Manthan


Manthan: February 2005 www.nihindia.org My Shoes or Yours Saroja was in a hurry. Despite the Bombay heat, she looked cool in a crisp cotton sari. She always ironed her clothes, and when she walked, even in the most crowded places, she calculated where to place her next step. One false step into a small puddle could ruin her clothes and her mood. She followed to this day, her mother’s recipe for taking care of her saris. “Squeeze some lime juice into the wash and iron them before they get fully dry,” her mother used to say. Saroja was also very proper, and her thinking was pure and organized. That morning though, there were deep furrows in her brow, for she had much to do before her sister’s wedding. There were so many urgent things to do, so many people to call, so much to organize. If only the people milling around her could understand her urgency! There was a tussle going on within her and she kept freezing mid-stream in her footsteps, but her preoccupied brain kept pushing her forward. She stumbled each time with these tussles, but for the sake of her sari, she recovered in time! All of a sudden a guide dog sprang in front of her dragging his owner. -Right in front of her! -And jumped into the very puddle that Saroja was calculating how to avoid. The poor speechless animal looked almost apologetically at Saroja, but not before splashing mud on her bright clean sari. “Are you blind?” shouted Saroja, most uncharacteristically. “I am really sorry madam, but I am not sure why you are angry at me. Did my guidedog do something?” Saroja suddenly looked up and had a sudden desire to disappear to a place where no one would recognize her. The man indeed was blind, but sadly enough she even knew him! This was the man who had married her best friend, and who survived a terrible accident last year, losing both his eyesight and his beloved wife. Saroja threw herself into Rajan’s arms and said, “I don’t know whether to say sorry or to get angry at you for not telling me that you were going to be in Bombay. I don’t know whether to cry for Meena’s death or to thank God that he saved you”. Meena and Saroja had been best friends from grade school. Both had dreams of greatness, and both achieved some measure of it. Saroja was always the graceful one and became one of the most popular Bharatanatyam dancers in the city, and Meena became a famous author. Meena’s books for children were delightful, and she even had a bookstore named after her. That store, “Children’s Books mean Meena,” had always brought pleasure to Saroja, but for the last two years, she had avoided going anywhere near there. Last week, she somehow gathered her spirits and bought a book for one of her younger students from there. “My shoes or yours”, was Meena Sharma’s last book and perhaps the most poignant. Meena had always written her books with a sure and steady pen, her words always proper and strong. But as she became ill and progressively lost control of her cognition, her writing became more human; her words started wilting, and you could hear the pen cry as you read those words. Meena dedicated her last book to her best friend, Saroja Swaminathan, or SS, as she was popularly known among the dance lovers. Nobody except Saroja knew of Meena’s illness, and to this day Saroja hadn’t told anyone. Suddenly Rajan’s blank eyes stared at Saroja as if asking her, “What do you mean—God saved me?” It was exactly four years ago that Meena told her best friend about her illness. A rare virus had been eating away Meena’s frontal lobes, and she was developing early signs of Alzheimer’s disease. At 42, Meena had much more to do, but she had to decide what to cut back on. Saroja couldn’t stop crying, but in between her sobs she told Meena to never stop writing. As the disease started eating away at her brain cells, Meena’s writing became more child-like but the readers and critics alike marveled her even more. In the last book, Meena almost told her readers about her illness, and about her plans to put her pen to rest. In fact, she had sent her first draft to her publishers with a note that there would be a few more pages to follow. That was when fate took a nasty turn. Meena and Rajan had been going from Jainagar to Mathura for the opening of a primary school. In a flash, the truck that was coming from behind tried to overtake them and suddenly saw another vehicle on the opposite side. Instead of slowing down, the trucker swerved into Rajan and Meena’s car. The next thing they knew, they were in the hospital, Rajan couldn’t see anything, and Meena was in the operation theater bleeding profusely. Saroja rushed to Meena’s side and spoke to her before Meena lost even more blood and died. It was three in the afternoon, Meena’s favorite time of the day. She used to look forward to the clanging lunchboxes, the laughter and cheerful arrival of her daughter Priti and Janaki, Priti’s best friend. Meena could barely see anything, but Saroja knew that these were the 3 o’clock images with which Meena entered another world. “Please look after Priti if anything happens to Rajan. I am glad that the truck driver hit me instead of Rajan, because I was bound to go anyway. At least this way, Priti would not have to deal with two deaths. And nobody needs to know that my fate was already sealed. They can blame it on an accident.” That night, Priti held her father’s hands tightly and told him that Amma wouldn’t be coming back anymore, but that she saw Amma’s last manuscript back from the editors. The editors did not want any changes, but somehow they did not get a dedication line. It took several months for Rajan to send the manuscript back, but he dedicated the book to “Saroja Swaminathan, who converted Meena’s poetry to dance.” Saroja could not look at Rajan’s blank eyes anymore, and she told him all the little details of Meena’s last few months. When she finished relating all of these events back to Rajan, he had only one question, “Have you read Meena’s last book?” Neither of them had read it. And if Priti had read the book, she surely wasn’t going to tell her father or her mother’s best friend about the book’s message. Meena had died leaving a lot of mysteries behind her, but she helped the medical community solve one. What makes a person’s senses so acute in their last moment? As soon as Meena died, her vital organs were donated and her brain was flash-frozen and imaged for clues about the last hurrah that neurons go through before they lose contact with the rest of the body. In “My shoes or yours,” Meena had a premonition of this. Reading this would bring interminable pain to Rajan. The accident not only took away his eyesight but also the one thing he always wanted to do: the chance to read his wife’s books. As a child, Priti had read all her mother’s books as soon as they came out. Saroja for her part was only now beginning to understand how much Meena had been in touch with her feelings. Saroja knew how to dance to Meena’s poetry, but had no hint about where they came from. After her diagnosis, Meena knew that in the rest of her life she was only going to have more bodily sufferings, but she was having one mental high after another. So she never felt victimized, and wanted to share her body and her spirit with the world after she was gone. The book was her spirit saying thanks. The mystery of the neuron’s last hurrah captured from her quickly frozen brain was her body saying thanks. She also felt satisfied that she had left imprints of her physical being by donating her organs. The images captured from Meena’s brain were going to keep scientists busy for many years. But what did she leave for her family? In “My shoes or yours,” the main character, a child of nine has a habit of having mock conversations with herself. In one of her conversations, she asks tauntingly, “If God has a choice of picking me or my image in the mirror, which would he pick?” Despite being congenitally blind, she would fill her days with her inner conversations. These conversations came naturally to her, and taught her a lot about the external world. When Meena and Rajan got married, everyone remarked that they were truly mirror images of each other. They reflected each other’s thoughts, goals and journeys very well. They understood each other perfectly, yet Rajan had no inkling of Meena’s disease. What went wrong with the mirror of life that they shared? In the last days of her life, Meena prayed that if God had a choice, he would pick Meena over Rajan, because her shoes were more slippery at this point than his. Meena’s last book would tell Rajan that it is okay for one member of a pair to go if the other could compensate for the loss. When you look at the mirror, you can see the image, but if the mirror is shattered, is the image not there? Only the mirror is missing, and you can always find another mirror. And with the new mirror, comes a new image! Shoba, the girl in “My shoes or yours” was a master at creating mirrors in her mind by having conversations with herself. When Priti read the book about how even God has to make choices, and at times there may be no pattern, logic or rhyme in those choices, she had a hard time accepting this. She thought that her father may have an even harder time with this concept, and may not even bear to read it. It is not that Rajan didn’t have the strength to bear Meena’s death—it was his total ignorance of Meena’s illness that bothered him—despite being her mirror image. Saroja’s sister got married amidst much love and laughter. There was a lot of dance and music. Saroja’s students danced and her best friend sang. Saroja was especially happy that Rajan and Priti were there and took part in all the events. A couple of nights ago, Saroja had read the book, and then read it to Rajan, despite Priti’s entreaties. Rajan had never looked more peaceful as he did after the book was read. The next day, Rajan asked Priti to look into a mirror, and asked her to describe in detail what she saw. They held hands as Priti described every little thing that she saw in the mirror. Rajan meantime opened his own mind’s mirror and started a conversation. As Priti described each little feature of her face that she saw in the mirror, she felt her father’s hand squeeze harder on hers, and saw a smile spread on his face. Suddenly they were both nine-year olds, looking into the mirror. Rajan discovered with Priti’s help and Shoba’s imagination that there was something fascinating in watching your life unfold in the mirror. Rajan could look at life without his eyes, and he could experience everything. His retina was damaged, but his nerves were not. He could feed his brain with whatever images he wanted, but he needed Priti and her mirror to get him started. With time, Priti was amazed that her father could have these conversations all by himself. Shoba the blind nine-year old had given Rajan back his sight. Priti was thoroughly puzzled, but then she was only nine-years old and she was not blind. Perhaps she will learn one day, but now she thinks it is simply a miracle. Krishna Balakrishnan BalakriK@OD.NIH.GOV

Manthan: February 2005 www.nihindia.org

My Shoes or Yours

Saroja was in a hurry. Despite the Bombay heat, she looked cool in a crisp cotton sari. She always ironed her clothes, and when she walked, even in the most crowded places, she calculated where to place her next step. One false step into a small puddle could ruin her clothes and her mood. She followed to this day, her mother’s recipe for taking care of her saris. “Squeeze some lime juice into the wash and iron them before they get fully dry,” her mother used to say.

Saroja was also very proper, and her thinking was pure and organized. That morning though, there were deep furrows in her brow, for she had much to do before her sister’s wedding. There were so many urgent things to do, so many people to call, so much to organize. If only the people milling around her could understand her urgency! There was a tussle going on within her and she kept freezing mid-stream in her footsteps, but her preoccupied brain kept pushing her forward. She stumbled each time with these tussles, but for the sake of her sari, she recovered in time!

All of a sudden a guide dog sprang in front of her dragging his owner. -Right in front of her! -And jumped into the very puddle that Saroja was calculating how to avoid. The poor speechless animal looked almost apologetically at Saroja, but not before splashing mud on her bright clean sari.

“Are you blind?” shouted Saroja, most uncharacteristically. “I am really sorry madam, but I am not sure why you are angry at me. Did my guidedog do something?” Saroja suddenly looked up and had a sudden desire to disappear to a place where no one would recognize her. The man indeed was blind, but sadly enough she even knew him! This was the man who had married her best friend, and who survived a terrible accident last year, losing both his eyesight and his beloved wife. Saroja threw herself into Rajan’s arms and said, “I don’t know whether to say sorry or to get angry at you for not telling me that you were going to be in Bombay. I don’t know whether to cry for Meena’s death or to thank God that he saved you”.

Meena and Saroja had been best friends from grade school. Both had dreams of greatness, and both achieved some measure of it. Saroja was always the graceful one and became one of the most popular Bharatanatyam dancers in the city, and Meena became a famous author. Meena’s books for children were delightful, and she even had a bookstore named after her. That store, “Children’s Books mean Meena,” had always brought pleasure to Saroja, but for the last two years, she had avoided going anywhere near there. Last week, she somehow gathered her spirits and bought a book for one of her younger students from there.

“My shoes or yours”, was Meena Sharma’s last book and perhaps the most poignant. Meena had always written her books with a sure and steady pen, her words always proper and strong. But as she became ill and progressively lost control of her cognition, her writing became more human; her words started wilting, and you could hear the pen cry as you read those words. Meena dedicated her last book to her best friend, Saroja Swaminathan, or SS, as she was popularly known among the dance lovers.

Nobody except Saroja knew of Meena’s illness, and to this day Saroja hadn’t told anyone. Suddenly Rajan’s blank eyes stared at Saroja as if asking her, “What do you mean—God saved me?”

It was exactly four years ago that Meena told her best friend about her illness. A rare virus had been eating away Meena’s frontal lobes, and she was developing early signs of Alzheimer’s disease. At 42, Meena had much more to do, but she had to decide what to cut back on. Saroja couldn’t stop crying, but in between her sobs she told Meena to never stop writing. As the disease started eating away at her brain cells, Meena’s writing became more child-like but the readers and critics alike marveled her even more. In the last book, Meena almost told her readers about her illness, and about her plans to put her pen to rest. In fact, she had sent her first draft to her publishers with a note that there would be a few more pages to follow.

That was when fate took a nasty turn. Meena and Rajan had been going from Jainagar to Mathura for the opening of a primary school. In a flash, the truck that was coming from behind tried to overtake them and suddenly saw another vehicle on the opposite side. Instead of slowing down, the trucker swerved into Rajan and Meena’s car. The next thing they knew, they were in the hospital, Rajan couldn’t see anything, and Meena was in the operation theater bleeding profusely. Saroja rushed to Meena’s side and spoke to her before Meena lost even more blood and died. It was three in the afternoon, Meena’s favorite time of the day. She used to look forward to the clanging lunchboxes, the laughter and cheerful arrival of her daughter Priti and Janaki, Priti’s best friend. Meena could barely see anything, but Saroja knew that these were the 3 o’clock images with which Meena entered another world.

“Please look after Priti if anything happens to Rajan. I am glad that the truck driver hit me instead of Rajan, because I was bound to go anyway. At least this way, Priti would not have to deal with two deaths. And nobody needs to know that my fate was already sealed. They can blame it on an accident.”

That night, Priti held her father’s hands tightly and told him that Amma wouldn’t be coming back anymore, but that she saw Amma’s last manuscript back from the editors. The editors did not want any changes, but somehow they did not get a dedication line. It took several months for Rajan to send the manuscript back, but he dedicated the book to “Saroja Swaminathan, who converted Meena’s poetry to dance.”

Saroja could not look at Rajan’s blank eyes anymore, and she told him all the little details of Meena’s last few months. When she finished relating all of these events back to Rajan, he had only one question, “Have you read Meena’s last book?” Neither of them had read it. And if Priti had read the book, she surely wasn’t going to tell her father or her mother’s best friend about the book’s message. Meena had died leaving a lot of mysteries behind her, but she helped the medical community solve one. What makes a person’s senses so acute in their last moment?

As soon as Meena died, her vital organs were donated and her brain was flash-frozen and imaged for clues about the last hurrah that neurons go through before they lose contact with the rest of the body. In “My shoes or yours,” Meena had a premonition of this. Reading this would bring interminable pain to Rajan. The accident not only took away his eyesight but also the one thing he always wanted to do: the chance to read his wife’s books. As a child, Priti had read all her mother’s books as soon as they came out. Saroja for her part was only now beginning to understand how much Meena had been in touch with her feelings. Saroja knew how to dance to Meena’s poetry, but had no hint about where they came from.

After her diagnosis, Meena knew that in the rest of her life she was only going to have more bodily sufferings, but she was having one mental high after another. So she never felt victimized, and wanted to share her body and her spirit with the world after she was gone. The book was her spirit saying thanks. The mystery of the neuron’s last hurrah captured from her quickly frozen brain was her body saying thanks. She also felt satisfied that she had left imprints of her physical being by donating her organs.

The images captured from Meena’s brain were going to keep scientists busy for many years. But what did she leave for her family?

In “My shoes or yours,” the main character, a child of nine has a habit of having mock conversations with herself. In one of her conversations, she asks tauntingly, “If God has a choice of picking me or my image in the mirror, which would he pick?” Despite being congenitally blind, she would fill her days with her inner conversations. These conversations came naturally to her, and taught her a lot about the external world.

When Meena and Rajan got married, everyone remarked that they were truly mirror images of each other. They reflected each other’s thoughts, goals and journeys very well. They understood each other perfectly, yet Rajan had no inkling of Meena’s disease. What went wrong with the mirror of life that they shared? In the last days of her life, Meena prayed that if God had a choice, he would pick Meena over Rajan, because her shoes were more slippery at this point than his. Meena’s last book would tell Rajan that it is okay for one member of a pair to go if the other could compensate for the loss. When you look at the mirror, you can see the image, but if the mirror is shattered, is the image not there? Only the mirror is missing, and you can always find another mirror. And with the new mirror, comes a new image! Shoba, the girl in “My shoes or yours” was a master at creating mirrors in her mind by having conversations with herself.

When Priti read the book about how even God has to make choices, and at times there may be no pattern, logic or rhyme in those choices, she had a hard time accepting this. She thought that her father may have an even harder time with this concept, and may not even bear to read it. It is not that Rajan didn’t have the strength to bear Meena’s death—it was his total ignorance of Meena’s illness that bothered him—despite being her mirror image.

Saroja’s sister got married amidst much love and laughter. There was a lot of dance and music. Saroja’s students danced and her best friend sang. Saroja was especially happy that Rajan and Priti were there and took part in all the events. A couple of nights ago, Saroja had read the book, and then read it to Rajan, despite Priti’s entreaties. Rajan had never looked more peaceful as he did after the book was read.

The next day, Rajan asked Priti to look into a mirror, and asked her to describe in detail what she saw. They held hands as Priti described every little thing that she saw in the mirror. Rajan meantime opened his own mind’s mirror and started a conversation. As Priti described each little feature of her face that she saw in the mirror, she felt her father’s hand squeeze harder on hers, and saw a smile spread on his face. Suddenly they were both nine-year olds, looking into the mirror. Rajan discovered with Priti’s help and Shoba’s imagination that there was something fascinating in watching your life unfold in the mirror. Rajan could look at life without his eyes, and he could experience everything. His retina was damaged, but his nerves were not. He could feed his brain with whatever images he wanted, but he needed Priti and her mirror to get him started. With time, Priti was amazed that her father could have these conversations all by himself. Shoba the blind nine-year old had given Rajan back his sight. Priti was thoroughly puzzled, but then she was only nine-years old and she was not blind. Perhaps she will learn one day, but now she thinks it is simply a miracle.

Krishna Balakrishnan

BalakriK@OD.NIH.GOV