With a heavy heart.......

I was gone for a long time now. Health issues, frequent travels to Chennai, work pressure took a toll on me and I didn't want to do anything. Everyday tasks seemed very boring and I lost interest completely. I hope this is a phase and goes off soon.

Coming to the title of the post, thats how I am feeling right now after my visit to Karunashraya, a Hospice for Cancer patients. Frankly speaking, I have never heard of the word hospice until I experienced it myself today. "A hospital is where treatment is given and Hospice is something where care is given" - as uttered by the managing person of Karunashraya. I got to know some striking facts from her.
- All the patients found in there are in the final most stages of life i.e the terminal stage.
- They charge nothing for the patients stay/food/medicines.
- All that the patients require is that love and care which works better than the medicines.
- Number of nurses/staff working there are always higher than the number of patients. They almost maintain nurse vs patient to 1:1
- All the staff or nurses working there are of age group 18-25.
- The period of stay for a patient is from 1 to 30 days at the maximum.
- Most of the patients doesnt know the fact that they are closer to death while coming here. All they hope for is a treatment that would take off their pain and they would want to go back home - which is an impossibility.
- They have a in-house cook preparing food for over 100 people - 45 patients and others are staff working there.
- For every meal, each patient is approached by a nurse to get to know the food that each one loves to have. If the demands are very exceptional, they try to at least get that from a hotel nearby for they cant take chances. One can never say which is the last meal for a patient.
- The hospice has around 55 nurses, 2 counselors and 2 doctors. The nurses are given free accommodation and food with a stipend of 5000Rs. Counselors are the only people whom the patients wish to see and they meet the patients every morning & evening.
- Some people are fortunate enough to stay 2-3 months and that's when it gets difficult for the nurses. They tend to get so close to these patients, their loss seems immense for them.
- Karunashraya runs solely on donations with no government aide. They have a 5 acre campus which is so peaceful and pleasant.
- It has a lake in the center surrounded by 4 wards each with 12 beds. The setup of the wards and beds are worth mentioning. All the beds have facing veranda. Some beds have the view to lake also. They are separated by curtains. Each bed has a opening at the rear end which remains closed. In case of death, a patient will be moved out of that door instead of taking him all the way through the ward. This means that other patients are not disturbed by the death of their neighbors.
- They have a common prayer room which has symbols of all religions. When a patient dies, he is kept there and prayers are offered. No screaming or crying loudly.
- They also have a meditation room which is being used by some patients or those young nurses to recollect themselves after every loss. Unlike a hospital where the nurses see the happy faces of cured patients, nurses at hospice only see deaths and sad faces. Meditation is utmost important to gain back courage and strength.
- There is no big procedure to join there - just a certificate which mentions that the patient is in final stage of cancer. They are free to go home anytime they wish. There are no visiting hours as such. Free to see anyone anytime. They have separate wards (private wards) which has a bed for an attendant. They are willing to give this room to anyone provided the attendant is willing to stay with them 24hrs. The attendant is not given free food though.

Personally, I am still not sure if our presence brought happiness to them or irritation! We were a bunch of 15 people who turned up from our company. We were asked to hand out some roses to the patients followed by  a small game. What were the organizers thinking - a game for the patients who are dying in their game of life!!! We were told that most of the patients are confronting the meaning of life and are very much irritated by their own condition and wouldnt want to talk to anyone. In that case, we would not disturb those patients but keep a flower on their bed. We are allowed to talk to a few who were ready to talk to us. Since we visited them in the afternoon, most of them were sleeping. From what I could see, 99% of them were women.. :( I had a lump in my throat. They are reduced to a size of a 3year old, literally! I could see their bones very clearly... pathetic was their condition. Most of them having wounds that needs to be dressed every hour. I had tears welled up. I had to keep myself stone hard and not to break down infront of them while giving the roses.  If possible, I should be a comfort to them. If not that, I should not be someone who should remind them of their sickness again! With all my heart sinking, I went into the first bed. There was a guy (not more than 25 years) fully covered with multiple blankets lying on the bed crying hard. So was his mother standing next to him. I felt ashamed to have interrupted their precious time together. But there was someone forcing me from behind and I couldnt help! I went in hesitantly.. The boy looked into my eyes, with his dark red teary eyes. I quickly turned to his mom, handed her the flower and said.. get well soon... :( I don't know why I said so.. but I was crying when I came out. I know he is in his last stage and he knows that too. My words are just for the comfort. We visited a few other beds where the patients were sleeping, reduced into a lump of meat and bones. I felt bad to have left the flower on the food table. It makes a huge difference to hand over the flower and to keep it on a table. I never know how many of the m woke up to see the flower.. :( I mean it really. When we enquired the staff there on the number of patients they said the count for yesterday was 38 and they are yet to count today.. the very statement made me very uneasy. They were really close to their death and some were counting the number of hours. We played housie game later with some 4 patients who would come to the auditorium. Some were least bothered to care what was happening around them. Winning a prize here does sound so stupid when they have lost everything in their life. I felt it meaningless. The aunty I was accompanying even felt bored and irritated to touch or hold the gift she just won. Again, I felt we were only disturbing them rather than comforting them. I just thought for a minute - even with a simple headache, I feel irritated so much. These people have gone beyond all the boundaries. I also got to hear some stories of some patients which I would like to jot down, I would come back to read it whenever I feel I have a suppressing problem.
- An oldman has gone back home 7 times claiming that he feels good to see death for the 8th time.
- A person wanted to have chicken biriyani for a meal and died for the next meal.
- No painkillers were working on an old lady. When counselors spoke to her for 3 -4 days, she opened up finally. She had just a pair of small gold studs. She wanted to give them to one particular grandchild of hers. She was adamant that she would not pass on that through her sons. Staff made that grandchild come the very next day. She handed them over to her grandchild personally and then had all the medicines work on her. She died soon after.
- A couple where the wife was in final stage didnt know she would die until she reached here. When she knew, she broke down completely. Her only wish was to see her sister with whom she had fought 30 years back and never spoke. The next day, the husband brought his SIL. They both broke down and spoke finally. This lady had the peaceful death later.

Some things that seem so small to us mean a lot to them. They dont have all the time in this world and know their life would end any moment. I learnt that life is too short and we are busy spending our time on unnecessary things like hatred, frustration, stress and anger without knowing the real importance of the time we have.

I have only wish today, I would pray for the same. Let all these innocent souls have peace at the soonest!!!

The sign of love

Today would be one of the most memorable days in my life. I had the opportunity to visit some younger friends of mine in a school in Bangalore. For all these 3 and half years in Bangalore, I had been thinking that there cant be one single person from this place with whom I can make friendship. For that case, I have never been able to trust and believe anyone here. Every face I had seen, had selfishness. There was no care or courtesy. This day proved all of this wrong! My visit to Shela Kothawala Institute For the Deaf changed everything.

As a part of quarterly event for my team, the admin had planned this community service event. I usually bunk all the quarterly events. For this time, I was having a strong urge to go. One of my friends was joining me, so I thought I had the much sought after company too. I had been declining every other meeting set up today inorder to make it to this event. What happens then - My friend is caught up in some migration issue and she is not able to make it. There I was, strongly debating within myself - if I should go alone or stay at office attending all the meetings. I had just 2 mins of time before making the final decision. I throw my laptop in to the safe and run towards the bus. There was a strong feeling within - that I should somehow go in though I feel all alone. I see a lot of groups actively talking among themselves. I know none of them. I go stand in a corner waiting for the bus. After making a quick call to S, to tell him that I am going alone and there by killing some time. The bus comes and while boarding it, I see a few familiar faces. I dont know, I somehow felt its all ok though everyone was ignoring me. I wanted this space for myself. I was composing myself - on how the day is going to be,  How would the kids react, What would I play with them.. and there was an endless list of questions. The most important one I had been thinking through was - how am I ever going to talk to them - that they were deaf and dumb.

Once we reached there, we were welcomed by around 40 students and their principal who was a very sweet lady. She gave us some details about the origination of the school - like how it started with just 9 children - 1 teacher in 1968 in a small room, moving into the constructed school in 1971, the first of its kind in Bangalore way back then to develop into a leading school having 164 students - 21 teachers now. She said they are supporting from kindergarten to class 10. Students coming to the school have multiple ranges of hearing impairment and some of them can actually talk. But their most comfortable mode of communication is through the sign language. I could see that they understood nothing of what she was speaking, but were very enthusiastic and excited about the whole thing. It happens that they are excellent lip readers and would need to spend just a week with you to understand what you speak. Their kindergarten consists of 3 years of vigorous speech therapy - obviously they dont have the privilege of absorbing what you speak to them the first time. So, the teacher shows them different kinds of activity charts and keeps repeating the same words every day. This continues for 3 years before they could go to class 1. They are following the state board syllabus as the normal students and write board exams every year getting 100% pass results each time. The only minor difference is that, the languages are exempted for them and their medium of learning happens to be English. I almost had tears welled up my eyes when the Principal completed her talk.

Each one of us were assigned a child and the employees should serve as a kind of buddy to them. There was a  smiling face welcoming me, accepting me with pride. She asked my name and showed me her badge proactively. Hemalatha it read. She was calling her friends to tell them that she has me as her buddy. I felt so happy. She kept smiling at me every time she had a chance to turn back and look at me. We were split into 4 groups. Each group was given an activity to make 2 posters with 2 different themes. We had a nice teacher to interpret and translate everything we spoke to them and vice versa. Our team was named "Three Cheers" and we had internally split it into 2 groups each doing a poster. I was sticking to the three girls who agreed to do the toughest poster - "Heritage and Culture of India". The other 4 boys took over the "Save Our Planet" poster. Initially the girls were reluctant to do the drawing. With some clues and ideas, they jumped in and tried to do their best. Our plan was to do a full scape outline of India and fill in each part of it with the specialities of that state. Delhi - Taj Mahal, Tamilnadu - Bharatnatyam & Meenakshi Temple, Punjab - Bhangra, West bengal - Durga and in the center - we asked them to draw the Thiranga  Janda (our national flag). We showed them how to draw each of these and they sincerely tried to copy the idea. They did a great job. We named it "Incredible India!". Later, the students were to explain the concept and theme to the entire audience. Hemalatha did most of the drawing, so I wanted her to speak as well. She was tensed and didnt know what to talk. Most of the times our lines of communication were penned down. They wrote the questions and we wrote back the answers. When it came to the description, I wrote down all the items that we drew. She couldnt understand what culture and heritage meant and that how to show it to her friends through sign language. She went to her teacher to learn all of it and then smiled at me. I thought of a one line description  and wrote out -" India is rich in heritage and has many different cultures. But we believe in UNITY IN DIVERSITY". She tried to memorize it as much as she could before her turn came, for they all have very short term memory. She even showed me how she would do it sign language. When they showed and described it to everyone out there, I could see no fear in her eyes - only happiness. So were mine - I clapped with so much joy! When they returned, I congratulated them for a job well done. There was pride - I suddenly felt like a mom who would be happier beyond words for her child. All the children did the best. They were very active, participating, wanting to contribute, enjoying our presence. It was the time for results. My team had won the 1st prize for the "Heritage and Cultures of India" theme. I shouted high.. so was my happiness. They couldnt understand and thought they were second since a group had actually won the 1st prize for the other theme. When I explained them that they were 1st, they told every other person they saw on the way. :) We were served the lunch and the buddy should help the child to get the food packet. Hemalatha was very happy with my presence and we both sat under a huge peepal tree. I asked her if she liked the food and she nodded her head happily. She enjoyed her lunch. Post lunch was the games time. She wanted me to join her in volley ball. I politely declined the invite given the fact that I am sports challenged. She happily joined a team of boys in throwing the ball. Later they all played dodge ball and I had the pleasure of watching the fun. At 2.30PM, it was already time to bid good bye to them all. They all ran after us. Hemalatha let her eyes search for me. At the same moment, both of our eyes met and I went to her to say "All the Best". She threw her most gorgeous smile and said "Thank you". The silence between us had a greater bond than the words. I learnt a very little of their language.

I boarded the bus with a heavy but happy heart. I have never seen love in its purest form until today from a complete stranger. These children brought a difference to me. They were not complaining about the most difficult life God has given them. They were not complaining about the most unfriendly family they have got. They are just thankful for what God has given them and are taking the happiness from their surroundings giving it back to all others they see. A special mention should go to the teachers as well. They are the world's most patient people I guess - dealing with a set of children who cant hear and speak. They are very friendly. They know what every single child in their class wants and they answer every single question that a child asks with such a politeness. Its a separate world in itself. The older kids take care of the tiny younger ones. Each kid feels its responsibility. There is freedom. There is joy. There is safety. There is love. There is life for them and they are living it happily. I am satisfied and happy that I was one of the reasons for some of those children to smile today.

Closing the post with the award winning poster from my team - captured from my mobile.