I hate my country

I too have a computer @ home, Part II

It was Saturday morning. The start of a great weekend I thought because I have got a computer now. The main purpose of buying a computer for myself is to develop a website (not for blogging though). I have a plan to develop a commercial website from the scratch. I mean, I would be the coder, designer, tester, administrator, owner etc., and I’m going to host it in my computer itself. I’m going to use java. But, well I’ve not installed the necessary software and so I’m yet to begin with my work. Mean while my friend installed “NFS Underground” in my computer. The only game I have right now.

 

 

Saturday morning and I have started to play the game at 8 O’Clock itself. By the time it was 11 O’Clock, I was in the 14^th track out of 111 tracks. It was truly a nice racing game I though. After 12pm my mother wanted me to bath and have food. I quickly took a semi shower and had a semi lunch. I wanted to play NFS. Only that was there in my mind. My mother, father, sister (in short, except me) all started from the house to see my Athai (that how we call our Father’s sister) who was ill. I refused to go along with them. I wanted to play NFS. 2 pm, my mobile rang, “Aathi (my father’s elder sister) is serious, admitted in the Government hospital, come soon”, My father said. I half mindedly turned my system off and reached the Government Hospital.

She (my athai) was in the ICU. I was allowed inside the ICU to have a look at her. She had an oxygen tube running across her nostrils. She was finding it difficult to breath. I could feel. She could not. She was in Coma. There were around 8 patients in that ICU. Two were very serious. My athai was one among them. I was asked to leave the ICU by a nurse. My sister was allowed to be with her since she is aware of those medical terminologies. We were around 6 of us waiting outside the ICU. For every half an hour my sister used to come out and update us. 4pm, my sister came out and told us that athai’s health has gone further down and since there was no availability of ventilators in the hospital any of our family member has to manually pump a ‘Manual Ventilator’. That ventilator pipe will go directly to her lungs and on ever pump the oxygen will enter her lungs. It has to be done manually and stopping it will lead to death. I got shocked. It’s the work of the Doctor’s. They were asking us to do their job. It was a freak idea. ‘stop pumping, she would die’ I really cannot tolerate this. How can the doctors give us a pump and say that if we fail to pump she would die? I thought of starting a quarrel with the doctor but my father turned me off. My sister was there to guide us on how to pump. All of our family memner’s did the pumping in turn wise. My turn came. I went inside. I was very nervous. My sister started teaching me on how to pump. I was so afraid. She showed a nearby monitor which had number counts. It read 70. She told me that the reading was the pulse rate and if that goes down to 0 then it means that our athai is dead. I started pumping. 1,2,3, I looked at the monitor, 4^th press, the number in the monitor read 0. She is dead I thought. I got panic. Tears started to come. I felt cold, nervous, and afraid, tensed, pressurized… I looked at my sister. She asked the nurse to adjust the wires. The nurse came and shook few of the wires and the number picked up to 60. She was alive. “Loose connection in monitor wire”, my sister said. After the 4^th pump I said I cannot do that pumping job as I was so afraid. My cousin brother (my father’s sister’s son) came in for his turn. I came out. Moments later both my sister and brother came out. I peeped though the glass window. A doctor was doing something my athai. I looked back as my brother who was discussing about the eye donation of my athai with my father. Only my father has to decide, since my athai was unmarried. He said yes. My father and sister went inside the ICU again to speak to the doctor regarding the eye donation. I peeped through the door again. She was in the farthest corner of the ICU room. It was around 5pm. I saw my father and sister walking toward the door. My father came out first. I saw him crying a rare site. I could not control myself. I cried too. Everyone cried. My athai has died.

She was a woman of sacrifice. Since she was unmarried she used to give everything to others and keep nothing for herself. She was a selfless woman and lived independently till the end she was a government employee and lived out of the pension money. We all loved her. “We still love you Athai”.

Poor Government. They could not even purchase a ventilator. Poor us, we could not even take her to a good private hospital. For those who say that India is developing please take back your words. I could see a poor hospital with irresponsible doctors. I hate my country.

We took her back to my home. She was in the freezer box for the whole night. Many visitors came for her. Many cried. No one slept that night. Next day morning, after all the rituals, she was taken to the funeral for burning. My brother gave 1000 bucks to the undertaker for doing his job. As I came out to the entrance of the funeral I saw a big board which said “All burials/funeral service will be done for free – By the Government officials”. I showed the board to my brother. He said that he has spent over a 50,000 bucks in the last 3 days for her and spending another 1000 is of nothing to him. But what he has done is an act of bribe. He should not have given that money to the undertaker. But if we don’t give it to him, he would not do his job. Actually, we will have to file a complaint to the police who is another criminal according to me if he refuses to do his job/demand money but my brother was not in a mood to go to the police station and all.

I repeat, India will not be a developed nation, for sure. They bribe for birth, they bribe for death, they bribe of anything that is between birth and death.

Hours later we were given my athai’s ashes. My father, along with us, took the ashes to the Bay of Bengal and mixed it to the sea. “Her story is over. He is a history now”, my father said. Yes, she is a history, I accept, but her sacrifice will be overshadowed by the ill things that will keep happening in my country. I hate my country.

Freddie

I don’t accept comments pointing to my English or grammar. Probably I will not consider them.