Rini MathewThese times are assuredly distressing. Nothing seems normal. While I pen these words being kissed by Covid 19, I have something to share from solid experience which has worked well for me and also for those around me.
This world has been drifting from time to time with constraints on relationship, affection, emotion dwindling with the hustle and bustle of a busy life. We all have ups and downs in life but ever thought of sitting for months on a lopsided table?
Hope this genuine experience helps you combat for a better Life than a mere Survival!
This is the story of Akira who fought her fear. We all have an Akira residing within us. Let these pandemic times meet you all in the best of heart , health, soul and mind. Fight the fear with frivolity and flounder high!
Sizzling sausages, crispy fries, spicy crab treats, ginger chilly prawns…..
Akira’s taste buds got tickled by the tempting aroma. This is an experience of transcendence which unlocked her from the ‘sores of life’ to ‘soar higher’.
Life was savoured thus and Fitness was just another word for Akira. She succumbed to weekend delights devouring all the fast food. She was indeed FAST and FURIOUS in her diet. Her heart throbbed to these ‘irresistible’ delicacies!
Engrossed in the chicken pops and chilled fizzy coke running down her food pipe she lets out a sumptuous burp. And she was ALL SET for a new week.
This was a perception programmed in her mind which laid the carpets to reparation in due course.
Akira had so much within her. She conversed about it to the ‘Bells and Pomegranates’.
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Her mother considered Akash a blessing, the only son in the family. One finds delight in getting two soap cases free on purchasing a Talcum powder. Akira and her sister Akansa were the soap cases and Akash was expected to spread fragrance!
Sometimes thuds, knocks or a hard pound on her door, were cues from Mum for Akira to have meals. The girl spent her time in isolation. The initial phase in desolation and the final phases in postulation. ‘A room of one’s own’ was her only solace where she read and slept. None spared a second for shared thoughts or conversation with her.
She felt an excruciating pain when stares and sighs greeted her at the living room of her own house.
There was a needless urgency to commute many crossroads and sanctify this House into a ‘Home’. The library, museum and fast food corners were Akira’s consoling zones. She enjoyed watching a little dumpling pushing a fish crisp into its mother’s mouth… a father caressing the hair of his little girl donned in a peach laced frock… a boy walking to the counter holding the hands of his parents…
Akira drowned her wedged life in the potato wedges from her plate.
On the night of her cousins wedding, while flipping through the vivid photographs of the couple, she ran her fingers over her head.
She sensed something and tried peeling it off. It came off with much stubbornness.
Her FAST mind convinced her ‘Oh that’s just unnoticed dirt which got spared during my FAST shower’.
‘Even after a hair mask, thorough oiling and massaging, why my scalp is thus?’ wondered Akira over a week. The ‘dirt’ was obstinate. More scales appeared to be strewn furiously over her head.
What were those?
Silver scales like that on a fish?
Or were those unpalatable stares and sighs taking shape as scales?
Akira tried her best to traverse through these tedious days from the pangs of the new companion. The bells and pomegranates could not help her, and the populace of the unknown resident needed help.
‘OK that’s it! I need to decipher and diffuse this thing’ muttered Akira and she decided to introduce her new companion to a doctor. He examined it and prescribed an ointment.
‘Go and adorn another queen you silver crown… my coronation is over with this ointment’ rebuked Akira as she applied it over her scalp.
No one knew or bothered to know what Akira was up to. Their bitterness failed to embitter her and the hopes of a clean scalp dawned on her. She checked-in to CHECK if her silver guest had checked- out. To her dismay she was at checkmate!
But the scales were scorching like red hot blisters now. She flung the ointment into the bin sobbing at the din of her scalp.
The cacophony disturbed her inner peace. She mumbled about it to her Mom who substantiated her helplessness with a hopeless “ohh.. I seeee”
What could be seen?
What were those sheens on the shores of her head?
It irked and flopped and twitched her soft scalp.
She got weary and tired of it.
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According to her Mum, Dr. Ramanan Gupta was the best dermatologist available in town. She accompanied Akira, out of curiosity. Akira construed that the multispecialty hospital was really ‘special’ in conducting ‘multiple’ tests to diagnose a cold!
The doctor asked for a few details and pushed a prescription across his table. “It is a skin condition called Scalp Psoriasis and you need to have these medicines. Meet me after ten days with all the reports of these blood tests “was the only statement made.
“Doctor, I have NEVER had this before. How and why now?” asked a debilitated Akira.
He raised his eyebrows and said without a tinge of expression “From now on you will have this, okay?? Its caused due to several factors…maybe diet…maybe stress…. maybe weight gain… take these medications! ”
“Maybe.. maybe…maybe’ such a BABY in clarifying my doubt.
‘From NOW ON you will have this’, what did he mean??? As if I am gifted with a diamond ring to flaunt on from now on…” pondered Akira on the unsatisfying reply from the doctor.
“I’m not happy with the way he put it across the table” told Akira to her mother.
Years of constrained and constipated conversations led to surging anger, anxiety and anguish between the mother and daughter.
The scales were fast and frivolous and Akira grew furious over it. The lotions helped in dissolving it but not in solving anything. The hard thuds and pounds on the door changed to gentle taps now.
Hot showers over fresh bruises unmasked a pricking scalp which got temporarily satiated by the ‘trickling’ lotion. Akira longed for a permanent solution!
She was relaxed after the painful procedure and dreamt of a fairy popping over the lavender blooms on a heavenly zest. It played a mellifluous tune on the lyre and Akira floated with her. She could feel a light greenish yellow fluid flowing down her head.
Wow, it was an elixir!
This scene resonated in her ears as she sipped tea after her reverie.
Ayurveda… What about it?
The dream revoked her senses to dial the last medical helpline in her list ‘Dr. Kannan Devasy’.
Akira fixed an appointment and was never in disappointment to introduce her silver tiara to another doctor.
“Your body isn’t happy with you and desperately calls for a change in your lifestyle.
Come for therapy. Reduce weight and be not mean in including ‘greens’ to your diet, as it means a lot!
But remember these are only catalysts which aids in healing, it should happen from WITHIN. Be not sorry for anything. Just follow my instructions and take it easy smiled Dr. Kannan
Akira was now amenable. It’s a physical reaction to her undulating chemical and biological life mode!
That day Akira accepted this silver companion.
‘It is a part of me. Everything is fine. This should be my blessing and not a curse. It is fast in reaction so I need to be faster in action.’ She ran her fingers gently over her head and felt it. The abnormal patches conformed to the abnormal relationship prevalent in the house.
The list of do’s and don’ts from the doctor was like an ocean. And ‘NO FAST FOOD’ was the iceberg in that ocean. She got hit by it and split into two halves thinking of WHAT? and HOW?
These scales recited itchiness on the head. Exercise was essential to reinstate herself.
Walk… Walk…. Push up… Sit ups…. Run…
These activities made her thighs cry in pain but in vain,
She faked illness but got baked by her trainer!
FITNESS to Akira was F-Fatigue, I-Indolence, T-Tedious, N-Negligence, E-Erratic,
S-Superfluous and S-Scorn.
A diary became the priority over Dairy products, to munch, chomp and melt down her thoughts.
She penned them on the pages of her brown diary.
‘YES! But I have to be fast and furious to fight back this silver darling.
I AM THE CURE!
The denudations in all relationships now sailed in Fellowship. A coercive smile or a laugh circumscribed in the air. Arkansa sat beside me and rubbed my palms against her. I still curl closer to her to ‘feel the butterfly’ on my palms with her curled eyelashes.
A stroll down the dilapidated garden revived my inner yearnings for earning something new. The upturned pots, decaying plants, rusty sprinkler, and broken spade featured the inmates of our house. I retired back to my room, hoping to see the fairy from my dream sometime. The syrups and medicines were bitter but it was for the better.
Mum volunteered to accompany me for the fourth visit to the hospital.
The same pale yellow green liquid from my reverie trickled down my forehead. Every drop purged my senses. The cool fluid was like a cherubim fluttering over my face. It repaired all the insinuations of my past. I floated over the lavender spread. The fairy held my hand and smiled. I saw the curve of assurance. I measured every angle of this curve on the angel. ‘
Mum waited beside Akira, for her to descend from her fairyland. Akira opened her eyes to the same curve on her face, tipped with same earnestness as on the fairy.
This was the smile of the womb!
Tears welled up in her eyes.
‘Walk walk, talk talk …
Walk the Talk is what I learnt.
To push up my body and ignite my mind
I learnt to sit up on my disease
and run steadily on the track.
Going green helped me to embrace the essential colours of life.
All I did was to relish and cherish these moments and FITNESS is now to me:
Fervor, Immunity, Thrill, Nutrition, Exuberance, Selflessness, Success’
Akira recorded these words carefully in her diary. The next stroll was on a rejuvenating garden. A small pot of white rose caught her attention. ’Mum planted it for you ‘Akash answered her inquisitive mind.
Could only an unexpected diagnosis bring about this unexpected turn in her life?
Was it sympathy or the love of a mother that reduced the hard pounds on the door to sanguine pounding of heart?
All presumptions propitiated love, care and joy at right proportions.
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This delay laid the present foundation, to replay the past and adorn the future!
Akira sat at her desk:
‘I quiver with happiness. ‘A friend in need is a friend in deed.’ Those scales became my friend at the need of the hour to revamp my unfitting deeds to ‘fitting and fighting deeds.’ The transience of my room, from a refugee camp to a rehabilitating centre is what I can recollect now.’
The scales were inappropriate but compliance of it seems to be the appropriate remedy. In order to affront it, confrontation was the best path laid by Akira. The scales began to thin down and sometimes it decided to fall off without any medication.
‘My silver companion taught me to regulate and reinstate my life. A personified form of psoriasis helps me to ‘soar, as it is’, that is, to fly high with life as it is….
In order to soar high we must leave anything that weighs us down. I contemplate no more on my anxieties on Mum’s sudden optimism. The curve on her face is genuine as white as the roses in the garden…..
Love and lots of love,
Akira.
Akira closed her diary to watch the pattering drops of rain drawing FRESH patterns on the window pane…
Turning over the pages of the story what is Fear??
This four letter word is easy to spell and write but toxic once it takes over. In a crisis situation as this, rely only on the reliable. Tune your ears to the channels, stations and people who think for the better. The vibes radiated are contagious.
Let me brief on this with an example of an upturned situation. People are a product of different circumstances. Having relatives or parents or in laws or anybody who show unpleasant faces could spoil one’s plans and mood for the day.
These are supple and simple situations but could mar a person for a lifetime if not dealt with properly.
The longer the faces, the darker the impact could be. A word, a sigh, a look or even a tap can elude positivity whereas a smile, a hug, a pat could propitiate the tremors of hope.
Scalp psoriasis is a dermatological condition caused due to growth of cells at irregular intervals of time. Emotional stress and strain are the major factors for this condition.
Fear begins to lodge within you without any prior ‘registration’ sapping all energy required to propel your life forward.
Low ebb of mental insecurity can definitely push you to a state hazardous than the pandemic. Do not suppress or refrain from clarification in any matter. Your intuitions are always right and stop ignoring it. Avoid mediators and unreceptive people in your dealings. Remember that no one has to be taught to listen! We are born to be social animals but social distance is the preventive measure these days.
Believe that things don’t remain fallen apart forever. Everything reinstates and restores back to track when you pave the way for it. Do not stoop to be conquered but to conquer smiles.
So FEAR becomes: Forget Everything And Relish!
There was a time when I was at the verge of freezing myself but accepting what I AM helped me to fight and take off in a flight of joy, prosperity and peace.
Remember to always trust, accept and confide in yourself first because when you are peace with yourself, the world will also be at peace with you!
