BEYOND BOUNDARIES - The ward was called the BPL ward referring to the below poverty line status of all the occupants. It felt awkward initially calling it that but then we had gotten used to BPL, APL and special wards which made it easier at times to categorise. It was 9 am and we were brainstorming a complex case of histiocytosis which had been admitted the night before. My eyes drifted as I saw all the mothers in the ward fish out for a tumbler from within their bag and walk to queue up. The Akshaya Patra had arrived from the Iskcon temple. They supplied one tumbler of free milk to every child admitted in the hospital. A sick child needed good nutrition. Period. There was no convincing the scheme organisers to supply milk thereafter. The huge cauldron of the BPL ward was brought in and a young man in his early twenties began to pour fresh milk into each mothers glass. The kids eyes lit up as they saw the white flow in front of them. All 60 children in the ward would stop crying and seemed to remember this morning routine. The last woman filled her tumbler to the last drop and a gong of the empty cauldron was sounded. We returned to our discussion as we watched the naughty kid with suspected histiocytosis play with his ball. We hoped wed solve his case some day. And just then he had to do it. He threw the ball straight at his tumbler and it dropped on the floor with a rattling noise which caught everyones attention. The startle made him begin to wail immediately as his mother tried to console him. And what I saw thereafter was a treat. All the mothers began to pick up their tumblers yet again and queue up slowly. Each one poured a little bit of their milk into his glass and walked away. And within no time the glass was back to being full again. He seemed to understand the ritual and smiled. It was we who stood confused, the apparent urban intellectual lot. Do you all actually know each other?, I asked a mother. Of course we do doctor. We are all BPL, she said, leaving me stunned!
Posted on: Thu, 04 Sep 2014 17:16:51 +0000
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