Republic day 2015 brought me an unforgettable and a traumatic experience. It was on that fateful day, rather night, that I had a fall at around 10 p.m. at my alma mater in a town in Central Kerala, where I had gone to attend an alumni meeting. And what a fall, my countrymen! It was for the first time that I was attending an alumni meet. My close friend persuaded me and I went. I did not have any premonition as to what was in store for me that night.
Bad luck struck me in the guise of a retired professor of the same college, who happened to be my distant cousin. He was after me, after dinner, saying he will drop me at the hotel I had checked into. Blindly following him in the pitch darkness through a short-cut to the main road... I fell. My cousin’s failure to warn me on time that there were steps to go down led to my fall on a flight of steps in the open. His warning came a trifle too late. I managed, like an acrobat, to retain my balance and to avert a fall in the first few steps, after which it was a total disaster. I fell flat on the muddy road. Hearing the thud, a few catering boys came rushing and helped me to vertical position from the horizontal one I was in.
To cut the story short, my left hand was left with a major injury, which was much later diagnosed in an MRI test as ligament tear, leaving a 3-cm gap between the two cut edges of the torn ligament. This ensured I could not lift my left hand beyond a point. Any attempt to raise it gave me excruciating pain. Hot wax therapy and physiotherapy and ayurvedic massages only aggravated the condition. It was then that an octogenarian gentleman, who is a member of my club, a family friend and also a former Chief Secretary of Tamil Nadu, persuaded me to walk in the swimming pool. He said he walks in the pool every day and it helped him a lot to get over his knee problem. Yes, Aqua Therapy, I came to know later! The good old octogenarian finally convinced the septuagenarian (that is me), a Doubting Thomas, to test the waters finally, (and literally too!).
If aqua therapy was recommended by one of the several acquaintances whom I meet in the club or beach where I go for my regular morning walk, I would have said no, politely. But here is a family friend, a Padma Bhushan awardee, and a genuinely sincere good human being, coaxing and cajoling me to walk in the pool! Several weeks of gentle persuasion later, I decided to give it a try. For the first time in my 70-odd years of existence in this planet, with some trepidation, I entered the beautiful swimming pool in my club and started walking. I happened to be the sole walker in the pool. Some curious swimmers, mostly kids and a few youngsters, gave me a glance of sympathy (or was it amusement?). I was the lone ranger, sorry, lone walker, in the pool that day.
After doing exercise under water by slowly swinging my arms up and down and also sideways for a few weeks, I was able to overcome the stiffness and nagging pain slowly but steadily. It was almost a miracle! I recalled to my mind the ominous words of a doctor, a sports medicine specialist: “I am sorry to tell you this. But as a doctor it is my duty to tell the truth, even if it is unpalatable to my patient. You are a heart patient with six blocks, some of them even 90%. A keyhole surgery to join together the two ends of your torn ligament will take a minimum time of three hours. You will never survive such a lengthy surgical procedure. Even if I agree to do it, no anaesthetist will take the risk. I thought to myself: This doctor is honest. He does not mince words or gives false hopes. He means what he says. In short, he wants to tell me, “You will never wake up after the surgery”!
Today, looking back, I am happy I listened to the valuable advice of the octogenarian family friend who I meet occasionally at the pool. Even if some youngsters may secretly call me a non-swimming fool in their swimming pool, I care two hoots. I have overcome my handicap. And that is what matters.
In the swimming pool, some camaraderie too happens. I exchange jokes with a few swimming friends, who listen with interest when I narrate the story of my healing. Once, one of them said: “My quota for today is over. See you tomorrow.” To which my reply was: “My quota for the morning is going to be over too.” He: Oh, Does that mean you are going to come in the evening too? My reply evoked a bout of laughter from the half a dozen swimmers present in the pool. I said: “Yes, my quota for the morning is over. I will come again in the evening, but not to the swimming pool. Come I will, to the bar to finish my quota in the evening”!
Another day, in the changing room, I bumped into a swimmer I had befriended a few days earlier. He looked crestfallen, really down and out!
Me: “Thomas, what happened? You look sad?”
Thomas: “Yesterday I bought a brand new smartphone for Rs. 60,000.”
Me:“Congrats! You should celebrate, instead of mourning like this.”
Thomas: “Hum! Celebrate! This is a moment of bereavement for me. My 60K smartphone is dead. Rather, I killed her! Today, before entering the pool, I forgot to remove her from my pocket. She is dead.”
Me: “Rejoice, she has been baptised by you and she died a true Christian. Don’t cry! I am sure she is already in heaven.”
We all had a hearty laugh, and Thomas’ blues vanished, or at least that was the impression we all got.
My star sign is Pisces! And as you all know, Fish is the sign of Pisces. After seven long decades, I have, true to my star sign, taken to water like a fish! That reminds me of a WhatsApp-borne joke I got the other day: A mother was coaxing and cajoling her eight-year-old son to have a bath after he returned from playing.” You stink like a fish, my son. Go and, have a bath.” The naughty boy that he was, he taunted the mother by saying, “Mom, the fish live in water all the time. Still, they stink. So what is the point in having a bath?”
This article is dedicated to my octogenarian friend who inspired me to take to water. And to all those suffering from arthritis, injuries to limbs and various other ailments for which aqua therapy is indicated.
