The Ring

     P.K.Ghatak, MD

No 2.

                                               

On a Saturday Henry came home early. As he entered the foyer through the garage, he heard the telephone ringing in the living room. He picked up the phone, and answered, “hello”.
 “Hello” a female voice replied from the other end.
Henry said, “this is the doctor…, whom am I speaking with”.

The other voice replied, “don’t you recognize my voice, I am Sarah, I called you two weeks ago, did you not get my message”?

Henry said, “are you Sarah from Toronto.”

She answered, “yes, who else you know as Sarah”.

Henry replied, “I thought it was a salesperson, trying to sell me something. Why did you not give your last name”.

Sarah replied, “never mind my last name”.

Henry questioned, “where is your husband, does he know you are calling me.”

She replied, “that is what I am calling you about. I am separated.”

Henry asked, “what! What went wrong”?

She replied, “I will tell you all when you come to see me.”

He asked, “are you inviting me to come to Toronto; are you sure?”

She said, “I am still your friend, am I not? You are not married, will you not come? I need you.”
  Henry agreed.

Two weeks later, Henry took a flight to Toronto.

On the flight Henry was thinking: It seems so long ago -  he just started his medical practice. He bought a single family home in a new development in the River Forest. He was looking for things to hang on the wall in his study, when he came across a beautiful Batik painting of the famous Esala Perahera Festival Parade of Kandy, a gift from Sarah when they were in London. The painting was done on a deep red background, elephants were in black, and men were in orange color with a white dress on them. He loved the scene- the spirit and the vibrant colors. He hung the painting on the wall opposite his writing desk. He sat on the chair and tilted his head back as far as it could go and kept admiring the painting. He wished Sarah were here to see it. He wrote her a letter described his new situation and invited her to come and visit him. He included his new telephone number and asked her to call him. Several weeks went by but he did not hear from her. Now, he wished he had not written the letter; it must have made things difficult for her; and felt sorry for himself.

One day he picked up his mail from the mailbox, and then put them down on his desk; made a cup of coffee and proceeded to separate real mail from junk. Here, he saw her letter. He opened the letter with nervous shaky hands. “Dear Henry: We just returned from our honeymoon and found your redirected mail. We have moved to a larger and better..........” He put the letter face down on the table and closed his eyes in disbelief. He gathered his thoughts and concluded it must be an illusion. He read the letter again – “returned from our honeymoon”.

He was devastated, to say the least. He did not go off the bend because of his love for medical practice. The hurt of that difficult day was still with him, but the sharp edges had smoothed over with the passage of several thousand days and nights.

Sarah was waiting for him at the arrival gate. From a distance, she saw him and waved at him. Henry was stunned. Sarah went from a petite to a large size. Only her shoulder length beautiful hair remained unchanged. He stretched his arms to greet her.

She said, “don’t tell me anything about my weight; I know I am overweight. I am going to lose weight; you will see”.

They took the airport shuttle to the car rental office and got into a car. Sarah said, “take Highway 403 West, we are going to Hamilton”.

They continued their conversation as he drove. With the ease with which they inquired about each other's family members by name or relation, one would think there was not a 10 year hiatus at all. Only when Henry took his eyes off the road and looked at her, he could not find that beautiful celestial nymph as she used to be. Sarah could see Henry had a moderate size bald spot on his head and graying sideburns and lost that wondrous inquisitive luster of his eyes, replaced with the mundane look of a bank manager.

Sarah told him, “Take the exit for Plain Road.”

He followed her instruction and asked, “where are we going.”

She replied, “we are going to a beautiful rock garden. Turn left on York Road.”

The way Sarah was giving him driving directions, Henry knew she had been at this place many times before. He was smitten with jealousy.

They walked around the flower beds, came to a fishpond and then to a beautiful small English Tea shop. They got an outside table in the shade and ordered tea and snacks.

Henry asked her, “why did you leave your husband”?

She replied, “he had some behavioral problems. You know, he was my client from London. I thought I could handle him with firmness and straighten him out. But on the way, I lost the handle. He was persistent what he wanted”.

He asked, “where were you married; in Australia or Toronto?”

Sarah replied, “that was another sign I missed. As soon as I said “yes” when he proposed; he wanted to get married right away. He wanted a small wedding. No one from my side of the family came or could have come in that short time. Only my friend Rose and her husband attended; David’s mother, sister with her husband came and a few friends were invited, - altogether we were only 10 people at the wedding”.

Henry said, “why did you agree to such arrangements; after all, it was your wedding too?”

She replied, “he was always short of cash, did not learn the value of money. Anyway, it is over and done with”. Sarah continued, “my cousin from Baltimore came to visit me when we were dating. He sensed David had a problem and wrote to my brother. He advised me to be careful, but I ignored him, he was not a psychiatrist.”

“What kind of problem he had” Henry enquired.

“He was compulsive: he would read all the articles published in Sunday magazine in NY Times. Then cut the articles and stack them in different piles on the bare floor of the spare room. If I ever touched those papers, while cleaning the room, he would have a fit; he would rant all day long. When he had a tantrum, I had to shut myself in my bedroom or get out”.

Henry said, “you said you were afraid of him; do you mean he threatened you with violence?”

She replied, “that was initially”.

He asked, “will it be a messy divorce?”

She replied. “You can imagine what happens when lawyers are involved, nothing remains simple. Moreover, he is not currently employed. I may end up paying alimony to him, but that is okay.”

The waitress bought tea and placed the tray on the table. Sarah reached for the sweet snacks. Henry cracked half a smile and knew why she was unable to lose weight. He reclined back in the chair and watched her closely. Then he looked in her direction but his sight was fixed on a distant flower bed.

Sarah asked, “what are you smiling about.”

He replied, “I was reminded of our days in London.”

She said, “do not lie to me, you can never lie and get away with it, I can read your mind through your eyes.” She continued, “you don’t tell me things you think, you never show your emotions in public, at times I wonder if you really like me or not. He was quite the opposite, you know, I mean my ex. He always held on to me in public, gave me big kisses whenever he had a chance, took me to all the theaters, movies and plays. He knew all my weaknesses, used them effectively and gained my trust. I did not suspect he had an opposite side”.

Henry said, “you must have known he had bipolar disorder or similar such conditions. He must have acted out violently before.”

She looked at him then lowered her eyes and was about to say more. He reached over and put his right hand over her hands resting on the table and said, “no, don’t tell me anymore please, it is painful.”

He held on to her hands for a while and remained silent. Sarah took a ring off her finger and put it on the pinkie of his right hand and said, “this is my mother’s ring, don’t lose it. This is for you.”

He looked at the ring closely and held up his hand in the air and asked her, “how does it look on me”. Sarah replied, “it is a bit tight for you, but you can get it stretched, any good jeweler can do that. You look very distinguished with this ring”. He held his hand in front of his eyes and looked at the ring again and said, “thank you. I promise I will not lose it.”

Sarah looked happy and took a sip of tea from the cup then kept looking into Henry’s eyes.

Henry said, “you said you could read my mind through my eyes. Tell me what they say”.

Sarah looked deeply into his eyes, and then lowered her eyes and looking at the teacup, she said, “I am not telling you what I read.”

A month went by since they last met. Henry’s mind was occupied with her thoughts. He searched for that fire of passion once he knew so well. At this time, it simply was not there. He took the ring off his finger and placed that in a small jewelry box, wrote a short note and mailed it to Sarah by special delivery.

Sarah returned late in the evening from an office dinner meeting. She went to pick up her mail; the attendant at the front desk gave her a parcel. She hurried back to her apartment and opened it. She saw her mother’s ring. She took the ring out and put it back on her finger. She rubbed the ring against her dress till it sparkled. She looked at it for a few minutes, looked at the box and saw the note resting at the bottom of the box but ignored it and pushed the box away. Since her separation from David, she kept the radio on continuously. The radio was playing a popular song:

“My love is warmer than the warmest sunshine, softer than a sigh.

My love is deeper than the deepest ocean, wider than the sky. ”

She slammed the radio and shut it off and murmured. “Stop that, you fool!”

She turned around and saw fresh flowers in that beautiful Waterford crystal vase, a gift from Henry at their meeting in the rock garden; she took the flowers from the vase, placed them on the kitchen top, dumped the water in the kitchen sink and dropped the vase in a trashcan. She walked over to her liqueur chest, poured a small glass of Drambuie. She sat on her favorite chair, lifted her feet up on the coffee table, took a sip of Drambuie and mocked the radio song and sang in the same tune: 

My love is wider than widest ocean 

and has more fish than all the pebbles on shores.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i7ftGPrRis

(copy & paste on browser)

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Haridas Returns

P.K.Ghatak, MD


No 3.

The telephone rang in the middle of the night.

“Hello,” I said.

“This is Haridas,” The voice on the other end answered.

“Oh! Haridas. Where have you been for so long? I wondered what had happened to you. Did they put you in Guantánamo prison?"  I asked.

“Well, I am in town, I will see you in the morning,” he said.

In the morning over a cup of coffee, Haridas explained his long hiatus. He said he was in demand since the Christian Right group shouted down a Hindu priest giving benediction in the Senate Chamber followed by more nasty remarks in the prints and Internet

.“What did he do”, I asked.

He spoke. “Nothing really, if people willingly remain ignorant and thereby behave foolishly, then one can only hope with a wider discussion on the subject the other voices will dominate and drown the voices of ignorant”.

“I thought you said you were busy because of the incident in the Senate Chamber,” I remarked.

“Oh, yes.” He said, and then added, “I was invited by several groups interested in the Hindu theology; they wanted to enlighten the Christian Right and wanted to know better ways to respond to this bigotry and intolerance”.

“Why people are so ignorant about Hindus”, I asked.

“They are not ignorant; in fact, they think they know it all. In school, they have learned Indians are poor, they worship cows, they have a caste systems and untouchables, and Indian streets are full of snake charmers, free roaming cows and elephants. What more one needs to know, especially if you appeal for donations on the T.V. by showing Indian destitute begging for handouts. That reinforces one's impression of India. They even do not know all Indians are not Hindus. India in their minds a waste bucket of world’s poor and cow worshipers,” Haridas said.

“How to correct that misinformation”, I asked.

Haridas said. “You do not have to look further than a dollar bill - In God we trust - printed on the dollar bills. If you want to say something profound, then print it on the money. Money is the strength. Money is power. I tell Hindus to follow the Jewish communities for inspiration. Making money - lots of money and then give a big chunk of it to politically connected groups, that was the way the Jewish people regained their place in the society. Now they dominate the world with money and power. During the 2^nd world war, people denied the holocaust, now 60 years later, anyone who dares to deny the holocaust will be prosecuted in court. That is power.”

“God is one and the same no matter what one calls Him, and no matter how you worship Him. God remains God. Why then the Christian Right is upset about the Senate benediction given by a Hindu priest,” I asked.

“Maybe it is worth here to repeat the story of a beggar and the pious old man," Haridas said.

He continued. “A pious man was about to sit down for his dinner when an old infirm beggar showed up at the door and asked for alms. The pious man invited the beggar to join him for the dinner. They sat face to face and the food was served. The beggar immediately began to eat without even taking a moment to thank God. That behavior angered the pious man. He reprimanded him for not thanking God and asked him to leave at once before he could take another mouthful. The beggar did not understand what he did wrong and left without remorse but was saddened from missing the dinner. The pious man sat silently and then reflected on the incident. He realized God had taken care of this beggar all his life even when the beggar did not thank God once. God sees all, God knows all. God is merciful. God forgives.”

Haridas continued. “Christians need not worry. God created both Christians and Hindus; Hindus came two thousand years earlier than them. God does not take sides. God is benevolent. Hindus did not pollute the Senate Chamber and the Christian heaven. The Christians will find that out when their time comes.”

“Why so much divisiveness among men in the name of religion”, I asked.

Haridas replied. “Why you think Muslims invaded India from Turkey, Persia, and Afghanistan repeatedly over a century. Certainly, they did not come for their spiritual enlightenment. They were there to loot the Indian pearls, rubies, diamonds and gold that were stashed away in temples, holy places and monasteries. Indians were happy to be poor, but temples were bulging with riches. The invaders carried away anything they could lift, the rest they burned down to the ground. If you get a chance, please visit the Vatican treasury and the museum. Thrones weighing in tons made of fine jade and other beautiful jade ornaments alone will convince you of the power of religion in attracting money. Even the poorest of the world willingly give at least a dollar a month in the name of religion. That is 6 billion dollars a month. Whoever has that money can buy a lot of Angus steaks and Russian caviar. Talking about food – I am hungry. Don’t you have any food?” he asked.

“I am sorry, I am living on crackers and coffee for the last 3 days since my social security money ran out”. I replied. I gave Haridas a few crackers on a plate. He took one cracker at a time, closed his eyes and hummed a Tagore song – “the world today is wild with the delirium of hatred…the conflict……O Serene, O Free……. wipe away all the dark stains from the heart…..” and he ate crackers with utmost delight. When all the crackers were gone, Haridas picked up the crumbs bit by bit as if they were gold nuggets and put them in his mouth and continued with the song O Serene O Free…

My eyes became misty. When I regained my composure Haridas was gone.

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                                    A Doctor in a Rural Health Center.

                               

                                   P.K.Ghatak, MD
                            

                                   No 4.

 

Arun started, at the crack of dawn, from his home and took the first morning train to reach the main railway station then took another train to the next junction, changed train again to reach a railway station close to the rural hospital where he was assigned to work. At the rail station, he took a rickshaw and arrived at the hospital by then it was afternoon. The rickshaw puller dropped his luggage on the pavement and left. The office door was padlocked. Arun looked for the doctor he came to replace. But not a soul was there other than few patients in the female section of the hospital. Finally, he found one person; she said. “Doctor is on midday break; he will be back when the hot sun is down on the horizon.” She pointed to a chair in the corridor where he could wait. She was not even curious to know who he was or why he showed up in the hospital with his luggage.

Arun sat for a while; then paced the corridor; saw an empty room marked “Male Ward”. The room was crammed with broken and rusted hospital beds, metal benches, chairs and other pieces. He walked around the grounds. The health center was an H- shaped building; male and female beds were one on each side joined in the middle by the doctor’s office, outpatient clinic, pharmacy and an operating room. Behind the main building, there were two small buildings, one marked “Isolation Ward” the other “Kitchen” both were padlocked. One tubewell was on the ground. There were several small detached houses on the other side of the road. A little further away on a small barren earth mound, he could see the charred remains of a funeral pyre.

About 5 PM the doctor showed up. He said he did not know that he was coming to replace him and so he was not prepared to receive him. He was drinking a cup of tea while talking but he did not offer tea to Arun. After a discussion, they agreed that till further clarification came from the regional medical office, both of them will continue to work. Arun would look after the outpatient clinic and the other doctor would be in charge of administration and in-patients. He told Arun that there was no vacant building for him to move in but he would ask the janitor to vacate his apartment and then Arun could move in there. That would be a temporary arrangement till things were sorted out at a later time. He added that janitors were not entitled to housing, but the guy moved in because it was unoccupied. A cobra snake was spotted several times around that place and people were afraid to trespass into cobra territory.

The young janitor came and took Arun to his house. It was just a room built with brick and mortar, had a corrugated tin roof and had no ceiling. The door was functional; the windows had no shutters. There was no electricity or running water. He pointed to an outhouse at a distance near an old pipul tree. He cautioned Arun not to walk there in the dark because he said.” The snake lives there”. The janitor had next to nothing of his personal possession. He picked up his things, swept the floor clean and left.

In his bundle, Arun carried a blanket, a mosquito net, one pillow and a pair of bed sheets, and in his tin suitcase, he had a pair of paints and a few shirts and undershirts, a piece of linen as a bath towel and toiletries. He had no candles or oil lamp with him.

He sat on his suitcase and felt thirsty and hungry. He could see the sun was setting. He remembered his mother packed some snacks and sweets for him. He washed as best as he could, out in the open, drawing water from the tubewell and returned to his room. He ate snacks and sweets with utmost delight.

Sitting there in the dark he could hear in his head the welcome speech given to the entering class by his professor of Anatomy. The professor said. “I congratulate you for choosing to become a doctor, the most noble profession one can have. You will be asked to sacrifice, risk your lives but rewards will be plenty. You will be the first one to greet a new life in this world and you will be the last one to hold hands of a dying man giving him comfort and say goodbye”.
Arun thought about his mother, remembered her kindness to the poor and her faith in the goodness in mankind and her unwavering trust in him and her advice to him that by his own conduct he must prove his worth of his family name.

But there was a cobra in his vicinity. He knew snakes liked to stretch out on a cement floor in the evening. He had no way to separate himself from the snake; there was no bed and he had to sleep on the floor. Then mosquitoes began to bite him and added to his misery. He hung the mosquito net and got inside. He waited in the dark for a snake to crawl in. Nothing happened as long he was awake.

Very early in the morning, he was awakened by someone calling him.” Doctor are you still sleeping”. Arun opened his eyes and saw an old man standing outside by the window, almost touching his mosquito net. He was dressed only in a loincloth and carried a long strong bamboo walking stick in his hand. Arun realized he had no privacy; his privacy depended upon the goodwill of people not looking through the shutter-less window. His room stood next to the road and had no boundary wall. The man continued. “You are a government servant, you are paid to work, and you are on duty 24 hrs. a day, do not waste time lying in bed. Look, he continued," patients are waiting for you”. Arun looked in the direction of the health center, there was not enough daylight to see any building and he saw no one. The old man waited till Arun got up from the bed and folded the mosquito net and bed sheet and put them away. He asked Arun unceremoniously about his qualification, grade and honors and training he received at the university hospital since graduation, and at the end, he added,” If you are as good as you say why did they send you to a village”.
Arun pondered over the same question when he received his appointment letter from the State Health Department, directing him to go to the rural primary health center. He had the expectation to be placed in a teaching hospital on the basis of his academic achievements.

In the morning both old and young people came to see the new doctor. Arun was given the task of taking care of the outpatient clinic. He worked diligently and by the time he saw the last patient, it was past midday. All employees left for lunch. Arun did not know where to go for food. He had nothing to eat in the morning and had snacks the night before. There was no restaurant within a 3-mile radius. He saw a rickshaw and asked the rickshaw puller to take him to a place where he could find food. He took him to a market and pointed out a restaurant. It was just a shack, cooking was done out in the open, and people sat on long benches and ate - one bench facing the street the other facing the back wall. He was shown to the backbench. He ate alone, facing a dirty wall which was only 6 inches from his nose. Later on, he learned the backbench was a preferred sitting because the dust from the dirt road kicked up by the passing vehicles landed on plates of people sitting on the front row.

After lunch he looked for transportation to get back, there was nothing available during the hot noon hours; people looked at shelters under shades and took a break from work. He began to walk back to the health center in the hot sun. The heat was intense, and the pavement was radiating heat and he felt his face was scorching and by the time he arrived at the hospital he was drenched in sweat. But he could not get inside his room because the room felt like a hot oven. He sat under the pipul tree but remained alert in case the snake showed up.
After sunset, a few hospital employees showed up at the center, but it was more of a social get together than any significant hospital work.
That was how the first day of work ended for Arun. He, however, did not know how and from where his next meal would come. He went back to his snake infested lodging to ponder over the whole situation and started to get hungry thinking about food. He found it difficult to fall asleep on an empty stomach.
That old man showed up every morning until one day he brought his grandson to Arun. That young man was losing weight, had a low-grade fever for 2 to 3 months and now had developed shortness of breath. Arun examined him and found fluid in his right chest. He inserted a needle in his chest and drained about a liter of pleural fluid and placed him on drugs for tuberculosis. His grandson got well in a short time. Then on the old man became Arun’s cheerleader. He bought Arun mangoes, coconuts and other produce from his field. He gradually opened up to him and told him the difficulties he had faced in getting government officials' approval to locate the health center in his village and securing a piece of land from villagers. When no one gave him the land, he took over this cremation ground. He endured all kinds of bureaucratic obstructions and foot-dragging, but he prevailed in the end.

Three months had gone by, but Arun did not receive his salary. His mother was sending him money to keep him going. When inquiries led him nowhere, Arun took a few days off and went to the state health department. After several attempts, he located his" joining letter" in the file cabinet of the head clerk. He took the letter and went straight to the chief medical officer, thinking the office would admonish the clerk, Instead, the doctor told him it was Arun's fault and stated, " young man do you not know how things run in a government office, you have to grease every wheel if you want anything done" He later learned that the grease was only Rs.2/. He took the document personally to the office of accounting and gave it to the clerk responsible to grant his pay slips. Arun thought sure this time he would receive his salary. But again- this time the accountant at the disbursement office demanded" Baksis" a coded term for a bribe. This time the grease was also RS 2/. (2/5th of a dollar at that time - the exchange rate).

On a very hot day in mid June Arun was lying underneath his bed, using the bed as a shield from radiating heat coming down from the tin roof. He poured water on the floor and wrapped himself in a wet cloth. At that moment two of his medical school classmates unexpectedly showed up. His friends were appalled finding him in that wretched condition. Arun smiled nervously and said it was not as bad as it looked. His friends told him that they were leaving for the USA and they came to say goodbye. They urged Arun to make plans to go to the USA and they promised to write to him regarding the medical training in America.

A letter arrived from his friends from Connecticut in due course. In the letter, they described the medical training they were receiving at the hospital and listed various medical conferences, grand rounds, and case presentations, etc.  “It is the opportunity of a lifetime. To be most useful to your people you have to be best educated and trained,” they concluded.

Arun decided to go home and talk it over with his mother.

Six months later Arun was sitting in the airport lounge of Air India, he had in his pocket a one-way ticket to Kennedy airport in New York via London; and then on to Detroit, Michigan by Eastern airlines.
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