Family Matters (7 page)

Dr. Tarapore smiled with pleasure, the vintage Vakeel sarcasm was undiminished even in pain. And that was a good sign. The doctor, who was in his early forties, had been Nariman Vakeel’s student long before the latter became his patient. Compulsory English courses that science students were force-fed during their first two years at college had brought them together.

But seeing Professor Vakeel in the stark hospital surroundings last night had left him unsettled. Running through his mind this morning was a welter of feelings – nostalgia, sorrow, regret for lost time, lost opportunities – and he was unable to understand the pathology of these human phenomena.

Also running relentlessly through the successful doctor’s mind were lines from “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” And the confused man of medicine gave vent to the poem that Nariman used to teach the science students: “ ‘It is an ancient Mariner, / And he stoppeth one of three. / By thy long grey beard and glittering eye, / Now wherefore stopp’st thou me?’ ”

Nariman frowned. He noticed for the first time that Tarapore’s longish hair was unusual for a doctor – on an advertising executive it would have been normal, he felt.

The wardboy went past, distracting them with the rattling trolley that he pushed among the beds. He was a young man who did his work in a dynamic manner. The washed urinals were placed under the beds with a forcefulness that declared his urge to establish order. His counterpart in the female ward was not called wardgirl or wardmaid, but ayah. Ayah, looking after children, thought Nariman. That’s what the old and the sick were in this place.

Dr. Tarapore finished taking the pulse and made a note in his chart before continuing the poem, “ ‘He holds him with his skinny hand—’ ”

“Excuse me, Doctor. Why are you reciting Coleridge? Your prognosis about my fracture would be infinitely more welcome.”

Dr. Tarapore grinned like a schoolboy. “For some reason I was thinking of your class, sir, in college. I loved your lectures, I still remember the ‘Ancient Mariner,’ and ‘Christabel.’ And all the stories of E. M. Forster that we studied from
The Celestial Omnibus.”

“Stop bluffing. I have Parkinson’s, not Alzheimer’s, I remember those classes too: the room packed with a hundred and fifty science rowdies, hooting and whistling, wallowing in their puerile antics to impress the ten girls in the class.”

Dr. Tarapore blushed. “That was the university’s fault – not counting English marks for the final average, only attendance. The fellows didn’t care. But I promise you, sir, I never took part in that hooliganism.”

Nariman raised one eyebrow, and his ex-student modified the disavowal: “Maybe I whistled once or twice. Without enthusiasm.”

He was silent after his confession, feeling he was gushing. He went on with his work, putting the stethoscope to his ears, making notes in Nariman’s file, taking the blood pressure. But what he really wanted from his old professor were some words of wisdom about life.

He tried again. “Sir, the Ancient Mariner’ has brought back the happiest years of my life, my years in college.” He paused, added, “My youth,” and immediately regretted it.

Doctor has a sensitive conscience, thought Nariman. Over a quarter-century and still feeling guilty for misbehaving in class. Or was this chit-chat part of his bedside manner?

He decided to abjure his cynicism. “What year were you in my class?”

“In First Year Science – in 1969.”

“So you are in your forties now.”

Dr. Tarapore nodded.

“And you dare speak about youth as though you’d lost it?”

“Actually, sir,” said Dr. Tarapore, “I do feel old when I —”

“Hah. And how do you think I feel when former students talk to me about their youth? ‘Let the dead Past bury its dead,’ ” he said to close the topic.

“ ‘Act – act in the living Present!’ ” completed Dr. Tarapore, and awaited kudos for recognizing the quote.

“Excellent. So let us follow Longfellow’s advice. Tell me when you will return my ankle to me.”

Sufficiently inspired, the student strapped on the years he had shed. Dr. Tarapore was restored to the bedside, tapping on the hard, white plaster of Paris carapace and pronouncing, “The cast is sound.”

His action seemed frivolous to Nariman. “Of course it’s sound – there’s enough cement here to resurface my flat. Your plasterer got carried away.”

Dr. Tarapore laughed. “The tarsus is one of the most troublesome group of bones, especially at your age. We must give it sufficient support, shield the metatarsus, immobilize the leg. We have to be extra careful because of Parkinsonism. We’ll take another X-ray in four weeks, but you can probably be discharged tomorrow.”

He shook hands and left to speak with Jal and Coomy in the corridor, to give instructions about Nariman’s care.

During the two days at Parsi General, Jal gave up his daily session at the share bazaar to spend the hours with his stepfather. Coomy too stayed the entire day at the hospital. Nariman was touched, and urged them to go home, relax, there was very little they could do here.

“It’s okay, Pappa, we’ll keep you company.”

He asked if Roxana and Yezad had been informed.

“We decided not to worry them right now,” said Coomy.

Then, to amuse him, they related Edul Munshi’s visit to their flat, who had overheard someone in the building talking about the accident. The only words he had caught were “Nariman Vakeel” and “broken,” but that was enough to make him hurry over with his tool box, offering his services.

“Wait till you hear what Coomy told him!”

“ ‘Sure, Edul,’ I said, ‘we’ll be very grateful for the repair. Only thing is, you have to go to Parsi General.’ He was puzzled: ‘Why Parsi General?’ ‘Because Pappa is there,’ I said. ‘So?’ he asked. ‘The broken item is Pappa’s ankle,’ I said.”

“You should have seen his face, Pappa,” said Jal.

“I had no idea he was that desperate,” chuckled Nariman.

His dinner arrived, and they helped him with the tray, sharing his custard because he didn’t want any and it seemed a shame to waste good food. They put the tray outside for collection and said good night.

He did not mind being alone. The wardboy on the night shift was an older man, much older than the dynamic day fellow. Early sixties at least, thought Nariman, and wondered if his shaking hands were also due to Parkinson’s, or something else. He made up for the imperfection of his hands with the perfection of his smile. A smile of enlightenment, thought Nariman, so like Voltaire’s in old age, in the portrait that graced the frontispiece in his copy of
Candide.

And how did one acquire such enlightenment, he wondered, here, in a grim ward, collecting faeces and urine from the beds of the lame and the halt and the diseased? Or were these the necessary conditions? For learning that young or old, rich or poor, we all stank at the other end?

Nariman wanted to draw him into conversation, but hesitated each time he came by. The aging wardboy asked him how he was feeling, did he need anything, were the pillows comfortable.

Then he smiled – and Nariman felt as though they had just concluded a long and heartfelt exchange of ideas.

Next day Mr. Rangarajan returned to inspect his handiwork. For the most part, the cast had set uniformly, without weaknesses. But there were two places where he wanted to apply more plaster. “Better to be on the safe side than the sorry side.”

Concerned about Nariman’s haggard appearance, he tried to regale his patient with more stories and anecdotes from his working life. “This is a really good hospital, Professor Vakeel, a five-star hotel compared to some. After my unforeseen departure from Kuwait, I came back to our motherland and got a job at a government hospital in Indore. What a truly dreadful place. Rats running everywhere, and nobody getting upset about it.”

“Must have been just before the plague outbreak.”

“Oh yes. Two terrible things happened while I was there. One patient’s toes were chewed up. Then, a newborn was eaten by rats – partially, but fatally.”

Nariman shook his head.

“And rats were not the only problem,” continued Mr. Rangarajan. “There was one man with his leg in a full cast, even bigger than yours. He was complaining that the leg was burning, driving him crazy. All day like a madman he was screaming, begging for help. The doctors thought he was being fussy. Finally, he couldn’t bear it any more and jumped out of the window. When they removed the cast from his corpse, they found his flesh raw, crawling with bedbugs.”

Nariman shuddered. He was glad Mr. Rangarajan had finished his work and was packing up his implements.

Dr. Tarapore saw Nariman once more, on the eve of his discharge. This time he did not recite any poetry, but had another word with Jal and Coomy, reiterating the do’s and don’t’s: “Please see that my dear professor gives his ankle complete rest – not an ounce of weight for four weeks.”

“Yes, doctor, we’ll make sure,” said Coomy. “Pappa will be good now, I think he has learnt his lesson. Haven’t you, Pappa?”

Nariman would not dignify her question with an answer. Dr. Tarapore said with a smile that silence was consent.

Later in the evening the dynamic wardboy requested a letter of reference. He cautioned it was against hospital rules, so please to keep it a secret.

Nariman wrote on hospital stationery procured by the resourceful fellow that Mr. Yadav was a diligent worker who exuded genuine concern for patients, and was meticulous in his duties; it had been a pleasure to make his acquaintance; and he wished Mr. Yadav well in his future endeavours.

He examined the page when he finished, curious about his wobbly handwriting. The letters grew progressively smaller from beginning to end, he hadn’t been able to control their size. This was something new – another symptom of Parkinsonism, he assumed.

The wardboy was overwhelmed without having read a word. He took his benefactor’s trembling hand in both of his, reluctant to let go.

On the morning of Nariman’s departure, Mr. Rangarajan stopped by to wish him good luck. But the elderly wardboy from the night shift was nowhere around, and Nariman was disappointed not to learn his name. Never mind, he would remember him as an incarnation of Voltaire.

Then it was time to go home. Jal rode with him in the ambulance. Soon after emerging from the hospital gates, they came to a standstill near the main intersection where a political procession was making its way.

“What party is it?” asked Nariman.

“Who knows. It’s hard to read the banners from here.
BJP, JD, CP, VHP, BSP,
doesn’t matter, they’re all the same. Did you sleep well last night?”

Nariman responded with a vague gesture of his hand. They waited for the traffic to start moving again.

N
ariman expected to find the door open and Coomy waiting by it with a tray of flowers, vermilion, and a husked coconut. Instead, Jal used his latchkey. The ambulancemen followed him inside with the stretcher. There was no ceremonial tray, no one to perform the aachhu-michhu.

“Coomy isn’t home?”

Jal shook his head. “At fire-temple. For Mamma’s prayers.”

Of course. It was the death anniversary. He had forgotten.

“And then she’s going to buy some things for you – bedpan, basin, all that stuff.”

The Parsi traditions around birthdays, navjotes, weddings, arrivals, departures normally earned Nariman’s indulgence. He had never set great store by rituals. But the absence of the silver tray hit him keenly.

“When will she be back?”

“Soon. You don’t have to go to the bathroom right away, do you? Have a nap, I’ll put some music on for you.”

Glad to be in his own bed, Nariman nodded off while the Schubert quintet played in the drawing-room, till voices trying to keep low disturbed him a short time later.

“A commode?” said Jal, as the taxi driver put it down with a thump in the hallway. At Coomy’s beseeching, the man had carried the box up in the lift for her, but the meagre tip disgusted him.

“If I wanted to work for a coolie’s salary, I wouldn’t drive a taxi,” he muttered as he left.

“Thank you, bhai, thank you very, very much,” said Coomy, pretending she hadn’t heard, and shut the door. “How is Pappa?”

“Sleeping. But you were supposed to buy a bedpan.”

She began unwrapping the smaller parcel, which was an enamel wash basin, and placed it beside the covered wooden box with four stumpy legs. “I felt this would be better than a bedpan.”

“What do you mean, better? Doctor said a month in bed. The foot must not touch the floor.”

“Listen. I was in the shop, looking at bedpans, and I began to imagine the … the … procedure. What it would be like to place it under Pappa, and when he was done, to remove it, and clean him, and wash it, and … Don’t make me say everything. You know what I mean. The whole thing is embarrassing.”

So she had decided a commode would be more decorous, Pappa could sit right beside the bed, relieve himself more easily. “All we do is empty out the pot.”

“But Doctor said the bones will take months to heal if we’re careless.”

“We are not making Pappa walk to the wc or anything. Let’s try it out, see how he feels.”

They carried the commode to their stepfather’s room, and he pretended to be awakened by their presence. “Oh, Coomy, you’re back. What’s that, a new night table for me?”

She laughed. “No, Pappa, it’s a lovely commode, look,” and she opened the lid.

“We thought it would be more comfortable than a bedpan,” said Jal. “Don’t you think?”

“Whatever is most convenient for you is fine with me. I’m such a burden already.”

“Don’t worry, Pappa, we’ll manage. It’s only for four weeks.” Jal dragged the box closer, positioning it by the bed. “Feel like going?”

Nariman nodded. They raised him by his arms to a sitting position. Next came the trickier part: to help him stand and make a quarter-turn for the commode. They reminded him to take the strain on his right foot, leave the left aloft, then hoisted him.

To lift an almost dead weight vertically was more difficult than they had expected. And as soon as Nariman was upright, his broken ankle sank to the floor.