A thought experiment

Try to think about this woman—poor, illiterate, beaten by her drunkard husband, stranded by her family in the last month of her pregnancy. Delivering a Babyboy at a hospital in Sabarmati at 10 in the night, taking a Rikshaw (*Alone*) to take him to CHA because he didn't cry after birth.

Her only ray of hope in this whole wide world is battling between injections, and Intracaths, and oxygen hose, and Ryle’s tubes, and ventilators and sensors and tangles of lines of iv fluids. Struggling to stretch every ounce of its existence to keep the tiny heart beating. Against failing kidneys and seizuring brains. And loads of ischemic insult, The tiny creature labours to breath.

She—tired and sore—both from the unfairness of the world and the pricking episiotomy stitches. Broken by the toughest of contractions, lays awake, on the stony cold bench outside the nursery, not able to get up and quench her thirst without the pain ripping her apart into bits and pieces. Bright light, loud noises, and people—yelling, weeping, and fighting…... mayhem and chaos everywhere….

Waiting for one tiny miracle, staring at the smiling metallic face of the idol of Krishna in the corridor, she holds her hands in a prayer, muttering the words urging for some divine intervention. So longing she is, to hug the only soul on earth she is living for; but the fear of the unknown—of white coats, and pink scrubs—keeps her at bay. The security woman, bored by the hordes of relatives crowding in the NICU, is definitely giving her the glare of a lifetime.

She knows that she has nowhere to go, no one to look up to, no one to shoulder her crying head, but it is this- this piece of her soul she is clinging to live with. No one else.

At six in the morning, just as she gets barely a wink of much needed sleep, she gets jolted awake by the hoarse voice of the jamadaar yelling her name; it’s the doctor who is summoning her.

Once in, she folds her hands with a fistful of her saree, and barely able to stand, finds herself in front of you. Readily, with part reverence, part fatigue, she falls to her feet--almost prostrate—in front of you, clutching at your slippered feet, tears streaming down her face and matted, tousled hair.

You take a step back.

Now it’s your job to look at her straight in the eye, and declare:

“બેન, તારુ બાળક મરી ગયુ છે.”

Do you still think being a doctor is easy?

#LifeIsCruel