Real life story of a Rotary Volunteer who ventured against threats to his life to argue and convince aggressive mobs trapped by misinformation and fanaticism propagated by vested interests, political clouts and self styled medicos, that Oral Polio V...
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Rabia screamed at the top of her voice.
"My child ! What happened to her". She darted forcing her way into the crowd, beating her chest and elbowing the people out. She was pale with panic and looked as if her senses had given way. The crowd let her move to the centre, but it was becoming denser forcing inwards.
Rabia forced a heart-breaking scream, with a full blast of her lungs, the tremour of which the crowd could feel. But its sound they couldn't hear beyond the first flutter of the lips. Her throat choked and she stood paralyzed for a brief moment at the ghastly sight.
Nadira, her only daughter, lay there, motionless, rolled in the muddy batter, that emitted a characteristic smell from the paste of buffalo dung, urine and the soil of the street enriched by the effluvia from the toilets and the bathrooms of the houses on either side of the pathway, graciously diverted towards the overflowing, dirt filled nallas or drain channels. Her already dirty frock had turned dark gray with pounds of wet mud. Now, soaked in the darkened blood that appeared to have flown profusely from almost every part of the body and the fresh blood still oozing from under the patch.
Rabia almost fell over the girl. Sat down. Pulled her up onto her lap. Her lips shivered in an attempt to utter something, but remained shivering, refused to close.
The loud noise of confused voices of many men and women, some crying, some giving instructions and some others cursing the fate filled the air, and nobody really moved to do anything; everyone wanted to see and to continue to see – see the dreadful scene. The noise suddenly died as if the wind was taken out of the beings around, when Annamma's shrill voice shrieked in like the sound of a far off thunder. Annamma, the frail bodied health visitor, whom they called ANM, short for Auxiliary Nurse and Midwife, waded through the crowd shouting,
"Move ...., you man, move this side. What are you fellows doing here – watching a tamasha – Some one go and get a cart.... We must take her to the hospital. Ramya, Dhanya, Babli come here and help me carry her to Chand Miah's veranda, the only clean looking place in this dirty street".
"These people have no shame to live like pigs in this dirt" She murmured to herself in her native language Malayalam. "Deedi (Sister), did you say something ?"
"Oh no, nothing. I said, fate brought me to this filth....... Come on, lift her. She must be cleaned and some first aid given her before she can be taken to the hospital. I assume some life is still left in the poor thing" She said, feeling the pulse.
"The pulse is very feeble, I hope she reaches the hospital safe"
She drew the cross touching her forehead, the heart and the chest right and left, " Lord, be kind to this lass, save her at all cost". She prayed in her own tongue.
