Sunday Story By Subrata Bhattacharya

ONE NIGHT At The HOSPITAL

It was an autumn night and curtain of darkness was raised by the soothing light of full moon floating in the billowy sky. I was imbibing calmness of the moon having its whole apparent disk illuminated, from the windowpane of my bed room. But, after sailing of a ship on the ocean of whole day’s hectic whirlwind activities, I went to bed and it took me half an hour to sleep at around 10.00 PM. In my sleep, I could progressively grasp a serenade waving into my ear from far away. I thought, it might be the alarm set at 5.30 A.M. in my cellphone which alerts me flashing out of the morning’s glory. A melodious heart-touching Rabindranath Tagore’s song “Aamaar Raat Pohalo Sharodo Praate – Baansi Tomai Diye Jaabo Kahar Haate” (“The autumn night is finished, it is down. O dear flute, whom shall I entrust for you”) was set as caller ringtone. But continuous ringing arrested me to pick up the phone. I fretfully received this ill-timed call and heard my youngest brother’s scary voice, “Mom is stifling”. My mom is a nice woman for her generosity. Being an old lady, it brought her a face of world weary, gunmetal grey hair, milky eye and inflamed finger, but yet, she has angelic smile with energy. It was midnight. Immediately, my wife joined me to climb down to his flat. My two elder brothers with halves also rushed there from their adjacent flats. I noticed; mom was struggling to get herself free from suffering. First Aid treatment went in vain. Comprehending our worriedness of finding out further recourse of fast relief from this crisis, she expressed motherly sympathy and her painful gesture signaled us to leave her on the mercy of God. Our mind went blank and as we wretchedly stared at her, by the grace of God, my mind tricked me to dial ‘108’, an emergency ambulance service provider run by the government. After half an hour, the ambulance rushed to take mom to hospital. It was then 1.00 AM.

Mom was hospitalized. Oxygen cylinder and some medicines were provided to her. After a while, noticing her countenance, scary shadow from my face disappeared. I patted my hand on mom’s forehead and softly told her to have a sleep. Getting relaxed to some extent, I started noticing nearby patients’ crisis who were fighting to win the battle between death and life.

I saw a patient as if he was floundering in a swamp and the doctor was trying to drain the swamp and get him dry up on the ground. The relatives present there was paying full devotion to the doctor as their deity and prayed for his life. But all efforts went beyond control. His physical body and mind lost its capacity to remain alive on this earth. It is a fact that none has escaped from the jaws of death but his premature death at the age 24 years stunned his wife and relatives. My relaxed mood had diminished when I started thinking as to how this premature widow life she would bear! “If I could be kind hearted on her, it would definitely be my privilege to do something”, I was thinking about this but somehow, the circumstances did not allow me to get it materialized at once and I had to leave it for my second thought to be materialized later on.

Gentle touch of my left-hand palm on the cascading silver hair down the shoulder of mom helped her to take a nap and I again started thinking of loaded pains of the patients as to how they were tolerating the suffering. “When the autumn of life turns into winter of life, this beautiful world looks like a fearful thundery night” – I realized it more transparently when one octogenarian lady was brought into the nearby bed of my mom. Hundred wrinkles on her face like an ancient dinosaur, bags under her eyes

[ 2 ]

like sacks of sand over the years, had grown dull and cloudy as though she had seen too much suffering and lips nibbling each other like nervous horses. The then beautiful body was roomed by different diseases and at the worst condition she was rushed to hospital with a meagre piece of hope to get relieved from the painful ailments. Due to non-traceability of any doctor at late night, a nurse, who was enjoying a sound sleep in her workplace, was called for. With drowsy eyes she came and fiercely roared, “What did happen Dadima (Grandmother) and why did you come to hospital; why do you want to remain alive at this too old age”? These dis-heartening words bore no value to her because of her hearing loss but to the caretaker, an ignorant villager. However, ignoring all her pains, she looked at the nurse and flickering a smile at the edge of her lips, prayed for her life. The nurse was in disturbed mood because she was to attend this octogenarian taking interruption in her sleep. She pushed an injection over the multi-folded skin and went away to her workplace, saying the caretaker, “she would be alright after a while”. Although, the caretaker was not satisfied because of unfair behaviour of the nurse and more so, it was also not known to the caretaker as to what was the injection for, but he had to rely on the nurse’s treatment and had had his sit by the side of the patient bearing ‘wait and watch’ appearance on his face. But no light was noticed in the tunnel of her life. She perpetually calmed down. “Although, there was no hope of survival due to over matured old age diseases, but at least cordial attention could have been paid by the nurse to the octogenarian” – I was clutched with this thinking and finding no way to it, I took a deep breath to come out from this uncomfortable zone.

I noticed, my mom waked up and told me that she was feeling better and wanting to go home. I was also waiting for discharge report from the attending doctor. All of a sudden, I listened a hilarious noise from the nearby Female Ward. To pay weightage on my curiosity, as I was approaching towards the Female Ward, I saw, an expression of happy moments was going on to welcome a newly born baby for its arrival on this beautiful earth.

A blend image of joyous and sorrowful situations that I experienced tonight at the hospital, was picturized in my mind to get me realized that welcoming a life and seeing off a death is a never-ending game and everyone is a prey therein and this is a concept of maintaining equilibrium on this universe. What a balanced concept of biological process wherein the mankind has to accept the happiness and sadness as and when it happens!

I came out of that emotional motion and called an ambulance to take my mom home. Mom is a nature lover but due to aged illness, she could not go outside of the house. It was a fortunate stint to her that on her way back home, she enjoyed the birds’ chirping on the trees; the cock’s crow inviting the dawn, the morning’s glory getting brightened by the sunshine spread out from the oceanic blue sky and eye soothing lush green landscape by the side of the road. As the ambulance was nearing the home, my cellphone alarm “Aamaar Raat Pohalo Sharodo Praate – Baansi Tomai Diye Jaabo Kahar Haate” alerted me to be prepared to start the day’s journey.