There is no fancy photo to go with this post. If I had to fish out a photo, it would be one of the inner workings of the human body and I do not quite like the idea of putting it all out there. Sometimes we just do not need the graphics of it all. Sometimes photos can take a backseat and they shall in this post.
The thing is I am bothered and confounded as is my family. You see my father-in-law has been unwell for some time now. This strong military man laid low is a strange thing to envisage because apart from being a toughie he has always been an active man, given his background, but even after retiring he has been going for his walks, playing golf…the works. Yet he fell ill recently. It turned out to be an oesophageal tear. What is that you might ask? I did too. I could not even imagine that it could quite serious till I learned that if not treated within 24 hours it can be fatal.
Firstly, the oesophagus is the tube that travels from our mouths all the way down to the stomach, so it can get ruptured if there is some kind of physical injury to the neck, violent vomiting, ulcers caused by reflux or even tumours in the throat. But he has had a few endoscopy tests and all has all been ruled out, except that he did undergo violent vomiting initially. The tear was stapled and yet there is dark blood still seeping out from some part in the body. The doctors are confused. Now they are going to run a colonoscopy to figure out what it might be.
It is awful to not know what is going on and even more so when you see the doctors’s brows furrow up in thought. The helplessness is frightful.
The point of this post is not that I want sympathy from you. Far be it from that. It is a difficult moment that wakes you up to the frailties of the human body. So my dear friend, please take care of the best thing you will ever own. That is your body. Please tone down the spices (imagine an Indian saying that and here you can roll your eyes at me), lower the chilli quotient in your food and eat well. If you have reflux, get it shown and do something about it, because nothing matters more than taking care of yourself. At the end of the day, that is all that matters.
ARUNDHATI BASU 
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