I have a friend who underwent a small operation at the Parsi General Hospital. The hospital is nothing like any other Mumbai hospital. The community is lucky to have this nursing home available to them and for them only. When you enter, it is more like a club with high ceilings and wide corridors, a far cry from the railway platform type of
hospitals we now have. The balconies and verandahs are airy, with the view of a lovely garden in front. The colonial furniture adds to the charm and the “old world” glory. No wonder many of the old people of the community use this institution almost as an old age home.
There were many old people in the ward lying on their beds staring at the ceiling. There must have been somebody who visited them at some point. But the Sister in charge told me that there were some who had no one visiting them at all.
Old age, when alone and sick, is probably the most miserable time in anyone’s life. I could not help thinking that the frail lady I was seeing lying on her hospital bed looking wide-eyed into space had a life like all of us do, with children, a loving spouse, places to go and friends to hang out with. It is probably the scariest thing — to be left alone at this stage of your life. The insecurity of being alone and the hurt associated with being abandoned will kill you. I guess people abroad are resigned to being left alone in old age homes, this is accepted and expected there. However, I just find it difficult to come to terms with abandoning or settling (as they put it) an older family member, especially a parent, in an old home.
After all, they spent their lives working hard and looking after their children and showering them with love. All they want more than anything else at this stage in their lives is love and attention. I was somewhat reassured when I met relatives visiting their dear ones. I met Mehra, the makeup whiz, sitting with her husband, as her 87-year-old mother-in-law lay inside the room. She had had a surgery the night before, and they had spent a sleepless night at the hospital, and were still there late into the next day, not wanting to leave her for a moment.
I passed a room with the door open and heard the cries of a woman: “Oh Sister, oh Sister.” This “sister” was a nurse, Usha, who told me that the 67-year-old lady was called Roshan Contractor and had a failed kidney, cirrhosis of the liver and a number of other lung ailments. “Woh abhi do mahine tak dead ho jayegi (she’ll be dead within two months),” she said. Roshan Contractor had been there for two years and thought the room was her home. Her husband came to her every day.
I walked in and sat next to her. She could not even sit, let alone get out of bed. I had just been told that she was going to die soon and that she used to talk a lot, but now, she could only wail “Oh Sister!” She used to be a professor, I was told. She was the staff’s favourite once, when she had a lot of stories to tell. One of the attendants asked her what she had for breakfast, and she responded: “My mother sometimes does not feed me” in English. Had she gone back in time to when she was a child?
I held her hand, feeling sad for her and asked her how she was feeling. She had the most kind but piercing eyes. She focused on me and said, “I dream of being a professor,” and then leaned away from me and wailed again, “Oh Sister!”
After a while, I got up to leave. She must have been pretty at one time, I thought, my heart suddenly heavy for a complete stranger. “I may come and see you again,” I said.
Sister Usha told her, “Auntie Roshan, say bye to your visitor.” Roshan paused rocking to and fro, nodded and then mumbled in perfect English, “Sure, it will be a pleasure.”
I will go and see her again, I told myself, knowing that it would have to be soon.