THE ONLY TRUTH

Life has a natural tendency to revert back to normalcy everytime some powerful wave jostles it. With increasing number of blows along with the flowing time, the “excitement” dwindles down. Or rather, the blows become a routine and the number of things that make us feel alive decreases. And so life becomes mundane and we, the pragmatic ones, call the phenomenon “maturity”.

To feel alive, one needs to react to every change, soft or harsh, pleasing or repulsive, expected or unexpected. Mature people take things in their stride or to put it differently, things hardly affect them. But somewhere deep inside them, this ‘urge to react’, ‘the will to feel alive’ dies. The outcome can very well be positive as it can be negative. They think rationally, without being moved and decide the best deed in any situation. But the will to act also needs a slight push deep within, and that’s where a little bit of emotions help.

Incidentally, I happened to come across something peculiar a few days back which made my “mature heart” feel again. The inverted commas should not be confused as an intended self-praise though. It was a few hours spent in the general ward of PMCH, the only hope for the cashless destitute of the state. I had been to the hospital earlier too when I was a child and had been sad even then. And since then, I have been to several hospitals in several roles. I have been a patient, his attendant, his relative, his distant acquaintance, his boss and what not. These stints in the ambulances, emergency of private clinics, OPDs of government hospitals, ICUs of sophisticated homeo homes had made me resistant to the foul smell of medicines, phenyl and human discharges. I felt assured of my patience and maturity to deal with the exigent maladies and their cure.

Only till that day. The extremes of my perceptions were pushed a lot further with that experience. It was last Sunday. I had taken off for the day and stayed at home, with my family members. One of my uncle was admitted in ‘Hathwa’ ward of PMCH since a week. The sugar levels in his veins were playing see-saw, scaling the count from 35 to 510 and back within hours. Among the various repercussions, the most annoying was a hemorrhage. My mom and dad had been visiting the uncle’s family staying in the ward daily, carrying their lunch along with them. The previous night, another sad news came that one of my brother –in-law got an electric shock and was brought to emergency ward of PMCH from the suburbs of Hajipur. My dad returned home at 3 AM along with the ailing cousin sister, only after the poor fellow got the primary dressing. In the morning I was given the task to carry the lunches as I was home, for a change. My sister who wept all night, woke me up insisting that I should take her along.

For the uninitiated ones, PMCH stands for Patna Medical College and Hospital. With around 1500 beds, it is unarguably the biggest government hospital in Bihar and has the best doctors of the region. The various departments have separate buildings spread across a wide campus. And on the sides of the roads, lie poor ailing patients who have been rejected as “hopeless cases”. A few of these hopeless cases leave the campus everyday for their heavenly abode, the only way to oust them. The hearse keeps roaming around picking bodies while the weeping family members run behind as if they forgot to bid the last goodbye. In many of the cases, the family members are not there as they already bid their last goodbye even before the poor fellow breathed his last. These lone crusaders, while alive, are taken care of by the big-hearted rickshaw pullers who seldom throw blackened bananas at them. Those who are physically more able, occupy the area where the garbage is collected before final dispatch through trucks owned by some benevolent trusts. This ensures adequate, if not proper, food supply. Like the garbage, the bodies are also cleaned by the government –owned hearses. And thus, the hospital works, keeping alive the hopes of thousands who outnumber the “hopeless” ones. Like it’s said, hope is a good thing and good things never die.

I reached the hospital along with my sister and her 4 year old son, carrying food in both my hands for the two families. While walking to the emergency ward, I saw many grief-stricken poor families on the sides of the pathway, which looked at the bags in my hand with yearning eyes. As I passed through them, the ‘hope’ in their eyes faded to dismal normalcy. The emergency ward had an aisle of around 200 feet with pockets on both sides each filled with around a dozen beds and squirming relatives. Sobs, tears, cries and screams filled the air. I mused if the most patient one among the crowd were the patients themselves or was it their malady which had arrested the outburst. We crossed the stinking aisle and reached the last pocket, where my brother-in-law was lying on one of the twelve beds on a side. The space was nearly the same as my room at my hostel, the difference being the fact that it somehow accommodated a dozen patients and attendants double that figure.

A look at him and I was taken aback. Not that I hadn’t seen badly bruised and mutilated bodies hitherto. The last time when the ARME was called for, I was part of the team which attended the passengers of the ill-fated marriage party bus which was dragged by more than a kilometer by a speedy train. For twelve of them, the journey proved to be there last. Four of them died while being moved out of the entangled bus while the rest twenty-seven were saved. I wasn’t moved a bit then. But this was different. The man had got the shock of 11000 volts, while working on an electric pole. Both his hands, from the fingers to the shoulders and both his legs right upto the hips had been burnt badly. The whitish flesh popped out, defying the bandage. He was constantly looking at the ceiling, as the fall from the pole had broken his neck. Apart from the face, the whole body had lost sensation and was stretched in a strange fashion. The high voltage threw him off the pole after burning his limbs. I had seen people getting shocks and even had it myself, but those were from 220 volts supply. This was awfully different. I remembered our last meeting in my brother’s marriage when we dined in the same pattal. During my school days, I had befriended electrons. Not anymore. I was little aware that the small electrons could bring such colossal changes.

He saw me and I could see he was trying to greet me. I fumbled for a response. All I could muster was a reassuring look in return. I touched his swollen neck and asked if he felt the touch. With mumbled words, he replied affirmatively, though I could see the swell was larger than the largest goitre. I looked around and saw his mother sitting beside the bed on the floor, sobbing continuously. My sister joined her while the kid kept looking at his dad with asking eyes. Things were beyond his perceptive abilities. There were three other guys including a cousin of mine, discussing the medicines that the nurse had just ordered. The case was to be dealt by three departments, plastic surgery and burns, orthopedics and neurology. My brother and I met the ortho doctor who confirmed the fractures. We consulted the neurologist too who said that nothing concrete could be said at the moment regarding the sensation. The doctor of burns, the best one in Patna, was yet to come as it was sunday. We came back and stood around the bed which hardly had a space of even one foot. The other patients on the adjoining beds were screaming ‘maai ge’ and every scream was accompanied by an even louder wail by the ladies around. On the other side of the aisle, a stark naked man lied on the floor, rolled in the fetal position. He had no bed, no attendant, no clothes; only wounds all over his paralyzed body with flies to accompany him. Some uncelebrated philanthropist might have brought him there. He crawled in the same position and reached near the dustbin. The next moment, he was eating a rotten banana on the floor with his mouth. He ate the whole of it along with the peels with the help of his beards, as his hands were futile.

I heard the dresser saying some DIG had met with an accident and the doctors on duty had rushed to him. This meant that the patients of emergency ward would have to wait and bear the throes till the DIG’s emergency was solved. The reality of this place shook me. I was brought back to the less real world by my ringing phone. My uncle’s family was waiting for the food to arrive. I looked into the eyes of my brother-in-law again with a gesture suggesting all will be well. He said “don’t worry, if I had to die, I would have died right there; am not going to die now”. He was a real brave man. I bade him goodbye and rushed to the other end of the hospital. I was quite relieved to meet them, as the condition there was much better.

While on my way back, I saw four people carrying a corpse walk past me. I followed quietly while they looked in hurry. I had attended funerals before but this one lacked the usual crowd chanting ‘ram naam satya hai’. May be, the ram naam would become satya once they reached their home for proper funeral. The four words, however, came out of my mouth. The past four hours had convinced me that these four words were the only truth.