She was dying. She had to. No visitor was seen at her bedside till she breathed her last. She used to wait each and every evening – in the visiting hours from 4 pm to 6 pm. She was old, might be a very low scaled railway employee or the spouse of such. She never talked, neither to the doctor, nor to the nurse or attendants. She only spoke to herself, in Bhojpuri accent. No one bothered to decipher what she uttered--- she was that much poor.
When the visiting hour was over, she used to lie down on her bed number 23, of female medical ward, with a blank look in her eyes, staring at one of the tube lights, that hung just above her face. No one saw her sleeping, before she died on the fifth day of her hospitalization.
She died peacefully; one nurse told me while she was searching for any belongings left behind by the dead woman, to send along with her body, as she was in a hurry to prepare the bed for the next patient--- a teenage girl with a stomach ache.
I remember one evening very often. I went near her and told her, 'Ma, I am going to buy tea for my mother who is admitted next to you. Would you like to have some tea?'
She stared at me, a little puzzled. One lady attendant said with little mockery mixed in her tone, 'How will she buy? Does she have any money? A penniless poor old woman, her only son is a drunkard, a beast, never came to visit her a single day, I am astonished, why such chaps are to be carried for ten months in your cursed womb, and fed with your blood made milk! They all are just traitors!'
Her tone of mockery suddenly changed into anguish, she left us in an artificial hurry pretending to help a patient, the help I think was hardly needed by the ailing soul at that time, who looked at her with amused gratefulness.
I saw a painful embarrassment in those yellowish shadowy eyes of that old woman in front of me, looking inquisitively at my face. I left her without her consent or refusal. I brought two packets of Parle G biscuits (the company which is now going to sack thousands of its employees, though all governments are pro poverty eradicative manifesto holders) and a glass of hot tea.
After her death, I came to know that the only food she ate in her lonely unnoticed last journey of life in those five days, were those two packets of biscuits, other than some units of injectable saline, provided by the Railway hospital.
I can’t forget her. Though there is nothing to remember about her, still I can’t forget her eyes, absolutely blank, like some unused last pages of a copy. I can’t remember so many essential facts, data, numbers, incidents etc related to my daily life, maybe our brain has its own way to register with its own tune which is a mystery to neuroscience till today. But whenever I feel lonely, morally weak I remember that face, and ask myself, am I that much unfortunate or in worst case if the same thing is going to happen to me, is it that much-unprecedented incident in the history of mankind?
The answer is only, NO.