Balance

Ever since I can remember, I’ve been obsessed with ‘balance’. Some will say it is the hallmark of an obsessive-compulsive personality but I like to think it’s the Libra in me, symbolized by the scales and big on justice, fairness and, yes, balance! As a young person, I would often say ‘that’s not fair’, assuming this was reason enough for the universe to reorganize circumstances into a state of impartiality. I grew up and learned that life is not fair and that the equilibrium I sought had to come from within.

In recent days, I have seen a disturbing lack of balance in so many lives around me. Separate conversations with different people have been uncannily similar, pointing to a trend - too much time, effort and money spent in preparing for a tenuous future that might be, at the cost of a tangible present that is. The stories tell of long hours at work and sacrificed family time, to bank more for tomorrow. How much - be it money or status or ambition - is enough? What if the future we save for dissipates when we reach there; as children grow distant, spouses become alienated and health begins to falter? As if in answer, I just met a man on the verge of retirement. He spoke about his worries around the concerns of a wife he hardly knows any more. He wishes he had shown her how he cares. He will start now…

Like other people who are past the middle of their lives, I tend to look back as much as I look ahead. While we cannot change what’s past, we can strive for stability between the present and the future. My constant effort is to remain level, centered, on an even keel, amid life’s several storms. Though I am not naturally drawn to the calm and safe and sheltered bay; invariably picking the adventure of the choppy seas and consistently choosing to venture into the new and unknown… still I will aspire for balance.

Cemeteries

I am fascinated with burial grounds. I have spent many hours walking among grave stones in old English graveyards in Himalayan hill stations, beautifully kempt churchyards in historic European towns and spread-out American cemeteries on wild, wooded countryside. Some might consider this a morbid obsession with the dead, but to me these places are the ultimate sanctuary.

Here, I can indulge my deep-rooted and abiding curiosity about what  constitutes human life and what shapes our human condition. Every tombstone tells a story and opens a door into another world, where my mind’s eye gives form to hazy lines and fills in missing colors. My imagination molds each narrative, piecing together the clues to shape each chronicle and making up the missing segments as it pleases. The Kasauli grave of a British soldier, struck down by cholera in 1818, reminds me how far he was from home and makes me wonder how his loved ones coped with his loss in a distant land. Who chose the bible passage for his epitaph? The adjoining graves of two sibling infants transports me to a time when childbirth and infancy were so much more dangerous. I imagine the heartbreak of the young parents standing on this green hillside on what must have been a sunny summer day and no doubt the sky was a brilliant azure blue…

 

And today, a freshly placed bunch of fragrant flowers and the newly lit candle on a lovingly tended grave, along with the tender epitaph, tell the tale of a man loved much. While each of us will one day succumb to our mortality, in someone’s heart we will live on.

 

 

Surgery 2

The second surgery I am privileged to see is an open heart, coronary artery bypass operation. The patient is being prepared and I can go on in. The grey haired woman, of an age my mother would have been, is already anesthetized and still. The anesthetist monitors a gauge by her head. Nurses and technicians, in their OT attire, are bustling about the room when the cardiac surgeon walks in. He sees two young nurses working with a catheter and says curtly, ‘perhaps you need to call in a couple more to help you,’ his voice dripping sarcasm. A flustered nurse mumbles an apology and finishes up. An assistant completes the surgical disinfecting and draping.

It takes pressure, power and precision to cut down the centre of the sternum with a surgical saw, but it is done in less than a minute. The two halves of the sternum are gently pried apart and held open with a brace-like retractor. We look into the chest cavity as the surgeon explains that he is cutting through the pericardium – and then I see the beating human heart! This most vital organ which begins to beat three weeks after we are conceived and continues till the end of life. From time immemorial and in every culture, the heart has been revered as the core of our being and the centre of all emotion. I have, unthinkingly, uttered the word a million times - speaking of my heart beating faster or missing a beat or being in my mouth or sinking to my feet! But I was not thinking then of this fist-sized pump, this organ composed of muscle and designed to pump blood through the living body.  
 

As the surgery progresses, the heart is isolated with clamps and devices, in preparation for a cardiopulmonary bypass. Then a machine takes over the functions of this patient’s heart and lungs; both become eerily still, for the first time since she was born. There is a brief hush in the room. In any other circumstance, this person with no heartbeat, no pulse and no breathing, would be dead… The surgeon breaks the silence. He comments on how this tireless little machine has worked unceasingly for all these years and can now have a well-deserved (though brief) rest. The still heart allows the team to do its work - steady, swift and sure - and soon it must resume its task. The tension is palpable as we wait for the still heart to start pumping blood again and when it does, first tentative - then sure, I release the breath I did not know I held.   
 

I have watched this woman receiving life, as surely as seeing the birth of a new being. I wish her well and hope her heart stays strong and sound and steady, till the end.

Surgery 1

A dark skinned man lies naked on his side, on the table in the centre of the small windowless room. His back is strangely curved, indicating a spinal deformity. Five people dressed in blue, with masks and caps and only eyes exposed, go about their tasks at various stations. They seem oblivious to this body, which is still and bent and unconscious. I see all this through a glass pane in the door, which lets me look into a different world that few are allowed to view.

I am in the pre-surgery area of a busy hospital, here to witness two major surgeries - a spinal procedure and a heart bypass operation. The orthopedic surgeon has scrubbed his hands for 10 minutes and now invites me to enter the operation theatre with him. The room is very cold and the smell of disinfectant is overpowering. Soon the second surgeon walks in and it is unreal to hear them greet each other in what must, for them, be an everyday environment. One comments on the music that is playing, ribbing the other about his preference for romantic melodies. The anesthetist arranges for me to stand on a small stool, for a better view. He explains that he must keep this patient under: not too long, not too short, not too deep and not too shallow…

By now the man is draped in green sheets and only a square patch of his skin is exposed, painted thoroughly with a pungent yellow solution. It strikes me that they approach this square patch as a work station, perhaps they need to forget there is a living breathing man beneath the drapes. The surgeon explains that this spine, which has been bent for over 30 years, will not be straightened with this surgery. But the excruciating pain from pressure on nerve-endings, that now keeps this man bed-ridden, will be gone and let him walk again. The hand that cuts the skin is steady (we have all heard speak of surgical precision) and the edges are cauterized immediately to stem the bleeding. The burning skin emits a nauseating smell.

So many thoughts pass through my mind during the next two hours… The instruments and implants are not dissimilar to a carpenter’s tools - hammers, screws, saws, pliers. It must take tremendous strength, focus and endurance to do this work. How fragile the human body is, where the smallest damage to narrow thread-like nerves can result in unspeakable outcomes. How strong the human body is, where this intervention and even the introduction of foreign implants will be accepted - bones will join, blood will coagulate, skin will heal. This man was not known to me and he will never be known to me, yet I have seen him in a way that is more than intimate. I have seen the spine that is linked to his brain, I have seen the lungs that inhale and exhale his breath. I don’t know about him, but I am changed forever.    

Silver lining

I am almost ready: refreshed with a hot shower, red cashmere sweater adding elegance to classic black pants, sexy new high-heeled shoes with a satin bow, lipstick to match the sweater, hair swept up and now to finish with a touch of my favorite perfume… then the phone rings. My date needs to cancel dinner - something unexpected has come up – sorry, but we’ll need to do this another day – blah, blah, blah! We’ve all been there, dealing with disappointment that first extinguishes the joy of anticipation, before sweeping on to become resentment and eventually transforms into anger. Now, I am only slightly surprised when this disappointment fails to come!

I smile at myself in the mirror, grab my coat and step out the door. A short walk to the mall down the road and I’m in the coffee shop with the smiling waiter. I do the Sudoku, as I wait for my sandwich and smoothie. I feel beautiful, secure and confident and I love how I feel. I’m already anticipating the new Ann Rule that sits on my bedside table waiting to be read. Maybe, I’ll catch tonight’s episode of the irreverent (but empathy-inducing!) Sex and the City. On my way out, I buy a hot chocolate fudge to go…

This is the real reward of growing older – how we unabashedly love ourselves. While we could all do with fewer lines on our faces, we would not change our confident selves for the angst-ridden young women we once used to be. We might be a little envious of the unlined thirties or wistful before the smooth-faced twenties, but we can glory in our precious beings! As the silver begins to creep into our hair, let us be sure to see the silver lining!

 

In transition

To continue my chain of thought... how will today’s young women sensitize their men to the change that is occurring in their thinking: this need to fulfill their desires and realize their aspirations? How will men accept this new reality, which results in less control and reduced power in a more equal, less imbalanced world? Certainly, our hitherto pampered boys will have to take on more work at home, as their mothers and sisters and wives relinquish familiar chores to explore the promise of exciting new possibilities. Surely, men will (at least initially) resist the changing equations and shifting dynamics. Eventually, the wise will see that this transition is as inevitable as the evolution of humankind, as inevitable as tomorrow’s sunrise!

The farsighted and astute among men will undoubtedly recognize the rich rewards they stand to reap! Traditionally home-bound women were always expected to be their own last priority - after their husbands, their children and their parents. Is it any wonder that we are caricatured as mean-spirited mothers-in-law, nagging wives and manipulative girlfriends? After all, negativity can be the only outcome of thwarted desire, frustrated potential and unfulfilled dreams. As new women, free to explore our talents and practice our capabilities, we cannot but be positive, bighearted and generous, with more to give of ourselves!

All those around us will benefit from this transition – our  brothers, our lovers, our husbands, our sons. All around us will be richer for our enrichment.

What women want

Thinking about what Delhi women have been demanding for themselves these past weeks - safety and equality certainly, but they ask as well for respect and dignity in their homes.

We are traditionally seen as less than men and this view seems to extend to our homes, particularly for the homemaker. Perhaps the conflict did not exist in the past (or lay buried beneath the surface?) when roles were defined and expectations set early. It was understood that men would head the family and go out to earn a living. It was understood that women would care for their hearths and homes and children. It was perhaps even understood that the latter would be subservient to the former! The lines are now blurred, the other half is waking up and new dynamics are afoot. Women’s demand for an equal place is understandably uncomfortable for men, who have so far maintained an unquestioned superiority.

 

As a first step, men need to respect the women in their homes. Some men see their work as more important, merely because it is conducted at a desk in the office and certainly because their employers pay for it in currency that can be banked. Most men are able to go out each day and do this ‘important’ work, only because a homemaker-spouse takes care of cooking and cleaning and caring for the children! Is house work undervalued because it is not paid for? It would certainly come at a price, were it outsourced to a cook, a cleaner and a nanny! This is not to ignore the contribution women make to the economy (and in other ways) by leaving tasks at home to take on paid work outside it. While paid work can be easily quantified, it is time to recognize the value that women (employed outside home or not) deliver through unpaid household work!

This Forbes article attempts to place a price tag on housework and is recommended reading: http://www.forbes.com/sites/brycecovert/2012/05/30/putting-a-price-tag-on-unpaid-housework/

I applaud the writer and others she refers to, E.g. Nancy Folbre, “… a family earning $50,000 with one full-time wage earner and one full-time homemaker surely enjoys a higher living standard than a family with two full-time wage earners each earning $25,000, because it can rely on home-produced services rather than buying market substitutes.”