Doctors and nurses who nurture their musical talents as much as their medical skills find emotional outlet, deeper human connection, and two intertwined fields that challenge you to improve each day.
These are certainly testing times, the pandemic wreaking havoc across age groups, across even health parameters, where even those considered healthy have been gravely afflicted. The cures sought have been multi-fold, going beyond the recognised allopathic treatments to encompass alternative medicines as well as the regular practice of yoga, meditation and breathing techniques.
Music was the best medicine for 60-year-old homemaker Vijayalakshmi Kalathil, whose body had been ravaged by cancer. The brutality of lymphoblastic leukaemia was devastating but she always had a comforting friend by her bed: Chitti Babu’s classical music compositions, that she’d listen to on her old Panasonic tape-recorder, while trapped in a lifeless existence. Kalathil didn’t survive.
Chemo ruined her body, but music salvaged her soul. Its anxiolytic effect was undeniable and her granddaughter Tara Rajendran, a Kerala-based physician and an Indian classical musician, decided to use music as an antidote for suffering.
She is today a leading advocate for the inclusion of music therapy in India’s healthcare infrastructure.