Thoughts about disease and death are awfully frightening; talking about it is even worse.
But that was precisely what the insurance consultant sitting in front of us was doing – telling us about the two most imposing reflections that our mind chooses to sidestep, while we merrily dig into the meatball of life. We behave as if the two big D’s were things that could happen only to someone else, even as our core instinct prompts us about the possibility of the former and the certainty of the latter in our lives.
“I am sorry, but I have to be a little raw about this,” he announced, giving his audience a grating presentiment of what was to follow. We felt our stomachs tighten as he spoke of all the things that we had to know about ‘possibilities’ and ‘eventualities’, but had chosen to ignore for obvious reasons. The session wasn’t as innocuous as it had been when we had taken our Life Insurance policy many years ago from the ubiquitous LIC agent back in India. It is strange that the phrase ‘in the event of death’ did not sound so sinister then as it did now.
With a health insurance card from the company that takes care of medical expenses here, there was little else that weighed on our mind until we cruised into the mid-forties and the shades of grey started showing up. We realised that old age (albeit, still some distance away) was not just ‘a natural occurrence that we could handle when we came to it.’ Instances of critical illnesses among old people (and some younger) we knew and the utterly prohibitive cost of quality health care and treatment that we heard about forced us to do some serious reality check. It wasn’t an easy exercise, but who said life beyond the glam years was so easy?
The literature that we were handed out blew the living day lights out of me. It gave us a heads up on the worst possible ways to die. I felt as if I was being asked to choose my most (in)convenient way to do it, and then I was being given not a clever way to buck it, but a fair chance to beat it. There were, of course, no guarantees on coming out alive and well, but we all have the right and responsibility to put up a fight, and to do that, it is now not enough to have guts and gumption. We need lump sum cash in our pockets.
My grandpas and grandmas ended their run on this earth so peacefully that not even the seasons noticed their passing. The paper in my hand suggested that things might not be so peaceful. Along with new inventions for better living, there are now newer, mysterious and often unpleasant ways of quitting this world. Blame it on life style shifts, natural inequities or plain irreverence to the cosmic law; we may, for all you know, get the short end of the stick, and we had better make ample provisions for it.
It is certainly not a jolly thought to dwell in, especially when life is riding the crest and things are gung ho, but it helps to swallow the bitter bill and be prepared. Not all of us can boast of chunky bank balances to support our future medical needs. We often scrimp and save for our children’s future, our retirement, a world tour, but very seldom for that prospect of falling grievously ill.
It will be tough to convince the irrational mind that taking an insurance cover against such a contingency doesn’t mean that we are going to contract something critical. Far from it. It is only like carrying an umbrella in our bag even when the skies are clear, for, as Forrest Gump’s mama often said, “Life is a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get.”
No comments:
Post a Comment