Pain Redefined....

Pain- Something that knows no limits and understands no boundaries. I had the ‘opportunity’ of experiencing two different limits of the ultimate teacher of the human race (maybe living beings). The end of semester exams marks one of my happiest moment , as i get to go home and live life my kingsize way. This time i happened to book a ticket in Howrah mail, which leaves from Chennai. Everything was fine and well until we discovered how Lalu was managing to generate so much profit in railways. He had converted the side upper and side lower seats into a 3 tier i.e. instead of 2 people now 3 people will be sharing the already shrinked space.

To add to the problems i had the middle berth which meant that only half my body would fit the space and half will be left dangling outside. So here the situation was a bit grim. I was travelling by train after a long long time because the airline operators had stopped giving free tickets and the rising fuel prices were a bit too much of a luxury to pay. Barely had i stopped ruing my fate, there came another news. The train was filled with patients coming from Chennai and it’s adjoining areas, two of which were right infront of our seats. I as a person just can’t stay with people who are undergoing suffering and pain (quite a paradox considering the fact that i live in a slum area and am part of BDO, but then in life you don’t have many choices...). So all this was too much for men (read painful) and i was contemplating a change of seat until i noticed that one of the ‘patient’ was actually a kid of about 5 month old.

The child had plaster all over his legs and hands and a pipe ran through it’s right nose. Watching him i was reminded of my childhood state, related to me vividly by my parents and sisters. As of now even if i have a clogged nose i feel a lot of pain and discomfort and here i was watching a cute little kid who was playing silently instead of a pipe being thrust against his slender nose. Forgetting all my inhibitions and thoughts i started talking to his mother (ya and by the way thanks to lalu the 3 tier compartment was looking like a general compartment with more number of people being cramped into with less baggage space). His mother revealed that any kind of food intake earlier was directly entering his lungs thus creating respiratory problems. So now he had a pipe through which food was fed. On being asked how i got the most gross but true explanation that a child can be fed. Milk was poured into the pipe and then her mother blew into it until it went inside. I wondered how until i was given a demonstration which sent me outside the compartment with my head spinning.

So here we are. I was passing off a luxury as a pain until i realised how lucky i was to eat through my mouth. More than the plight of the child i was thinking about the condition of the mother. She was barely 25 and so much to endure. There was not a slightest of complaint. She was all chirpy and cheerful and kept playing with the kid. It’s not that she was made that way. Seeing that child i was feeling pity for him but her mother was blank. Maybe it was because of the continuous ‘pain’ she had endured all through. Maybe it was one of acceptance but i was startled. Hats off to her and all the moms of the world who keep their spirits alive instead of countless hardships on their path......