Primalsoup

[Representative Image generated using AI]

The day I got my diagnosis, was a Tuesday mid-morningish. At this point, having spent so much time mastering the fine art of procrastinating my bath-time, I was sitting in my filth on the giant sofa. Amma was making valiant attempts to guilt-trip me into having a bath, but I resisted. I like to tell that I had an inkling that something was not right, and that my world as I know was about to change unimaginably. But honestly, that is all rubbish. I was just being a plain old-fashioned bum, nothing more. When my sister-in-law, who had gone to collect my pathology report returned home quietly, I knew then that something was afoot. Her normally smiling emoji face looked glum and she did not initiate any eye contact. She then proceeded to say the dreaded C-word, C A R C I N O M A. 

“What does that mean,” Amma wanted to know. But I knew right away, for more than 10 years ago, I had picked up Appa’s pathology report and soon after that I had phoned a colleague who was herself a cancer survivor, and she had told me, “I am sorry Radhika, but your dad has cancer.”

Anyway, back to the problem at hand, sorry to be dramatic and all, in that moment, my life seemed to have transformed into stuff that Bollywood plots are made of. I mean cue the Kal Ho Na Ho piano theme and dear old Shahrukh dropping dead at the end of the movie. SRK the infallible superstar did not make it, and neither did my Appa, who had a great karmic balance sheet. What chance did I have then? I was going to be toast. The only people who survived the dreaded C word were politicians and Bollywood stars who could afford to pay for First World healthcare. You would think now is the time that I should have had some kind of life-changing epiphany where I would tell myself something like, “screw cancer, I will fight this. I will be Bollywood star in real life, not reel life.”

But na, all I kept thinking then was, damn it! I should have not delayed my bath. 

If you think I am being needlessly flippant, well I can’t help it. Chandler Bing is my spirit animal, I make jokes when I am uncomfortable. But let me do something a little uncharacteristic, and get a little somber. After all, cancer, is still one of those illnesses where medical science often fails and prognosis is not always the best. Around the time that I got my diagnosis, I came across a very wise quote (via WhatsApp University, but where else), that said, “Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.” So my Cancer (yes, I capitalised the C, because why not?) taught me a few things, it has been the most revealing thing that I have encountered. I have learnt things about me, about people I love and the sheer whimsiness of the universe. So has the cancer made me a better person? More empathetic? Loving? Nope. I am still a grumpy git. Has it made me smarter? Given me more gravitas? Nope, still remain the silly old twat. It has changed my life, but it hasn’t changed me. Though, it has made me retire my title of Champion-Self-Medicator, that I was ever so proud of.

But I am done with cancer and would like to go back to the times when C was Casablanca, my favourite movie that I have actually never watched. Or C for Cheese, that honestly, I like only on top of a pizza (even if this post makes you believe otherwise). Or C for Chutzpah, a word that I am not entirely sure how to pronounce or what it even means, but that I like to believe is a quality I have. Or how about C for Cake, big, chunky cake. None of the red velvet and fondant nonsense. Not cupcakes either (cupcakes are for the weak), a full-bodied chocolate cake, with good ole fashioned icing, and all the gluten in the world.

Cake me away, please.

*This piece originally appeared in the ‘We Had To Be: An Anthology of Survivors’ earlier this year*