Even though I was hard-pressed for time, I gave in to a colleague Rakesh’s request to accompany him to a state-run hospital where he wanted to see his ailing aunt.
While he inquired about her condition, I inquisitively glanced around the general ward and saw some patients groaning, others sobbing and some just lying still.
In a bed near to where Rakesh’s aunt was lay a woman — motionless, yet staring at me rather intently. She was about 60 and though we were strangers, it appeared as if she wanted to say something to me or any other willing listener. However, the words were not forthcoming.
This went on for several seconds, both of us looking into each other’s eyes in complete silence. At last, I broke the silence. “How are you?” I asked her.
She responded, not through words but through tears that welled up. In the process of trying to decipher her feelings, I offered her one of the apples Rakesh had brought for his aunt. She hurriedly grabbed it as if she had never seen an apple before. I found myself unable stand the tears of this unknown woman. Was she was yearning for someone or something, I asked her. Feebly she uttered, “Yes, my son.”
“Where is he?” I asked her.
She responded with more tears. No words. The attendant of another patient said her son, a day labourer, had gotten his mother admitted a couple of weeks earlier. He showed up only once and there was no trace of him since then.
Initially, Kamla cried for her son day in and day out but lately she had stopped. She had no money and nobody to care for her, other patient’s attendant said.
The state of affairs in state-run hospitals being what it is, I could imagine the deficiencies and agony the poor woman must be experiencing. Only the resourceful get the desired attention. Kamla and others of her ilk stand nowhere.
I had come with Rakesh to see his aunt. But now my focus had turned on Kamla, a destitute and complete stranger. The hospital food was only taking its toll on her frail frame.
That evening I bought some fruits and nutritious biscuits and put them in Kamla’s medicine chest, under the care of the neighbouring patient’s attendant.
I gave him some money also and promised to visit her again the next day. A tearful Kamla watched me leave the ward. Was she seeing her son in me?
Seeing her worried look, I returned to reassure her that I would come again. My words made her even more emotional.
She sobbed a little, so weak that she could not even mumble “OK”. She quietly extended her hand which I grabbed to reiterate my commitment and her eyes followed me until I was out of sight.
Back home, I wondered how any son could abandon his aged, ailing mother! My inner self provided the answer: “Yes, given the current social conditions, the large-scale impoverishment and lack of social security, a son can dump his mother if he is unable to feed himself.”
We frequently come across such instances every now and then. They languish in deep apathy and die unsung and unwept. We are living in a society where the ‘haves’ have an upper hand while the have-nots and their progeny suffer at the hands of the former. This has been happening for centuries. It continues to happen and, notwithstanding pious professions and commitments to the contrary, nobody knows when we will have a welfare state in the real sense of the term.
Ironically, I have witnessed yesterday’s underprivileged change colours and acquire airs upon graduating into the category of haves — and then mete out the same treatment to the oppressed people, the same treatment they received as downtrodden people. With such thoughts weighing heavily on my mind, I tossed in bed all night, looking forward to the following day when I would be able to visit Kamla. This time I went fully prepared with some home-cooked food, fruits and biscuits. Gleefully, I went to her bed but she was not there; someone else was the new occupant. “Where is Kamla?” I asked Rakesh’s aunt.
“She is gone. She breathed her last early this morning. Her body was taken away for disposal [after] being unclaimed,” she said.
The words gave me a jolt. I had not known Kamla that long but for some unknown reason, the poor woman had evoked in me a deep sympathy and love for her. I felt she was still staring at me from somewhere, soliciting help with hope. The incident taught me one thing: If you want to do some good to somebody do it expeditiously for, life is too short. Who knows, the morrow may never come for them!
Lalit Raizada is a journalist based in India.
