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A tale of two mothers and a chance encounter in a hospital; this story is simple but will leave you with a tear in your eye.
Hospital diaries! Sounds weird, doesn’t it? People create travel diaries, I’ve made these. Being a not-so-fit child in my childhood and due to the series of mishaps which occurred recently with my family, unfortunately, I have spent a quite a major portion of my life in hospitals.
But during those stays, I observed and came to this conclusion that hospital is one such place where actually, everyday, several new stories get created. Some are of grief, joy, sacrifice and some of anxiety.
The hospital holds different stories not only of patients, but also various doctors and hospital staff, patients who belong to different regions of India as well as different countries. Yes, countries! There are many countries compared to which India is indeed more advanced technologically. Therefore, people from such countries come to ours for their treatments (African, Iranian to name a few).
This is a small attempt by me to collaborate all the small yet moving incidents I have came across (hoping that it would touch my readers too); one story in each part.
Here I am with my the part of my series: Divided by nations, United by Feelings.
A Mother is the same – whichever slab of society she belongs to, whichever caste, creed, colour or nation she belongs to. Her love towards her child is universally the most eternal, pure and above all infinite in its nature.
Some time back, my mother was hospitalised as she met with an accident. She landed in this hospital for her motherly love towards our dog. While saving it from getting hit by a truck, she let the truck hit her. Thankfully, the truck was at a slow speed and it prevented the accident from being a major one. But still, she ended up with a fractured hand!
I took admission for her in a two bed room. Our room mates were an African family. We were already in the room when they arrived. The mother was a jolly woman. She came up to us and introduced herself.
We had already figured out who the patient was among them – it was their 6 year old daughter, as was quite visible from the hospital robe she was wearing. On talking further with the mother, she informed us that her daughter’s kidneys had failed.
We felt pity for the mother, and enquired about the donor’s status. The next moment she said something which turned my pity into enormous pride towards her. She said, “No, we searched a lot for a donor, but as we didn’t find any, I will be donating my kidney to her. I will be staying here, next to your bed”, with sparkling eyes and a broad smile.
I felt a jolt, a jolt within me, somewhere as deep as my soul.
Really, what a mother can do for a child and to what extent, no one could ever measure and that too with absolute bliss. No lines of worry were on her face; only a sense of happiness and satisfaction that finally her daughter would be fine.
I could feel my eyes getting wet in the fraction of second. I have never felt comfortable enough to let people know that yes, I do feel weak and emotional. Hence, I looked away from her, so that she couldn’t see it, in fact so that nobody could see it. Not even Maa.
I sat there aghast. In front of me were sitting two mothers. Two mothers divided by nations but united by their love for their babies.
One had already done with her share of sacrifice and was still smiling all the way and the other one was ready for her share of sacrifice with a smile on her face.
Pic credit: Christiaan Triebert (Used under a CC license)
PSYCHOLOGICAL COUNSELLOR FOR THE PAST 5 YEARS. MA PSYCHOLOGY, Diploma in Community Mental Health, NIMHANS Former Forensic Psychologist Intern. Former content writer. Double Masters in Computer Applications & in Psychology. B.A in Hindustani Classical Music. read more...
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Children should be taught to aspire to be successful, but success doesn't have to mean an IIT admission only!
Imagine studying for 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 whole years for the JEE exam only to find out that there’s only a very, very slim chance of getting into an IIT. It is a fact widely acknowledged that the IIT-JEE is one of the toughest exams not just in India but in the whole world. Apart from IITs, the NITs and IIITs of India also accept the JEE scores for admission. There are said to be a total of 23 IITs, 31 NITs and 25 IIITs across the country.
Now, let’s first get a few facts about the IITs right. First, according to the NIRF rankings of 2023, only 17 IITs rank in the top 50 engineering colleges of India and only a few (around 5) IITs are in the list of the world’s top 100 engineering colleges. Second, the dropout rate of IIT-qualifying students stands at least at 20%, with reasons being cited ranging from academic pressure and unmanageable workload to caste discrimination and high levels of competition within the IIT.
So, it’s quite clear that the journey of making it through IIT is as challenging as the journey of getting into an IIT. Third and most important of all, the acceptance rate or the odds of getting into an IIT are below 3% which is a lot lower than the acceptance rate of highly and very highly ranked US universities. Four, getting into an IIT of one’s choice doesn’t mean one will also get into a branch of one’s preference at that IIT.
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