Mr P came to the outpatient with a diabetic wife who had chest pain but was stable then.
He got around talking about his life.He had missed the govenrment pension and was bemoaning his plight.He had worked all his life in the national jute mill in Kolkotta .When Mr Ramnath Goenka died the mill spiralled downhill.The government of West Bengal under Mr Basu had to take over but it was not working , they decided to shut it down. The livelihood of the thirty thousand workers were at stake ,I suspect mostly from the heartland, Mrs Gandhi had to intervene and the central government apparently took over the running of the mill.
In the mean time Mr P retired.The mill ran under the central government leadership for another half a decade after the which the government gave VRS to all the employees and shut down the mill for good.Mr P however missed the bus so did not become eligible for the government pension .He is left with memories and the bitter taste of a missed bus and occassional souls like myself who listen to his stories with much interest.
Mr and Mrs J were my regular patients.They were an odd pair who stood out.My J had had a stroke in the past,barely mumbled a few words but always had a smile on his face even as he came to the clinic regularly with his wife.They would get themselves screened in the clinic ,take their medicines and go home.
I was away during the pandemic a lot so lost touch with my patients.
By the time I came back,Mrs J entered my OPD but was surrounded by her grandchildren.The first question I had was to ask after her husband.She quite calmly informed me that he had had another stroke during the pandemic and had passed away.To come to the same level with her I shared about the passing away of my father around the same time.She was ,I noticed, much more collected than I was about the issue.
The next time she came to collect the medcines I noticed just a single grandchild with her and she looked a little subdued.So I asked her after the length of the prescription when she informed me that she wanted medicines for a longer time and may not see me again because she was going away to live with one of her sons in Delhi.She broke down after that .She was having issues with one of her daughter-in-laws so one of the sons in the city had called her over.I listened to her ,that is what I did and I listened and I listened.
When she finished talking I offered to pray for her and pray I did, for the peace that passeth all understanding .
Even as Rahul Gandhi walks the streets of Tamil Nadu this three days giving speeches,being garlanded, it brought to mind a workshop I had attended in Chennai a decade or so ago.It was a workshop organised by Bill and Melinda Gates and I was not quite sure how I landed up in the conference but it was educative to say the list.One anecdote the resource people shared was interesting.Post Rajiv Gnadhi's assasination there was a clamp down and the security was greatly tightened in and around Tamil Nadu and Srilanka..All around Chennai,hospitals were flooded with cocaine addicts come in with withdrawal symptoms.The coke in Chennai was coming in through the port from Srilanka so due to heightened security screenings ,it could not be ferried through so the suppliers apparently ran out . There was no cocaine in Chennai for a considerable length of time..What a strange way to connect events and incidences,I thought.
Nearer home my mother informed me that the workers had brought down the stake that dad had envisioned and had one of them build to grow pumpkins and gourds.It had brought much fruit this season but it was time to prepare for the next harvest.I wept a little remembering how difficult it was for my sister and me to understand what dad was trying to do then and finally when it came through we were a little taken aback to fully understand what he had been trying to tell us all along.
After he passed and when I went home almost after a month that was the place I went running to ,to check on the fruits,to get a sense of dad because he spent much time there.
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