Adjusting to a new place has always been both an exciting event and an ordeal on the other hand. It is also one coloured by mixed emotions; leaving old friends behind and meeting new ones—a transitional phase which is often trying both to my health and mentality. Shifting my base to Hyderabad has been one such occasion. In the beginning, I was too busy with the official procedures that I did not really had time to feel nostalgic. Gradually, after everything else got settled, I then had time to THINK and thats' when the problem usually starts for most woman. Contrary to the sedentary life of writing a thesis in JNU, I now had to walk and work a lot. I was exhausted also from the previous months of activities--trying to finish a thesis in two months time (which did not work out) and travelling (and preparing papers) to two countries within four months time. One afternoon, as I came back from the campus, I sprawl on the bed feeling tired, lethargic and demotivated. I tried to wake up but it did not work. I slept and slept from 2pm till it was 4pm. Then I remembered my sick years in JNU hostel-where once in a while, I would lay in bed unable to get up either because of severe cold due to sinusities or pain around my stomach and abdomen caused by gastricities and ulcer. I would have this terribly blocked nose followed by a headache and then bodyache. Then I would have mild fever with giddiness and lethargy. It would take a day for me to get well. In the case of the later sickness, the pain was worse. I would feel a sharp pang in my stomach as if a knife had gone through it and then it will feel like my stomach was on fire.
I usually have emergency kits for such a time as this. Even, if I do not, I had always been fortunate to have good people to tend to me. My cousin Choi and Ruth to run to the chemist, Shyni (my neighbour) to massage my head and Kaya (Them and Bibi) to get me food from the mess. I even had friends who had never otherwise experiment in kitchens like Sanji and Shruti cooking for me (I hope they never get to read this ;-)) Like the saying 'the devil do not come with horns,' I would say, 'angels necessarily do not grow/have wings, they are angels because of their personality.'
Sick days also gives you lot of times to think bad thoughts too. Self-pity, doubts about your own ability and worries of the future. I would then be consume with what was to become of me or my studies--of the possibility that the years of toil would be in vain. My mom’s would add this complain about the family's condition, of her concern that there was no development in the family. I had to re-assure her that there were worse condition than ours in the universe, and that complaining would be an insult to God who has given us much. They seemed like empty words because though I knew them to be true, in the end, I was not so convinced anymore. Only thing that I keep reminding myself was...He has been faithful in the past and He is sure to be there in the present and in the future too...& because He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.
Now, my prayers has turn into praise. I got a job, purely by His grace. The best part is that it encourages my family, especially my siblings of the possibility of His blessings in a family such as ours. This has been the greatest impact of it all--it enabled us to see the light at the end of the tunnel and a prove that God had been with us 'through it all.'
