Poetic Justice

The smell of the burnt skin pervading through the room was unmistakable. Adding to her discomfort was the fact that one could see the actual disfigured bodies through the netcovering their bodies. Some had 70 percent burns, some 80 and some even 90percent.She had always avoided coming to the Burns Ward of the St John’s Hospital but todaythere was no excuse.“She is about your age,” her Supervisor has said, “May be she will open up to you. Youknow how these girls are….. Even if they die, they would not want to name their in-laws,as the culprits. They think they are doing a good deed”“ So,go and try your best,” she had continued “ If you can get the girl to admit that it washer in-laws who burnt her, we can sue them.”Yes, she knew that a dyeing statement could put the culprits behind the bars, for astatement given by a person on his deathbed is taken as the ultimate truth.She had to do it. She was young, full of zeal, energy and enthusiasm to fight theinjustices in the society.As a medical social worker she had to handle all types of cases. The tricky ones werewhat they called Medico-Legal cases or the MLCs as they called them.She remembered the time, when she had to find a place for Ram to stay in.Ram was a signboard painter, doing quite well for himself. He was not earning too much but it was enough to support his wife and a kid. He himself had come up in life the hardway, but now he wished to give a good life to his only son. He was doing what he was best at, painting sign boards. There was magic in his fingers and with his heart and soul poured into the job, the outcome would, but always turn out to be very creative.He was getting a good amount of work and the demand was ever increasing. He had noregrets. He was illiterate but his son was not going to be. He had high aspirations for hisson and had taken it upon himself to see that his son got nothing but the best.Life was not too easy for him but it was not too difficult either.Then the unfortunate happened. While painting a signboard, he had fallen down from agreat height. Although he survived, his right hand had suffered a fracture. He was rushedto St John’s immediately. The urgency of the accident is not usually dictated by theintensity of the injury but the weight of the wallet, which obviously was not very heavyin case of Ram. The sensation in his arm died, so did his dream of making his son a bigman. The amputed right arm could no longer paint and with no other obvious means of earning, he had to resort to the hospital to help him out.At the time of his discharge from , the social service department had received a request tofind a suitable placement for Ram as he did not want to burden himself on the family. Thecase was referred to her. She went to meet Ram, talked to him, understood from him hisreluctance to go back home, could feel his need for self respect and set about to look for asuitable placement.

“Put him in the Beggar’s Home”, the Supervisor said, “There is no other alternative for him. In there, he will have a roof over his head, food on his plate and a job which willearn him some respect too.”For lack of any better alternative, she decided to go with this, wishing strongly that thenews did not break Ram’s heart. It did not. Spending so many days in the hospital, he haddone enough thinking about, what lay before him in the future. He had imagined far worse things, comparatively this was acceptable. He consented to go to the Beggar’sHome. Next came the question of “how” There were a lot of technicalities involved. A police vanwould come around on a certain day, pick up the beggars found begging on the main roadand deliver them to the Beggar’s house.- she was told.“Ok, no problems”“Ram, you will actually have to sit on the road and beg, if only for a few minutes”There goes my self-respect to the dogs- he thought. But a few minutes of shame was better than being a burden to your loved ones for a lifetime.He would bear it, no matter what.But destiny was not all that unfair. If there are dark clouds of despair, they also havesilver lining. Ram did not have to beg, the Police van had come inside the hospitalcompound and picked him up from there. She had arranged to speak with the PoliceInspector and convinced him to do so. One chapter in Ram’s life was closed and so wasthe case for her. He went to his new life and she to her new case.Then there was this Ganga. The young girl from Bombay, who was cheated into the ageold profession by her own uncle, after she had lost her father. She had placed all her trustin him and he had taken full advantage of this trust. He had brought her to Delhi, promising to give her a lucrative job. Job, it was, lucrative too, but the trust wasmisplaced. She was sold in the market for some paltry sum and was expected to fulfill thewishes of hungry wolves in the flesh market. She was young , yes , she was vulnerabletoo but she was not helpless, she had not lost her self-respect.On the very first day of her so called “job” she had chosen to jump out of the windowand lose her legs rather than lose her vanity.Sure enough, she had ended up with a fracture, was admitted into St John’s,stayed in theorthopaedic ward for good 3 months and was now on the way to recovery.The orthoward was being chased by umpteen phone calls from the madam who had bought her.Ganga would soon be released from the hospital, and the madam was keeping close tabson her movements. She had bought Ganga with money, and surely she was not going tolose out the amount “invested” in her.Ganga learnt about the phone calls, grew panicky, requested for her to be shifted anywhere, but go back to madam. The case was once again referred to the social servicedepartment to find a suitable place for Ganga.The department of social welfare, Govt. of India, runs a home meant precisely for suchhelpless, cheated women. Ganga was shifted there. She was now safe, away from theclutches of the madam, earning her own living, free to lead her own life. It was not very

lucrative as Ganga might have wanted but her self-respect was intact…and that’s whatseemed to matter. New life for Ganga, new case for her…..She went to her office with renewed vigor, feeling happy that she had helped someonerestore some of the self respect, albeit to only a lesser degree.This was profession she had chosen because she was strong enough to work in thehospital day in and day out but not strong enough to see the blood day in and day out.Medicine was not her cup of tea. Medical Social Work was, and she made a good socialworker too, with her heart full of empathy for the patients and her resourcefulness thatworked to the advantage of so many of her patients.Life was not too bad either.She had lost out to her friend-yes. But that was a few years ago. The agony was becoming blunt with the passage of time. The agony of having lost her idol to her very best friend Priya.Priya , with whom she had shared with her books, her home –work , her lunchbox., her jokes, her dreams, her aspirations, her hopes for the future.Priya was her best friend and what is a best friend if you don’t share a secret with her.Yes,she had shared her secret with Priya, the secret that she had not shared either with her parents, nor Anand. The secret that she liked him, admired him.He was her Prince Charming and she so enjoyed his company. She had never voiced her feelings to him for she was too shy, only felt happy in the fact that he was around,somewhere in the vicinity. She soon discovered that her world revolved around him. Shewas consumed by his thoughts; found herself eating, drinking, sleeping, dreaming Anand.She found herself imagining that Anand was watching her every move. She found herself watching the mirror and wondering if he would like her hair, her lips, her smile, her eyes,and the twinkle in her eyes.But destiny had other plans. Priya had her own designs and set about enticing Anand,if only to make her friend jealous. She was shattered-how could Priya have done this to her-She wondered.The green eyed monster can make you do things hitherto unknown tooneself.“ No use just crying over the spilled milk, you have got to do a little better than that”- shetold herself.“This is no catastrophe.” Yet, the more she tried to convince herself, the more she foundherself thinking about it and bigger seemed her loss.“This will simply not do”“ I must make myself busy…a busy person has no time to grumble”And with that spirit, she had found this job at St John’s. She had seen the Rams and theGanagas suffer. Compared to them, her misery was nothing. She was quite, if notintensely, happy about the way her life was shaping. And yet, sometimes when she would be alone, she could not help but think of how her life would have been had it not been for Priya…Priya oh Priya… how could you????