Fighting cancer,with words

“It’s unquestioning acceptance. They accommodate everything,the chemotherapy,the pain,the days missed at school,their circle of friends… And they suffer silently,” says Venkatesh.

Written over weekend sittings,the book focuses on ‘Maximo’,a little sparrow,who imagines himself as weak and feels inferior to other sparrows. Maximo finds himself in a tricky situation where he is the only one who can rescue a smaller and weaker sparrow from a cat. “The flight he takes to rescue the smaller sparrow comes as a realisation of the inner power that he did not know existed. He is later supported by birds across the forests,” she says. Having closely witnessed the fear among children,she says the book aims at showing the larger picture to patients and their loved ones.

While the idea for the book came from Venezuelan cancer survivor Maria Isabel Gomez de Soriano (74),Venkatesh feels the ‘writing came easy’ owing to her interactions with patients over the years.

For Venkatesh,who has a literature background,the first lessons in cancer awareness began at Tata Memorial Hospital around two decades ago. Venkatesh,who has served as director of diagnostics at the hospital,spent months learning every aspect of the disease. Today,at The Max Foundation,a US-registered organisation,she heads the India operation on campaigning on cancer awareness. “It’s difficult to even comprehend that even today,people might lose their jobs once they tell their employers that they have been diagnosed with cancer. The stigma is so sharp that there are instances when even cancer survivors find it difficult to get jobs. All the tools to combat fear,stigma,discrimination are within us. People see us the way we see ourselves,” she says.

Having seen her own family members – a grandparent and mother-in-law – grapple with the disease,Venkatesh points out that the book is an attempt to “kill the fear”. She says,“In those days I didn’t know anything about the disease and I just did the duty of taking care of my relatives. Today,I know so much about the disease that I am afraid I don’t know how I would react if I were to know another near and dear one is a cancer patient. Even after 30 years of exposure,I can tell that the fear can be large. I hope tales such as Maximo’s can be of some help.”

“When I visited Adyar Cancer Centre in Chennai recently,I was accosted by a seven-year-old chemotherapy patient after my book reading session. She enquired about my short,cropped hair and said she would get a similar hair cut done. Her spunk was so evident. She was in pain but one didn’t take that from her,and that is what one tends to see in such places. Again,at the Indo-American Cancer Institute in Hyderabad,a 14-year-old told me she wanted to become the head of an oncology centre one day just so that she could make rules for making happiness compulsory,” she recalls.

SMITA NAIR

smita.nair@expressindia.com