For heaven’s sake, don’t glamorise cancer

For heaven’s sake, don’t glamorise cancer

FPJ BureauUpdated: Wednesday, May 29, 2019, 12:47 AM IST
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Recently, someone aptly stated, ‘Cancer is in the air. It’s become endemic.’ So very true. People are getting afflicted by this dreadful disease, which is rightly called the ‘Emperor of Diseases’. Many Bollywood stars have recently been diagnosed with the Big C. It really is a matter of grave concern.

And as a blood-cancer survivor (AML: Acute Myeloid Leukemia), though I’m still battling tooth and nail, I seriously feel that somewhere we are unwittingly glamorising it. Isn’t it macabre for the print and visual media to splash pics of bald-headed celebrity cancer survivors after their chemotherapy sessions? What’s so great about this look? Are we admiring or gloating over someone’s misfortune in an unknowingly sadistic manner?

Agreed, there is no need of social quarantine and cancer does not carry a social stigma, yet showing images of cancer patients, however happy they may ostensibly look, is an outright invasion of one’s privacy and personal space. In this age of too much openness and sneak-peaks, we have actually become heartless and insensate.

Ask yours truly. When anyone inquires after my blood-cancer, I feel as if he/she is reminding me of something that I don’t want to dwell upon. We should realise that the survivor is most likely acutely uncomfortable discussing his/her cancer. So, how can these celebrities feel truly happy and triumphant when their pics of chemo-looks are splashed all over?

A TV actress, who’s suffering from ovarian cancer, told me at FTII that every time someone tries to click her pic with a bona fide intention to encourage others, she politely says no to that photographer.

When we talk too much about something or some phenomenon, we tend to cheapen it. We take the gravity out of it. This is what we are doing to cancer patients, though not knowingly. We are cheapening their pain and sufferings and not letting them live peacefully.

At the same time, our reverse sympathy is making them feel all the more miserable. A few years ago, the world’s best medical journal Lancet carried a research on cancer and mentioned that all those suffering from cancer conscientiously avoided the interference of overzealous well-wishers and sympathisers. They felt more sick when well-wishers prodded them regarding their illness, the report stated.

People erroneously believe in good faith that writing about more and more cancer-sufferers will have a cathartic effect on those who are already suffering from this life-threatening disease. I’m afraid, they are outright mistaken. Whenever I get to hear about a new case of cancer popping up, I tend to get further depressed and the apprehension of death looms large.

By lining up new cases of cancer every other day, society is doing a great disservice to those who are in the clutches of Big C.

Be sensitive and don’t tom-tom cancer. Try to empathise with those going through the ordeal day in and day out.

Let them live peacefully and also manfully.

Mirza Ghalib said, ” Maut ka ek din mua’yyan hai/Neend kyon raat bhar nahin aati ” (The day of death is predestined/ Why does sleep elude all night?)

So, please let’s sleep without your cloying sympathy and care before the ultimate King of Sleep(death) takes us away from this wretched, ruthless and voyeuristic world.

(An advanced research scholar of Semitic Languages and Civilizations, Sumit teaches at world’s premier varsities.)

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