From The 100 Saree Pact

 110/100

#100sareepact 

An unusual blue green weave with a really dramatic Pallu in bright blue  . This is not a blue I would generally wear but the shaded blue green of the body of the Saree enticed me and I bought it from FabIndia  a few years ago . I never found a proper blouse for it so it was rarely worn till I found this one from yes, Bijouri . 

It is still so hot in Bombay , one cannot dream of wearing anything but cotton . The conflict is that the humidity  makes the Saree so limp even before you're half way through the day . 

I usually prefer a Saree to work especially if I have a hospital visit planned or am meeting a patient for the first time and the treating physicians too. It's just a code I've had for years so since today I had to go to Tata Hospital , a Saree it was . 

Tata Hospital : I realise that in all these months of Saree parting , this remarkable institution has not featured in my Saree stories at all . That's rather strange for I go there almost every other day and I wear a Saree too almost every other day and I have just told you that I always wear a Saree when I go to the hospital to meet the doctors ...well , let me go figure that out .

 I went to meet a little girl who is undergoing treatment for a rare kind of acute Leukemia and the family is in need of some support . Her father , who looks like her older brother I swear , a charming and smiling young man works as a spot boy in one of the film studios and yes you guessed right , Salman Khan wanted me to see how he could help. Like I always say, we can all learn a thing or two and even more from these children who are so unquestioningly accepting of their condition and who factor it into their lives and go on with the business of their uncomplicated living . The Pediatric OPD today reminded me all over again of this .

Tata Hospital to me is nothing less than a temple or should I say so much more than a temple. It is where I learned everything about what I know now about cancer . The three years i spent here in the late 80s / early 90s when I was deputed to help set up the Department of Preventive Oncology was enough for me to understand and accept that this was what doing something worthwhile was all about . Working with those two young, eager and dedicated surgeons and their teams, day after day impressing upon the minds of asymptomatic but high risk individuals the importance of early detection. The very same surgeons who today are the Directors of this hallowed institution . The technicians in the Labs, the guys in the Records Dept., Accounts section, the lift men and the OPD and ICU ward boys and orderlies , the Sisters and the Matrons , the Admin personnel : each one knew what it was that they give to a patient and what it meant to them and the family ,when they attend to them . And it is the same today, the same dedication and commitment in the doctors and the same commitment to serve, in the staff. They teach one what is really meant by work is worship . I wasn't there in the Pediatric OPD for even 30 minutes before Dr Brijesh Arora ( whom I have known since he was a resident in AIIMS in 2001?) stopped by with reassurances that the little girl was in the best hands. 

I left the hospital knowing very well that between the hospital and Bhaijaan and I, the little girl would indeed be fine and her parents get all the support they needed.

For obvious reasons, pictures only outside the hospital ...and this I think is the first and only picture I have of the institution that has given me so much. Here's to so many of the amazing people who make this place what it is . I haven't taken their names . They know who they are. 

After this, the day at work passed in a blur of , well, work day issues and at 5:30 I decided to go to the library to catch up with some research I need to do to make my presentations for a couple of upcoming workshops .  

The David Sassoon Library in Kala Ghoda , is one well kept secret I swear.  Except  for the few regulars like me who haunt it , bringing our work and deadlines to its gleaming but worn desks and cane chairs , there's no one around. The sound of the whirring fans almost drowning that of the traffic outside the grand arches and balustrades and the late evening light making the green glassed doorways glow with a magical warmth , it is so , so conducive to good, hard work . Tempted as I was to collapse on the planters' chairs invitingly laid out in the verandah ( a favourite with some Uncles and their newspapers ) I managed to put in a good coupLe of hours work .

On a whim I decided to see if old friend , Dr Nitin Salian would have finished his evening consulting at his Colaba clinic. And bully him into my Saree pact story of the day . Busy schedules and the crazy topography of Bombay keeps the best of friends apart and it is rare I am around this part of town when Nitin is free, 

Nitin is a general surgeon and he and I have known each other now for over 27 years  or more. He was part of my Early Diagnosis team that would go from to Mill to Mill and Factory to Factory on weekday afternoon Cancer Detection camps . His lovely wife and two young children would spare him during those precious afternoons in between morning surgery and evening consulting to come with us on these medical camps throughout the length and breadth of the city and its suburbs as did a few other committed physicians . 

Oh what a tough task to make Nitin pose for the Saree pact pictures and get his 6' 5" frame into the other frame as well . But not at all difficult to get him to talk about his own brush with the Big C. Nitin is now on maintenance chemotherapy after 6 vigorous rounds of curative chemo and 25 sittings of Radiation for his Non Hodgkins Lymphoma that surfaced one fine day about two years ago.  

He smiles wryly as he recounts ( not for the first time ) how he was doing his crunches and suddenly from nowhere felt this coconut sized lump in the region of his abdomen and hey then and there it was Hello Cancer .  Amazing grit and an almost stoic acceptance that the treatment has to be borne and believe me not one day of work missed in between all of it. 

Looking awesome you are Nitin these days. That head of silver hair looks gorgeous and here's to hard work and taking it on the chin.