Writing

Cats

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The Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at City Hospital, Belfast was a circus. Every day of the week a different clown (read Consultant) took charge of the ICU. What was right on a Monday was completely wrong on a Tuesday. The same action would be pronounced ‘perfect’ by one clown and ‘abhorrent’ by another. To make things even better, they didn’t talk to each other. The flunkies (read Junior doctors) were the in-betweeners that got lammed from both sides as their shifts crossed over time-territories. They were the pawns on the frontline that took over the running of the unit from one clown at the beginning of a shift and handed over to the other at the end of it. The flunkies dodged the arrows of conflict between the clowns – on the phones, in hospital corridors and at handovers. They were the ones that ran around all night looking after the sickest patients in the hospital, only to be lambasted the next morning. They were the buckets in which the bile of bitterness was collected, the one that the clowns didn’t have the gall to throw at each other.

In 2004, I was one of those flunkies. After about 8 months of this non-sense, I was done. I was loosing my sense of self, my confidence in making decisions and most importantly, the pride in my job. It was time to stop and take stock. After a nasty night shift, I was handing over the patients to the day team. At one point the Consultant said to me ‘you need your head examined’. That did it. I couldn’t bear to go home only to return to this hell-hole ten hours later. I walked into the Psychiatry Outpatient Department which was on the way to the car-park. There were two empty seats in the waiting area. I planted myself on one.
“Do you have an appointment?” one of the receptionists asked me.
“No. I don’t. I can wait for as long as it takes. I work here. If I am not seen today I may not come back tomorrow.” I didn’t fully comprehend what I was saying but it was my truth.

Dr Ingram was a handsome young psychiatrist with kind eyes and a small beer belly, well couched in his grey suit. He understood. He gave me 6 weeks off on grounds of ‘work-related-stress’ and started me on Fluoxetine. I was also seen five or six times by a therapist. She was a kind elderly lady who listened. She suggested getting a cat.

At the Antrim Animal rescue home an adorable black and white feline peered at Saagar’s dad and me from her cage. It was her eyes that got me – curious and twinkling, like a child. They said this little girl had been there for a month. Before that she’d had a rough life on the streets for a few months. Her right ear had a wedge missing from its edge. We decided to call her Bella. We were advised to keep her strictly indoors for at least 6 weeks, till she got familiarised with the smells of the house. She found her way to the tops of kitchen cabinets and radiator covers, squeezed behind sofas and underneath beds, inside shoes and suitcases. The only place she didn’t like was her brand new soft bed.

On our trip to the vet for a basic check-up, we were told that the she-cat was in fact a he-cat. After much discussion, Saagar’s dad’s choice of name came up tops. ‘Mr Bronx’, the old faithful. He soon became a source of great joy, comfort and hilarity for us. We had him playing with balls of wool, soft toys with bells and chasing the beam of a laser pen. He was pure joy but kept his distance. Slowly he let us stroke and cuddle him. His purring beneath the palms of my hand soothed my soul and made me feel deeply connected with this four-legged being. Within a month we were having full-fledged conversations.

The Fluoxetine made me feel like a zombie. No joy. No pain. No love.
It was dehumanising. At times it made me terribly restless but I stuck with it. It was proof that pills can’t make you happy. May be they take the edge off, but at a price. The best thing about that time was that I could rest. I was left alone. I had some control on my days and nights, which I had not had for years.

After 6 weeks, it was time to go back to work. I did. My schedule was reshuffled to ensure I didn’t spend much time working in ICU. It worked. I got back on my feet. Later I discovered that other junior doctors before me, had had similar unpleasant experiences, complaints had been made about the sad state of affairs at that hospital but nothing had changed on ground. It was an open secret, not spoken about while the abuse persisted and continued to break innocent young doctors down.

Nine years later, Saagar was home from University and I got a phone call from him at work. “Mamma, can we get a cat? I found one on Gumtree.”
That evening we went over to a tiny flat in Sydenham occupied by a black family of four – mum and three kids. On a window sill lounged another family of four, a grey mother-cat with her three grey kittens. Six weeks old. The kittens were being carried around the flat like rags by the kids. They didn’t care if they lifted them by their ears or tails or bellies.They released the sweet little things from various heights above the floor, cornered them and held them tight. They told us about what the cats ate. We picked the littlest one, a grey and white mini-punk. We got a bell, a bowl and some toys for him from the pet shop and brought him home in a cardboard box. He was christened ‘Milkshake’ by Saagar, who became his loving mum that summer.

The sedate Mr Bronx was too old and too calm for the punchy young Milkshake who developed an attitude very quickly, but they found a way to co-exist, keeping a safe distance from each other.

Not once did it occur to me that there might be a connection between the circumstances in which we got the first cat and then, the second.

Othering our Ownkind.

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“More than two thousand people read my post and saw my video today “ Yuval said.

‘They will see it and be moved by it. What then? What will they do?’ asked Basel.

That is the big question. What can we do? What will we do? Two young journalists from either camp came together to document the encroachment and destruction of a village called Masafer Yatta on the West Bank. They raise this question loud and clear for each of us. What can I do? The injustice of all this pushing and kicking, hurting and forcing fills me to the brim with a sense of sadness and powerlessness. My arms and legs go limp. So, thus far I’ve been running away from it. I must be a coward. What can I do? So many influential and powerful people have been quiet, watching the numbers and images get worse every day for decades.

Today, I watched No Other Land on the big screen. Live footage shot on a mobile phone over 4 years, 2019 to 2023. Running away is not possible anymore.

Harun’s mother prayed for his death. This young man was shot by a soldier while he was trying to stop his home from being demolished by the army. The bullet left him paralysed from his neck down. He was nursed in a cave as they had no house. No facilities. No transport. No freedoms. Everything around them was being bull-dozed – chicken coups, elementary schools, homes and villages. No one knew what new destruction each new day would bring. Toddlers were learning to speak, and older kids were trying to play and go to school in the middle of this madness. The respectable Mr Tony Blair graced the village with his pointless guest appearance for seven minutes.

Our world is bipolar, selectively blind. It’s okay for the politics of some nations to be tied to a faith but not for others, it’s okay for some nations to dishonour every treaty that they ever signed but not for others, it’s okay to condemn the exact same atrocities when committed by one nation and not another, it’s okay for third parties to fund and support the killing of women and children in plain sight. This is our world.

We humans have the arrogance to believe we are the smartest of all species, yet dogs don’t kill other dogs in millions every year. No other species has constructed the level of othering that humans have. We can’t see what we are doing to ourselves. We can’t see that there is no other. It’s only us in different garbs. Those of us who can see, must see. Those who can write, must write. Those who can sing, must sing. Let not our dark side win.

Arrogance, blindness and cowardice – a recipe for self-extinction.

By Abdul Raheem (https://www.instagram.com/mud._.lotus)

Forty pine cones and the story of a name.

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(Courtesy: Mary Kennedy, my friend.)

S A A G A R.

In Delhi, it was simple and sweet.
In Belfast, it was a problem. It had to be spoken out slowly with exaggerated lip movements and spelt out clearly. Still, it was uttered in all kinds of ways – Segaar, Sega, Saaga, Sags, Sagsy-wagsy. “As long as you call him with love, you can say his name in any way.” I would say with a smile. But of course, it was his name. Not mine.

At the age of seven, one day he came home from school and said, “Can’t you change my name to Aran or something?” I felt for him but laughed. What else could I do? I asked him if something happened at school that day, if someone said something hurtful and he just picked up his soft stuffed grey elephant and cuddled it.

I told him the story of his name. I was 24 when I got married. My in-laws lived In Chennai. We visited them a few months after the wedding and one evening we all visited a place called Besant Nagar beach. That was the first time my eyes fell upon the expansive ocean. On the map this water body had the boring label, Bay of Bengal. The vision of a dark blue shimmer below meeting a pale blue glow above in a clean, delicate, straight line made everything else disappear. Its calm, its rhythm, its enormity, its subtle dance, its grace and openness pulled me in. All conversation faded away and there I was, completely soaked in the bliss of the ocean. My soul soothed. My body relaxed. My eyes quenched. My heart happy. I was in love. In that moment, I knew that if we ever had a son, he would be called, ‘Ocean’: Saagar. I reminded him that his name was Saagar because his heart was as expansive and as beautiful as the ocean. He smiled and wrapped his soft cuddly arms around my neck.

As he grew older, he came to own his name. He came to live it. The waters of this ocean ran deep. On the surface, it appeared playful but strong currents ran underneath. All I saw was the steady flow of gentle waves, rhythmically lapping against the shore, through all the seasons. It oscillated with the moon but the high tide was never too high and the low tide was never too low, until many years later it was.

In October 2000 we went shopping to the Abbey Centre, around Halloween. Saagar was six years old. He loved riding the miniature cars left dancing on thick metal springs atop short sturdy plinths, strategically placed outside women’s clothes stores. I planted him in a blue car, instructed him not to move and stepped into the shop for no more than a few seconds to take a closer look at a long black dress in the window. I felt the texture of the fabric between my right thumb and forefinger, looked at the label for the price and size and rushed back out of the store. He was not to be seen.
Just like that, we lost each other. He must be so scared. I was petrified! Gosh. The stories you hear… No. No. He’s got to be nearby. ‘Saagar! Saagar!’, I called out, trying not to yell, desperately hiding my panic, my eyes hunting, hurting from the assault of his sudden disappearance from the blue mini-car.
What felt like absolute eternity must’ve been no more than five minutes. An announcement sang out of the PA system. He was walking down the corridor accompanied by a big uniformed man. My son, in his blue jeans and dark blue jacket ran into my arms. Phew! I cried with relief. Thank God!!! I got down on my knees and held him tight. All colour had left his face. His eyes were wide and blank. “It’s okay beta. It’s okay. We’re fine.”
Later that day we went out to collect pine cones from the thick green grass underneath the trees within the premises of Whiteabbey Hospital. I wanted to nest with my baby. I wanted to keep him close to me in small, cozy places where he wouldn’t get out of my sight and I, out of his. We collected forty pine cones in a basket. We talking. The cones half-filled a wide spherical glass jar which took a place of pride in all of our many homes. It followed us everywhere as a reminder of the day we made the promise to never ever lose each other again.

Ms Helplessness

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During Saagar’s illness, I was helpless. Also, I was rubbish at asking for help. A few weeks into Saagar’s unrelenting and forever changing moods, I was baffled. I realised I couldn’t do this alone, I needed to ask for help. Most of my family lived in India so I needed to hurry up.

Looking back, I asked somewhat hesitantly, by sending a group e-mail to my family members in India. Some tried to help and couldn’t. Others didn’t try. Yet others kept mum. Some advised me to send him to India. Some couldn’t even pick up the phone. I was so panicked that I couldn’t think straight. It didn’t cross my mind that I needed support too. The fact that I was a hot shot doctor at a hot shot hospital did not help. At that point, I was simply his desperate mother.

I texted a distant uncle on Tuesday night to say I was really worried about Saagar and we needed urgent help. He lived 20 minutes away. He texted back to say he could only help on weekends. By Thursday, it was all over. I suppose none of us had the slightest inkling of the disaster that was hurtling towards us.

Helplessness was the darkest cloud there ever was. It was a humiliating beast of a thing. It had completely obliterated the way I saw myself – capable, resourceful. It had made me a stranger to myself. Again and again, it invaded from the past to leave me without oxygen. I imagined I would limp through the rest of my life, trying to get to a point of relief, of grace. There was no way of getting that ghost of helplessness off my back.

A few years after his death, on a warm quiet afternoon on a beach in Goa, I invited Ms Helplessness to sit with me. We sat cross legged on the wooden floor of the beach hut. We looked into each other’s eyes for a few still moments. With tears streaming down my face, I extended both my hands toward her, and she took them in hers, gently squeezing them and then loosening her grip. I steeled myself and looked harder into her eyes.

I hate you. I forgive you for nearly killing me once. Thank you for showing me I can’t control what happens.

Maybe there’s a power beyond us both, that rules.

Promise me, you won’t be so cruel again. Will you? She had her gaze fixed on the ground in front of us. A tearful silence ensued.  Then she stood up and walked away.