Reach Out

Dr. Rajesh Bhola
India
Jun 30, 2012

The planet on which we live is beautiful. Natural beauty, colours, sounds, and exotic foods abound. At the same time, modern science and human ingenuity have devised ways of mitigating human pain. But despite all this, life is not easy. Even in the midst of collective plenty and nature’s extravagance, some people may live lives of desperation.

Everyday, I come across a number of children who are stricken with a severe degree of disability. In many cases, these children develop contractions, due to the non-movement of their limbs. We have the recent case of the two sisters, suffering from mental disorders, who were rescued from their apartment in Rohini – or the earlier similar incidents reported from Kalkaji and Noida. What is discomforting is that the neighbours of the sisters have admitted that they ignored the screams and the stench coming from the house for two years – believing that the matter did not concern them. As the modern world is becoming more crowded and intricate, we need some guidance on how to live. We need to share the pain, and help others.  The losses of dear and near ones, that we all encounter, mark us and make us. Suffering is part of what it means to be alive. Nobody is truly mature who has not suffered. We should learn to empathise with the sorrows and grief of others in the neighborhood, and grow as sensible citizens of a society.

Amidst sorrows, we are at times troubled, and question the meaning of our existence – of birth and death. It is only when we have the courage to live life as it is, when we are no longer running away, that we experience a profound relaxation in our heart. We then no longer have to live defensively. We should not start to learn the art of self defense when ambushed. It is better to train oneself to handle the situation better. The more aware we become of our lives, the more we realise just how blind we have been. Every time that greed, lust, hate, anger or apathy get the better of us, we have suffered another injury to our spirit. We need to increase our capacity to cope with such encounters. If we keep on working at this, we will be prepared when the big ambushes arrive. And such preparedness should be used in a positive way, in our reaction to the pain of others. In the instant case of the two sisters, the neighbours and the RWA should have timely intervened, and taken suitable steps to bring the sisters out of the life of isolation and malnutrition. Unfortunately, there remains a lack of awareness about mental illnesses, and social apathy towards such people.

We all know that pain, disease, decay and death will come upon us. Yet too often we live our lives pretending this will not happen to us. None of us knows what is going to happen the next moment. All within a day we may discover that somebody close to us had a serious accident, or we may discover a lump in our body which has turned malignant, or learn that a major earthquake has shaken some part of the earth. We can be going along happily, when suddenly our world is turned upside down. We try to find refuge, and search for security. The pain and suffering is not something for each of us to solve on our own. It is by reaching out to one another that we can respond to our collective pain, in a constructive and spirited way.  υ

Dr. Rajesh Bhola is President of Spastic Society of Gurgaon and is working for the cause of children with autism, cerebral palsy, mental retardation and multiple disabilities for more than 20 years.