Perks at a cost?

Heard an interview with Malaysia's premier cartoonist, Lat, recently. I was fascinated with the part of the interview when he was doing a cartoon strip in a national daily many years ago. He was doing a strip which ran daily on weekdays, and it was a continuing story. One Friday, he was stuck. He did not know how to continue with his narration, and he had until Sunday evening to submit his work.

He had a kind of writer's block, not knowing how to proceed. Rather than staring blankly at his wall, he thought a little unwinding would help. Downing one or two of his favourite beverages and whipping up a conversation with a couple of his occasional acquaintances, it suddenly dawned upon him. Inspiration sprang from everywhere, and he went on to complete his story to become everybody's satirist.

That is what my friends in the creative field tell me. Whenever they hit a brick wall, ideas come sprawling down when they go out and mingle with people. It seems people-gazing or just talking to them may stimulate the grey cells of the creative hemisphere of your brain to produce your next masterpiece.

Wait. Barristers are not called to the bar for nothing. The Bar is where they eel their way to find or create clients. A few drinks would make one philosophical and ponder about old age. Your friendly insurance agents will always hang around the bar to cook up a plan and pave the way for an affordable retirement plan!

Not so smooth sailing for the self-sacrificing practitioners of the profession of health.
You go to the house of ruins to unwind or you faithfully fulfil your duties as a son to attend some old auntie's grandchild's fifth birthday party and what you get? While you land your bite on your spicy pakora, an old uncle will start describing to you in minute details his abnormal bowel opening and his eternal struggle with haemorrhoids. Just as you politely ease your way by concocting a tale that somebody is calling you, another Auntie catches to illustrate in near demonstrative ways her distress with urinary incontinence. That is when you gaze your golden juice and wonder if you would ever look at fermented hop in the same way ever again. So much for a stimulating conversation and the unwinding needed for a soul exhausted caring for the sick.

To the people who recognise you, they would always see you as the man with the stethoscope, even if you are down to your swimming trunk. That is why many choose to remain incognito under the disguise of anonymity when travelling or appearing in social media interphases! To give peace of mind a chance to the soul...

One man's meat is another's ...

Back in early 90s, whilst I was still a green horned newbie at the art of healing, I was approached by a lady who despite her outwardly ultra conservative appearance of being dressed in a hijab, looked straight in the eye and asked whether there was any way that her 3-month fetus could be screened for Down Syndrome.

From her dressing, it did not require a rocket scientist to guess her views on prenatal screening and termination of pregnancy.

After a protracted discussion, I discovered that her previous child was a Downs and needed multiple surgeries for heart septal defects and Hirschsprung's disease even before he was one. Seeing the puny one cut open and pricked repeatedly was just simply too much for her to stomach. And the monthly follow up the Capital City just drained here physically and financially. Even before she could recover from the trauma of having a special child, in rolls in another pregnancy (through an act of Man and The Divine Powers) in came the ensuing uncertainties. Rather than seeing history repeating itself, she was willing to undergo whatever test even a termination of pregnancy if warranted than to deliver a Down Syndrome baby despite her religious conviction and country laws because she had first-hand experience of a special child.

It is easy to judge others using our life experience as a yardstick of how everybody else should live. When a similar malady strikes us, all the rules and regulations, which in normal times would be fought by tooth and nail to be upheld, just goes out of the window!
This reminded me of a Lat cartoon published in the local dailies at a time when moral policing was the flavour of the month (it still is). It was a caricature of an elderly husband-wife couple in their 70s. The husband was reading aloud about the banning of Muslim girls in beauty pageants. The wife replied that it was improper to expose too much in public. To this, the husband responded, "I wonder who the 1947 Miss Ratu Ronggeng was? And the wife bowed her head in embarrassment!

It goes on to say that we make rules and regulations for others to follow but when we are the affected party, somehow the bar is lowered or the goal post is shifted!

Lat: The Malaysian treasure