From the earliest times to our own, in cave, village, or consulting room, certain individuals- healers- have stood out for being able to ease the suffering of the mourning, melancholic, or mad

Jamison, 2023, Fires in the Dark, Healing the Unquiet Mind

Vision, trust,inspiration were some gifts my father gave me. 

Growing up in Poona -Maharashtra – he gave me the gift of the morning hour, when night turns into day. In developing the home library, and learning from different perspectives he helped me expand my horizons

This summer, as I visited my son in Elmhurst, Queens, we went to Marble Collegiate church (MC) for a mass. I also expanded my library.  The MC mass was having a ceremony to commemorate fresh graduates. They were asked to share about their first days in MC, something which the congregation does not know about them, how God/Spirituality is working in their lives. An interesting discussion with many varied responses led me down memory lane, when I used to attend Anglican church in Medina, Tripoli and reminded me of how the premises in Medina where the Church was housed, used to once be an art gallery. It reminded me of the Easter celebrations of the Orthodox church during the eighties (veterans told me about those years under Gaddafi-and how he was tolerant to those streams of spirituality). Those meditations in Medina Tripoli, led me to view the art of the Mediterranean in a different light, and understand works like “Death of Dragut” from different perspectives. 

This June as I drive around (Orangeville – to help son to obtain a G license so that he does not have to go back to taking the license every few years; Export boulevard- to see how the story of Ram can teach us lessons of society and see how the Guyana Hindu community carries the message forward in Canada in 21st century)- I listened to “Unquiet Mind” (Jamison, 2014) and the nuances of how depression and mania are different for men and women, what cultural messages are passed on to different genders and how these can be used to chart the maps, territories and journeys of persons with challenges.

Father’s Day 

This spring I took a course on Grief, Bereavement, and Mourning in which the course directors (Dr.Eddy Pakes, Psychiatrist and Michael Blugerman, Social worker) told about how the age of loss (death /separation/adoption/ transition) affects the nature of grief. A young child who has lost his parent perceives the world in a different way. This reminded me of my own father’s oft repeated remarks about how his mother passed away when he was less than five years old (Shimla, British India, early 1940s). It also made me recall the emotional recalling by my uncle , one of my reading and note taking mentors, on the day his father passed away, when he was around ten years old, and how he went from school to the banks of one of the tributaries of the River Ganga, (north of Rishikesh area, Uttarakhand, India) to participate in the last rites of his father. The influence of my father and uncle, on the way I make notes, view the world, and relationship with death and life became more focused as I took this course. 

Afterthoughts

The home library has been a a gift my father, grandfather and uncles gave me, which I have refined over the decades. Keeping a Reading journal, in which I note my thoughts, reflections after reading adds richness and uniqueness to this library

References

Jamison, K. R. (2014). An unquiet mind: A memoir of moods and madness. Pan Macmillan.

Mind, A. U. (2015). Kay Redfield Jamison. Writing Widowhood: The Landscapes of Bereavement, 169.

Earlier perspectives 

In 2015 (Radiology, Tripoli) – we did a series on History of Medicine and the Imaging correlates of Nobel prize in medicine for past 20 years, and inculcated them into our department Wall Magazine