It’s odd when rather than racing to the cycle shed with a half-eaten omelet-butter-jam sandwich with a sambhar smeared shirt (well, sambhar gets spilled in a hurry) praying that you don’t get a late attendance and browse through which version of story would be feasible to this morning’s context; instead you go freshen up and calmly take a rickshaw to Borivali station. Apparently the crowded Mumbai suburb local doesn’t seem to be crowded at all for it has to offer me a privileged seat (Yeah, the bright side of having cancer) in the ‘Viklaang Dabba’ (Handicapped bogie) for my ride to Parel. Praying in the morning has been advised by sages for ages, so I think god should be by my side with all those mouthful of confessions and repentances in the mornings of past two years of college. Train rides have always been introspective but the morning platoon of people lined-squat in the bushy camouflage armed with buckets or bottles helped very little to have a private chat with god as a part of my daily morning schedule. So I resorted into my travel literature and sometimes vaguely looked up if I can offer the seat to much more needy people. Before getting into this bogie I anticipated scornful looks of handicapped people, who always feel insecure of normal people turning a blind eye on them……..and eventually I got them. So I had to reiterate the terms of ‘Viklaang Dabba’ where ‘& CANCER PATIENTS’ often gets omitted from ‘FOR HANDICAPPED & CANCER PATIENTS ONLY’ to make room for more irritated crutch bearers. Meanwhile Dadar crosses and I get closer and closer to my childhood nightmare ‘The Needle’.
          I made my way through the cacophony of multilingual, multidialectal congregation of people from all over India and abroad who seek treatment from this premier and economic medical institution, to the day care centre where I would receive my first ever chemotherapy. Fear started to grip, not the type where I know my odds if the professor will give me attendance or throw me out of the class. I enter the ward and get myself checked in the attendance register (sigh! I got it).
          All clad in sterilized hospital gown I braced for the inevitable. Receiving treatment for cancer seemed a far distant agenda to me than to fight the soft, comforting clasp of the nurse with the weapon of sedation on the other hand through the ‘Needle’. I tried to take my mind for a swing elsewhere, but weird thought started to crawl in………..How do addicted people inject drugs in their body? Through the needle of course; but doesn’t it hurt? Oh! Maybe they have body made of stone, so they don’t feel it. Now I get it, they are trying to sedate me or in other words I am going to be DRUGGED!!.......... Before I go further into the details I pulled myself back. Maybe all these cytotoxic drugs and my needle fear made a diabolic treaty behind my back. To my relief I found a television with the ‘Chota Bheem’ cartoon show on. But what attracted me more than the television is the giggle that came from the bed beside mine. To my fearful surprise I saw a little girl with her granny and mother staring at the nurse who is about to prick her. Her cute smile and innocent, ever expecting stare at the equipment beside her melt my heart. The nurse said “Now open your mouth, I’ve candy for you.” She instantly dropped her jaw ajar with the anticipation of incoming sweetness. Now the nurse took up the syringe and simply pricked her arm. I frantically looked for a possible explanation in the textbook of pain but it didn’t help. I was totally baffled. She didn’t make any sound other than licking the candy, her eyes still laced with wonder ‘what’s going to happen next?’. The world seemed so fresh to her that, she was just looking at things including me hoping to see, experience something new, oblivious of its repercussion. She didn’t know that a prick could hurt, so it didn’t. Now, isn’t ignorance a bliss!
          Boy! That little girl struck me really hard. It was a lot different from the cancer inside eating me up slowly. I realized if you convince yourself ‘you’ll be fine’, you’ll be fine irrespective of anything in the whole wide world. That little girl merely had any knowledge on spiritualism but isn’t that what sages practiced a long time ago. They made up their minds to denounce earthly possession and they never looked back because they didn’t need them anymore. So I took a deep breath “I won’t feel any pain” and the nursed turned to me.
          She gave me a smile and took my arm. With usual eagerness to finish off (finish me off) quickly she ran her fingers and made choice between some veins in the offering and found the perfect match for the kill. All set with rubber band tucked tightly above the spot where she rubbed sanitizer, I felt like the spot is the offering to some cancer deity, which will be sacrificed to please its omen to leave my body. I closed my eyes, trying to recuperate my thoughts back thinking of the brave little girl. Through a quick squint I looked at the nurse, gloved hands ever so strategically placed with intent to beat the cancer out of me. I let myself loose, except the hand she was holding onto………… Maybe I felt something? Did I? I asked myself. I saw the nurse was already done and lining up the drugs to push through the artificial physical connection she just established with my body. I wondered… Was it the dexterity of this woman or the act of complete obliviousness of the little girl? Now I was convinced, I reached for my backpack for more candies and tapped at the girl ‘Hi’. Life teaches many lessons, unknowingly and from unknown quarters.