Is love in your genes or in your choices?
Today’s article should make us think hard about life, love and marriage.
He is Chandru Vishindas, 39. He married his childhood sweetheart, Ms Pooja Baharani Ghansham in 2004. They met when they were 15 and love since then blossomed.
Their firstborn daughter brought great joy into their lives in 2007. But, things took an unexpected turn on June 20, 2012.
That year, the Vishindas, were expecting a boy and this was what’s reported by exec photojournalist Neo Xiaobin:-
“The couple’s joyful anticipation turned into devastation when she encountered severe foetal distress while delivering their son in an instrument-assisted delivery.”
“The complications also left her in a semi-vegetative state, while her newborn son Ryan suffered brain injuries which have left him with mixed spastic and dystonic quadriplegic cerebral palsy. He requires continuous medical assistance.”
Since 2012, Ms Pooja undergone “10 major operations” and she remained “semi-comatose”.
She is currently being taken care of by two full-time nurses and her mother who is 64.
Vishindas had to hired a full-time nanny to look after Ryan and a domestic helper to “help out with chores at home.”
So far, for the last six years, he had spent more than $1.2 million and his monthly expenses are around $21,000.
They currently live in a 5-room HDB flat in Bedok and Vishindas had given up his job as a vice-president of retail and operations early last year.
He now runs a wholesale and distribution firm called Bargain King. To supplement his income, he also works as an estate agent.
Lesson? One. Is love in your genes or in your choices?
For the majority of us, love is in our choices. Though I don’t deny that genes play a part, I like to think that love is a response towards making choices that count or matter.
For some, that choice can be an uphill climb because many factors are involved. One relevant factor is how we are hardwired - largely genetically speaking.
Again, it can’t be denied that some of us are more inclined to seek pleasure than pain, have a tendency to take more risk, are more impulsive than others, take a grandiose view of self, lean in favour of being antisocial, apathetic and socially awkward, are more driven with perfectionist tendencies, and the variability goes on and on. We are born with such set inclinations or tendencies.
But they all exist in a continuum and vary as a matter of degree. I believe they are not invariable over one’s long journey of life.
No doubt the challenges for some in making choices to push forward with hope are tougher than others, because their genetic makeup and circumstances are different, and that only adds to its complexity.
Yet, when it comes to Vishindas and his family, we can see how the commitment to love made the difference. For that reason, I believe the phrase “love overcomes all” goes beyond our genetic fixture and/or the environmental challenges we face.
Here are Vishindas’ words which ought to give us pause for deep inward reflection: -
“I never regretted her as my life, as my wife. Cherish love. I hope people will love their family, spouses and loved ones while they still can. Do not take for granted what you have until it’s lost.”
Regardless of where we stand on the continuum of inclinations or proclivities, loving someone is still a response at every single point where we are expected or demanded to make a choice.
Vishindas made his (choices) every day for the last six years. He created a website called “prayforpinky”, and it is filled with pictures of the couple in happier times, “which he hopes will remind people of the importance of love and fragility of life.”
He is consistently faithful in the little things, the little choices no one sees, and he prays ceaselessly for his beloved; though medically speaking, “the odds are not in their favour.”
It reports that “while Mdm Pooja’s condition is stable, her body is deteriorating, and last year, doctors told Mr Vishindas to be prepared that she may not return to normal living.”
Despite all that, Vishindas fought against whatever inclinations to give up and is wholly determined to push on, to take nothing for granted, to love not just in good times, but in the worst of it.
That is what makes love great, (beyond the arguments of nurture and nature), and beyond all publicity.
I believe such overcoming love is inspiring because it is expressed in the extraordinary quietude of a resolve that is unshakeable, unyielding and unfailing. Vishindas not only lives intentionally, but with purpose, courage and hope.
I trust Vishindas would be glad to know that his story today has an indelible knock-on effect on me and my own commitment to love, to turn all negative proclivity into positive proactivity, and most importantly, to resolve to take nothing for granted.
Thank you from the heart.
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