Health, definitely Wealth

Ruatfeli is down with fever since Saturday. If she could talk, she'd probably tell me how her head hurts, how bad everything tastes, and how stuffy her nose is. Instead, she expresses her illness by being irritable and fussy.

Since she tends to puke out all medicinal things, giving her even paracetamol is an ordeal. Seeing your little one suffering is the one of the worst things you would ever have to face.

The only silver lining is I'm reminded again of the value of health. What I take for granted everyday, to be alive and healthy, is worth much more than wealth. It is the most precious of God's gift. What good is wealth if you are too sick to enjoy it? The unluckiest people in the world are the diabetics and the hypertensives, especially if they have a sweet tooth to boot.

I remember other times when people would tell me their little one is sick, and after a while, hear that the baby is well again. It seems to us only like a fleeting disruption in their lives. But a sick baby means sleepless nights, struggling with feeds, the smell of medicated syrups, and their vomited versions. Your shiny little bundle of joy becomes an irritable, hot little bundle of unvocalized pain. You're stuck in a helpless abyss, unsure of what to do, wishing you could ease her suffering or bear her pain. You remember the times when your baby gave you the brightest smile in the world, or amazed you with a new trick she learnt. And you also remember with guilt, the times when you would feel bored, or resentful of the restrictions a baby places on you. And you know you would do anything, spend any amount, be bored a thousand times, just to have her well again.

Familiar faces

I went to a friend's wedding with some friends recently, and there was this guy who looked extremely familiar. I asked my friend who he was, and she said he does look really familiar, but she couldn't place him either.


So we racked our brains, maybe he worked at where we worked. Maybe he studied where we studied. Naah. But he looked so familiar. If we didn't say 'Hi', he might probably be offended. Could he be a relative?

And the answer finally struck my friend. He was a newsreader on one of the local channels. Thank heavens she remembered before we went and blabbered at him. I wonder if he ever gets total strangers talking to him familiarly.


The pleasure of being cheap

A neighbour sold me these shoes at Rs 200 a pair. I fell in love with the price.

It seems like a minor achievement to find wearable shoes at these prices when shoes cost Rs 1000 upwards at the Millennium centre. At the workplace, I learnt you can get them for Rs 150 at the market :) But I still think I got them at a bargain. I know they're going to be worn out in a hurry, but they satisfy the thrifty Girl Guide spirit in me.

With everything being so darn expensive in Aizawl, it's fun to buy anything at a bargain. It's as though you were outwitting the enemy. You could get yards of cloth at the secondhand market, get them stitched at a local tailor, and have instant 'designer' clothes, which nobody else will have.

I can never bring myself to buy a blouse at 1800/- which everyone is wearing anyway. You can never have the most expensive shoes, or the most beautiful clothes, someone will beat you to it anyway. It's better (or atleast I think so) to be presentably turned-out and save your money for more concrete things...whatever those are!

Baptised by Holy water

Ruatfeli, along with 13 other babies, got baptised today. I feel a load off my mind. One, because for Christians, baptism is one of the most important milestones for a person. Two, because the ceremony itself is finally over!

I was a little worried that she would cry or fuss, since she's now 7 months. But Ruatfeli, being Ruatfeli, never made a fuss during the whole service. We had missed two prior baptisms before, once while we were in the hospital, and the other one because everyone forgot to tell us about it (and because we must have slept through the announcements at church). But all's well that ends well!

Youth and Cancer

When I first read the statistics on cancer in Mizoram, I was a little skeptical. I thought they must be a little skewed. To have the highest number of oral cancer in the world is a dubious honor.

But after working in Aizawl for barely a year, I can see first-hand that we do indeed have tremendous number of cancer cases. Cancer is usually a disease of the old, and not to seem crude, it is less shocking to hear that an elderly person has cancer than a healthy-seeming youth. But the young are not spared this deadly disease.

Cancer of the cervix is usually seen in women above 45 years. But you can hear of 24 year olds dying of this disease. Younger women seem to be more prone to this cancer than the old women here. Promiscuity(with HPV infection), poor personal hygiene and pure bad luck are probably the cause.

Breast cancer is another scary disease. We have seen many cases of unmarried women in their early thirties who had to have their breasts removed due to cancer. I cannot even guess how traumatic it is for a girl to have cancer, and have to remove one breast.

I have a rather gruesome picture of a 27 year old girl with cancer of the rectum. The surgeons had to remove her uterus, cervix and ovaries too, because the tumour was invading into her vagina.

Likewise, we have cases of 20 year old male with Nasopharyngeal carcinoma, a 30 year old male with stomach cancer, a 28 year old with bladder cancer. And so on. The cancers I mentioned are all commoner in the old, unlike Blood cancer (Acute Leukemias), some lymphomas, and some Germ cell tumours of the ovaries/testes, which are more common in the young.

So what can we do? Tobacco seems to be the favourite scapegoat. But there are many who totally abstain, and yet get diagnosed with cancer. So even when you are symptom-free, it's a good idea to have routine check-ups. Do self-breast examination, get your papsmear done, if your female. And for everyone, do an endoscopy if you have chronic gastritis, especially if you're above 40 years.

Sweet child of ours

My blog is turning out to be a diary of sorts of Ruatfeli. I am otherwise totally uninspired.

She's 5 months now, and she can turn over by herself. She wants to grasp everything, within or out of her reach. And whatever she can grab is instantly subjected to vigorous chewing. She recently learnt how to blow bubbles, and now it's her new passion.


She's changing all the time, this little baby of ours.