Scars That Change .. Life

Rain at times and tears taste salty...I walked in the rain, rather than ran, wishing that stench on me go away. The stench of burnt flesh ...human flesh ...burnt black, coal black. It was my last day in the burns unit and I told Bincy ma'am our professor's face I am not going to change, I work based on my conscience. She too told me, you would change the day. When your arrogance is over...

Those were days I did what I felt was right. I would risk everything to get the plasma worth Lakhs injected for a Nepali little boy Who would have died without it. Conduct programs to feed psychiatry unit patients and collect money for cancer patients.

Many times I got punished for the frankness, posting at Burns unit was one among them.

I was never perfect though I had the purest intentions...I fought for my rights and being wrong hurt me. But when certain things happen in our life. It churns the inside and changes us forever and meeting Bindhu was one such event, the whole burn unit was. I never saw Anand those days. I was afraid of the stench I carried

My roommates would never allow my uniform inside for it was horrible to anyone.

Bindhu used to look into my eyes to read my feelings when I applied silver sulphadiazine all over her. I would wink at her. I knew she did not have any pain as almost all the nerves were gone. Infection and contracture a complication started invading her. I would see her every morning ...her whole body except the face would be under the temperature dome.

She told me in very few words what happened...those words that burn me inside out still. She was just 16 or 17. But she was married, Bindhu belonged to a backwards caste and the boy was a bit forward, so she was treated like an untouchable at his home. They made her have food in different utensils, and sleep down on the floor, except when her body was needed and she would have to sit down on the floor and not touch other family members.

But she did not throw kerosene all overhead down and lit the fire, not due to such humiliation. They called even crazy, crazy behind her own husband 

But Bindhu told initially he brought one friend, and then the number kept increasing, the men would gang rape her and the husband would watch.

I kind of told her knowing it was futile, yet I believed she would love herself, carry only good thoughts about her body. Nothing could make your soul or mind or heart or this body impure. It is those hounds who tear her to pieces and enjoyed who need to be put to shame.

Tears would swell in her eyes...

And then the etheric fire would blaze in it.

By the time I would finish working on her body she would talk to me about a lot of things, of dreams of love...I never hesitated in telling the police what I learned from her .they took action on it I am not sure of 

I had other burns patients too we would all chat when the long day is about to be over.

From Bindhu, I learned her body is precious and it was her temple. She had one deity, the man he loved and one prayer to keep him safe, but now she felt guilty for her being beautiful, the in-laws blamed her for that she told, that she lured men 

It still boils my blood men in India, men around the world and history so innocently get lured...when women are held responsible for it. What irony is it? What a sarcastic thought.

Bindhu did justice to herself. She asked me for our last day a tuft of jasmine and by the time I reached with jasmine, struggling, she left ....the scarred body.

Bindhu was not one woman. there were stories ...a lot which made me, makes me the I am today.

Today I could fight such indolent might but then I

Was a girl, whom half the world called crazy...

But after meeting her life was never the same. I am not just any woman who would go with male domination, I believe in equality and I still hate institutions of marriage which just means you are protected from many hounds and just thrown to one forever...Under the hypothermia blanket ..the swelling, charred skin, sloughing flesh...burns unit made me someone different too indifferently yet sensitively different.