Cancer is an unhappy return gift of the post industrialised developing society

After finishing my education, I moved to Mumbai to pursue my dreams of becoming an actor. I still am in pursuit of that happiness, though I am grateful. I have made several close friends in Mumbai, of which one was a boy called Rupinder Inderjit Singh. A spirited young cut-surd from a village in Punjab, Rupi moved to Mumbai to write Hindi feature films. He had a peculiar penchant for desi humour, and binged on chocolate every second day. He was perpetually on a diet to shed the extra kilos. So when he unexpectedly and suddenly lost a lot of weight a few years ago, he was thrilled. And so was I. Only, he started experiencing excruciating pain in his stomach. We egged him to at least go see a doctor, instead of popping painkillers. The doctor recommended an MRI and, as you can probably guess, also owing to the occasion, no surprise that his kidney had a malignant tumour. It was a shock, to discover that one of our own, a non-smoker and a teetotaller, had developed cancer. At 24, we were all broke, ill-advised and helpless.

Cancer, and what happens once you realise you or a loved one have it, is not what I am going to focus on here. The fact that cancer is growing at an alarming rate, though, is a cause of concern. The high level of toxicity in our bodies and minds is what is causing cancer to become a monster. It's the gas in our deodorants, and the smoke of our cigarettes, the teflon coating of our non stick pans, and the stuffing in our sofa, the pesticide in our apple and the detergent in our milk, the toxins in our colon and the gutka in our cheek, it's the guilt we harbour about sex and the unclean toilets we use, it's a nuclear power plant and lead in our water, it's the radiation from your cell phone and the stress in our system. Its all of the above, or maybe none. But really, it can happen to anyone and at anytime. Truth is, this is one unhappy return gift of the post industrialised developing society. What can we possibly do?

Let's look at some basic facts. Women are more prone to it than men. Breast cancer has the largest share of them all. Oral cancers caused due to tobacco are more common among men.

I am a firm believer in naturopathy and Ayurveda. I do believe there will come a day when people start evaluating the root cause of a disease in order to eliminate it - when we begin to give our ancient wisdom the respect it deserves in this "modernised" society and not wait for a nod from the west, when we treat and respect our body as a self-healing instrument of magic. And that day isn't far.

Yuvraj Singh, Lisa Ray, Manisha Koirala and Lance Armstrong amongst others have spoken publicly about their battle with cancer. They have been celebrated for the same. They are all beautiful and brave. What cancer brings with it, is difficult. And it takes great courage to fight the disease, because the enemy is within. Your beauty lies in your smile, in your eyes, as much in your glorious skinhead as in your lustrous hair.

In my opinion, one should immediately run from people that make you feel like you have a suspended death sentence once they discover that you have cancer. Don't we all begin to die a little bit every day, as soon as we are born? Do we need people to pity, patronise or terrorise us about possible fatal consequences ? Research has shown that a positive and peaceful attitude towards one's disease helps combat it effectively. But if you are here, you already know that. Can a disease not be looked at as dis-ease, but simply a body that's ill at ease? Can it not mean that one has a real shot at starting over? At adopting a lifestyle and emotional attitude that supports life and well-being? If we were not created to experience everything that we do in all its entirety, what really is the purpose of us on this planet? Is life about the pursuit of happiness or really the happiness of pursuit? The world I know is one of films. Hrishikesh Mukherjee made the cult film Anand in 1971. In the climax, Rajesh Khanna dies in the arms of his friend, and in that teaches him what a gift life really is. Anand means joy. Lets take a cue from that and live each day celebrating what it truly means to be alive.

Oh! And I had breakfast with Rupi yesterday. I ate an egg white omelette. He had nutella pancakes...