A few days back I had a thought, why do we celebrate any festival? Like I do many times, I tried to find a rationale of my own: through the festivals we celebrate humanity and its undying spirit. History tells us that whenever we were faced with challenges which seemed beyond our capabilities, each time we had come together and raised our capabilities and threshold, and every time we have survived the evil. But, why did I have this thought? It is the reason that I am writing this post.

About three weeks back I had a patient who came with pain and swelling due to a wisdom tooth which was stuck in the bone; we call it Impacted tooth. The patient was educated and seemed to belong to a decent wealthy family. As usual with any enthusiastic young doctor trying to educate his ignorant patient, without knowing the present status of the patient, I told her about the consequences of ignoring such impacted teeth and other problems in her mouth. Patiently, she heard everything and said, ‘I know doctor, I need to get them all corrected.’

‘What were you waiting for, until now?’

‘I shall get them done soon, one by one.’

‘If you are serious about what you have just said then that would be good for you, I have nothing to lose,’ when confronted the patients usually use escapism tactics. Until there is pain, there should be no problem. Worried about the hospital bills, she must have postponed the treatment by taking over the counter medications. And now, when the medications won’t act, she came to me.

Sensing my prejudiced mind, she told me her story.

                Her husband was an automobile mechanic in Saudi Arabia and lost his job about one year back. His employers didn’t even settle his due payment and threatened him with legal action if he pushed for the money. Afraid of getting stuck in a foreign land, he came back empty handed. He could not find a job here and his savings too didn’t last for long. The financial situation of the family worsened. It was about the same time when she first had pain. She admitted that she had ignored the mild pain initially due to fear of visiting a dental clinic, which she heavily regretted now. When her husband was well off in the gulf country he had helped many of his friends. One of whom was now a Panchayat member. The member helped him start a small business of extracting oil from coconut. He arranged whole sale dealers and a small industry which helped him dry and extract the oil. Both husband and wife worked day and night to extract as much oil as possible for them, but there were few takers for their oil as most of the traders had their agents, and would not risk irking them. So the production was decreased and hardly ten to fifteen litres of oil could be sold daily which was not even enough to meet their daily expenses. They withdrew their children from private school and admitted them to Government school.

                Life crawled like that for few months when another lightning hit them- the lock down. Even those few litres of oil daily sold meant ration for them and that too was gone now. They survived on the Government help for one month. She had thought of going for some other job, but her husband stubbornly refused to give up after investing so much energy and time in to it. They had only heard about blessing in disguise until then- the restricted transportation meant shortage of supplies; we Malayalees love coconut oil and can’t do without it, so demand could not be met. The traders agreed to try their coconut oil which proved better in quality and price than the ones they were importing from neighbouring districts and states. Gradually the sales increased to one hundred and fifty litres per day, and they had to hire two women for help. Now, they are planning to start a small independent unit under MSME scheme, the Panchayat member friend has promised every possible help. Although presently they have savings enough to send their children back to private school, they have decided to continue them in the Government school. They are satisfied with the education there. It is the survival in adversities that the children must learn, she told me.

                I did the treatment as needed, and as promised she visited again for the remaining treatments. After listening to her story, I felt moved and felt it must be shared. How adversities turn in to possibilities, is a subject which has attracted the human minds since they existed because it is this mojo of humanity which has helped us survive adversities- time after time, one after another, and from civilisations after civilisations.

                We are passing through a very difficult phase, no doubt. But, there should be no doubt that this too shall pass and together we shall overcome this too. This spirit of ours need to be celebrated, so once again friends- HAPPY ONAM to all of you.