The serial mode...: Dr Tiny Nair
The Hindu,
March 12, 2017
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The serial mode, true to the Bluma
Zeigarnik effect
TINY NAIR
EXCERPTS:
Once she understood that she was in hospital, she asked, “What
day of the week is it, doctor?”
“Thursday,” I
said. “You came here on Saturday.”
“Oh my god,” she
started sobbing. I knew that all this was but the result of her stress and
anxiety related to her condition.
I did not
realise how wrong I was.
“You would go
home in another couple of days,” I said.
“No, no, doctor,
it’s not that,” she paused.
“So I have been
here for five days now. Which means I have missed out on 20 episodes of four
different television serials”! “Serials?” I had run out of words, stumped and
caught behind all at the same time. All the nurses started laughing. Here we
are worrying about life and death, and she talks about TV serials.
Stuff
to look forward to
“Please
understand me, doctor,” she said in a soft voice. “My husband has passed away;
the children go out for work and I stay alone at home. My only entertainment is
the TV set and the serials. I have no one to talk to. So I live, laugh and cry
with the serial characters and eagerly wait to know what is going to happen
next. It is this interest in waiting for the next episode that keeps me alive.
Now that I have been in the hospital for five days, I have lost the thread of
continuity. You may not understand, but now I have very little else to look
forward to.”
That’s exactly
what Bluma Zeigarnik theorised. But what I learnt a different lesson: “Our junk
may be someone else’s diamond.”
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