page fifteen
A SHORT JOURNEY
Time stood still as Bishakha Mullick, a forty-two year old mother of two, looking sixty-two, touched the hand of a young medical student and breathed deeply. Her tired, sparkless eyes touched the student�s heart in apparent helplessness. In an absent voice she told him, what she wanted to tell him all along: he must let her go.
Sovon Roy, the twenty-two year old final year student had been by her side all along since she was admitted as a terminal Breast Cancer patient in Martin Ward of Calcutta Medical College. He had spent more and more time with her and a special bond had grown between the souls, wildly separated by age and circumstances. Both had sought solace from each other�s company. The human link between the two individuals had surprised all nursing staff at the Ward, but considering Bishakha�s terminal state they could appreciate the student�s concerns. In a traditional Hindu social environment, the situation lacked protocol, bred gossip, but none of the parties cared for it.
Sovon had just passed twenty-two in August. The Bengali festival of Durga Puja ceremony was imminent and the bustling city of Calcutta ws vibrant with anticipation. His life was however engulfed in more immediate medical issues. Living in a noisy environment of three storeys of Student Accommodation, with one hundred and thirty medic students and twenty recently qualified doctors, all conglomerated into a hostel for students of Calcutta Medical College. Days were never dull. It was a wholesome life in itself � stimulating and challenging: getting up early for exciting Surgery lectures, bunking boring pharmacology classes, spending time in hospital wards and going to sleep late. Parents never came into picture except for paying end-of-the-month bills. It was a time for hard reading, chasing girls, playing football and late night movies in cinema halls.
And now at the end of four and half enjoyable years, he was in the verge of bagging a doctor�s degree that would earn him good money, might be a sweet wife and even a passage to his dreamland, England, for post-graduation.
Bishakha was married at eighteen, to Soumitra, a thin deeply tanned man with moustache. He worked as a salesman at the elite BATA shoe shop at Esplanade, Calcutta. Proud as he was, his take home pay was a meagre sum, and he made up his earning tutoring children at home. Bisakha was younger to him by nine years, accepting life as hundreds of other Bengali housewives did, following arranged marriages; cooking, sewing and raising children. She was deft in sewing and learnt to sing, but never persuaded the arts at husband�s joint family. Her Harmonium, a gift from her father during marriage only gathered dust.
Dipu and Sona, her two sons, twenty-two and eighteen, had virtually left home. Her husband was too busy is pursuits away from family, while she had to contain herself in housework.
She had noticed the hard marble-like lump in her left breast for sometime, but never mentioned about it to anyone. The idea of being examined by a male doctor was an issue. It also needed money to see the doctor and to buy medicine. She hid her condition well, till it became painful and the swelling stuck to her chest, when she alerted her husband one night.
The seventy-year old family physician practised for two hours every evening, at a local Pharmacy. He promptly prescribed vitamin tonic, Brufen tablets and sent her for blood tests. When she was no better after two weeks, her husband took her to see a friend, whose son was studying medicine. That�s how she came in contact with Sovon, a final year medical student.
Sovon had her examined by one senior colleague, who confirmed that she had advanced breast cancer. Hospital admission had to be through the back door, after unsuccessful attempts to get into the hospital through the out-patients. The diagnosis had to be life threatening, and in her case history offered was �vomiting of blood�. Initially she was offered a mattress on the floor of Emergency Ward. After soliciting with the Resident Surgeon on call, that she was his near relative, Bishakha was transferred to Martin Ward, in the main buildings, under Dr. Das, a Lecturer in Surgery, for extended surgery for cancer of breast.
He secretly donated one unit of blood for the operation, as two bottles of blood and the medicines were too expensive for the family. He borrowed vitamin tonics, pain killers from senior colleagues and Medical Representatives, and also added his own prescription of Liv 52, an Aurvedic medicine for improving Liver condition and Iron tablets. Following prolonged suffering during post-operative days she improved gradually.
Nothing went smoothly in Bisakha�s life, including the current episode. Before being selected for arranged marriage, someone from groom�s side commented that her teeth were too long for her mouth. Another said that her eyebrows were too thick and encroaching near midline, making her too sexy for a housewife. The worst was when a senior in-law made her walk bare-footed on wet floor, so that the in-laws could check her footsteps. Her in-turned pigeon-toed feet caused great disquiet and the dowry negotiations were threatened, till an additional twenty thousand rupees into the kitty cured her defect.
Bisakha thought about those shameful days that had produced deep furrows in her mind � and now the threat was altogether different. She was a sinking ship and nothing really mattered except pain. She felt so tired all the time.
As long as Sovon was by her side, she thought she could sail in the doomed liner with a smile. Her husband and two children, who visited her increasingly infrequently, were drifting further and further from life, as her life�s end-game progressed rapidly.
She looked forward to Sovon�s company, who was like a son she never had, who would tide her over the pain barrier and bring joy and tranquillity to the little life flame that was left in her.
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