Kal ho na ho: Why we're afraid of Yuvi's cancer

The first step almost every celebrity takes when they fall seriously ill is to head for foreign shores. From Rajnikanth to Sonia Gandhi and now Yuvraj Singh, anybody who is anybody has chosen to seek refuge far from the madding Indian crowds. “Yuvraj Singh is happy he is in Boston for his cancer treatment and not in India where unwarranted and sentimental attention could have dampened his mood,” reports the Times of India. Ok, that hurts but let’s face it, we Indians don’t have the best bedside manner when it comes to serious illnesses – especially cancer. The very mention of the C-word sends us headlong into paroxysms of commiseration. Our cup of sympathy brimmeth over with nuggets of spiritual wisdom (usually the Gita), surefire ‘cures’ that totally worked for Minoo Aunty’s cousin’s husband, copious advice on everything from diet to doctors. Yuvi attributes this unhelpful deluge to an exaggerated fear of cancer:

Sources close to the ailing cricketer told TOI that Yuvraj keeps talking about the “matter-of-fact attitude” of both the medical staff and patients towards cancer and this has helped him to develop a positive outlook. “People come in for treatment and leave the hospital after a cup of coffee, smiling,” a source close to the family told TOI. “It isn’t like India where cancer is treated virtually like a death warrant.”

[caption id=“attachment_206027” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Anybody who is anybody has chosen to seek refuge far from the madding Indian crowds. Reuters”]  [/caption] But that’s because he’s only dealing with folks at the hospital. Americans maybe more reticent in their sympathies, but we are globally united in our secret belief that cancer is indeed a death warrant – if only because our most beloved movies tell us so. Since time immemorial – i.e. the release of Love Story back in 1970 followed by the bromantic Anand (1971) – our favourite actors have genteelly passed into its mortal embrace. Looking picture perfect in every scene, they smiled bravely through their glycerine tears, offering ponderous lines of comfort, cheer and wisdom, until that very last moment when the keening wails of duly assembled loved ones marked THE END. It’s an incontrovertible celluloid truth: you get cancer, you die. Otherwise, what’s the point of the damn disease? As cancer survivor Gary Sperling observed in Slate:

Terms of Endearment, Brian’s Song, and Wit typify something else about cancer movies: Virtually nobody makes it. Yet, according to the American Cancer Society, the five-year survival rate for all cancers is 62 percent, and for many individual types, the odds are even better. Clearly then, these movies are not really about cancer. The disease is just a convenient stand-in for impending death. A factual portrayal of the ill person’s odds would only confuse the issue.

So it would since the malady is irresistible precisely because it offers a camera-friendly route to the grave. It’s the perfect terminal illness that allows the hero/heroine to fall in love, learn life lessons, heal psychic wounds and bitter emotional rifts, and fulfill long cherished dreams – without physical disfigurement or loss of mobility until when required, i.e. for the hospital bed scenes in the final act. As Sperling notes, there is no room in the movies for the reality of cancer treatment in its 21st century incarnation: “However, even as the culture of the disease has evolved to include cancer workshops, cancer greeting cards, and cancer fashion tips, the victims in these films remain oddly isolated.” Not much has changed since a dying Rajesh Khanna thundered, “Zindagi aur maut uparwale ke haath hai jahanpana, jise na aap badal sakte hai na mein,” with his hapless Babu Moshay doctor looking on. Thirty-odd years later, in Aashayein, John Abraham was still wasting beautifully away without any apparent treatment in a picturesque hospice. That both the 1998 Stepmom and its 2010 Hindi remake We Are Family killed their heroines within months of their gloomy prognosis – an unlikely scenario even in the most advanced case today – sums up the abysmal state of realism in cancer movies around the world. Happily for Yuvi, his life has no intention of imitating art. Doctors predict a 95 percent chance of recovery – joyful odds that are blasphemy for any self-respecting scriptwriter. This true life story won’t be getting a Bollywood remake. But the Yuvi story is already playing on a small screen near you – in the Birla Sun life insurance ad that has been duly tweaked to reflect his cancer woes:

The cricketer even flew down to India three weeks ago to change the word “injury” to “health problems” and added a phrase to the original tag-line in the voice-over of the new series…. “Recounting his triumph and then losing it all to factors out of his control was his idea. He even changed the original script of the ad and added the phrase ‘to baat to wahin aa gayee na’ to the original tagline — jab tak balla chal raha hai, tab tak thaath hain…jab balla nahin chalega to…,” says [Ajay Kakar, chief marketing officer, financial services, Aditya Birla Group].

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No doubt, there will be a new series of ads when Yuvi goes into remission and back in action. Finally, a cancer movie with a happy ending.