MY MEMORIES OF THE DAYS IN THE HOSPITAL

After that fateful day when I met with that accident I still felt that nothing much could happen since I was alive and kicking if only figuratively. My thanks to the almighty for sparing my parents of any further pain. I love them so much that every time that they wince I wince double. Strangely enough most of their problems have been inadvertently been because of me. Never been able to dissociate from the pain of others. Though I don’t say it, express it but I feel so horribly ….so real…the anguish of others………that’s why that day………

I felt Pooja’s horror at what happened to her leg…….the blood seeping through. thank god it was a superficial cut.Aman was so much more concerned about the cut on her face…..and if it would leave a scar….the funny thing…..i remember for days after words how she used to use Nomarks just so that it didn’t leave a scar.
Thank god both were safe.
Then my sojourn started. The pain of septic flesh. I was tormented more by the pain my mother had to bear. Her only daughter laid up in a hospital and husband miles away in a hostile region (Khanabal where they had that Sikh massacre).i never let her see my physical pain. in fact I told her not to tell dad,coz I didn’t want him to be worried about me at a time when he needed all his wits about him to counteract insurgency. He had a lot of responsibility at that time, lots of lives to look after. if there is one thing I am proud about .is to be my father’s daughter. He has taught me to laugh in the face of adversity. The man fears no one and nothing. And duty comes to him before anything and anyone. a very difficult proposition to live upto but nevertheless shouldn’t the ideal always be sky high?

Let me not digress further lest you think that I am a die hard fan of my father. Well I do love him but I am not blind to his faults. when I was admitted to the hospital the surgeon in charge doctor banerjee an man of excellent repute who I remember with great fondness and esteem even today told my mother to inform my father, which I was told later on was because he wasn’t sure that he would be able to save my leg and hence wanted my father to sign the operation papers. I think that took away half of my parents life from them. They became old overnight just at the thought of that. I have always been a restless soul and restriction of mobility for me like that would amount to signing my death warrant. I would go downhill very soon and predictably without anyone knowing it…silently.
When dad came he was very annoyed with mom for not informing him earlier.14 days had lapsed since the first time stitches had been put in place. And all those days I thought I was getting better I was progressively getting worse till finally an alarming 105 temperature shocked mom into action.

Those days I wasn’t very close to dad though I still maintain I loved him all through. I might have been all kinds of things-rude horrible mean .you name it I was that. To both of them. But still they had it in themselves to forgive me. Never once they hated me. I don’t know why they love me so much. Well anyway I never saw a man pray as much as my dad does or rather did during those days. He seldom spoke mumma says. She just used to put food before him which he left barely untouched and then he used to go to sleep after listening to the news. Never told mom a single thing what happened in the operation theatre.afterwords he told …………had never seen anything as horrible. Which I still think he exaggerated. The doctor too I believe took especial care of me because he saw in me the will never to stop walking. I remember how the nurses used to do the dressings for me daily in the mornings and how I used to scream blue murder because I wasn’t allowed painkillers.gangrine cannot be affected by painkillers. It was horrible muddle. I remember very little. My selective amnesia came to rescue once again. all I remember is that dad used to be there at the hospital early in the morning at 6:00 am daily for my dressing with a flask full of sweet lime or orange juice which he used to give me to drink after the job was done and I with my swollen blotchy face used to gulp down as though it was a lifesaver.

That flask of juice was a link which was a reward and a healing touch in itself. What I call mumma ka pyar.every morning a ritual it became .mom would get up in the morning, squeeze fresh juice and then send dad off to the hospital. this was the ritual for 48 days while little by little the infection was controlled. in between I had grilling schedules with the physiotherapist as I developed a stiff knee and couldn’t walk without a limp and drag. He made me frog jump on my haunches from corridor to corridor just to loosen up the joints. The fear of not walking normally again was so much more than the oozing blood from the bandages and throbbing pain from my gaping wound.
In the evenings Dr Banerjee used to come and spend some time just talking. In a span of two weeks we were as thick as thieves. And we had discussed everything under the sun from modern medicine to economics to society to his family problems and his career aspirations. it was during that time he told me of his decision to leave the army. he said he didn’t find fulfillment in doing the job under enormous restrictions where formalities were a way of life, where medicine was important but not as important as all the red tapism which was so much a part of the army regime. I knew at that time that he was plainly fed up with the system but wouldn’t leave no matter what coz he wouldn’t know how to survive elsewhere.(the last I heard of him he was serving the president of India at RR)

Not long before I had lost something I really thought immensely precious to my life. The remnants of that pain found way here. I had a reason and an excuse to cry. Silently so …….i let the tears pour and no one noticed. What I gave up more than tears was the hope of ever finding that precious again. And having tasted what rejection can be, I understood all the more clearly how people can feel when they are forsaken by their own. there was this lady in the burns ward who was left there by her own family.oh they used to bring food for her……….but leave it there beside her….as though a woman burnt all from her neck till her legs can feed herself. She was in such torment and I was in equal torment because I knew not how to help her. Only we knew what we both were undergoing. Me a metamorphosis from my carefree careless days to graver sanity, she from her illusion of well loved self-sufficiency to helpless hapless loneliness. The nurse only allowed me for one hour daily at night at round 1 o clock, when all were abed and only insomniacs like me are drifting around. Auntie used to tell me which areas were itching and I used to pour cooling saline water to relieve her. Or sometimes apply some foul smelling paste to areas which were badly hurt. Can you imagine what a person feels when about 87% of your body is burnt? I would surely like to commit suicide. When we burn as much as a finger we wince in pain. Imagine your body a mass of indistinguishable flesh melted away from direct contact with fire. Lying there in a ward uncovered for all to gape at with no privacy and your dignity stripped away.
The pain so bad that you don’t mind a 20 year old girl gaze at your naked body grotesque beyond recognition, help you and sit and talk to you. Another reason the nurse didn’t want me to stay in the burns ward was because me having an infection that I had I was more susceptible to worsening it. Nevertheless we bonded against all odds.(funnily I don’t even remember her name).And I used to sneak in sometimes during lunch time to tell her what I ate or sometimes share with her little tidbits. She was very fond of non-veg and despite all protestations I say it was the sheer intake of solid proteins that made me walk again. Even doctors marveled at my appetite which to my mortification was huge.Ok it wouldn’t be exaggerating if I said I ate one chicken per day or rather had to eat it if I wanted to get cured fast and not miss one year.
It was my final year of graduation. I couldn’t afford to miss one year. Rather I couldn’t afford to let myself miss one year. My friend Navdeep, a gem of a person used to come and give me notes to study which I used to deal with in the dead of the night when no one was about. Those were the days when I developed a severe case of insomnia………couldn’t sleep for more than 2-3 hours per day, and yet be as fresh as a daisy in the morning. When I was able to walk with a greater deal of ease, mom came to the hospital to see me. Till then she wouldn’t come anywhere near the hospital. She once heard me scream when the nurses were dressing my wounds and got so frightened that she went came only at times when she knew my dressing was over. By then dad had exhausted his leave and had to go back to duty……….duty to duty…..what a life…………

Now was the real fix. I needed someone to cling to, just a hand, while the dressing was being done………..mom was petrified at the thought when I asked her to come. She just wouldn’t come. so I hardened my heart and went through them on my own…..clamping down on my cries till it all became a pale blur…….but then things weren’t as bad as they were before ………I could even look at it without wincing…….docs told me dad became pale when he first time saw my wound during the operation…….he thought it was a sheer miracle I survived(also another problem was brewing all that time –frontal fracture in the skull and internal left ear bleeding).things started to pick up from then. Uncle Desmond visited me twice during the time I spent in the hospital, bringing me my favourite bitter chocolates (banned for me but he sneaked).it was then I realized many things. How I had been blessed with so many people who loved me for just what I was and not the way I looked or whatever other superficial reason could be there. when I lost Rajeev I thought I was good for no one, my self confidence was badly shaken, then God intervened and I saw around me my loved ones and felt such remorse …………..inexplicable pain at my callousness ….when I saw that burnt lady and that woman who in the ICU begged for poison because she didn’t want to live despite the fact she had two little children to live for, that diabetic lady who smiled on each day as she suffered and died(she had maggots in her leg which was incurable due to excessive diabetes….her leg used to be cut every week till it reached her hips and she died of septic shock…she used to stink like a sewer and still smile through it all)…what right had I to think in such a way and ridicule God’ gift to me LIFE.

I was healing not only on the surface but also deep inside. It was very essential. And I’ve noticed it’s often that I get such rude shocks. That’s proof enough to me that He never forsakes me. No matter how far I wander off He always brings in the lost sheep. the days passed on thus in a whirl…..me gaining from strength to strength….I saw many pass on to His home, many go to their homes healthy and smiling, finally so did I, but a changed person, and not really changed too…..maybe Grown up would be the correct description. there are something’s some experiences one can never document with justice and yet never erase from memory…this is just one of many that I’ve been through…….and I know this is one of the milder ones I have to pass through …..That the real trials are yet ahead…….