The Weight of Resemblance
It’s a family gathering, everyone who knows you is there. They have seen you as some claim in the nude, reminiscent of a time that you were a shit factory.
Conversations are afoot of the past, the present and some of the future. Then some standing around idly choose to walk up to you and start discussing the one thing that makes you want to run away. They start discussing your father, his greatness, some call him god and then the one thing that you dread to hear, “you look so much like him”, “the resemblance is uncanny” they say. Am I upset that I bear resemblance to my father, no. But what happens every time that these comparisons are drawn is this, in a millisecond I judge myself, relive my life from the time I was born, think about where I am, who I am and where I and this life is headed and then inevitably if I do bear resemblance to him, do I embody his traits?
If were to do draw you a picture of the man, he was someone with an unmovable set of principles, an unwavering ideal of how one must live their life and how what ‘service’ means. Everyone who ever speaks to me of him, talks of his calmness but they have not seen him breakdown as I have, sometimes his helplessness would get the better of him, making him human. Yet, to everyone he was above all else, god-like. I think that has a lot to do with who he chose to be as a person, he was a doctor and someone who took the Hippocratic oath very seriously.
I swear by Apollo Healer, by Asclepius, by Hygieia, by Panacea, and by all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will carry out, according to my ability and judgment, this oath and this indenture.
To hold my teacher in this art equal to my own parents; to make him partner in my livelihood; when he is in need of money to share mine with him; to consider his family as my own brothers, and to teach them this art, if they want to learn it, without fee or indenture; to impart precept, oral instruction, and all other instruction to my own sons, the sons of my teacher, and to indentured pupils who have taken the Healer’s oath, but to nobody else.
I will use those dietary regimens which will benefit my patients according to my greatest ability and judgment, and I will do no harm or injustice to them. Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course. Similarly I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion. But I will keep pure and holy both my life and my art. I will not use the knife, not even, verily, on sufferers from stone, but I will give place to such as are craftsmen therein.
Into whatsoever houses I enter, I will enter to help the sick, and I will abstain from all intentional wrong-doing and harm, especially from abusing the bodies of man or woman, bond or free. And whatsoever I shall see or hear in the course of my profession, as well as outside my profession in my intercourse with men, if it be what should not be published abroad, I will never divulge, holding such things to be holy secrets.
Now if I carry out this oath, and break it not, may I gain for ever reputation among all men for my life and for my art; but if I break it and forswear myself, may the opposite befall me.
His whole logic in these capitalist times was something that people will not understand, he wanted to serve and serve he did. He often complained at the end of his tenure that having moved from the operation theatre to the administration he missed being in the thick of things. Other than that, in the 40 odd years he served in an obscure government hospital in Delhi, he never said a word, he went about his business and as a giant middle finger to those whoever did question him, he only upped his commitment to serve and like so many times before, serve he did.
One small incident that I remember as a template of who he was is this, it was a summer evening in Delhi and it was quite sultry. We, a middle-class family had just ordered ourselves a new fridge and we were informed that it was to be delivered shortly and it was a small event. We waited. Two hours after the phone call, the bell rang and someone opened the door. A frail man, with tattered clothes, a little bit of a hunch, sweaty and visibly tired was standing there, he said Sir, your fridge is here. He went back down, and lugged the fridge up to the first floor all by himself. As he put the fridge down he asked if he could have some water, my father by that time had become actively involved in the scene and said sure, why don't you take a seat, he sat down on the floor first, to which my dad said, there is a chair please sit there. To my surprise what happened next was a little Dr House, he started to ask the man a few questions as he sipped his water with some difficulty. He asked him if he has chest pain and if he coughs every now and then? He said yes, and he asked my father how he knew, he never answered, he told him you have all the signs of Tuberculosis. He handed him a small chit with instructions to meet him at the hospital, later I found out that the man did have TB, and that my father paid for his medicines and treatment.
I am surprised with everything that ever went on, he never once did anything for himself, yet he always helped others, he ensure his family had everything and both his children were well educated and stood tall with at least some ideals in place in if they were vastly different than his own. He enforced a few things, but never did he do so with the intent of us being his templates. He wanted us to be our own people, and this, in particular, I attribute to both my parents.
The feeling that I have when these small, big and simple comparisons are drawn are very basic, I just feel unworthy of his praise is passed on to me just because I look like him.
The question of how much of him I embody is something I struggle with every day, with a little bit of pressure and a whole lot of judgement not from anyone else but my own lens. I realize the answer to this is possibly a lifelong one and maybe one day on my deathbed I may realize he raised me not to be his copy but to be my own man.
In the meantime, I will leave you with this picture, from when he first held me and hopefully said for the first time, in the voice-only he had “I love you, son”
