This is for 6-year old Golu who is the cutest ball of
humanity you will ever meet but unfortunately he doesn’t have much longer to
get to know humanity. Keep him in your prayers for a single line can go a long way.
Miracles do happen.
“Do you believe in God,
doctor?”
Dr. Bose looked up at
the harried woman across the table and the silent husband who sat with his head
hung low. The woman had a pale face, a disheveled sleep-deprived look about her
that drew the sympathy of Dr. Bose. But it was not her that he was actually
looking at, he was looking beyond .Her question had transported him to the June
of 1986.
The bed was soft and
warm but the young boy sleeping on it was cold and scared. He did not want to die.
Although his parents had assured him again and again that nothing was going to
happen to him, he couldn’t help but feel scared. Their faces were hardly as
reassuring as their words. Dr. Alfred Robertson was the top oncologist at John
Hopkins and he came in thrice a day to check on this 12-year old leukemia
patient. In fact whole of June all he saw was radiologists, oncologists and
bottles and bottles of interferon and other drugs by his bed whose names he
couldn’t pronounce, all he felt was the painful insertion of tubes and
extraneous veins into his body, all he heard was whispered conversations
between the doctors and his parents often smudged with tears and choked with
emotions till one night Dr. Robertson came to visit him.
It was almost midnight
but he was awake as he had been on almost all midnights for the past month when
the doctor had come and sat beside him. Stroking his bald scalp, Dr. Robertson
had said reassuringly, “You’re going to be just fine. All you need to do is
think of what you’ll do after you get better and leave the rest to me.”
“Maybe I’m not meant to
be just fine. Maybe someone doesn’t want me to get better”, he had retorted
back tears coursing down his cheeks.
“Do you believe in God, son?”
“No. Not anymore. Do
you?”
“Why not?”
“But “, he had spluttered,
“you are a man of science. How can you possibly believe in some wooden or clay
idols having magical healing powers or men parting oceans or destroying evil
with a flick if their fingers?”
“I don’t. I asked you
young man whether you believe in God not whether you believe in religion or
what ‘man has to say about God’.”
“But what is the
difference? It is the same thing”, he had argued.
“I am a doctor but I
pray every morning son. I pray to God asking him to make sure that no one dies
because of me today .You may say that the death of the patients lies in my
hands once he’s in that operation theatre but even the most ardent practices
can never guarantee that I won’t make a mistake because the human insides are
just so complicated .Just like the universe .It is absurd for me to believe
that the universe is a cosmic accident , that man is an anatomical blunder of
evolution and thus I believe in the presence of a superior being , whom I call
God. Do you know what I actually do when I pray? I try my best to look into a
mirror and try to tell the superior being inside me to help me, to give me
confidence, to make me a bit more God. God is not found in mythological tales
or clay idols son, God is inside you. What matters is whether you know it.”
“So if there is God
inside me why do I get hurt so much?”
“Because God is trying
to tell you that you’ll become fine from inside but you are not believing him.
You are getting hurt because you are not hoping son. Medicines can only go so
far to cure you .Half our work is done if you believe that you can be cured. I
am not telling you to believe in God, son, I’m telling you to believe in
yourself and you’ll realize the amazing power inside you”
“Just like Superman?”
Dr. Robertson had
smiled and patting his shoulder had walked out. He had laid awake for some time
pondering over what the doctor had just told him and closing his eyes he had ‘prayed’
for the first time in his life.
Dr. Bose looked at the
couple sitting across the table. He sighed deeply and said, “Yes, I do.”
“You do? But you are a
doctor, an oncologist, a man of science!” exclaimed the shocked mother who was
close to giving up hope herself.
“Yes I do.”, Dr. Bose
repeated and he added after some thought,” But the question is does your son?”
