Change in Perception

Yesterday I was in a corporate hospital to assist my aged in-laws for a regular checkup. It is a huge hospital. The doctor had prescribed an ‘echo’ test for both of them and so we had to wait in the lobby for our turn. The lobby was one huge hall with around 200 chairs fixed to the floor and 2 TVs on either side, put on salient mode. The doctors’ chambers were on both sides of the lobby and on one side it is rooms for conducting various test. All the chairs were occupied and some were forced to wait standing. I offered my chair to an elderly lady and stood beside my in-laws waiting for the sweet nurse to call our names. 

I found that there is so much suffering in the world. Some had problems in their heart. Some with their lungs and some with ailments unheard. There was pain all around. Philosophically, I wondered why should human beings suffer so much? It is so unreasonable that one would enjoy good health and another suffer from disease. I could feel the suffering and realized that it is the result of our stubbornness to follow the rules of life and pain is the direct result of our modern way of life. Pain and suffering are always the proof of one’s own self made mistakes. Be it their habits or their way of life.  I felt very sad for all of them, some of them very old and there are some very young children too, as young as a month old. We normally tend to become philosophical at these times. The pain and suffering around moved me.

Every few minutes some name was called for their turn and the patient assisted by someone else would slowly walk into one of those rooms. One particular old man, assisted by a young man had difficulty walking and so, I offered to help. The smile in the wrinkled, toothless face said thanks many a times.

The lobby was full but surprisingly very silent. People were speaking in very low tones and so the silence was demeaning. Then everything changed all of a sudden. A young boy of around 3 years entered the lobby in his mother’s arms. He was shouting at the top of his voice, something that we could not understand, but was loud enough for everyone in the lobby to turn and notice. Normally any mother would be embarrassed, but this lady was different. She just let the boy on the floor. And he set off like a formula-1 car making weird loud sounds like “Whreeeeeeee” and kept making circles all round the chairs. I was surprised that his parents never made any attempt to stop him. This boy was setting the lobby on fire. He was frail, had very little hair on his head, I cannot say that he was ugly but he was not cute either.

For a few minutes, the people in the lobby seemed to enjoy the change in atmosphere, I saw some smiles. But this was going on and on. People were getting annoyed. I wondered what if we could see it as a stressed naughty child inside of us that clambers for attention. Long ago this child was within us. We might have matured in life as adults, but some part of us is still stuck in the past. We do all sorts of things to avoid or deal with that stress inside us. We give it plenty of negative attention by ignoring it, suppressing it or fighting it. And like this naughty child ends up ruling us and stopping us to live a real life.

This boy was running around making strange sounds, occasionally stopping at some old man and says “Thattaa, thatta” .He would stop at some small child and say “Baabu, baabu” and continues in his formula-1 laps. Some parents let their child to interact, but some just pulled their child away from this boy. Never the less our naughty boy continued to disturb us. It even provoked a feeling in me like “I am glad, it is not my child, and I wouldn’t let him behave like that.” The whole thing was becoming very annoying, but his parents never bothered to restrain him. A nurse even tried to stop him, took him in her arms and said that she would give him a big “Injection” if he does not stop. The boy just waved his hand as if he doesn’t care. Then his mother came running, and told the nurse that they made him believe that injections are fearless.

I was shocked, how can any mother advocate for such a naughty child. It is the parents who are to be blamed. They should have taught him some rules and behavior. This boy was actually creating nuisance I felt disgusted and decided to have a pep talk with his parents. They were close by and so I went to them and asked them why are they not trying to stop their naughty child from disturbing others.

What followed just shocked me.

The child’s mother had tears in her eyes and turned away from me. His father then told me. The boy had very few days left in this world. Something to do with his bone-marrow. They were here for extraction of bone-marrow and that is a very painful affair. So, they psychologically made him believe that injections are nothing to be feared. The doctors have given the boy a 10% chance to survive after 2 months.

Oh! No, I was suddenly taken aback, full of remorse and the whole perception about this boy changed. I should have considered this before I protested. The experience of pain is an over whelming experience for the sufferer and those around him. Reflections on the meaning of pain and that of his parent’s responsibility to respond to pain are a challenging endeavor. We are guided by the essential concepts of respect, relationship and compassion through an ethical perspective. It is through a deeper view of the pain experienced by this boy and his parents that I learnt many lessons in life.
When someone does not know how to handle his own suffering, he allows it to spill all around him. When we suffer, we make people around us to suffer too. That is why we have to learn how to handle suffering, so as not to spread it around us.
May be, I was the one suffering the most.