Weathering a Storm

‘Yes doctor, Mr. Kulkarni has been given oral Sorbitrate and his condition is stable now,’ She reported Dr. Vishwas with the utmost propriety. The clock was ticking at 9 p.m. at night. At exactly 7 p.m. Maya signed in as it was a routine that the staff used to set their watches on the arrival of Maya. Her unkempt green Kurti represented her frayed state of mind. Moreover, it was adding to the irrelatively somber atmosphere of the isolated room of Cama Hospital.

Dr. Vishwas often trusted her unquestionably. Doubtlessly it was obvious after all it was an association of almost eleven long years when Maya was recruited by him as the head nurse of the Trauma Centre of Cama Hospital. 

Dr. Vishwas often used to tell the entire staff the tale of Maya’s first acquaintance with him. An eight-year-old boy in a pool of blood was brought to the hospital by a young girl in her twenties. She discerned a figure lying unnoticed, unconscious at the side of the street. Like lightning, she mindfully gauged the severity of the head injuries of the boy. The next moment she was in the casualty ward, hospitalizing the boy. With the astonishing presence of mind she searched the boy’s school bag and dialed the number she found, informed the family members about the badly bruised boy. Later that day, she came to know that Mihir was the only son of Dr. Vishwas, the renowned director of Cama Hospital. The next day Maya was added into the staff of Cama hospital. Purushottam scuttled hurriedly from the tiny changing room banging the door at his back disrupting the conversation of Dr. Vishwas and Maya. He whispered something into Maya’s ears and both of them moved with urgent haste to the back door of the hospital. 

Nothing was special about that night. With few exceptionally restless barking dogs and one or two honking vehicles, the street was deserted. All of a sudden the silence of the dark night was pierced with the screeching sound of a police jeep and open fire. Without wasting a single moment, Maya alerted all the attendants to lock all the entries to the hospital. And she herself went to the backside of the hospital. Somehow her sixth sense suggested the impending terror attack. With the assistance of Purushottam, who was already trembling involuntarily with fear, Maya pulled the profusely bleeding body of Dr. Vishwas into the hospital and instantaneously locked the door. ‘Purushottam, bring the stretcher quickly, we need to admit him to OT’, Maya screamed at him. Ram, a boy of eighteen years, a newly appointed ward boy came from the opposite direction declaring emergency medical help. Till then all the doors were locked. He detailed her about the severely injured boy of seven. Maya thought for a while, asked Ram to admit the boy to ICU and shifted Dr. Vishwas to the operation theatre. 

Taking reign of her seemingly jarred emotions, Maya decided to do incision by herself as there was no doctor except Dr. Vishwas at that point in time. She deduced from the bullet injuries of Dr. Vishwas that if she doesn’t operate now, she is going to lose him with two survivors, his wife, and Mihir, now a dashing youngster. With immeasurable courage, Maya did a successful surgery on Vishwas for three long hours and relieved the sigh of relief. The watch was ticking 12.42. All of a sudden she remembered Ram’s news and hastily ran to the ICU chamber to observe the condition of the boy. The ward boys with the help of Purushottam were seen lifting the fainted Maya to the bed next to the boy…

The next day in one corner of Times of India there was an obituary which said: Ma. Parth Maya Shende, 7 died, Tuesday, November 27^th, 2008 at Cama Hospital following a terror attack. He leaves behind his mother, a head nurse at the same hospital, busied in surgery on the director of the Hospital who was severely injured in the same attack and his sibling. Parth along with his Nana was carrying a tiffin for his mother who forgot to carry it, she drove away to join her night shift on that fatal night. Parth was holding a tiffin box and was merrily walking behind his Nana when the shooters attacked with indiscriminate firing killing the boy on the spot. He was the only son of Maya's nurse, a widow. The Nation salutes Maya nurse who bravely saved the director and so many others in the hospital with her warrior spirit and in solidarity in her irreparable loss.