Guest Column: Down The Memory Lane..

Volume 5 Issue 7 July 2015

‘An eye opening experience’

I had joined the Department of Psychiatry at JJM Medical College, Davangere in 1984 and an incident then had a lasting impact. I had a classmate who was married and both were indeed the role models as to “How a couple should be”! Unfortunately he lost his wife during puerperium due to embolism and I visited him to console his bereavement.
He was crying and thumping his chest which appeared an overreaction from a doctor to “death of wife‟. The efforts of his relatives to console him were in vain.

They requested me to talk to him, but all the conventional methods proved futile. I finally called him aside and took him into confidence and suggested with my usual forte that „these things do happen‟ and also „we will all see to it that he will be married off again after 3 months‟. He started crying even more and was inconsolable. A while later
he was cursing me and his comment really opened my eyes – „Rao, you are hopeless and you are not my friend. You are telling me that my marriage will be held 3 months later. How can you be so heartless? Tell me what I should do tonight‟!!

Yes, Woody Allen was right when he said „LOVE is the answer. But while you’re waiting for the answer, sex raises some pretty good questions‟. It made me realize one cannot throw off sex even in the best of relationships. Every problem and each of the problem cases has something sexual, apparent or hidden and to look into it provides lasting benefit. Do remember always – it pays!