My Medicine..

Medicine; the one word that I’ve been trying so hard to assimilate and make a part of me since 7 years of age. I remember fumbling with needle-less syringes and empty infusion bottles and lines and being baffled by how most dignified doctors save lives each day. Back then I never gave even 1.5^th of a thought of whether I’d be emotionally, physically and mentally fit to be one of those distinguished lot of people whom I continued to admire day in day out. At 15 I gave thought about it and decided that this was my God-sent purpose and what I’m destined to do. I’ve so far proven that I’m not actually ignorant or stupid and that my left hemisphere does function to help me choose the right one of the three choices in the MCQ paper. So here I am, officially a medical student trying to ‘caffeine’ my way through the 5 years in medical school and loving every moment of it.

 

Why did I choose to go through this ordeal? Good question. Truth is, I didn’t choose to go through this tremendous journey full of epithelial cells and hypertension and long bones. It was already written down for me that this is my ultimate haven. I never had a doubt and neither did I have a loss of confidence over achieving what I am meant to achieve. There are nurses, lecturers, the fishermen who supply me with fish for my lunch and the chefs at the ‘restoran’’s who make me my Roti Canai for dinner who all do what they are meant to do. Atleast most of them do. So basically, I cannot be an engineer or a teacher or a full time vocalist for a band because I am meant to do what I have chosen to do.

 

Saving lives is not the purpose why people go into medicine although unarguably it has be overrated to be the ultimate purpose in soap operas so that it appears to be the glorified profession that it not actually is. At least my purpose is to understand my race more intently, to ease people’s pain and to help them to help themselves to recover from whatever their ordeal maybe and to let myself be consumed by the emotions of people’s pain and grievances so that their grievances maybe diminished even for a little bit. I don’t want to be emotionally detached from the emotions of a 7 year old boy suffering from leukemia but I want to make him make those days less painful than they already are to him. I think if I were to assume that my purpose is to save lives then I’d go home after leaving the body on the operation table, thinking that I’ve failed my purpose. So my purpose is to help but not to save, emotionally, physically and in any other way possible for people to live the rest of their days the way they were meant to.

So till then, I’m going to ‘caffeine’ my way through medical school to try as hard as I can to get to the point where I can full fill my purpose.

 

 

Dreams from My Father

I glanced at the clock squinting my eyes. Almost 3 in the morning. I had been reading the book in the dim, yellow bedroom light since 2230 and yet I wanted to go on. He kept me glued to his past, his virtues, his humility, his obstacles, his struggles and his origins. He who was born to a colored and a Caucasian; an obvious black, Kenyan father and an American mother in a time in which coloreds were discriminated beyond our belief. And yet he stood to be brown amongst the whites, with all his denials, confusions, the victimizations and with the irony that he was neither black nor white, he by passed all obstacles with grace and he is who he is today. Barack. Oh yes, Barack Obama.

 

He was the revolutionary who spoke with eloquence, defeating the to-be first woman president of the USA. He walks on to stage and waves at his supporters with grace and flair. Not a single person could doubt the determination and humility in his eyes. In the face of dirty politics, rumors and the prejudice that still exists among the whites and in spite of having been shuffled between continents; Hawaii and Indonesia and back, in the shadow of a father who was just a volatile figure in the stories of his grandparents he still became The Obama. It just amazes me.

 

How could a mere person succeed that far with all those obstacles that were made to pull him down? All that discrimination that America saw in the 60’s and 70’s and all that labeling and stereotyping and all, how could one not give up? With the lack of a father figure to teach him virtues and the lessons about the survival of the fittest and without that masculine protection that everyone needs, how could he have become such a person?

 

It kept me wondering all through the night and the next day and the next. Most of us aren’t rich, white, or famous. Insignificant are we in this vast world where possibilities are endless. But this, very brown, determined, confident man has proved to me and to the rest of the world that one can be what one chooses to be. As I’ve come to know that when you put your dreams, your mind and your efforts into something, the whole world conspires to help u achieve it.

‘Dreams from my father’ is worth the read. It will transform you. Period.

I’m Not an Individual…

I don’t believe that God created me as an individual and I don’t believe that I am alone. I am neither whole nor a complete individual by myself, sole. What completes me and what makes me whole is my mother, who took me into her arms since that day in late July and till today who has stood by me through the most merciless storms and most beautiful springs. I am complete and what makes me who I am is my mother and I believe God created me not as an individual, but as a part of her.

 

 

If she was not there, when I became frail I would have died and when I became lonely I would have withered into nothingness. If she hadn’t stood beside me, when I was crossing the bridge to adulthood, I would have fallen into the river below and drowned. If she hadn’t held my hand, when I couldn’t see I would have fallen on the broken glass and seared myself.

She did not draw me a path; she cleared it for me. Neither did she give me directions; she stood by me when I walked across. She didn’t sing to me; she taught me the verses and the melodies and she didn’t cry for me; she taught me the reason for tears. To teach me emotions and feelings, she didn’t read me stories; she made me see them in others eyes. In her own and perfect way, she taught me life.

 

 

Nothing in existence, or in the heavens can be worth what she is to me. She more than anything can ever be of value. This is wishing God would bestow her with all the happiness, blessing, luck and love because she gave me a reason and a purpose to see the beautiful things in life.

Somethings…

Sometimes there are necessities which are crucial for a person to be happy. Those necessities give hope and shed light on the beautiful things in life. They give reasons to live to for another day and to wake up every morning. They make you feel safer, protected, important, needed and beautiful.

Imagine letting all that go even for a little while. When its all gone, the remnant is just an empty and hollow space where one sits and weeps till the emptiness feels no longer empty. But the adaptation process seems far to long for one to bear with and it feels like one’s soul is mercilessly been ripped piece by piece. Every second feels like a year and it goes on and on and one gets suffocated in it all.

They tell you to be strong but even strength feels like a weakness when one relapses to that empty abyss with every effort. That’s when one’s heart feels like its no longer in motion and everyday and every moment seems just only as a day and just only as a moment. It simply begins to be really very hard.

Maybe it’s just Him testing me.

What Then?

I’m scared. Scared that without an omen or a sign, the skies would transform into a ferocious storm that would mercilessly destroy everything that makes me who I am. I fear that the storm would shred me off my strength and that it would cause complete annihilation, devastating, dilapidating the path beyond repair. What then?

 

I’m still scared that I might be too blind to see the winds gaining speed and the foam on the waves. If I were to be unprepared for the storm, then when the storm pulls in, I’d fall too hard to pick myself up. Let say, that I had an ounce of strength to look up and around, but when I look around trying to see beyond the devastation, what if everything that makes me who I am was shattered into tiny smithereens? What then?

 

Maybe to console myself, I tell myself that I’m not meant to read the signs and that all happens for the best. I repeatedly remind myself that when the door slams shut on my face, God would open windows for me. I also try to find beauty and happiness in simple things but then I relapse into the fear of the storm that maybe impending.

 Maybe it’s perfectly normal and maybe there is nothing out of the ordinary about dreading what is around the corner. Deal with it, I tell myself, because I’m completely and absolutely helpless with fate.

Powerless I

I looked at her eyes; eyes that yearned for love and for an ounce of affection. It was hard to see beyond her palpable scars that were already bloody and swollen. It was hard to look beyond them and harder to try to understand tha magnitude of the torment she had suffered. She would have once been beautiful with olive skin and ebony hair that danced around her face but now the scars had defaced her, destroyed her and made her unearthly.

I tried not to stare but I was helpless because the sight of her wounds from the agony she had gone though traumatized me. For a moment I seemed to feel her ache and grief; the sting in her wounds and the pain from her broken ribs. I yearned to hold her hand and tell her that she will see a better day, but then it was too obvious that those were impossibilities.

Weakly but yet she smiled. Clueless about my reaction I stood stationary and expressionless for a moment. With effort, I regained my consciousness and smiled back weakly too.

Though she was too weak from the agony she had gone through and though she couldnt utter a word, her eyes seemed to speak to me. They seemed to say that she understood that she wouldnt see spring or the cherry blossoms that line the streets in June. They spoke about her knowing that she would never then get to buy vanilla ice cream from the cie cream man and that she wouldnt see the day where she would be the bride. elegantly smiling in her white dress.

Then it struck to me; I was utterly and completely helpless against fate. I could weep, worry and wither but fate would take its own ugly course with her. I felt powerless and weak because, after all, I was just mere, mortal myself to do anything to help her survive.

‘I’ll pray for you’ was all I had the courage to utter. Then I smiled at her and turned around and walked away on my feeble legs.

Girl in the Meadow

When I first saw you, you were strolling along the dandelions in an evergreen meadow. Humming to yourself, you seemed so content with everything; the wind in your hair, the songs in the tree branches, the warmth of the sun on your skin and all the other blessings. It was as though you were devoid of all emptiness and you didn’t seem like you were wishing and asking more from life.  

You were barefoot and yet the wet, cold morning grass didn’t seem to bother you at all. Neither did the boulders on your path prevent you from singing your song and being free as an eagle. You didn’t seem to care about the chill in the wind or the strange woods that surround your vicinity and you weren’t fearful of the beasts that roam the forests. You were almost so pure and fulfilled and you carried on strolling.  

 There were no rainbows to colour your day and there certainly was no wishing well for you to wish for roses instead of dandelions and greener grass. Nor were there nightingales to faithfully sing to you and keep you company. You knew the signs of the impending storm which was growing, far away near the horizon with its fury and thunderous strength but you were in bliss with your ‘here and now’ and you weren’t scared. Surely, it was a strange land and you were on your own and powerless over the forces of nature. Yet you kept on strolling. 

Then you paused and smiled and gazed into the cerulean sky above you and it seemed as though you were gazing straight into God’s eyes. The truth in your smile said it all; that you were content and not complaining about what you cannot and could not achieve and that all the other insignificant and empty spaces were just insignificant and nothing more. It was truly an unspoken yet obvious gratitude.  

You weren’t an angel, a seraph, a saint and neither were you heavenly but what you were, was mortal and earthy; like me. Yet, you were a child with a pure heart that beats in rhythm to your blessings and not skipping a beat because there was something missing. In your eyes, things were almost perfect and to you, your painting had been painted with magnificent and everlasting colours by the hands of God. That’s what distinguished you from me. 

Flying Away

Finally I am going to be bestowed with wings to fly away to a water fountain that’s far beyond the mountains. Then, I’d be able to lazily let the days crawl on by without scary thoughts about blood red solutions, vernier calipers and the endometrium looming over my head. After years of trying to absorb page after page about science and geometry I’m leaving school. Contradiction is that I don’t feel as eager and joyful about leaving school for good and I am certainly not jumping up and down on my bed screaming that I’m free.

Frankly, I feel so nostalgic and dread the thought that life is going to be sucked out of my soul. To elucidate, school was a majority of the things that complete me and without school I think I would be almost empty. Come to think of it, it was somewhat pleasing to listen to my physics teacher rant on and on about the guys and their facial hair or watch him mesmerize about ‘high physics’ and ‘beautiful theories’. In short, I am in love with listening to my friends tease each other over one thing or the other and I cant imagine life without my classmates, acid-base titrations or enzyme- substrate reactions. In conclusion, life would be almost unbearably too monotonous.

 These two years, I’ve spent each day squinting my eyes to read the reading on a meter rule or listening to my friends’ fantasies. It hurts to realize that I wouldn’t be able to sing in public, play my saxophone or sleep during assemblies. Probably this is a sign that I should brace myself for any obstacles and hurdles that comes my way in the future. Somehow, I have a feeling that my future is going to be one hell of a ride.  

A Moment

To say it in short, the world sucks your life and strength right out of your body in a gradual and painful process. it makes you feel so insignificant and helpless in a home in which you have no power to make things okay again. It’s a gradual and deteriorative process; that’s what I think. I completely understand that I sound extremely pessimistic but what is one to do when one sees someone being overshadowed by an intense darkness that is meant to overshadow permanently? I sigh.

I contained myself from staring at him because it would be extremely rude. He was a handsome man who had his life ahead of him; at least it seemed so to me. He explained to his friend how life was shredding him apart; tearing apart his sanity and making him weak and helpless. The one woman in his life, to whom he gave up everything,  and his precious son, who was the apple of his eye, were both terminally ill, in conditions equally pitiless and having no mercy on helpless him. With all the trauma and ordeal in their lives he was also recently clinically diagnosed to have a potential of developing a brutal disorder. I was amazed beyond all my understanding about how strong he seemed, to be able to stand up and walk towards an ominous future. I felt sympathy towards myself for not being able to do utterly anything to ease his pain.

Comparing myself to his condition made me realize how lucky and blessed I am. I have utterly no right to think bad and comment about other people even to myself and I have no right to misbehave or refuse to do chores. Life is too momentary to spend time doing meaningless things.

The Marching Duo

Switzerland is so far away from the equator and obviously one has to invest so much time and effort moving from
Maldives to
Switzerland and vice versa. I sigh for the 21^st time just thinking that Dhonbe wouldn’t be in close proximity. Its not that he has been away before but since I’ve grown and become a little bit more mature than the silly little girl I was, I realize that losing someone so close to you even for a little while is extremely hard. A few hours before he flew away, he came to have breakfast with grandma, mom and myself and for the precious reason that I would be seeing him before he left, I skipped classes and came home. I was barely able to keep myself from bursting into tears which obviously would have caused him to be more fearful and nostalgic about leaving home, I stood there without doing anything. The sheer memories of how we used to wake up early morning and read newspapers together or how we used to march with a drum and our make-up cymbal in our home, made feel a bit scared and insecure (to be frank) because I may not get to see him as often as I require to see him. I admit; I really do love him so much. I want him to know that where ever he maybe if at all he gets to see the stars that twinkle and shimmer in the night sky, I will be missing him so much and wanting him to be content with life and all the love and luck that he is blessed with.