Catharsis

For the last few months, I was operating on auto-pilot with the simplest default mode on. I was probably worse than a robot as at least a robot, has some direction configured. If someone had asked me to describe myself, then I’d have been at a loss! Let’s see what could have fit …

A process consultant? Eh!

An aspiring writer? I wish!

A health enthusiast? There have been days!

An experimental baker? Huh huh!

A questioning traveller? I try!

An awesome flower-chaser? Well… Yes!

That is one out of six … one and half if I give myself some benefit of doubt. That’s about it.

But now … I have at least one answer.

That I am still a person – and not a bad one at that. My consistent second-guessing of my mental state and of the Void I was peddling in is at peace. I am loving this … experience – it’s not quite a vacation- I don’t want to box it in. I have earlier written about the work my mother has been doing in the tribal village areas of Northeast India – possibly the most cut-off part of the country both culturally and geographically.

Since five days I have been immersed in the medical camps and the cathartic sense of purpose. These days are more real to me than the last few months. I am with people who still struggle for the most basic of facilities – for whom the word “doctor” is a distant dream. Yet the warm welcome, the outstanding hospitality and attention to details are simply wonderful! There is no power play, there is no politics, there is no personal vendetta. These are people who know work has to be done and are bent over backwards to ensure the dental camps operate smoothly.

No hiccup is too bad. No hurdle is too great. Why worry when there is a problem to be solved? Where there is a will… there is a way or at least a workaround! (I witnessed numerous classic textbook examples). Here I worried about my future, my life decisions while these people have no idea about their present. Yet they smile, yet they toil and yet they put the people above the individual. And for these fleeting moments, I am a part of this system, feeling their confusion, their pain and their hope.

I want to hold on to this warmth. As I write this after climbing half a hill to get range, I feel the cooling warmth of the autumn sun illuminating the valleys of rice fields and misty mountain tops. I want to bottle this light in a crystal decanter and preserve the pulse of those golden rays around me. A reminder that I too am living, breathing and thinking organism.