UNFORGETTABLE LIFE EXPERIENCES
My Husband’s Nocturnal Adventures Scared Me
I cried when he came back
The thunder was deafening. It seemed the sky had turned on all the taps it had. Lying on the bed, I hoped that everyone would remain safe. The night before, half of a house had been washed away along with two sleeping children downstream. It was only in the morning that the parents came to know about it. My heart could not stop beating hard. The rain had not stopped for more than a week. It still showed no signs of abating.
The polio eradication campaign was going on at the time. There were a few countries where children still had the disease. The government had given strict directives that no child should miss the dose this time. Hectic preparations had been on for a couple of months. The villages were many and scattered, and some were down in the valleys while others were up on the hills. They had one thing in common. Only thirty to forty households made a village. That required many small teams to cover them all. Since the staff were few, each team worked from the wee hours of the morning.
It was 2.30 a.m. My husband was hurriedly getting ready. He was the leader of his team. My specialisation in ophthalmology afforded me some immunity from fieldwork. My work was routinely in the outpatient departments and the operation theatres. I was glad. When you have little children at home, you cannot just leave them in the dead of night and go to work.
I put the water to boil. Then I added the grated ginger. It would have to evaporate in half. The fresh tea leaves could then go in and simmer until the water turned a pale yellow. A few lemon drops and his tea was ready to be sipped. He liked it this way. I loved my coffee—a tall glass of it.
Outside, the air was still.
“Give me a few packets of salt,” he called out.
I hurriedly packed the two packets we had in the kitchen. I hoped they would suffice. Horns blared through the night.
“They have come,” he said and rushed down the flight of stairs.
The road below was illuminated by the lights of the two vehicles. The first was a police escort vehicle. The second was the medical van. I watched until the lights disappeared into the night. The road was long and waded through thick jungles up to a point. After that, they would have to walk about five kilometres uphill to a village with no roads. If they did not reach before 5 a.m., their mission would fail.
As I scrambled back to the warmth of my bed, my heart ached.
The village was a cluster of houses atop a hill. The villagers grew rice in the valleys down below. They would all leave their houses at the break of dawn, leaving their sleeping children behind. They were dead against the idea of giving polio drops to their children.
The disease could not be eradicated until all the children were immunised against it. The policemen served two purposes here. Their presence made the team confident. Their presence also intimidated the innocent villagers into submission. Innocence breeds ignorance.
The bright sun rays streamed in through the glass windows. Birds chirped and flew about in circles in the sky. Some of them were audacious enough to fly close and chirp into my ears.
The sun was truly shining. The dark-cloaked rain God had made a clear exit. The outdoors and morning chores beckoned at the same time. The latter won. It always did.
It was nearly 10 a.m. by then. I would have to leave for the hospital soon. I wished I could see my husband before leaving. He should have been back by then. As I clambered down the stairs, my eyes fell on him climbing up.
His tired face bled in different places. The white shirt was soaked with large patches of blood. The pants were rolled up to his knees. Lines of blood oozed from his legs and stained the stairs. I was so aghast that no words emerged.
“I fell short of salt. Nothing to worry about,” he smiled.
In the washroom, as he sat, I saw the fat leeches stuck to him, sucking blood. They held tight and I emptied my big table salt container, a spoonful on each of them, till they dropped, wriggling on the floor. They burst bright red when I squashed them. I do not know why I could not stop crying.
“I feel no pain,” he assured.
Then I saw another one, sucking blood on his neck. I rushed down to my neighbour’s house to bring some more salt as my salt container was empty.
Once relieved of all of them, he had a bath while I prepared to serve breakfast. The wounds were many and the antibiotic ointment could hardly cover them all.
“Mission accomplished. We could reach every household and immunise every child. I am happy,”
His enthusiasm was infectious. He could accomplish his mission. But was it wise to throw caution to the winds? Is it not prudent to calculate the risks involved and plan and prepare oneself accordingly? Taking risks can give one a high and martyrdom can make one a star, but life is precious and given only once.
I, of course, had become wiser. The leeches would not get to suck blood as before. I had packed ten kilograms of salt and a large, thick raincoat, complete with a cap, in his backpack.
He would have left by the time I returned, for his next mission. My heart was light.
All would be well for him this time, as well as for me.
