Dear आशय readers,
Thank you for the journey together with this blog! I started this blog to capture the experiences of working in Nepal. Since my circumstances have changed, so has my engagement in writing in that exact context. I plan to retire this blog.
If you have any interest in my experiences in a different context, I invite you to visit my new blog, The South Asian Immigrant: https://saimmigrant.blogspot.com/
Thank you again!
In peace,
- Aasaya
"Paul Farmer believed all lives have dignity," read a headline in the Opinion Column of The Washington Post as I was scrolling through the news back from work. Why would it say "believed" was the first thought that crossed my mind. It did not occur to me that Paul Farmer is mortal. And that mortality is ruthless in its choice of victims and timing. Alas, Dr. Farmer was the casualty. He passed away today in his sleep, at age 62.
Sorrow seeped in, almost a sense of helplessness, when it was clear that Dr. Farmer is no more. I first learned of him through Tracy Kidder's book "Mountain Beyond Mountains." As a young resident learning the trades of patient care, reading about Dr. Farmer's work was an entirely different revelation. It was as if it stretched my awareness of human capabilities in the realm of kindness and empathy. It was a profound presence, knowledge that there is a living, walking fellow human being doing extraordinary deeds born of purest concerns. Privileged to read several of his books and writings subsequently, I felt nurtured by his thoughts and voices. The word "solidarity" reverberates a totally distinct significance to me just because of his use of the word. My comprehension of the relationship and moral claim to the material resources of collective human existence, particularly for the most disadvantaged amongst us has been monumentally altered by his insights. He sought and brought the most advanced care to the most depraved when the default expectation was "impossible." He saw disease in broader context, with its social roots. And not just made the observations but sought and brought the solutions even to those tentacles of diseases. Seeing his work from distance educed tracings of longer trajectories of human goodness. You could hear in his voices and deeds the vestiges of greats of remote past, Rudolph Virchow, in my mind drawing a straight line.
He will belong to one of those giants of history, I suspect. And he will live through works of generations to come. Yet, I can not deflect a gnawing sense of loss. Of a human being in flesh and bones who may have yet another novel insight, yet another demonstration of what is best in humans. Perhaps this feeling is accentuated because of the times we are living in. When we appear to be shriveling in our benevolent form as human being. Authoritarians seem to be on the rise everywhere. And wars seem to be looming. Those with convictions about goodness seem to be meager. And everyday folks seem to have lost a sense of boundary between kindness and cruelty.
While you belong to the long arc of the history, enouncing your presence in moments of kindness by countless lives you have touched, including my own better moments, Dear Dr. Farmer, a kind and tender soul, I will miss you tremendously. Thank you for the life you spent among us in mortal form.
It is certain there are more sophisticated manners of understanding and portraying the current American predicament. But as someone with scant understanding of the mechanics of societies and exiguous historical perspective, feeling is the apparatus I deploy. Feeling soaked in the current. Taking cues in pitches of voices, smiles, and grimaces. And from that perspective, the best I can characterize the prevalent feelings is that of lost innocence.
For a non-citizen bystander in this country, the strife this country has gone through in the past several years has a distinct essence. It is largely an expression of existential angst of a segment of the population that has banked its identity and entitlement on a narrow set of racial and religious affiliation. In the bubble it has lived in, perhaps afforded by the military and economic superpower status of the country, it has no connection to the real suffering-- of material poverty, oppression with no pathway of escape, randomly inflicted harm with no prospects of restitution, institutional violence as a tool to "keep people in their place." It has mistaken lethargy in lassitude of prosperity as suffering. And is trying to shake off this dullness in imagined reality. A reality where its existence is threatened by some external factors. External factors where it does not have to take any ownership, emotional connection. No wonder immigrants, black and brown people are the root cause of all its ailments. No wonder its religion is threatened by godless people and people who worship other gods. If you stack these claims against measurable markers the results are agonizingly comical. But that is a largely useless exercise. It has no interest in validity of these acclaims. Because the primary purpose of this manufactured reality is to shake off that mental fog of an aging entitlement. It knows that the tool is constructed of lies but it needs it to transcend the rut. The visceral feeling it has evoked-- that it's existence is under threat-- is what ultimately matters, wakes it up, enlivens it. And it is a strong feeling. Affirming of some vitality. They appear almost possessed, teeming with angry energy, ready to be cruel.
When the moments have been opportune, it has not hesitated to flash that underbelly of cruelty. In caging children. In snatching children from their parents. And not even bothering to keep track of parents such that there are hundreds of children adrift without parents. In the violence of words and body language when it speaks of others-- immigrants, racial minorities, sexual minorities.
As an immigrant, this guise of the country is profoundly disorienting. A central premise, I assume, when someone leaves the comfort of their surroundings to a new society, is their perception of the benevolence of that society. If they perceived it as harmful, I would surmise, there is no incentive to move. In this collision of expectations and the current reality, we, the immigrants, have lost our innocence. At anytime, of the 10 persons you see on the street, you are now equipped with an understanding that 4-5 of them very likely have a visceral animus towards you even before he/she speaks a single word, just because of the way you look or talk.
Citizens of this country are voting. And we hear the emphasis that the outcome is going to have monumental consequences. It may be true to some extent. A slide down the path of further cruelty is guaranteed if one of the sides wins. But it is also equally clear that there is going to be no easy healing. We are talking about lost innocence, possessed population that has dabbled in cruelty. These things do not seem to have facile solutions. In the mean time, the major question at the personal level will be- how do we preserve decency amidst acrimony, if not for ourselves, for our children who have had to witness this human ugliness?
It is still a dictum we hold close to our heart and try to impress upon our students and trainees."By historical method alone can many problems in medicine be approached profitably."
