perhaps he was always grumpy. That was his nature. 🤔
Lesson: It isn’t just medicines that cure, though they are primary. It’s also the nurses’ care, the attendants’ soothing words, their smiling faces. That, too, heals.
You never stop unlearning mistaken judgments.
I learnt this from my bed, watching the same man in a different light. His wife came, a frail old lady, to sign papers. She leaned toward his bed and asked how he was. I couldn’t hear his reply, but she understood.
Meanwhile the staff complained to her about his outbursts. She didn’t raise her voice. With quiet dignity, she stood up for him in front of them and defended him.
After resolving it, she came back to him. “Do you want anything else?” she asked. She told him she’d signed the papers and he’d be discharged from ICU soon. He grunted something.
As she left, she waved at him. I didn’t want to miss his response. I watched. And wonder of wonders, he waved back.
That small wave made him human to me. I was moved. The wave explained their marriage, her strength, the unspoken love between them. A romance unfolded on the floor of the ICU.
*Takeaway*: Don’t jump to conclusions from one singular, momentary act. A person is not a scene. It’s just like ripples on water.
It reinforced the truth that I am not my body.
The nurses who came to inject me or adjust a tube would give me a sweet smile and speak tenderly. At the same time, without hesitation, they used my stomach as a table for their tray of syringes, medicines, cotton swabs. My ears became convenient hooks to hang wires.
I was in hospital for 11 days, two and a half in ICU and the rest in a cabin, and developed a good rapport with all the girls. When they used my stomach as a table I told them I was glad to be of some help. They roared with laughter.
One lady from administration greeted me with “Good morning, ma’am” every day of my stay. On the day of my discharge I told her I would miss her “Good mornings.” She said she would also miss my cheerful smile and added, “But ma’am, don’t come back.” That says it all.
Life is a kaleidoscope of colours and changes. It is in our hands to weave a tapestry of durability and stability, with strength drawn from spirituality.
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