The concept of the human body analogy against the cosmos has often bowled me over. The similarities are uncanny if you take a look at the way some nebulae imitate the appearance of a human eye. Finding the Helix nebula reaffirmed the semblance further as it appears to be gawking at us like the ‘Eye of God’ as it is often referred to, or if you think about it for long, brings to mind the legendary F. Scott Fitzgerald‘s magnum opus The Great Gatsby.

I remember reading somewhere that a human eye has more atoms than stars in the known universe. How closely or many times have you seen a human eye without being baffled by the vastness of the cosmos that mirrors inside? It makes you wonder about us being stardusts after all, that we imitate everything that the universe reflects upon us.

I hadn’t in my wildest dreams imagined what cancer patients have to go through until I became one. Images from television and movies would only be successful to a certain amount while projecting sorry lives that we could feel only empathized towards. There was a little heart there, to be candid, more of a relief that it looked distant. But when it stopped becoming so, that’s when my world felt upended. Their pain metamorphosed into mine until I became one of them.

It feels surreal to be experiencing it, the absolute helplessness that this disease reduces you to. It is an entire world of its own, and the most abysmal one to confront when you are smacked right in the middle of it.

On the first day of my Chemo, all of a sudden I began feeling uprooted into the world of dizziness owing to a strong dose of Cytax. Not knowing the ins and outs of what was happening I had no choice but to tell my dad with whom I was having a pleasant unbothered conversation, how I had begun to feel pretty strange out of the blue. That immediate help was required.

It felt like ‘lights out’. That maybe this was it. Perhaps if I go, it could be that one way. Then it dawned on me that there was so much left to do. At least I should have had my financials sorted, where’s what, what’s where, at least tell my kin where the gold was hidden, so that they don’t have to end up digging the backyard.

In that slo-mo dizziness that hit me, I saw a million stars form at the precipice of my eyes, fighting their chaotic way and merging against each other. It was so pellucid that it felt like a different dimension altogether, a dimension I was unconsciously venturing into. I knew I was going to faint coz those streaks of stars were forcing my eyes shut. Unable to hold their dazzling light into the rim, I held my one hand against my head for a temporal shuteye. I felt utterly powerless for I had no choice but to wait for my dad to fetch help. It was too soon for us to get the jargon.

I started uttering the name “Radhe Krishna”, the strongest bond from a flickering rekindled faith, and secretly prayed, for if it did happen, it would happen with the utterance of the Lord’s name, and that should suffice.

Coz it certainly felt like a goodbye then. What if there was no waking up? That thought hit me hard.

There was a bit of dashing and rushing as I felt the cold touch of a nurse’s hand fiddle with my arms. The taxol was stopped. Her reassuring voice intermingled with my dad’s frantic gasps regurgitated me back to the world of the living.

They waited along with me then for the stars in my eyes to dissipate, for the reality to kick in, to feel how different or similar the two abutting planes are. That we are only a dose away from leaving, and how thin a line that is!

I took a deep breath as I found myself being delivered to an inexorable slumber. Someone whispered to me, “Not so soon, boy. Miles to go!”