Hijab

by Guruprasad Kaginele

  I was overwhelmed with shyness. I felt like I was stripped naked—a full Monty—in an open field. I regained my senses and seated Radhika in the car and ran straight to the restroom.

  My head was throbbing. What do I make of all this? That Radhika who lives under the same roof as me, suddenly had developed some tender feelings towards me? How do I face Giri? I was swept in a mix of emotions: anger at Radhika and disgust at myself.

  My car stood alone in the parking lot outside, as a mute witness to the incident. I started my car quietly.

  On the way home, Radhika sat next to me, silently with her head down all the way. We didn’t speak with each other till we came home. After parking the car in the garage, I said without looking at her, ‘Radhika, I don’t know if I’ve made some mistakes in all this mess. But the incidents here are rather upsetting. I get it. However, I’ll handle my mistakes and responsibilities personally as much as possible. And you should do so too. Please let us not drag ourselves into each other’s problems.’ She went inside without uttering a word.

  I couldn’t help but feel that, maybe, I was unnecessarily blunt with her.

  10. Amoka on the World’s Stage

  Surprisingly, after the parking lot incident, Radhika and I had gone on with our business-as-usual life and acted as if nothing had happened. That night I could not sleep well and reflected on what I had remarked to Radhika. In the spur of the moment, I had told her that it was better for us to handle our responsibilities individually. But then we do this? When we were home, we must consciously desist from speaking about this incident. In fact, we should forget about it. Was this possible? Could a kiss be exchanged only in moments of vulnerability?

  I had decided that just for a few days I needed to forget everything and live like nothing had happened. If that turned out to be awkward, then I would have to talk with her about one of us moving out.

  The next day when I finished brushing my teeth, Radhika handed me a cup of coffee. I stared at her in surprise. She said, ‘What are you looking at? Do you want more sugar in your coffee?’

  At that moment, I understood what her decision was.

  Life is strange. We aspire to live in a certain way, but life finds for us its own ways. The events at Amoka had led to a feeble spark between us albeit in a weak moment. For reasons clear and for reasons vague, we had taken the responsibility for the origin of all these events at Amoka. Did we feel secure being together, in case things turned worse? It was not clear. In a nutshell, we could see our relationship in an altogether different light. And it seemed to us that we were also realizing that the spark between us was so weak that Giri and Srikantha and banal things like living in the same house were enough to put this out.

  I really didn’t know how she felt. I did not try hard to understand. I thought she could not move out without giving Srikantha or Giri a reason, or so I thought.

  Only six weeks had gone by. There were no new deaths in Amoka. However, there was a suicide in a nearby town of Bombay. I had no clue that Minnesota had a town called Bombay. I looked it up on the internet. The town was named after a 15th Century English immigrant by the name William Bombay. He had killed the local native American chief, married his daughter and gave this small town its name; similar to other eponymous towns like Alexandria from Alexander and Hyderabad from Hyder Ali.

  The mystery behind all the deaths so far was that no one had indicated the reason for their death. There wasn’t a single suicide note. Nobody had filed even a single complaint. No local Sanghaali community leader had given any statement.

  A Sanghaali professor from a small private university in Seattle had given an interview for a local TV channel, ‘It is important for the law enforcement to ensure that the events at Minnesota don’t spread all over the country. Ours is a small community but we have a strict code of beliefs. No doctor has the right to override our beliefs and force their decisions on us. The doctors in Minnesota should realize this,’ This interview had drawn responses in the form of some articles and more interviews online.

  Amoka’s Sanghaali community also had not reacted. Apparently, there were Sanghaali gangs in Minneapolis. However, there was not a single instance of a riot or disturbance reported from there either. The police took no chances and had beefed up all kinds of security in Amoka, anticipating disturbances. But nothing, none whatsoever, happened here. Yet, there was a stunned, mournful ambience everywhere. As for me, I could not so much as look a Sanghaali in the eye if one crossed my path.

  The news of six deaths in four months was pretty much relegated to local news channels as if they were mostly local incidents and had very little news value elsewhere in the country. National channels like CNN and FOX News had broadcast the interview with the Seattle professor. Other than that, these channels had covered the news about these deaths only for a couple of days. After that, they were just ticker news…The public television crew had come to Amoka and shot some video footage, but none of that was broadcast. Srikantha suspected that they may have done the shooting for a documentary. Of all the media, the Minneapolis radio channels seemed to be more active and pugnacious about these issues. A left of center news channel acted as a mouthpiece for women’s lib organizations and was proclaiming that women’s rights in Amoka are in a tenuous situation, the right leaning channels blamed this on America’s liberal immigration policy: ‘Every immigrant brings his/her own baggage. Culture is a part of this baggage. Cultural entitlement will destroy what is ours. Nobody knows who is a real American anymore,’ they screamed.

  The local channels had invited experts and aired discussions on a host of topics: Sanghaala, the country’s internal conflict, female genital mutilation, their pregnancies, their childbirths, their indigenous medical systems, their beliefs on Cesarean sections, their folklore, the recent rise of terrorist groups in the country and their relationship with the ISIS.

  I made a surprising observation that in all this information overload, there was no news of Dr Mohammad Mohammad anywhere. Amoka Daily Herald had tried to contact him. His visit to our hospital had made the newspaper’s front page. It was not clear how they had got hold of this news. Let alone the news, the newspaper also had a picture of Dr Mohammad Mohammad with Fadhuma and Hassan posing in front of the Amoka General Hospital. I looked for the photographer’s name in the small print beneath the picture but could not find anything. On a hunch, I called the office of Amoka Daily Herald and asked them where they got the picture from. The guy answered, without even a moment’s pause, that it is in the public domain and is circulating on the internet. Surprisingly, when I googled the name, Mohammad Mohammad, I found out that this picture was his Facebook profile picture for a short while. It was titled ‘My brother Hassan and Family’ and it had 2K likes to it.

  I looked at Mohammad Mohammad’s Facebook status messages. He had shared links to all articles and news reports in Amoka Daily Herald related to the Sanghaali deaths. He had also listed links to YouTube interviews related to this topic. This was shared by many people. When I searched their profiles, I could see that this news was shared in many parts of the world like Dahir-Bar, Ethiopia, Nairobi, Seattle, London, Delhi and many more. There were hundreds of comments: ‘Your fight has our Support. Insha Allah.’ ‘Come what may, don’t stop your fight.’ ‘What are you doing? Al Tewagi?’ And so on. Al Tewagi had recently claimed responsibility for the London city bombing. It had its major terror network in eastern and northern Africa. Dahir-Bar, was one of the major cities out of which this organization operated.

  There were numerous places that had references to Radhika and my names. And, in fact, Radhika’s Facebook profile picture was used by many in their comments!

  I typed Sanghaali suicide on the Google homepage and searched. Some had condemned the suicides of young women at Amoka in their blogs. The blogs carried the usual local newspaper reports, video clips. I googled Radhika’s and my names. I could see our names listed along with the hospital name and Rick Jackson’s name, all with pictures. The news
link redirected to the online editions of Amoka Daily Herald and some local Minneapolis newspapers. Since we had not given any press statement, a lot of liberty was taken with the truth and people had written according to their whims. Amoka Daily Herald had questioned the absence of any statement from the hospital in response to Fadhuma and Rukhiya’s suicides.

  I don’t follow social media that often. I don’t frequently post comments or update my statuses on Facebook. The last time I was on Facebook was two weeks ago. After the Bombay suicides, I’d noticed that I was tagged to many posts which had provided links to the news bytes and video links on these suicides. Each post was flooded with comments. I was not sure if Radhika was also tagged. Srikantha was on Facebook too, although his interests were different. When I looked at these news items carefully, I could see that they were mostly posted by Mohammad Mohammad on his wall or by people with whom he had shared them. Since I was his friend and he had tagged me on almost every one of these I could see all his posts. I suddenly remembered that he had sent me a friend request the day he visited the hospital and I had accepted it almost immediately.

  I looked for our mutual friends. Razak and Srikantha’s names came up. Radhika’s name was conspicuously missing. Mohammad’s statuses were all public. So, these were visible to everyone. He had tagged several of his friends on many of his posts. Since these messages were shared randomly across Facebook, I guessed they had come to the attention of many. He had also tagged all his status updates to Srikantha and Razak. Thankfully neither of them had approved or shared them. It was therefore possible that Radhika had not seen any of them unless she went specifically looking for Dr Mohammad’s posts. If she had, she would have told me by now.

  Radhika and I did not have much of a presence on the internet in general other than our profiles on LinkedIn or WebMD. However, I now realized both of us were very popular on Facebook.

  I shut down my laptop for a while and switched on the TV. According to the reports on TV nobody knew about Mohammad Mohammad’s whereabouts. Hassan, Abdhi, The Chapel husbands and now, Bombay—nobody had said a single word. They were all summoned to the police station and interrogated. There were no charges against them other than domestic abuse. And there was no evidence to support these charges either. The newspapers carried no additional information.

  I looked out of the window. It was quiet and desolate. There was nothing around except for a small press vehicle. Five minutes back, looking online on the computer, the world seemed to be in the grip of a massive churn with disturbances all around. Here I am in this small town and in the hospital where the series of suicides were supposed to have originated. Looking through the window, the world seemed to be at peace with itself. Even while the local TV channels were broadcasting the news, my friends who lived just about six hours away in Chicago, were blissfully unaware of the news here. But when my Facebook friends read and responded to the interviews posted there, it felt as if Amoka was at the center of the world and every news that was, and that could be, was about it.

  In this social networking era where news can also be personalized, what is important news? What is breaking news? The news I read tomorrow is determined by what I had read yesterday. Its magnitude and intensity depended on one’s network.

  I checked out the list of my Facebook friends. There were only seventy-two. Mohammad Mohammad had maxed out on the number of his friends.

  Was the real news at Amoka where the suicides had occurred or was it on the internet?

  Those who were following the news on the local channels and the newspapers could possibly conclude this news was insignificant, as something that was local to Amoka. However, when those interested looked online, the scale of this news came across as something huge.

  11. Breaking News, Fake News

  The hospital board seemed a bit friendlier as things became more chaotic in Amoka. Rick Jackson who was abrasive and rude in the last meeting, had called me for the second time today. Since the last meeting when Radhika had walked out crying, he had called me a few times and had enquired about her. He appeared genuine in his concerns. He’d apologized to me for what happened at the meeting. I was not sure if he had spoken to Radhika.

  ‘Hello Guru, are you following social media?’

  I suspected that he may also have seen the shared news, ‘Yes,’ I said. I knew this would open up a long conversation.

  ‘Looks like we have become very popular. We are all over Facebook…’

  ‘Are you a friend of Mohammad Mohammad on Facebook?’ I asked him. For some reason, I was reminded of the tattoo HH on his arm.

  ‘No. But I think he follows the hospital Facebook page. All his messages are public, and anyone can see them’.

  I realized that my friendship with Mohammad Mohammad was after all not that big of a deal. I could see his posts even if I was not his friend on Facebook. I guessed he may have befriended me to keep tabs on me. I felt I should close my account.

  ‘But there is no news on the national TV. Whatever chaos we see, everything’s on social media.’ I said.

  ‘That surprises me too. After all, how long does it take for the news to find its way from Facebook to TV? Anyway, that’s not the reason I called you. We have got a letter from the State Health Department. They have not received any complaints either. Apparently, the word on the street is that everyone who gets a Cesarean section done at our hospital, goes home and commits suicide.’

  ‘Not everyone. Only those two Sanghaalis. We do ten Cesarean sections a day at our hospital and for god’s sake, the state doesn’t have to respond to the word on the street.’

  ‘Guru, I am aware of that. But go on the internet once. There seems to be a near consensus that we started this mess. These inspectors from the Health Department have mentioned in that letter that they will only review Rukhiya and Fadhuma’s records. Nobody has called for an official enquiry yet.’

  ‘How can anyone ask for an enquiry? Radhika has performed a medical procedure and it is called Cesarean section! The hospital experts have reviewed the cases and concluded that everything was done right and there were no complications. The state’s inspectors have not got a single complaint alleging any sort of negligence. What business do they have here? Moreover, according to the patient privacy laws, the patient’s health records cannot be shared with any unrelated parties.’

  ‘Look, I’m just the president of the hospital board. I am trying to do damage control here. Looks like we are becoming popular among folks in Africa, Indonesia, and Asia—almost down to the southern tip of India. I can tell you for sure that these people have no idea where Amoka is. I’m a bit baffled as to why this Mohammad Mohammad guy is giving so much publicity to this news. Sanghaalis with no knowledge of English have Facebook accounts. And they are sharing all his posts. I sometimes wonder which Sheikh had these two, Rukhiya and Fadhuma, in his harem. What if a lunatic armed with a bomb blows himself up in our hospital? Currently, our safety is more important than patient privacy.’

  I couldn’t help but smile even in that situation. I thought Rick may be into Facebook a little too much.

  I asked him, ‘Rick, where are you going with this? Are you implying that some terrorist Sheikh in Dahir-Bar impregnated Rukhiya and Fadhuma and sent them to small towns like Amoka with explicit instructions to commit suicides once they deliver their babies, and this would give them a reason to attack hospitals like ours and blow them up?’

  ‘Guru, it may not be that dramatic. For all we know these two suicides may not be related. We might have done nothing wrong. But when you look at the news going around, it is scary. No one may blow up the hospital, but we may have our license revoked if the State believes that people die after getting surgeries done at our hospital. We should be cautious.’

  ‘People who have had Cesarean sections done at other hospitals have also died.’

  ‘Of course, I know that. When there is an epidemic, people try to locate the source of the epidemic—the place where the first case was report
ed. They call it as the index site. We are an index site. Our internal review means nothing if someone from the state doesn’t approve and puts his or her John Hancock on it. Don’t worry. You or your friends aren’t going anywhere. If we fire you guys, we will be in more trouble than you. The smart thing is to fire you at the right time. You are in admin. Don’t you know when people get fired? Strategic firing, that’s what I am talking about,’ he laughed at his own joke. ‘Well, I can’t help you if there is a government order to fire you or some immigration court decides to deport you. One thing is for sure, if we are all here, we need to handle the media a bit more carefully. I am talking about the news media. Screw social media! News on social media is something you manufacture. If someone is making news about these Sanghaali deaths today, tomorrow you and Radhika can be the toasts of the town for saving the same Sanghaali chicks who wanted to kill themselves. Or, we can create such news ourselves! We are updating our hospital’s website. In fact, we have uploaded a CCTV clipping of the CPR you did in the hospital’s parking lot and saved that old guy’s life last month. We have also uploaded video clippings of many of our success stories. You should share them on your Facebook page. And there is one important task that we need to do.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We have to leverage this media to our benefit. We should change the narrative in a way that people should believe in Amoka General Hospital and our staff again. We need to create an impression that there is no chance of people dying here no matter what. Think about it, if Sanghaali suicide is bad news, voluntary Sanghaali Cesarean section is good news, in fact very good news. We can use this spin to inform our narrative. And merely asserting that Cesareans are safe is not enough. We need to demonstrate that with enough evidence. Let us record a Cesarean section and upload the video onto YouTube. We can then share the link on Facebook. Once we get forty to fifty thousand hits, which I’m confident we will, then watch how our reputation will be restored. People here should not be scared to get a Cesarean done for any reason. I need to discuss with you in detail. This is not a topic for a phone conversation. When are you available?’