If I can recall my schooldays correctly, I started this obsession with a crystal ball around the age of sixteen. I was a little stressed with schoolwork, high-flying expectations of parents and siblings, and the never-ending dilemma of choosing an appropriate path in life. I always felt (though I never believed it) that there would be a person somewhere on this planet who would look into a crystal ball and would be able to tell me what to expect in the future. I always felt that this way I would be prepared to face whatever was to come.
This was before the books of Harry Potter ridiculed Professor Trelawney. This was before I chose a career in science. This was also before I was exposed to an ever-varying circle of friends and well- wishers.
A few days ago, I chanced to speak to one of my senior colleagues of earlier days. I make her sound like ninety but she happens to be a thirty-five year old woman with a beautiful six year old daughter. She still possesses her distinctive tinkling laugh and an enviable ability to laugh at herself. I was pleasantly surprised at how much she remembered about me, given her extra-busy life and family commitments. After ten minutes of catching up on important events in life, I just happened to say my oft-repeated wish," how I wish I could look into my immediate future!!"
Contrary to my expectation, she fell silent for about a minute. Then she said, "Do you really want something like that? Because if you do, you might eventually get it, and then you won't want it anymore. If you can, be careful of what you wish for."
I asked her if there was a reason for her to sound so serious all of a sudden. She said that last ear, in the month of March, on an ordinary day, she and her husband got into one of those insignificant fights, whose details one never remembers, but the mood of the fight lingers all day. She said, " I wished that day that I could look into a crystal ball and see what was to come, just as you told me now. I was not to know then, that this wish would come true, in an inexplicable way."
"Two weeks earlier, owing to my husband's paranoia about increasing expenditure on medical bills, we had got our family insured with a private company at a huge expense. A few tests were done, and all of us, including my in-laws, were given a clean bill of health from the associated hospital. A few days before, precisely five days before, my daughter's school started a compulsory health screening for all children to stop the spread of some communicable infections. Like all the kids in her grade, her blood was tested and after three days, retested because some tests were inconclusive for many kids."
"That day, in office, I was still brooding over our morning quarrel, and revising what I would do next time a similar situation cropped up, my cell rang. I was overjoyed to see my husband's name flashing on my screen. "So, finally he has learnt to apologise!!!!!, " I thought gleefully."
"His voice was quite sober and quiet. He said that we had to go somewhere urgently and I should leave office and wait for him at the entrance in fifteen minutes."
"On other days, I would have asked for more time, or dallied a it. But that day, there was something in his voice which brooked no opposition. I left everything on my desk, scribbled a note to my secretary, grabbed my purse and left the building. "
"He was within the-said fifteen minutes. The minute I saw his face, I knew something was wrong. I sat in the car and waited for him to spill. My mind flitted with various possibilities ranging from his being sacked, to his having an extra-marital affair with my best friend. But, when he started the engine, I saw he had been crying."
" This was most unusual. He could be quite romantic and sentimental, cruel and heartless at times too, but he was not a tender-hearted guy. I was surprised and concerned."
"I found myself asking him what disturbed him so much and was it because of me? If it was, I was willing to apologize and not let it happen again."
" He turned the car back into the park and stopped the engine again. He turned to me and said," Tania's school called me. The principal has arranged a meeting with a hematologist at St. Mary's Hospital. Tani has leukemia,"he said and restarted the engine, unable to look into my unbelieving eyes anymore."
"I cannot remember how or at what time we reached the Hospital. How we even manged to find the doctor's room, I cannot recollect. All I remember is sitting in front of the desk of Dr.Rastogi, waiting for him to come into the room to talk to us. He came within five minutes of our arrival and he turned out to be much younger than I expected. I recollect I was thinking that this man would not be much over forty. He washed his hands, dried them on a towel and sat in his chair. He pulled out one plastic file and studied it. I wished he would go on reading and we would never have to hear what was in it. I wished time to freeze a this very moment."
"Eventually he did speak, he said that our daughter had acute lymphocytic leukemia, a disease which affects 5000 children each year."
"What followed was a series of questions which he framed himself and answered himself. My husband and I were unable to speak or think clearly. We were behaving like we were watching a drama in front of our eyes. None of it seemed real."
"What was real, was the therapy charted out for our daughter, and to prepare her for all the medications."
"For the next month, Tani underwent many medical examinations and her medication was optimized. She showed remarkable improvement after the first two courses of medication, but starting from this year, her little body has stopped responding to any treatment."
"She suffers from incessant colds and is fatigued after even the smallest exercises. She has started to lose weight, and I cannot help worrying for her and tying various threads around her little wrists, waiting for some God to help and cure her.
"Otherwise, she is very happy with all the attention showered on her by the whole extended family, and now for the first time in her life, she has the undivided attention of her mother. I have stopped working full time, and I work mainly from home. I need to see her every moment she is at home and I now grudge even the hours she spends in school."
"On our last chemo, the doctor told us it would the maximum which could be administered and she would need at least two months to recover. This was more than four months back now, and she still has a constant temperature, bouts of vomiting, followed by cramps and nausea and pain all over her body."
"Today, doctors don't give a frame on a terminally ill patient's life, because, according to them, there could always be a miracle. It seems wrong to say this but I know and so does my husband, that there are no miracles in store for Tani. She has deteriorated so much that walking even a step is difficult. We use a wheelchair or mostly, carry her around. She still smiles continually and what pains us most are the questions she asks us about her affliction. We don't know whether we should give her all the facts in a simplified way or make it seem like an ordinary childrens' disease."
"For the first time in our marriage, my husband has lost the will to control and dominate me. He spends all his time reading up medical books and watching medical documentaries on Discovery. For the first time in my life, I am praying everyday, and hoping against hope that some doctor somewhere will design some miraculous therapy for our daughter."
"Every night, as I lie down with my daughter (yes, I sleep with her nowadays), I wish I will see her better in the morning, but every morning she seems to weaken a little more. I have started making hand puppets for her so that she stays entertained in her room, she is also learning to read a bit of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, and I promised her a Tom Sawyer dress and a paint bucket for her upcoming birthday in August."
"As she sleeps in the afternoon, I find myself reminiscing about my pregnant days with her, her baby days, her first day at kindergarten, her first trousers, her first words, her first tooth....all in a jumble. I always wanted our baby to be more successful and happier than either of us were, and I wanted always to hire a sorceress to look into a crystal ball to see the future. Only, our sorcerer was Dr. Rastogi and his crystal ball was the medical file. He had clearly and unemotionally told us what we had to expect and overcome.
"So Chitra, I got my wish to know my future. It is so much difficult now, I don't know what a mother would feel if her baby died in a car crash instantly, but its terribly difficult for me to see my little girl sinking a little more everyday. It is difficult to lie to her and say that the pain will go away, and it is more difficult to know that everyday her pain will be greater and her dose of pain-killing medication will keep increasing."
" I got my wish to see my future, at least the immediate future. I know what to expect, but is it in my power to improve the situation in any way?"
"Chitra, never wish for a crystal ball. Because, you might get the chance to get what you wished, only to realize that you would not want it that way at all."
Needless to say, after this conversation, we were unable to digress to other cheerful matters. Its been a week, and now I feel a little apprehensive about what I will hear if I call her. Do I want the crystal ball anymore? No, I think not.
This was before the books of Harry Potter ridiculed Professor Trelawney. This was before I chose a career in science. This was also before I was exposed to an ever-varying circle of friends and well- wishers.
A few days ago, I chanced to speak to one of my senior colleagues of earlier days. I make her sound like ninety but she happens to be a thirty-five year old woman with a beautiful six year old daughter. She still possesses her distinctive tinkling laugh and an enviable ability to laugh at herself. I was pleasantly surprised at how much she remembered about me, given her extra-busy life and family commitments. After ten minutes of catching up on important events in life, I just happened to say my oft-repeated wish," how I wish I could look into my immediate future!!"
Contrary to my expectation, she fell silent for about a minute. Then she said, "Do you really want something like that? Because if you do, you might eventually get it, and then you won't want it anymore. If you can, be careful of what you wish for."
I asked her if there was a reason for her to sound so serious all of a sudden. She said that last ear, in the month of March, on an ordinary day, she and her husband got into one of those insignificant fights, whose details one never remembers, but the mood of the fight lingers all day. She said, " I wished that day that I could look into a crystal ball and see what was to come, just as you told me now. I was not to know then, that this wish would come true, in an inexplicable way."
"Two weeks earlier, owing to my husband's paranoia about increasing expenditure on medical bills, we had got our family insured with a private company at a huge expense. A few tests were done, and all of us, including my in-laws, were given a clean bill of health from the associated hospital. A few days before, precisely five days before, my daughter's school started a compulsory health screening for all children to stop the spread of some communicable infections. Like all the kids in her grade, her blood was tested and after three days, retested because some tests were inconclusive for many kids."
"That day, in office, I was still brooding over our morning quarrel, and revising what I would do next time a similar situation cropped up, my cell rang. I was overjoyed to see my husband's name flashing on my screen. "So, finally he has learnt to apologise!!!!!, " I thought gleefully."
"His voice was quite sober and quiet. He said that we had to go somewhere urgently and I should leave office and wait for him at the entrance in fifteen minutes."
"On other days, I would have asked for more time, or dallied a it. But that day, there was something in his voice which brooked no opposition. I left everything on my desk, scribbled a note to my secretary, grabbed my purse and left the building. "
"He was within the-said fifteen minutes. The minute I saw his face, I knew something was wrong. I sat in the car and waited for him to spill. My mind flitted with various possibilities ranging from his being sacked, to his having an extra-marital affair with my best friend. But, when he started the engine, I saw he had been crying."
" This was most unusual. He could be quite romantic and sentimental, cruel and heartless at times too, but he was not a tender-hearted guy. I was surprised and concerned."
"I found myself asking him what disturbed him so much and was it because of me? If it was, I was willing to apologize and not let it happen again."
" He turned the car back into the park and stopped the engine again. He turned to me and said," Tania's school called me. The principal has arranged a meeting with a hematologist at St. Mary's Hospital. Tani has leukemia,"he said and restarted the engine, unable to look into my unbelieving eyes anymore."
"I cannot remember how or at what time we reached the Hospital. How we even manged to find the doctor's room, I cannot recollect. All I remember is sitting in front of the desk of Dr.Rastogi, waiting for him to come into the room to talk to us. He came within five minutes of our arrival and he turned out to be much younger than I expected. I recollect I was thinking that this man would not be much over forty. He washed his hands, dried them on a towel and sat in his chair. He pulled out one plastic file and studied it. I wished he would go on reading and we would never have to hear what was in it. I wished time to freeze a this very moment."
"Eventually he did speak, he said that our daughter had acute lymphocytic leukemia, a disease which affects 5000 children each year."
"What followed was a series of questions which he framed himself and answered himself. My husband and I were unable to speak or think clearly. We were behaving like we were watching a drama in front of our eyes. None of it seemed real."
"What was real, was the therapy charted out for our daughter, and to prepare her for all the medications."
"For the next month, Tani underwent many medical examinations and her medication was optimized. She showed remarkable improvement after the first two courses of medication, but starting from this year, her little body has stopped responding to any treatment."
"She suffers from incessant colds and is fatigued after even the smallest exercises. She has started to lose weight, and I cannot help worrying for her and tying various threads around her little wrists, waiting for some God to help and cure her.
"Otherwise, she is very happy with all the attention showered on her by the whole extended family, and now for the first time in her life, she has the undivided attention of her mother. I have stopped working full time, and I work mainly from home. I need to see her every moment she is at home and I now grudge even the hours she spends in school."
"On our last chemo, the doctor told us it would the maximum which could be administered and she would need at least two months to recover. This was more than four months back now, and she still has a constant temperature, bouts of vomiting, followed by cramps and nausea and pain all over her body."
"Today, doctors don't give a frame on a terminally ill patient's life, because, according to them, there could always be a miracle. It seems wrong to say this but I know and so does my husband, that there are no miracles in store for Tani. She has deteriorated so much that walking even a step is difficult. We use a wheelchair or mostly, carry her around. She still smiles continually and what pains us most are the questions she asks us about her affliction. We don't know whether we should give her all the facts in a simplified way or make it seem like an ordinary childrens' disease."
"For the first time in our marriage, my husband has lost the will to control and dominate me. He spends all his time reading up medical books and watching medical documentaries on Discovery. For the first time in my life, I am praying everyday, and hoping against hope that some doctor somewhere will design some miraculous therapy for our daughter."
"Every night, as I lie down with my daughter (yes, I sleep with her nowadays), I wish I will see her better in the morning, but every morning she seems to weaken a little more. I have started making hand puppets for her so that she stays entertained in her room, she is also learning to read a bit of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, and I promised her a Tom Sawyer dress and a paint bucket for her upcoming birthday in August."
"As she sleeps in the afternoon, I find myself reminiscing about my pregnant days with her, her baby days, her first day at kindergarten, her first trousers, her first words, her first tooth....all in a jumble. I always wanted our baby to be more successful and happier than either of us were, and I wanted always to hire a sorceress to look into a crystal ball to see the future. Only, our sorcerer was Dr. Rastogi and his crystal ball was the medical file. He had clearly and unemotionally told us what we had to expect and overcome.
"So Chitra, I got my wish to know my future. It is so much difficult now, I don't know what a mother would feel if her baby died in a car crash instantly, but its terribly difficult for me to see my little girl sinking a little more everyday. It is difficult to lie to her and say that the pain will go away, and it is more difficult to know that everyday her pain will be greater and her dose of pain-killing medication will keep increasing."
" I got my wish to see my future, at least the immediate future. I know what to expect, but is it in my power to improve the situation in any way?"
"Chitra, never wish for a crystal ball. Because, you might get the chance to get what you wished, only to realize that you would not want it that way at all."
Needless to say, after this conversation, we were unable to digress to other cheerful matters. Its been a week, and now I feel a little apprehensive about what I will hear if I call her. Do I want the crystal ball anymore? No, I think not.
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