FRIENDS HAVE TO BE NURTURED FOR YEARS

Shoumojit Banerjee, correspondent of'  ' The Hindu '  reports from Mumbai. ( ' The Hindu ' of 25.06.2013)

Mr.Uddhav Thackeray, President, Shiv Sena wrote in Saamana , "Allies do not grow on trees. Friends have to be nurtured for years with trust and service. They are not like seasonal crops which can be grown with water and fertilizers and then be plucked for use."

Mr. Thackeray has stated a wonderful principle that is often ignored by most of us. No one can survive in the world without friends. Unfortunately people think that their riches will be enough to see them through their travails. The wise follows the principle exhorted  and lead successful lives.

C. A. Chacko  who had struggled  through the horrors of  Second World War while he was at Singapore had found solace from the following quotation. (Author unknown)

" Riches take wings
  Comfort vanish
  Hope withers away
  But love stays with us "

REMORSELESS KILLER ON THE PROWL

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Shajan spoke to me today. He said that Jolly is fighting her best to live. She is in the Hospital. She cannot swallow food in the form of solids or liquids. She throws up.  Doctors have prescribed nasal feeding to stabilize her. 

Jolly suffers from cancer.

We had visited her the previous Wednesday. She was on morphine. We could see that she was enduring great pain. We had felt that she could not go on for long. We did feel that death was waiting in front of her to snatch her away.   The pity of it was that her doctors did not prepare the family for the inevitable that was very close. They were fed with false hopes.

It has been three years since the family took cancer head on. Jolly had to undergo mastectomy. Radiation and Chemotherapy followed. It was painful. It was expensive. Shajan was employed. Jolly was a homemaker. They have two children, a boy and a girl. The girl was eighteen  when cancer had gate  crashed into their peaceful world. The boy was only a child at that time. The family was never rich.

Though Jolly showed signs of recovery there was a relapse. The cancer started to make inroads into her body. Her condition at the moment is quite unstable. She cannot lie on her bed. She cannot sleep. She cannot sit. She cannot walk. She cannot stand as her legs are swollen.  She cannot speak.

Shajan asked me to pray for Jolly. He said his daughter who is twenty one  has already lived the life of a forty year old. The last three years were cruel to her. She had to balance her life with different chores. She had to attend  college. She had to write her exams. She had to do the cooking at home. She had to attend to her mother. She had to spend a good part of the three years in the hospital as Jolly had to be admitted  there many times.

Shajan tells me that his son had cried his heart out when he saw his mother at the hospital with the nasal tube. A child takes time to assimilate. 

Shajan was weeping when he was on the phone. He recalled what he had been through his whole life. I needed no reminder as I knew it all. He said it was only in the year 2001 he was able to find a good job. It had been horrible till then.  He says he had started to live a good life from that year only. The good fortune did not last even for a decade.

Shajan does not know what to do. Despite all that he has done with the limited resources he could marshal he knows Jolly’s condition is critical.

Cancer is deadly. It destroys the person. It destroys the family. Cancer, the remorseless killer on the prowl, is the worst enemy of mankind.

Prayer alone can bring solace to the lives of Shajan, Jolly and their children. They seek the prayers of the whole world for the survival and well being of Jolly.

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I wrote this yesterday, the 11th of June,2013.

I woke up this morning with dark forebodings. It is 12th June,2013.

Jolly passed away at 7.10 AM today. It is tragic for the family. The loss is irreplaceable. Shajan has lost his wife and the children their dear mother.

Jolly was a good soul. True to her name she had always been jovial. She had an indomitable spirit.