Pain - Through the eyes of a social worker

There’s this common line I see in movies when a guy asks a girl on his first date. "So then, what’s your story?" Why is the guy so interested in the girl’s life? He (I imagine) wants to know the series of events that has gone into making this beautiful person sitting in front of him. The more attractive the girl (at least on the first date), the more insipid her story. Generally, it’s the more unnoticeable people in the dark that have a more interesting story to tell.

It was only after I joined work, and was forced (by my employers) to go to houses and get to know poor families with people living with HIV/AIDS did I realize that I do not have many friends outside my class-group. It is human nature, I guess, to find security in relating with people who are of the same age, class, region, and language. After all, that’s what gives us our identity. No matter how strong and individualistic we think we are, we all constantly look to our circle of friends for approval. They are our support group. But there is another reason why we do not engage with the stories of those outside our group. This has much to do with the fact that it is those in pain that slip off our radar first.

Ram, a chaiwallah was once a bus-driver. As it happens to most people in his line of work, he slept around, got infected by HIV, came back home and his wife got infected too. The family has been through hell the last few years. But now, the wife actually tells us that HIV has brought our family closer together. Now how that happened would be an interesting story to listen to, and
praise God for. But who would have thought that the chaiwallah who slept around and got infected with HIV would have a story such as this?

There is another reason why, in the movies, the guy asks the girl that question. He wants to know what she is doing now, and what her future plans are, and tries to find his place in her scheme of things. He is working hard at trying to be a part of her life because he loves her so much.

Here, at our cramped hospital with ten beds, I know a five year old girl who takes care of her ailing mother, while witnessing at least two deaths that took place in nearby beds. To think at that age about the high chances of her mother dying anytime like those fellow-patients gives her a new perspective on life. She can now unflinchingly look at suffering and pain straight in the eye, that even when her father died, she cried for a week, accepted that her father died, and has taken things in a matter-of-fact tone. But she needs help. With her bed-ridden mother, and four sisters, the eldest in Std XII, and the man of the house being 7 years old, she needs a lot of support.

We try to sterilize every single uncomfortable thing that happens to us by hiding it, not talking about it, and covering it up with a smile. This is exactly the same reason why we are scared to engage with the poor. All we do is ‘Reach Out’. We prefer to go along with our gang of friends to the poor, interact with them and entertain them (and have them entertain us) and come back to our own lives, making the whole thing another "Slumdog Millionaire Movie Experience" where you really get into the minds of those in pain for exactly two hours.

But do we have the fortitude to actually love them? Do we have the fortitude to listen to their stories and try to find our place in them as they develop? Do we have the fortitude to make them one among us?

Do we realize that as we discuss global warming, and sigh in unison watching the antics of our political leaders, there are people groaning, lifting their hands and eyes to God and asking him to deliver them from their pain? Do we realize that we have this power to redeem them? Us who are able to make a difference (no matter how small it may be) if we only raise a finger. May be, we don’t know what exactly we could do.

How about listening to a story first?