It was one of those cold winter nights in Delhi and the clock struck 3am. I kept staring at the ceiling, drowning in my loneliness, thinking. I knew I was sad. I was immensely dissatisfied with a lot of things going on and was utterly restless. It was one of those nights when the voices in your head just don’t stop talking. And I kept thinking.
I had come to terms with some really harsh realities in life by then. I knew I was running a race that I hadn’t realised was never my calling. I prepared for the postgraduate entrances, poori shiddat se, only to realise at the finishing line that I could barely see myself working as a resident doctor for another three years of my youth. Not even youth. Youth was long gone. What could I do now? Just quit? Run away? Run away from what? Compromise? For seven years of my life I ran for a degree; it was a race. I ran to become the best version of myself, and now I wanted to run away from the very same thing. Such is life.
I wanted to start afresh. And by starting afresh, a zillion ideas crossed my mind. Dark scary ideas. Ideas that I secretly wanted to execute.
It was 8am. I hadn’t slept the entire night. One more day just passed by. Safely. Berozgaari (unemployment) was still on. I was still jobless, just like I was becoming hopeless and restless. I was a Pre-PG doctor after all. Just then my phone beeped. I wouldn’t have bothered to reply (thanks to a phase of social isolation) had it not been my best friend’s message. What I read made my heart skip a beat. Her batchmate, also a Pre-PG doctor, had just committed suicide the night before; the very night I had just survived not executing one of those wild plans. I almost shivered in fear. And then I sat retrospecting as to what is so horrifying about the system we are working in and why this really needs to be discussed.
So this story is for all those who have lived and survived those cold scary self-doubting nights like me and still made it this far, those who have problems with the idea of being mediocre, those confused people jo ye rat race bhaagna hi nahi chahte hain par fir bhi bhaagte hain (who don’t want to run the rat race, but still do), and for all those who are still in denial. It’s time you come out and talk.
Doctors today all over the world are becoming victims of extreme pressure-cooker models. Extensive study hours, longer working hours that are insanely hectic, increasing assaults by seniors, the humiliation that follows lesser pay and worsening lifestyles, and, to top it all off, the increasing violence against doctors—we all are rotting slowly. And, eventually, collapsing.
So what exactly are we chasing? More money? Better lifestyles? Fighting the feeling of being a mediocre? Or just happiness? How do you define happiness?
I have been interacting recently with a lot of doctor friends regarding this, and I realised most of them no longer know what makes them happy. And that is brutally sad. We are just becoming cortisol production houses. And that my friend is the beginning of the end. Apocalypse is here. The healer wants to end their own life. What could be worse?
There are innumerable cases of suicides amongst doctors. Assaults ki baat toh rehne hi dijiye janab (Forget about assaults), I remember being deeply affected by the news of Dr. Poonam Vohra (Consultant Radiologist at RML Hospital, New Delhi) committing suicide. I mean, come on, even as the epitome of ‘success’ in Indian society, the medical profefssion can just swallow you up as suddenly everything becomes too much. And you decide you no longer want to find ways to sail through. You just decide to fall off the the razor’s edge. Why? Didn’t you see this building up all along? Why didn’t you speak up while you still could have? What stopped you? Your ignorance?
As doctors we are supposed to know everything. Almost. I know each one of us is just trying to be the best version of ourselves, learning as much as we can, to be as much of help as we can, so that one day when we are the thin line between life and death for a patient, we can pull them back from the brink. And we are beating ourselves up for that.
One day, our inner Nawazuddin Siddiqui might say, “Kabhi kabhi toh lagta hai ki apun hi bhagwan hai (Sometimes it feels like I myself am God)”, but to be able to see that day, we need to pull through. I know we all are victims of mediocrity and even that is an understatement. We hate it, and the dissatisfaction drives us to do things that can never be undone. Many amongst us thus have become a bunch of dysthymics (persistent depressive disorder). And the sad reality is that most of us are okay with it!
So just remember the next time you have innovative ideas to end the race ‘dramatically’, remember how many people would never be healed or saved just because you couldn’t fight through a moment of your weakness or, better put, because you didn’t seek help when you should’ve.
I have spent a sufficiently large part of my life transitioning from a chirpy social butterfly to a socially isolated wise woman, and I can never stress this enough: you must find what makes you happy, what that makes you get up every day to see the next sunrise, what keeps you moving forward without stagnating, and what brings that twinkle back in your eyes.
So those of you reading this right now, do yourself a favour today and define your idea of happiness. I am still struggling to figure mine out but at least I realised I had been running the wrong race for some time.
I remember a friend of mine recently mentioning to me that life is defined by your degree and how and where you graduate from. He may be a wise person, but I do not accept his theory. It might be apt for a lot of people out there, but I believe you don’t want to be regretful in life about things you could have done while you kept trying to live up to society’s expectations.
“Zindagi kaatni nahi hai boss, Jeeni hai, bass ye yaad rakhiyega. Timely Udaan bhar lene me hi samjhdaari hai kyunki tumhein maloom nahi tum kaun ho, tum quaid nahi, jo ijazat lo!”