The beauty of the art world, and mortality : The Tribune India

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The beauty of the art world, and mortality

My mornings begin with collecting the newspapers from my doorstep and a mug of steaming tea.

The beauty of the art world, and mortality

Gawande wields his prose like a scalpel.



My mornings begin with collecting the newspapers from my doorstep and a mug of steaming tea. Few joys can equal that wonderful period of calm that one can spend by oneself reading the papers and sipping Darjeeling tea. Outside my window, I see mothers running with their children to catch the school bus, remnants of breakfast in hand. Then come the armies of workers, maids, drivers, dhobis, gardeners and what follows is the constant ding-dong of various doorbells being rung and the ping of busy lifts ferrying people to their workplaces. By 10 in the morning, the colony is left to the stay-at-homes: there is peace and quiet and all one can hear is the occasional sound of garden shears or the bark of a lonely dog. 

In stark contrast to this idyllic life is the chaos on the city’s roads. Rarely do I step out to brave the madness on Delhi’s traffic, particularly during rush-hour. However, twice in the last few weeks I have stirred myself because the speakers were authors I have long admired. Ever since I first heard him almost 30 years ago in Chandigarh, I have been an acolyte of Dr BN Goswamy. His erudition is his most admirable quality as an art scholar, but to it he brings the soul of a guru. Apart from his formidable knowledge of his subject, what draws me to him is the ease with which he can summon a quotation from Sanskrit, Persian, Urdu or the arcane and almost-forgotten dialects of Himachal and Punjab to ‘read’ a painting. I recommend his ‘The Spirit of Indian Painting’ to all those who share my regret at being so illiterate in matters of art and aesthetics. You will not find a better guide.

The other author comes from a completely different world and yet, like Dr Goswamy, he brings a rare insight into his subject. Atul Gawande is a second-generation Indian-origin doctor based in the US. Widely respected for his opinions on matters of healthcare and the role of the state, many believe that the recent initiatives by the Clinton and Obama governments of public health issues owe a great deal to his suggestions and interventions. He writes a regular column for the prestigious The New Yorker, arguably one of the most intellectually stimulating journals in the world. He was in India to deliver the Reid Lecture for the BBC and the auditorium was packed to the rafters. Gawande looks younger than his 50-odd years but his youthful looks conceal a wisdom far beyond his years. His latest book, ‘Being Mortal’, is a meditation on death and old age and though brilliantly written, it is a trifle bleak and depressing. 

His first book, ‘Complications: Notes from the Life of a Young Surgeon’ is a fascinating account of how closely the microcosm and the macrocosm are interlinked. Like the accomplished surgeon he is, Gawande wields his prose like a scalpel to lay bare a fundamental problem. One can see even in this early work, a brain that grapples with ethical questions with the same rigour that he deals with a difficult tumour. What makes a doctor human, how difficult decisions can be when they deal with matters of life and death, to why mistakes happen and how they can be minimised—Gawande encourages his reader to think deeply about the complicated and profoundly moving world of the patient and healer. 

His Reid Lecture began with him remembering his Maharashtrian grandfather, a humble farmer who lived in the village he was born until his death at the age of 109! An Indian village, as we all know, is unlikely to have a Mayo Clinic like hospital. So what was the reason that he lived to be 109 while his doctor-son, who had the best healthcare available to him in the US, died from cancer while still in his 60s? Apart from the healthier lifestyle—eating frugally and hard physical work in the open air—was the loving attention and care the grandfather received from his family. The question Gawande raised was whether the brilliant scientific innovations of the last century that have given many people a longer lifespan, have succeeded in curing the loneliness of an ICU or the mental condition of a patient who is kept alive by tubes and machines. More people die now in hospitals than in their homes. 

I know that the question affected me deeply as I recalled the last months of my mother when I lost count of the number of times we rushed to hospital if only to give her a few extra days to live. Was her pain worth it? Perhaps she would have preferred to die in her own bed but given hope, how could I not avail its promise?

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