A Year with Mother: The evolution of a Mumma’s Boy.

(Note: This article was first drafted  in mid 2016. And well, it then remained in the drafts. Residency or some other thing took me away from writing. With the lockdown, once during a conversation with a friend, we got discussing a blog I used to once write. I lamented how I’ve lost the zeal to write, but we decided at least there must be an attempt to reignite an old hobby. It’s Lockdown 4.0, and I still haven’t come up with anything original of substance to write about, but then this draft caught my eye. So, a lot of this is from 2016, and some from 2020. Four years on, I’m baffled how drastic drift my ethos has taken. And thus my attempt to chart an evolution.)

“You’re a total Mumma’s boy!” exclaimed Pallavi as I cracked yet one more of my famous (or infamous, nonetheless, as they say, no fame is bad fame) standup type jokes. There was no audience (cause three’s a crowd but there were just the two of us), but I’m sure if there was one, I would have been mobbed (for autographs and selfies, of course).

Pallavi is a simple creature, pure of heart and not much wit. She gets fascinated by simple things. Like the other day, when I showed her my new phone (edit 2020: Still using the same phone), her eyes lit up with excitement – “Isme to front facing flash hai!!” (edit 2020: At that time there was no Oppo, Vivo and mine was perhaps one of the first phones [yes it is Chinese, but whose phone isn’t] to have a front facing flash. Tech Savvy, ain’t I?)

So, a post call 1^st year resident (i.e. Pallavi) realising and emphasising my mumma’s boy status meant that the cat was out of the box. And that has got me thinking. How do I quantify this trait? On a scale of 1 to 10, where do I stand?

For one, all through the five and half years of MBBS (internship included. Do i smell someone one fire?)  I’ve been going home for lunch, being served fresh hot fluffy rotis. Well, if your house is 5 minutes walking distance from College, who wouldn’t go home. In my defence, during my 12^th I used to carry two tiffins – one for breakfast and other for lunch. So, that definitely doesn’t count as a mumma’s boy attribute. Yet, I do concur with the observation. But scientific thinking mandates that conclusions have to be backed by plausible evidence (edit 2020: WHO/ICMR are you reading this?) Hmmmm.........

1^st August 2008 I joined the famed GSMC & KEMH, and thus began a romance, one which has only enriched me. Here, I’ve got the opportunity to bloom to a full potential, in both my academics and extracurriculars. Well, this is my second home, I intend to be here for much longer and many more innings (edit 2020: I won’t. And I’m much grateful for that. I now have many more places I call home viz. Delhi, Coimbatore..... and counting?)

But, what had happened over the past 5.5 years is that the home where I live had just become a boarding and lodging facilty. Go home, sleep. Eat food. Back to Gymkhana for all those youthful activities (edit 2020: Gymkhana is love.) Hopping from one activity to another, one semester to another and one exam to another has been so engrossing that one hasn’t realised that time has flown away. I joined MBBS as a 17 year old minor and by now I have voted in 3 elections, have a political ideology (edit 2020: That has watered down. Now, they are all just clowns in different colours.) I have a degree, I deal with life and death (edit 2020: no longer. Hope to continue to make life livable..... the quality of life aspect that I now deal with....... that’s content for another blog), and hope to save many more lives in the future by calculated heroisms that only medicine can offer one to do.(edit 2020: Meh!)

So many things have changed over these years, but there has been a steady backbone through all the trials and tribulations, like a shadow which never leaves – the constant called mother. Yes, there have been complaints that I have had towards her and she towards me and both have amicably communicated to each other. But, there has been a comfort in her presence and much of what I have been able to do, has been because of this emotional cushion that she has afforded.

In stark contrast to the ever absent from home 5.5 years of MBBS, this past year of preparing for NEET has been spent within the confines of home. I’ve talked more with mom this year than perhaps the last 6 years put together. She has stories to tell and I have more. And now dwelling on that innocuous observation that Pallavi, my dissection partner (not quite partner, she was afraid to dissect, so Owais and I did all the work. No complains, we loved dissecting. It was a mutual arrangement. Just one complain – she never went on a dieting fad or I would have gladly eaten all her cadburys as well),made brings me to the realisation that I have now come to see the white hair that she (mother, of course) has, much more than 6 years ago. 

Those fine wrinkles on her face, they weren’t there the last I recollect. So, while as much as I may claim that she’s been a constant, she probably has been largely relegated to being a shadow.

Have you seen your shadow carefully? Does it have a face? Does it have features? No. It only has a silhout. And you never bother to notice that because it’s just so taken for granted. People talk to mirrors when they are bored and not necessarily psychiatrically ill (edit 2020: most would’ve by now, courtesy the lockdown!), but no one talks to the shadow.

But this, year has given me an opportunity to see a face in that shadow. Indian boys are so attached to their mothers (edit 2020: this one still holds), and so am I. But the shadow with a face, makes me realize that the tables are turning. Sooner than later, as these wrinkles deepen and more of the hair turns white, a change of roles is on the card. I will be the care taker, her constant, her backbone. This happens to all and sultry.

But, what will be different? Well, for her I’ll always be the one with a face, the one she reads and deciphers- emotions that I have been unaware that I was experiencing – she always has. To her, I’ll never be a shadow. And this day forth, she’s definitely not a shadow anymore.

Post Edit 2020:

Long story short, in a couple of months I moved to Delhi for my residency. Over the 3 years in Delhi, I’ve learnt to cook, keep my books (financially), manage my groceries and shop for my clothes and wash them and iron them too. Mother has been visiting often, her trips ranging from 1 week to 1 month.

October 2019, I completed my postgraduation and moved back home in early November. Then, for two months I was home, till I moved to Coimbatore in early Jan 2020 for my fellowship. In the two months, while mother insisted on cooking breakfast, I realised that my food tasted better. So, from taking culinary instructions over the phone in the Nov of 2016, here I was dictating terms in the Nov of 2019. Minor tussle. Everyone’s happy now, cause my food tastes better. As mother says, there’s something in the hands of boys who cook. Yeah!!

Come Jan 2020, mother made a trip to Coimbatore. Something here was feeling new, the house wasn’t feeling like home. But, ever since she’s been here, it has been. In our temples we do pranpratisthan for the diety’s idol. Well, her visit was kind of a pranpratisthan for the house I live in now. 

After that 1 week visit was over, we had planned a longer one in March. This time we were to go around to Ooty and all the scenic hill stations around CBE. Just a few days before her departure from Mumbai, the frenzy around Corona was building up. Being at that stage in my career where most of my batchmates have joined as senior residents or lecturers or junior consultants, there was a flood of information about the landfall that this pandemic was going to make – raw data, the one that was not yet analysed or manipulated or disguised under official figures. Real on ground situation!! And that was still March, before the official lockdown.

So, in all sense of safety and security, it was mutually decided to postpone the trip to a safer time, say October, tentatively. How have the last two months been? Extremely stressful? Yes and no.

I am happy, I don’t get to go home. I can’t. I’m a thousand miles away. Also, I see patients. Wouldn’t have wanted to go home. Win-win.

But, there’s also always a moment every day, that I am scared and worried. Every time, I hear of some so and so case. Some batchmate testing positive. Of the shortage of hospital beds. Of being unable to be of any use, despite all the resources and contacts at my disposal, because, frankly, they themselves are stretched beyond imagination.

Ever since we’ve resumed OPDs since early May, I’ve been using a N95 mask daily. It is a torture. It drains your energy. It starves you of oxygen. And the headaches are like you’ve never experienced before. Then I speak to some friend. And I feel happy that at least I’m not wearing a full PPE in this sweltering May heat. At least, I am spared the dehydration and electrolyte imbalance.

A few days back, I was speaking to Mom about how bad the situation in Mumbai has become, and just as a fleeting thought I said "May be, I should’ve let you come over.” Then again, I remembered speaking to my friend, “At least you are lucky you’re getting a PPE!"

Can’t have both heads and tails, can we?

Going back to 2016, I had written 

“Sooner than later, as these wrinkles deepen and more of the hair turns white, a change of roles is on the card. I will be the care taker.”

Come 2020, am I? Not being around, is probably the best care that I can offer. We all are at nature’s mercy. I hope the answer is in affirmative, but only time can tell.

What makes a hero standout? He makes a sacrifice. And recollect, in 2016 I had a dream to undertake “calculated heroisms”. Well, at this point, to that end, we both are each others heros and rest is for fate to decide.

“Have you seen these guys?” one of my professors had once said. “30 year olds, still having their parents standing outside their exam halls. When will they ever cut the umbilical cord?” It was probably in context of DM entrances or MD final exams, I don’t recollect clearly, and he surely was unhappy that full grown adults were incapable of fending for themselves.

To Sir, I reply. Yes, I have cut the umbilical cord. Independent I am, a bird that has left his nest and gets his own worm. And that partly, is also the reason why mother dear isn’t as worried. 

I've tried to make her tech savvy. Pushed her out of the house as much as I could. In Delhi, I bought her a metro card and told her to go around sight seeing on her own, whilst I was in the hospital. She would then come home and tell me about easier routes around Delhi.

So mush so that, when she came to CBE, I told her that I’ll come to the station to pick her up, she actually sounded surprised. And that’s the reason why I am not as worried. I know, she’ll manage. 

The umbilical cord has been cut from both the ends. We now stand to each other as mirrors, not as shadows.

Coming to whether I’m still a mumma’s boy? 

Well, more than ever! On a scale of 1-10 where do I stand? at 11.

(P.S: That March ticket which she told me she’d cancelled – well she’d actually rescheduled it for April. This she told me in April when IRCTC messaged her that they’re not running the train. We both had a healthy laugh about it. 

It’s just not us, there are so many amongst us that yearn for our loved ones. My heart aches when I think of the tragedy that the poor migrants are facing, left high and dry. Were I to be a daily wager, I would also have taken this thousand mile journey for sure. 

But, we should be lucky to be privileged that we are – me for being able to write this, and you for being able to read.)