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Can.....Stop!!!!

Of late, im not blogging a lot...infact a long time has passed since i posted my last blog.There have been lotsa events happening of late and a couple of them, really really worth a blog. But unfortunately time has become a precious commodity, and all my efforts to hoard it, duplicate it, or simply kill it have not borne expected results;).So I have learnt to live with it, killing the rest of my creative efforts like blogging,writing, drawing ....But there is an experience which happened only a day back, which has been bugging my mind and on which i cant help but write a blog.and this blog,gentlemen, is on that experience, which is a revelation, the fragrance of which , i think i will carry to my death..

Well, it all started as a normal day, as normal as it can be..with no hint whatsoever of the storm that was brewing.To put you in the loop, lemme give the background.Yesterday is called 'Rose Day'...does it ring any bell with you ppl?
No???...noooo..it is certainly not a day where we remember the heroine of titanic...'Rose'.

It is a day which was coined to symbolise the care that needs to be shown towards our people who are suffering from that terminal disease of which nearly 30% of our fellow people die...and CANSTOP is a volunteer organisation, which is doin precisely that, all the year round to select hospitals in and around the city.And It had organised a visit to a couple of hospitals on the day,to show our love and care for the people lingering in the dull and dreary wards of those hospitals.

I had readily volunteered for the event.But on the day before, i had second thoughts on if i am really ready to do this.Coz, i have seen one of my aunts perishing out of cancer, and the sight of her mortal remains still horrifies me.She was hardly the lady whom i know, being systematically and brutally reduced to a state where she was no more than a bag of bones.And I was afraid if i would be able to take it again.Pain though, is not new to me, as i have seen it at the riots in ahmedabad as also in the very recent tsunami at our own chennai.But I was uncomfortable with something more powerful.In all those cases i mentioned, we had something to offer to the survivors.A new hope, of a new dawn and a new life, which served as a consolation and reduced, if not replaced their sorrows.But what do you offer to a person who is affected by a disease,which doesnt have a cure?It is a frightening situation,where you are absolutely helpless.And seeing a fellow human suffer silently in pain,while we can do nothing but Watch is something i cant stand...even for a minute.

But still, I convinced myself that i would atleast give an ear to their sufferings and hope that something would be done soon to change their life.With that thought, and still feeling uncertain, i started towards Sundaram Medical foundation.To cut the long story short,i was asked to go to the ICH at Egmore where you have some 125 people.On reaching that place, my usual volunteering self, got apprised of the situation and figured out what it had to do.We carried the bundle of gifts, which was a pack of sanitary items to be given to each of the inmates.

In the ward, I saw the people...to be more precise...faces...faces which have seen it all..faces which had lost the ability to emote....faces which hid the pain and suffering..faces which looked blank, void of anything...but in all those faces, i saw a common feat...an expectant look at the incoming group, which looked hardly impressive..

The first thing , i noticed was the irritable way the workers in the ward were behaving.And I had to control myself a lot, to give them a piece of my head.I mean, those people are suffering from a disease for which we have no answer.Atleast, we can give them a dignity, a respect and nothing but display of a sensitiveness to their situation.They are entitled to atleast that much.But the way one of the worker was calling those people, as if they were a bunch of cattle to be reared and put in their shed.Gosh,I had to control my anger,so as to not create a situation there.I know its hard for you, as you see it happen daily and you lose any sense of attachment, but still showing consideration to your own fellows doesnt come with any cost isnt it?You dont lose anything and so why dont you do it??

To add to that, there were the volunteers from canstop, three infact.I have always held a thought that people as they grow to their middle ages, lose their sense of reality and the only sense visible for them is an extraordinarily bloated image of themselves,a highly exaggerated sense of self importance..to be precise.And one of the lady was a perfect specimen of my theory.She kept on saying,'Lets be organised', and again i had to resist myself from telling her that 'being organised doesnt mean that we hafta do things in her way!!!'.And i guess the ladies had a pretty bad ego clash among themselves which they never cared to conceal.Okay to be fair, i should accept that one of the ladies was a sweetheart.with her innocent dancing and singing, she made the crowd happy.but stilll.....

Boyyy...then i realised that there is a beeg gap between what we can do as help and what we really do.If you wanna really help, please leave the notion that you are helping people back at home and come over and simply help.Do not hold the thought that Im beeg and important and im helping out people and all that crap!!!!and beleive me, it makes a lotsa difference.While that lady was giving a speech to the inmates, all that she managed to convey was how gracious/malevolent she was, in coming to help you people.And poor people, they clapped at the end of speech and got the gifts, thankful for them atleast.I wonder, if they really felt grateful for the big lady's speech and gesture in giving out a helping hand.

As i was suffocated to death on seeing this painful drama being enacted on stage, suddenly one person attracted me.She was a student at a college and doing her internship at the hospital.And there,i found a person, doing exactly what i would have luved the beeg lady to do..She reached out personally to people, always with a charming smile and heard them patiently.I guess that is the real help you need to do.To her, i think it was just an normal activity,not some great thing to be proud of.She never bothered with recognition, for her aim was to really help people, not to use it as a means to vet your craving for selfimportance.And she was there, doin silently the work of the entire group and still managing to remain at the backstage.It always happens this way isnt it?People who do real work, are the ones who get least attention.Coz they never do it for the world.For them its not a theatre act, but a real opportunity to put their soul and body to a cause.And there i saw, a harmony between soul and body and a living being, deriving most superior form of joy ever possible in this world.Action without Expectation....She lend her hand for the sake of help and help alone..And at that moment, I understood why Mother Teresa and Florence Nightingale were great!!!!

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