Sumedha Rao's Blog

In the midst of a rough week, counting down the days until I can breathe again, Wednesday reared its ugly head, fangs bared. In the middle of a particularly unsightly procedure, yet another call from the General Surgery OPD breaks me out of my almost zombie-like reverie. Run, they say. Don’t walk. An empty OPD, nurses laughing through their lunch, and a lone elderly man in the waiting room, staring at something on the tiles before him. My patient? I signal to the nurses. A nod.

As I undrape his previous dressing to do my own, I try to fill in the monotony with conversation. Make the man in front of me feel at ease. Patient care, they call it. Basic humanity, I say.

As I learn more about him, a side of me that I had buried for the past 3 weeks opens its tired eyes. The patient in question is a 70 year old male, ulcers on both his calves, cause yet unknown. As I proceed to clean the wounds and dress his feet, he tells me he is unemployed, that his sons are drivers and plumbers, and that his daughters don’t work. When I ask why, he shrugs. Daughters, he says. I don’t push it. After I lead him out, he folds his hands and requests me to admit him in the free ward. I look at him quizzically, and he explains.

He explains that he lives in a village that is much too far to travel to and fro for alternate day dressings. I ask him how far it is, and he explains the distance to me in terms of how much it costs to travel to the hospital. A catch in my breath, and then I assure him.

He folds his hands again. He says he is grateful he will now be able to eat 3 good meals a day in a comfortable bed. I smile at him, and my phone rings again. It’s the clinic. Run, they say. Don’t walk.

I remember it like it were yesterday. A not-so-close friend of mine came up to me and told me that someone he knew said the things I write were good – but “too depressing”. Too sad.

I remember it like it were yesterday, because the minute he said that – with an air of stupid superiority – I took out my phone and deleted every single thing I had ever written. Every note, every blog post. It was almost a year before I started writing again.

A writer I admire a lot once said that people romanticize their pain to not feel as broken as they really are. They romanticize their pain, write poetry about it and bleed onto papers to morph their brokenness into something beautiful.

Something hit home when I watched her explain my insecurities so beautifully.

The positivity movement is a myth. It’s okay to feel blue and make art out of it – but it is not okay to immerse yourself in those waves, paint yourself a permanent blue and identify with it.

I wish I could take a flight and knock on that friend’s door and ask him – wouldn’t his brokenness the past year have been easier to deal with had he made art out of it? Wouldn’t it be better had he battled it out, waged war on those who had broken him? Wouldn’t it have been so much easier had he screamed, shouted at the unfairness of it all?

The positivity movement is a myth.

I feel things so deeply and I feel them all and I am so so proud of it.

The semicolon stands as a message of solidarity and affirmation against mental health issues like depression, addiction, anxiety and suicide. While it is a strong and empowering symbol of a person’s ability to write their own story and overcome challenges, the meaning behind it also makes it a particularly vulnerable choice to get as a tattoo.

For me, it symbolizes hope in the face of despair. The light at the end of the tunnel(however cliche that may sound). It is a reminder of how far I have come and how much further I have left to go.

I think it is beautiful to be able to open up and tear down your lead walls in a world that is so hell-bent on being unkind. A world immersed in hatred and cruelty.

According to Google, there are 3 main reasons one gets a semicolon tattoo.

I keep seeing posts about how “happy girls are the prettiest” and I think there’s nothing that describes the stigma of our society more than this statement.

I feel like everyone has a survival instinct. It’s just that every person has a different belief with respect to what is key to their survival, or what they lacked in the past that made them feel this way, this inadequate.

For example, if someone believed that to live(or to exist), they needed people to love them, or look up to them(seeking validation, basically), their instinct would be to manifest that belief into behaviors like attention-seeking.

So why do we judge someone who has different behaviors than us, who would react to a situation in a different way than us? We may not agree with it, which is fine, but why do we actively judge them? Everyone you see is just fighting tooth and nail to survive. Everyone you meet is just following their own survival instincts. If something someone says or does disrespects you, set your boundaries and walk away – but what’s the point in spending your healing energy in judging them?

We’re all different, we all think differently and have our own choices to make and our own lives to live, so what’s the point in sitting there and judging?

Let people post whatever they want on social media.

Let people be vulnerable.

Let them shout and cry and scream.

Let them talk without you judging their words.

Let them feel too much, or too little.

Let people live, while you walk ahead and live your own lives however you want to.

Just move on. Live and let live.

For months now I’ve been at peace with my solitude and this picture – smooth, clear blue water. Sunny skies. Not even the breath of the gentlest breeze. Working day and night – for myself and by myself. Whenever I looked at the bruise, it was healing – every day it healed – from red to purple to brown to pink. And then it no longer hurt, either.

So I decided to rock the boat a little – get back out there, maybe feel a few feelings. It had been a long time, after all. Was life supposed to be so uneventful? The thought wasn’t unsettling, no – far from it – it was merely curious.

And then I ran from the match I had struck, even though it barely caught fire, and the adrenaline rush was so unnerving I ran from that, too.

I thought about how broken someone has to be to be so terrified of fire, so terrified of anything that even remotely made the surface of the clear blue water a little unsteady – and I wondered if I was that broken.

Bent, not broken.

This lockdown due to the COVID-19 outbreak has been a pain to most of us. Many people are facing a relapse of the mental health issues they have worked so hard to keep at bay – anxiety, frustration, depression, OCD.

For my part, I have decided to try my hand at fulfilling a lifelong dream – my dream to write a book, and watch it influence many people. To actually have it be a success.

Other than that, I’ve been studying, and Amma has taken to forcibly making me watch Mahabharata with her twice a day.

I must say, it is pretty interesting, and the special effects are amusing, for the most part. I’m not saying that I believe in it, because I’m pretty sure I don’t, but it is interesting all the same. The dialogues and concepts embedded in this epic have found their way to be applicable even now, in these times, in the 21st century.

Today I decided to call my grandmother – Amma’s mom, after a long time. I told her about how Amma has been making me watch Mahabharata with her every day.

Somehow, the conversation steered in the direction of its concepts and the lessons it finally imparts.

She said a few things that hit home, and I’d like to share a few things here with you.

You see, there isn’t a single person living who is devoid of bad qualities. But there isn’t a single person living who is devoid of good qualities, either. She began by telling me Krishna’s good qualities – he was a good politician, counsellor, ruler, etc. So I countered by saying, of course he is perfect ; he is an avatar of Vishnu, isn’t he?

“See, whomever has good qualities, guna, is an avatar of God.”

I contemplated this for a second. “Even those who decide to terrorize hundreds of innocent people all over the world? Osama?” I asked her.

“Of course,” She said, without hesitation. “After all, according to psychology, perfection is a myth. Krishna too had his share of bad qualities. Look at how he guided Bhima to kill Duryodhana. It was unethical. Yet he is an avatar of God.”

I guess the bottom line is that(naive as it may sound), there are no bad people or good people in this world. We all have our share of flaws, of insecurities, and we have our share of goodness, empathy and love, too. With Manna’s logic then, don’t we all have the energy in us that some of us call “God”?

I have hated so many for the things they have subjected me to. I have hated my situation, myself, for the mistakes I have made. I have hated life, I have hated love. I have hated those that have hurt me so badly I wondered if I would ever recover. I hated those who judged me without knowing my story, those who refused to listen to me, those who never forgave.

Today I vow to see the good in people. Today I vow to forget, and forgive, and love, despite its reciprocation. Because everyone you meet houses “God” in them. And today, the faith that had been stolen from me a year ago has finally returned. I am finally whole again.

I think I’m finally clean.

today I sat at my table willing myself to do something productive. I sat by myself in my room with a cup of coffee my mom had made, handing me the cup with a swift kiss on my head.

I thought of the night before when I sat in my living room, watching the news as this 21 day lockdown was announced. I had felt so claustrophobic! So suffocated – and I was one of the lucky ones who got to be at home.

Today I smile to myself and reflect. I think of if they told us this was a mistake, that the virus wasn’t so bad, that our lives could go back to normal from tomorrow onwards.

What would that mean for me?

A quick ticket booked, a bus back to the place I had chosen to derive an education from.

As this thought crosses my head, a sense of panic and claustrophobia a hundred times worse grips me in iron claws. I struggle against it, but it does not yield.

I laugh mirthlessly to myself – freedom has now taken on a different meaning altogether.

Freedom isn’t just being able to walk out your front door and socialise. It isn’t just being able to order pizza and not having to go all the way to the main gate to collect it.

Freedom is bigger than that. It is being able to walk through a crowd without feeling eyes on you. It is being able to return a smile without questioning the intention behind it. It is the feeling of safety, safety from being called names you couldn’t even imagine being called. Freedom is having your kindness reciprocated. It is the ability to walk alone, head held high, meeting the eyes of the people you pass.

This lockdown: staying indoors with the people you’re so comfortable with – is a luxury.

What is a cage is the place I return to eventually – a place with venom in every person I cross.

You see, here’s the thing – we are told again and again that the key to success is hard work. Work hard, they say. Practice, and keep at it. Get that degree and THAT is when you are successful. THAT is your accomplishment. NOWHERE will they tell you that being a kind human being with basic human compassion is equally(if not more) important.

I say BASIC human compassion because really, this shouldn’t even be a issue. But you’d be surprised.

Too many stories of fat-shaming, intimidation, shaming people on the basis of THINGS THEY CANNOT(or find it difficult to) CONTROL, like weight, complexion, acne, friends, marks, lifestyle, etc. have been buzzing around.

“Oh my god, why is she wearing that?”

“He doesn’t even know that much? It was such an easy question!”

“She’s hanging out with him now? What a slut.”

“Have you seen her social media? Such an attention seeker.”

Why is being different something to shame people about?

LIVE AND LET LIVE, for fucks sake.

Would you rather be kind or smart?

It has been months since something I wrote out of a place of pain was published on such a remarkable platform. Sometimes I still can’t believe they chose it. But it has taken me months to spot the flaw. You see, I do not want to find myself years from now longing for ghosts. I do not want to be damaged beyond repair. We must not cling to ghosts because they are familiar but realise that tomorrow is going to be so much more magical IF ONLY WE LET IT. This is the flaw.

I do not want to be Izumi Ohara with ghosts etched on my face.