Vishal Sharma
Schools had closed for the day and big yellow coloured school buses and mini vans have begun transporting school kids back home. Sundernagar had been quiet and seemed weirdly uninhabited just half an hour ago in the scorching May heat. But within no time, the peak hour traffic returned to the main street of the city, creating so much hurry-scurry that it was difficult to believe that it was the same city which was so relaxed and quiet barely half an hour ago. It was half past two in the afternoon, and an ambulance raced on the main street. The ambulance soon reached the busiest city centre, but the driver found it hard to push through the melee that he was caught in even though ambulance light flashed and its siren blew unceasingly.
It was then a voice from behind caught the driver’s attention, as he slowed to thread his way through a snarl-up at a rotary.
” Quick. I am losing his pulse.” Inside was a boy of no more than twenty, a biker who had met with an accident and lay unconscious. His attendant was a bystander, who had called the ambulance and decided to accompany the boy to the hospital.
” Trying my level best. But this God damn traffic, it won’t let me pass. These morons have caused a gridlock around this rotary and no one is budging.”
A little later, the ambulance pulled up inside the premises of the emergency department of the city hospital. The boy was stretchered into a one big hall and then shifted on to a bed in a corner. The resident doctors on duty began attending him almost instantaneously. The senior resident placed the palm of his right hand over the back of his left and began applying pressure on his heart. He did it a few times before placing his stethoscope on his heart. Hearing nothing, he signalled to his colleague for the electric shock device. Even as he waited for the equipment to arrive, he resumed applying pressure on his heart. This time more intensely. Once. Twice. And a few times more. Wiping the sweat off his brow, he then applied the electric shocks, but the boy did not respond. He lay there cold, motionless with eyes wide open; the dulling of irises and absence of a focal point indicating that he had passed away; everyone around him touched by the chilling stillness of his passing. The ward boy then came and pulled the cover over the head of the deceased.
When the parents of the boy later reached the hospital, distraught and grieving, the accompanying bystander told them that their son had met with an accident on a large gaping pothole smack in the middle of the Gokhale street. “He fell from his bike, with his head hitting the kerb”, the bystander told the inconsolable parents.
****
The number of deaths in road accidents in Sundernagar had shot up recently; all put down to the broken and the potholed roads. There wasn’t even one proper 100 mts road stretch out of an estimated total road length of 1500 kms in the city that was not riddled with potholes or frayed at the edges or had not come apart in the middle in one form or the other. Initially, the city officials remained unmoved by the surging anger of the people, calling their reaction as disproportionate. However, when the death count continued to tick up and the local media ran stories about the apathy of the local administration, the top echelons of the administration woke up from the slumber. A few local channels even pointed to the massive corruption that bedevilled the department and urged the government to inquire into the abuse of funds and utilisation of substandard material on the roads.
As the peoples’ anger refused to die down, the top officer of the roads department was recalled by the government from an official overseas tour for immediate consultations. The top officer later convened an urgent meeting of his officers to review the situation.
” What’s going on? ” the top officer turned to his immediate subordinate for an answer.
” Sir, roads are pretty much the same they have been in the past.”
” If roads have not changed from the last year, why are more people dying in road accidents this year?”
“Frankly, it baffles me why we have more accidents this year. But it could not be further from the truth if someone claims city roads today are worse than the last year or year before that. ”
” What’s stopping us from fixing the potholes immediately?”
” Sir, road maintenance, as you know, is an annual feature. It’s not that we are not already tending to bad roads. Chuckholes are being fixed even as we speak.”
The top officer looked around in the meeting hall in a reflective mood. After a while, he turned his gaze towards his immediate subordinate and said, ” The city is on the edge. The city is abuzz with the rumours that we are corrupt and compromised. I ask all of you: are we? If we aren’t, shouldn’t we be busy fixing things?”
****
Sham Kumar, executive engineer, in whose jurisdiction majority of deaths had taken place, came home in the evening to his waiting wife after attending the meeting convened by the top officer of his department. ” There’s been another road accident in your area.” ” I know.”
” Are you not perturbed? Does it not bother you?” “Why should it bother me? Is it me who’s caused his death?”
Anjali walked up to Sham as he was unbuttoning his shirt, held his arms and spun him around to face her.
” Look me in the eyes and tell me you don’t feel guilty. Where’s that money- the money that your department needs to spend on fixing roads- going?”
” You know as well as I do where it’s going? and, by the way, if I don’t take my cut, some one else will. Roads won’t be any better for them.” ” Whatever. I don’t want that money in this house. Throw that muck outside. Today, the local channel ran the footage from the hospital where the young boy died. His mother, who had cried herself hoarse, pronounced a curse that whoever is responsible for the potholed road that has taken her son away from her will one day similarly mourn for his son.” ” Come off it, Anjali. Please stop this voodoo nonsense.”
” Sham, I fear for our only son, Agrim. For God sake, either stop taking money or seek a transfer.”
****
June afternoon was dry and hot. Unsheltered walk outside in the sun was energy sapping; leaving one almost lifeless. It was ten past one in the afternoon and there was hardly anyone on the streets. Hawkers and roadside makeshift vendors had left their designated spots and resumed their business either under the shade of trees or jutting slabs of the residential or commercial buildings. Construction labour also seemed to have taken a day off. Wind was still; birds had quietly disappeared into their nests and streets were thankfully free from the menace of stray dogs. Anjali was in the kitchen, packing lunch for Sham when her mobile rang from the living room.
” Is it Agrim’s mother speaking?” ” What’s the matter?” ” I am afraid you will have to come to the emergency department of the city hospital immediately.”
Anjali did not have the courage to ask the caller who it was who has been brought to the hospital. Son or husband? She slumped into the sofa even as the caller repeatedly said, ” Are you there?”
In a traumatic haze, she visualised the eyes of the mother of the deceased motorist and recalled her words-‘ the responsible will similarly mourn for his son.” It was then she pulled herself up with a jerk from the sofa and called to her driver. ” Get me to the city hospital. Quickly.”
****
When Anjali reached the hospital, she found that Agrim had already died. His dead body lay covered with the freshly laundered white cotton sheet. Like a zombie, Anjali doddered across the hall to the bed, and looked at the lifeless form under the sheet; unable to summon up the courage to uncover it. As she stood soulless, spiritless by the dead body of her son, the man, who had brought Agrim to the hospital from the site of accident said, “I saw the accident with my own eyes. He lost his balance when his bike hit the monstrous pothole and he fell in front of a speeding truck coming from behind. It was all over before we could reach there.”
***
“Agrim. Agrim,” Sham’s voice rose over the surrounding chaos, as he entered the emergency department in a state of stupor. In a rush to reach his son, he tripped on a metallic strip that jutted from a partially bent leg of an adjoining bed and was thrown on his son’s dead body. An attendant of a nearby patient placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.
“How about arranging a lavish funeral now, Sham? With the boodle we have, let’s do it. A gold- lined casket, decked with zinnias, lilies, jasmines and tulips. Gold lined invites to the who’s who of the city with a gold coin neatly tucked in it. Sandal wood for cremation. And yes, a massive post cremation do in a five star resort,” said Anjali, as her still eyes stared into a void.
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