End of a Teacher: Obituary on The Health of Health Services

End of a Teacher

Obituary on The Health of Health Services

12th January: 2007.  It was the most glorious day for Tapati. God called her back to shelter her in a world not ravaged by discrimination against the rural born by the urban rulers while eating on the hands of their rural prey. It was the saddest day for Jhantu, her husband,   and her daughters. 

She left the world unknown, unnoticed although she made every effort to make the world little more beautiful than she inherited. What a paradox!  India is surging  forward with annual growth rate  touching 9% and above, claiming to be the one of the world leaders in the coming days. Hardly at stone's throw -- 55 kilometers from Kolkata,  the ‘cultural capital’ of India, a beloved   school teacher died without medical care. 

Tapati died,  probably out of  brain stroke, whatever that be,  in the afternoon around four o'clock when  her husband had gone to the nearest  block head quarter for  some petty household work; their nephew and his wife were  busy in their own household chores. Tapati  had gone to her room to rest, sleep if possible. 

There comes Tapati’s help, an old Muslim lady. She tries to wake her  up to find out what are the works for her.  Tapati doesn't respond even after several  calls and pushes. The maid gets panicky;  starts shouting and calling   everybody around. In a few moments, the  nephew rushes in. He too stands completely shocked; fails to make out whether she was really sleeping, or she has slept forever. He calls all possible people.  But who are available?

There is no doctor in the surroundings even to examine and declare whether she is dead or alive! The only good Samaritans are the quacks and a few compounders or  medicine vendors in the local village shops.  They rushed to the spot; many of them had  learnt to feel the pulse   in the olden days from  some doctor in the nearby villages.  The locals nodded their heads hopelessly; her nephew, another medicine vendor in the block headquarter rushed back home to confirm which he never wanted. For, he too lost her affectionate ‘home’ in her.

The only doctor, the qualified one, technically stays  in the village; he   works outside,  comes to the village for  the night halt. Only after  five  hours,   he was available only to  confirm  the inevitable and console.

One, nonetheless, wonders, even if she would have had life for another few hours,  where could she be taken? Nearest primary health centres are at a distance about 6 km on either side.  But to organise a vehicle and to reach there would have taken at least  one or  two hours, if not more.  But what  if she was taken to the  PHC. Health of the health centres are in precarious condition, suffering from terminal cancer without doctors and medicines for deserving people.  And, to take to Kolkata? It is a  matter of couple of hours. Roads are lesser said the better; brick laid uneven bumpy village roads often serve   as the  labour room; young mothers welcome their babies, future of India, on the man-pulled trolleys. No hope for  the villagers. 

How does it matter how hoarse the honest scholars cry with   data – per capita government expenses on an urban Indian is thirteen times more than that of his rural brethren; and that luxury of the urban Indian is paid for by the rural deprived. Indeed, what surging India has been able to build is urban castle on rural grave, no matter whether left or right or centrists are in power.

The tragedy is that Tapati’s  husband, and his elder brother,  took initiative   to provide some health checkup and services at their own personal initiatives and costs. They organised mother and child camps, eye-testing  camps, blood group  checkup camps, blood donation camps for the thalassaemia patients and so on. One of the camps that her husband organised was an ECG camp. The doctors identified eight  potential cases, and Tapati was one of them; and the first to have a heart attack. She survived with some paralytic  effect that was restored over a period of time. This one, she could not survive. Her husband saved many eyes and hearts, and many lives of the thalassemia patients. He helplessly watched his ‘home’  departing him.

What a pity! After 60 years of  independence, there is so much  claim about developments and hospitals all around and  medical tourism attracting people from the western world. Rural Indians are condemned to chance, luck and God’s grace for  survival in the resurgent India. It is indeed a sad day not only for her husband and the daughters, but also for the entire village that turned up to pay their homage to this committed village school teacher.

She was born in a Mukhopadhyay family and married to yet another Mukhopadhyay.  She used to claim herself to be   ‘double Mukhopadhyay’.  In fact, she was a very conservative and staunch Brahmin.  But, there was an unusual fragrance of  her  ‘Brahmanism’.

Tapati’s  old help was a Muslim lady, Chachu. Nobody seems to know her actual name; every one affectionately calls her Chachu.  As she   comes in the morning, she  will not be allowed to work unless she has taken a cup of hot tea and a few chapattis which Chachu  loved in preference over  biscuits. She was fed by Tapati with utmost care and affection, and then allowed to work.

There is a large Muslim community living just behind the school for decades, and now centuries.   None, none of them, ever turned up for schooling. It was this lady teacher, Tapatidi,  who took on herself to walk into their homes through utterly  dirty narrow  roads strewn on both sides with human excreta of the children. She walked through that every day. She advocated,  she counseled, she cajoled   them, and brought them to school. Today, in the same  school, children from the Muslim minority community are in majority. No wonder, news of her death spread like wild fire. Entire Muslim community, literally in hundreds, turned up to her  small village home that  failed to accommodate them physically; there was no  space. Probably her astral home had enough space for all of them. On the day of final rites according to Hindu tradition, special food-packs were  made   and distributed at their own  homes under the leadership of Chachu. 

Knowing her popularity among the Muslims, her colleagues  used make fun of her to contest for Panchayat elections. Had she taken to electoral politics,  ‘they will get divided into parties. Divided we fall, United, we stand’. Her mission was uniting them for education. She couldn’t afford to divide them lest they may leave learning.

“Such things happen” is the political statement on horrific Nithari killings. Tapati’s departure  too shall be trivialized. For masters, she was one of the billion Indians, and one of lakhs of voters. How would they ever understand the pain of losing the one and only one – the wife, the mother and the only Tapatidi who brought the underprivileged children from the minority community from darkness to light!!

Politicians and ministers have  major things to attend; how can they afford to attend to such minor matters?  

Tapati served for 35 years to retire  with  service benefit that fetched her a paltry sum of Rs. 2200  per month. Imagine, she  contributed all that she had to the country, to the society, to the community to be treated with contempt of poverty and lack of  care.

Undaunted by the social and economic deprivation, her stubborn daughters  decided that they  will not allow their mother to  remain unknown. Two daughters, Parnashree and Tanushree, were the nominees to her small  savings. They decided  not to   use  the money their mother  saved for them. They decided to contribute the entire amount to the village girls’ primary school that Tapati served till a few years ago.  This amount will be used to develop a science lab for the primary school children; Tapati loved children, so does her husband. He is working to survive her memory with  a children’s park.

The powerful governments could not  take care of basic needs of its  citizens,  save their  lives or create  opportunities to save the lives  in the villages. Poor husband and daughters could not save her either; they have dedicated all they have  to save her name from fading out.