Arms & The Woman

Saw her for the first time on a Tuesday afternoon sitting cross legged with an old man to her right and a woman with a scarf on her head to her left. Next to her sat my wife who was telling me about the tests that had been done on her octogenarian mother admitted in the hospital the night before. You just could not miss this pretty girl with chubby cheeks and sparkle in her eyes and surprisingly she gave me a knowing smile. After a while saw her cuddle the older woman in her arms and heard her say, “You need to be positive. Everything will be alright. We need to be patient and he will soon come home the way he had left.” Was taken aback by the positivity and maturity this young girl was showing which was much beyond her years.

My wife, Debi, told me that her name was Sheeba. Her husband was riding a motorcycle when he had an accident about two weeks ago. Since then he had been on a ventilator and had undergone multiple surgeries. Sheeba was just 23 years old and her husband fighting for life was twenty five and they had a loving ten month old daughter. She’s a kid, I said, three years younger to my daughter and how is  she facing this grave a situation with a smile on her face? My heart went out for the kid.

As soon as the crowd in the waiting room thinned and Sheeba walked across to me and said, “Hi!” I didn’t know how to react and just smiled back, raised my hand and repeated Hi. “I’ve been waiting to meet you. While having coffee with your wife in the morning, she told me about you, how you take care of her mother over the years. So I said to myself that I must meet him.” Speechless was I at the unexpected…unexpected praise from most unexpected quarters passed on to me by an unexpected person who I was meeting for the first time. But seeing and listening to this young frail girl talking so freely and cheerfully with an almost unknown person she had just met and at a time when her mind ought to be preoccupied with the grief and survival of her man inside the ICU completely rattled me.

Sheeba and the elderly couple left the floor. Debi told me that it was Ramzaan time and they had gone to the prayer hall on the ground floor after which they would break their fast for the day. We too went to the cafeteria for a cup of coffee when I heard Sheeba’s story. She was fifteen and he was seventeen when they had met for the first time and fell madly in love. Their courtship lasted over six years when the families after much reluctance from the boy’s side agreed to their marriage. She said, “My whole world for the last eight years revolves around Mohsin. He’s so handsome and so gentle a soul. He takes so much care of me that I couldn’t have asked for more.  He makes sure I can go to my mother’s place every weekend and mediates beautifully whenever there are tensions in the family especially with my mother in law.  He had set up a shop of his own selling shoes for children and business was good.  The best part about Mohsin was his spirit to help others. Anyone in the neighbourhood who was unwell or needed any help, he would go out of his way to help. He knew all doctors and hospitals in the vicinity and it was not uncommon for him to pull out the doctor out of urgent engagements to take a look at a patient he would take to them without any appointment. Yet on the evening when he suffered the accident, Mohsin lay at the site bleeding and wriggling in pain for nearly forty five minutes before someone brought him to the hospital.” That’s life, we all say Good Karma begets Good Life but often it doesn’t happen that way.

Next few days saw me meeting Sheeba everyday and admire her even more. She would always welcome me with a big smile. One evening I was sitting with her father in law while she and Debi had gone inside the ICU. The old man said that when they saw Mohsin that fateful day, they had given up all hope. But it was all because of this girl, Sheeba, that they decided to stand by her in her fight. “We’ve already spent over nine lacs on the treatment and have no qualms in spending any amount. We just hope our boy gets well and this girl’s prayers are heard. If not for her, we would have given up long ago.” Later Debi told me that the same old man hardly ever used to speak to Sheeba for two years since her marriage. She could never guess whether he just wanted to stay aloof or was unhappy at the girl his son had chosen for himself that he kept so quiet. But lately there is not a moment when he doesn’t call for her, “Sheeba Beta yeh, Sheeba Beta woh….”  

One afternoon Sheeba was sitting by my side and I saw her doing a video call. In the picture was a cute chubby baby and an elderly woman. Sheeba kept repeating a name which I couldn’t make out but was certain this was her kid and possibly her own mother who would take care of the baby during the day. It was only at night that she would bring the baby to her in-law’s place and sleep for a few hours together. For the remaining part of her day she would be perched on the 10^th floor of the hospital outside the ICU. She later told me that every day she shows the baby’s video to Mohsin hoping it would wake him up seeing the noor of his eyes. Mohsin wouldn’t budge but Sheeba wasn’t the one to give up either.

After a couple of days, saw the girl was excited as Mohsin had opened his eyes after so many days of slumber. The floor was immediately filled with friends and relatives wanting to see Mohsin again. Happiness was in the air and it looked as if by Eid he would be able to make it home. But the very next day Debi told me that Sheeba hadn’t had breakfast as Mohsin had fever. She couldn’t be persuaded to eat anything that day till late in the evening when it seemed things had once again got under control. I had got her a chocolate which she happily put inside her purse saying she will have it at home along with Mohsin when he returns. As luck would have it, the next morning one of the relatives of a patient waiting outside had a bout of hypoglycemia and needed something sweet instantly and Sheeba quickly took out the chocolate and gave the person a couple of large cubes and saved the day. Now she has half a chocolate but a heart full of faith and hope to have it soon at home…together.

By evening that day I saw an old woman waiting again outside the ICU calmly sitting and watching some You Tube videos and Whatsapp messages. Debi told me she was a 70 year old lady and her mother of 90 had suffered a heart attack and was in the ICU. I asked why is she alone, to which I got to know that she has a daughter who is at Dubai and a son who is at Mumbai. She doesn’t want to bother anyone so she will manage the emergency all alone. And yes I saw her all alone for many a day managing everything from paying bills, signing consent forms, sleeping on an uncomfortable chair at night, eating whatever was available but she always kept a smile on her face and never did she ever complain about anything.

As if two brave ladies in their 20s and 70s wasn’t enough, this silly middle aged woman in her 50s with whom I’ve lived for nearly three decades now insisted that I should go every day to work and not waste time at the hospital. She even forced me to go to Delhi for work saying she could manage everything by herself. She had by then become the Florence Nightingale of the Hospital. Every person waiting outside ICU was known to her. She would make sure Sheeba had breakfast with her, Aunty could get curd rice in the canteen for dinner, someone would insist that she be in the same room at night…maybe it’s her calling.

The Chief of Indian Army, General Bipin Rawat recently announced that women would soon be inducted into active military service. I just want to say, “Dear General Saab, these women have been fighting wars of survival since they were born, sometimes for self and on most times for their loved ones. You need not always fight wars with arms and ammunition. In the battlefield of Kargil and Siachen you fight the enemy you know in blood and sinews, here in the hospital you’re fighting death with no shape or figure and yet these women stand strong all alone.”

Got reminded of an old song, Hey Woman where the man laments at what all a woman is doing nowadays and asks her to act normal and woman like:

She flies a helicopter

And she plays in a band

She’s a doctor, she’s a lawyer

She’s a military man

I don’t like it pretty lady

Why can’t you understand

That a woman is a woman

And a man is a man

With a prayer in my heart for all those waiting outside the ICUs and a Salute to you Hey Woman!

SS