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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)
Pursuing 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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My house-help asked excitedly, “I am going for wedding. Can you let me wear your red & black saree? To be honest I was stumped for a moment; I didn’t know what to say but I still said yes.
I lent a gorgeous saree to my house-help for a wedding in her family. Soon I stated getting questions if I would wear that saree again or if I was okay to be seen wearing the same saree my house-help was wearing?
We are all so conditioned to give our used clothes to our house-helps but are we okay to wear the clothes they were wearing?
A few days ago she came excitedly to me, “I am going for a family wedding. I want to wear your red & black saree, Ill wash and give it to you after the function. Please can you let me wear it?”
Sivaranjiniyum Innum Sila Pengalum (SISP) is an ode to all of the lost women, who could have been sports stars, singers, bankers, lawyers, doctors, just... happy, if they hadn't been enslaved in matrimony, and then forgotten all about.
One of the cool things about my mother was that she was an ace athlete and a champion sculler as a young woman in the 1950s and 60s. I only found out about this side of her a few years ago. I imagine her in a paavaadai dhaavani, taking on the mighty Kaveri river so many decades ago.
I recently watched a Tamil film anthology on SonyLiv that she would have liked to watch – Sivaranjiniyum Innum Sila Pengalum, (SISP) that has 3 stories of 3 different women – Saraswathi, Devaki, and Shivaranjini.
Like all the heroines in the anthology, my mother’s talents were sacrificed at the altar of matrimony. She pawned her gold medals and silver cups one by one to pay for expensive textbooks for us or a gift for a niece on her wedding, money for which she didn’t dare ask my father, because it was her niece… I remember how she caressed the cups and how her face hardened as she shoved them into her bag to take to the jewellers.
A young orphan girl yearns for her parents, her roots, as she calls them. An evocative short story in the diary format, in which she finally manages to make peace with her situation.
Dear Diary,
Today after my science class, I walked out of class and entered rest room. Ninth standard is very tough. I just had a class about ‘Roots’. I wanted to think. I learnt the importance of roots for a plant. I started to think about my roots. Do I have a root? Do I belong anyone? Am I the responsibility for anyone? Is there anyone in this world whom I think as my family? I spent the last two hours of the school without being active and without responding to the teachers.
Obstetric violence, both physical and verbal, is taken for granted in Indian hospitals, but is an assault on human rights & dignity.
Obstetric violence, both physical and verbal, is taken for granted in Indian hospitals, but is an assault on human rights & dignity, leading to a lot of morbidity and mortality.
Obstetric violence, was a term I encountered, while researching for a write-up on abortion. It was an unfamiliar term; a term I’d never come across nor experienced the depth of its meaning. And, sadly, a term that, unflinchingly, brought to light, how much my privilege – as an educated, upper-middle-class, urban woman – had cotton wrapped me.
I’m confident that many women, hailing from a similar economic stratum may not be aware of it – nor of its humiliating implications.