by Sudha Murty
When I asked him about planning the details of the picnic, he said, ‘We can start at twelve in the afternoon. My friend owns a lodge so I can take you there. The next day, we can go to Amboli Falls. Then we can also go to Goa.’ Portado made a ten-day programme. But most of us could not afford a ten-day accommodation in a hotel, nor could we skip class for so many days. So the plan fizzled out. We thanked him and left. When I turned back and looked, Portado had closed the door and probably gone back to bed.
Soon the final year came around. We all passed the examinations and parted ways. Some of us felt sad because we had become a big family in the last four years together. We did not know our destinations and knew that we may not meet again. Of course, as Portado said goodbye he told us, ‘If you are ever in Goa, please come to my house.’ But I seriously doubted that I would ever run into him again.
Many decades passed. Once, I went to Dubai to give a lecture. After the lecture, people came up to talk to me but there was one person who waited until everybody had left. Then he walked over to where I was sitting and smiled. I recognized the smile but I did not remember where I had seen him. The man was bald, fat, had a big paunch and was dressed very ordinarily. I thought that he might be a mid-level manager in a construction company. I meet many people in my field and it is difficult to remember everybody.
I asked him, ‘What can I do for you, sir? Are you waiting for me?’
With a cracked voice, he said, ‘Yes, I have been waiting for you for a long time.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know that you were waiting. Do you have any work with me?’ I said.
‘Yes, I just wanted to tell you that you were right and I was wrong.’
I was puzzled. What did he mean? I had never even met him before. I hardly came to Dubai since we did not even have an office there.
‘I didn’t get your name, sir. May I know your name, please?’ I asked.
His laugh was bittersweet. He said, ‘I am Portado, your classmate.’
I was very happy to see him and shook his hand. ‘Oh, Portado, I am seeing you after thirty-five years! It has been so long that I didn’t recognize you. Physically, both of us have changed so much. It is nice to meet you. Stay back. If you are here, come for dinner tonight. I want to catch up,’ I said.
Sadly, Portado said, ‘Sorry, I don’t have much time. I am in the night shift. But I can have a cup of tea with you.’
We went to the hotel restaurant and I ordered a cup of tea for him and juice for myself. I wanted to talk more. I started the conversation with great enthusiasm and could not hold my questions back. ‘Portado, where are you working now? How long have you been in Dubai? Are you married? How many children do you have? By the way, how are your networking friends? Do you ever come to India?’
Portado stopped me. ‘I know your work involves computers but mine does not. You are too fast for me. Just like a computer. But I am in construction. So bear with me since I am slow. I have been in Dubai for the last five years. Before that, I was in India in several small places in different companies. Of course, I am married. I have two daughters.’
I interrupted him. ‘You could have brought them today. I would have liked to meet them.’
‘Sorry, I can’t bring them because they are not here. I am in the lower level of management. So I cannot afford to bring my family here. My two daughters are studying in India and are doing engineering. I can’t even afford their education in this place.’
I did not know what to say. I had never imagined Portado would end up like this.
Now it was his turn to talk. ‘Do you remember, when I was in college, I used to make fun of all of you? I spent all my time in networking. After I finished engineering, I didn’t get a good job. The reason was very obvious. I did not have the knowledge or the ability to work hard. I looked down upon the two qualities that are the stepping stones to success. I knew that I wanted to go up and reach the top spot in a company but no one can just fly there. I knew what position I should be in but I did not know the route. I thought that a change of job would help, but instead it reduced my value in the market. None of my networking friends helped me. They dropped me like a hot potato. They thought that I was clinging on to them like a parasite. Some of them were like me and also looking for jobs. I always thought that I would come up with someone’s help. I never thought that I should take my own help. Now I am old. I am trying to learn new things and make up for lost time. But it is not easy. The market has become extremely competitive. Youngsters in college have more knowledge and quickness. They also have time on their side. I have told my daughters, you should study, get knowledge, learn skills and work hard.’
Portado continued, ‘Do you remember who said this to me? It was you.’
He looked at his watch and said, ‘My time is up. I must leave.’
I wished him all the best.
He walked a few steps, then came back and said, ‘That day, I called you a nerd. Today, I call you smart.’
And he left.
6
A Life Unwritten
It was the year 1943. My father was a young medical doctor posted at a small dispensary in a village known as Chandagad, located on the border of the two states of Maharashtra and Karnataka. It rained continuously for eight months there and the only activity during the remaining four months was tree cutting. It was a lesser-known and thinly populated village surrounded by a thick and enormous forest. Since British officers came to hunt in the jungle, a small clinic was set up there for their convenience. None of the villagers went there because they preferred using the local medicines and plants. So there was nobody in the clinic except my father.
Within a week of his transfer there, my father started getting bored. He was uprooted from the lively city of Pune to this slow and silent village where there seemed to be no people at all! He had no contact with the outside world—his only companion was the calendar on the wall. Sometimes, he would go for a walk outside but when he heard the roar of the tigers in the jungle nearby, he would get scared and walk back to the clinic as fast as he could. It was no wonder then that he was too afraid to step out at night because of the snakes that were often seen slithering on the ground.
One winter morning, he heard heavy breathing outside his main door and bravely decided to peep through the window. He saw a tigress stretching and yawning in the veranda with her cubs by her side. Paralysed with fear, my father did not open the door the entire day. On another day, he opened the window only to find snakes hanging from the roof in front of his house—almost like ropes.
My father wondered if he was transferred to the village as a form of punishment for something he may have done. But there was nothing that he could do to change the situation.
One night, he finished an early dinner and began reading a book by the light of a kerosene lamp. It was raining heavily outside.
Suddenly, he heard a knock on the door. ‘Who could it be?’ he wondered.
When he opened it, he saw four men wrapped in woollen rugs with sticks in their hands. They said to him in Marathi, ‘Doctor Sahib, take your bag and come with us immediately.’
My father barely understood their rustic Marathi. He protested. ‘But the clinic is closed, and look at the time!’
The men were in no mood to listen—they pushed him and loudly demanded that he accompany them. Quietly, my father picked up his bag and followed them like a lamb to the bullock cart waiting for them. The pouring rain and the moonless night disoriented him and while he didn’t know where they were taking him, he sensed that the drive might take some time.
Using all the courage he had left, he asked, ‘Where are you taking me?’
There was no reply.
It was a few hours before they reached their destination and the bullock cart came to a complete halt. By the light of a kerosene lamp, somebody escorted them. My father noticed the paddy fields around him and in the middle of it all, he saw a house. The minute he set foot in the house, a female voice said, ‘Co
me, come. The patient is here in this room.’
For the first time since he had come to the village, my father felt that he could finally put his medical expertise to good use. The patient was a young girl, approximately sixteen years old. An old lady was standing near the girl who was obviously in labour. My father turned pale. He went back to the other room and told her family, ‘Look, I haven’t been trained in delivering a baby and I am a male doctor. You must call someone else.’
But the family refused to listen. ‘That’s not an option. You must do what needs to be done and we will pay you handsomely,’ they insisted. ‘The baby may be delivered alive or dead but the girl must be saved.’
My father pleaded with them. ‘Please, I am not interested in the money. Let me go now.’
The men came close, shoved him inside the patient’s room and locked the door from outside. My father became afraid. He knew he had no choice. He had observed and assisted in a few deliveries under the guidance of his medical college professors, but nothing more. Nervously, he started recalling his limited past experience and theoretical knowledge as his medical instincts kicked in.
There was no table in the room. So he signalled the old lady, who appeared to be deaf and dumb, to help him set up a makeshift table with the sacks of paddy grains around them. Then my father extracted a rubber sheet from his bag and laid it out neatly on top of the sacks.
He asked the girl to lie down on it and instructed the old lady to boil water and sterilize his instruments. By then, the contraction had passed. The girl was sweating profusely and the doctor even more. She looked at him with big, innocent, teary eyes and slowly began, ‘Don’t save me. I don’t want to make it through the night.’
‘Who are you?’
‘I am the daughter of a big zamindar here,’ she said in a soft voice. The rain outside made it hard for him to hear her. ‘Since there was no high school in our village, my parents let me study in a distant town. There, I fell in love with one of my classmates. At first, I didn’t know that I was pregnant, but once I found out, I told the baby’s father who immediately ran away. By the time my parents learnt of what had happened, it was too late to do anything. That’s why they sent me here to this godforsaken place where nobody would find out.’
She stopped as a strong contraction hit her.
After a few minutes, she said, ‘Doctor, I am sure that once the baby is born, my family will kill the child and beat me violently.’ Then she grabbed my father’s arms as more tears gathered in her eyes. ‘Please don’t try to save the baby or me. Just leave me alone here and let me die. That’s all I want.’
At first, my father didn’t know how to respond. Then he said to her as gently as he could, ‘I am a doctor and I can’t let a patient die when I know that I can do something to save him or her. You mustn’t discourage me from doing my duty.’
The girl fell silent.
The labour was hard, scary and long and finally, my father managed to deliver the baby successfully with the assistance of the old lady. The young girl was exhausted and sweaty at the end of the ordeal. She closed her eyes in despair and didn’t even ask to see the baby. Hesitantly, she asked, ‘Is it a boy or a girl?’
‘It’s a girl,’ replied my father, while trying to check the baby’s vitals.
‘Oh my God! It’s a girl!’ she cried. ‘Her life will be just like mine—under the cruel pressure of the men in the family. And she doesn’t even have a father!’ She began sobbing loudly.
But my father was busy with the baby and barely heard her.
Suddenly, the girl realized that something was wrong, ‘Doctor, why isn’t the baby crying?’ When she didn’t get a reply, she continued, ‘I will be happy if she doesn’t survive. She will be spared from a cursed life.’
My father held the baby upside down, gently slapped her and, instantly, the baby’s strong cries filled the room. When the men outside heard the baby cry, they opened the door and instructed him, ‘Doctor, get ready to leave. We will drop you back.’
My father cleaned up his patient, gathered his instruments and packed his bag. The old lady began cleaning the room. He looked at the troubled young girl and said, ‘Take the baby and run away from this place if you can find it in your heart to do so. Go to Pune and look for Pune Nursing School. Find a clerk there called Gokhale and tell him that RH has sent you. He will help you get admission in a nursing course. In time, you will become a nurse and lead an independent life, with the ability to take care of your own needs. Raise your daughter with pride. Don’t you dare leave her behind or else she will end up suffering like you. That’s my most sincere advice for you.’
‘But, doctor, how will I go to Pune? I don’t even know where it is!’
‘Go to the nearest city of Belgaum and then from there, you can take a bus to Pune.’
My father said goodbye to her and came out of the room.
An old man handed him one hundred rupees. ‘Doctor, this is your fee for helping the girl with the delivery. I warn you—don’t say a word about what happened here today. If you do, I will learn of it and your head will no longer be attached to the rest of your body.’
My father nodded, suddenly overtaken by a sense of calm. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I think I forgot my scissors in the room. I will need it tomorrow at the clinic.’
He turned around and went back inside and saw the young girl gazing at the sleeping newborn with tears in her eyes. When the old lady’s back was turned towards him, my father handed over the money to the girl. ‘This is all I have with me right now,’ he said. ‘Use it and do what I have told you.’
‘Doctor, what is your name?’ she asked.
‘My name is Dr R.H. Kulkarni, but almost everyone calls me RH. Be brave, child. Goodbye and good luck.’
My father left the room and the house. The return journey was equally rough and he finally reached home at dawn. He was dead tired and soon, sleep took over. The next morning, his mind wandered back to his first patient in the village and his first earning. He became aware of his shortcomings and wished he was better qualified in gynaecology. However, his current shortage of funds made him postpone the dream for another day.
A few months later, he got married and shared his dream of becoming a gynaecologist with his wife.
Time passed quickly. He was transferred to different places in Maharashtra and Karnataka and had four children along the way. By the time he turned forty-two, the couple had carefully saved enough money for further education and my father decided to pursue his desire. So he left his family in Hubli and joined Egmore Medical College in Chennai, and fulfilled his dream of becoming a gynaecologist surgeon. He was one of the rare male gynaecologists at the time.
He went back to Hubli and started working at the Karnataka Medical College as a professor. His sympathetic manner towards the underprivileged and his genuine concern for the women and girls he treated made him quite popular—both as a doctor and as a teacher. The same concern reflected in his liberal attitude towards his daughters and he allowed them to pursue their chosen fields of education, which was unheard of in those days.
My father was an atheist. ‘God doesn’t reside in a church, mosque or temple,’ he would often say. ‘I see him in all my patients. If a woman dies during childbirth, then it is the loss of one patient for a doctor but for that child, it is the lifelong loss of a mother. And tell me, who can replace a mother?’
Despite his retirement, my father’s love for learning did not diminish and he remained active.
One day, he went for a medical conference to another city. There, he met a young woman in her thirties. She was presenting cases from her experience in the rural areas. My father found her work interesting and went to tell her so after the presentation. ‘Doctor, your research is excellent. I am quite impressed by your work,’ he said.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
Just then, someone called out to my father, ‘RH, we are waiting for you to grab some lunch. Will you take long?’
&
nbsp; The young woman asked, ‘What is your name, doctor?’
‘Dr R.H. Kulkarni, or RH.’
After a moment of silence, she asked, ‘Were you in Chandagad in 1943?’
‘Yes.’
‘Doctor, I live in a village around forty kilometres away from here. May I request you to come home right now for a brief visit?’
My father was unprepared for such an invitation. Why was she calling him to her house?
‘Maybe some other time, doctor,’ he replied, hoping to end the matter.
But the woman was persistent. ‘You must come. Please. Think of this as a request from someone who has been waiting for you for years now.’
My father was puzzled by her enigmatic answer and still refused, but she pleaded with him. There was something in her eyes—something so desperate—that in the end, he gave in and accompanied her to the village.
On the way to the village, both of them exchanged ideas and she spoke animatedly about her work and her findings. As the two of them approached her residence, my father realized that the house was also a nursing home. He walked in through the front door and saw a lady in her fifties standing in the living room.
The young woman next to him said, ‘Ma, this is Dr RH. Is he the one you have been waiting for all these years?’
The woman came forward, bent down and touched her forehead to my father’s feet. He felt his feet getting wet from her tears. It was strange. Who were these women? My father didn’t know what to do. He quickly bent forward, placed his hands on the older woman’s shoulders and pulled her up.
‘Doctor, you may not remember me but I can never forget you. Mine must have been your first delivery.’
Still, my father couldn’t recognize her.
‘A long time ago, you lived in a village on the border of Maharashtra and Karnataka. One night, there was a heavy downpour and you helped me—a young, unmarried girl then—through childbirth. There was no delivery table in the room, so you converted stacks of paddy sacks into a makeshift table. Many hours later, I gave birth to a daughter.’