Sick Things

Cold air from the air conditioning vent blows back the tiny hairs around my forehead. We've been in the car for nearly two hours and it is only 7:30 in the morning. I have spent every moment of the ride thus far in the fetal position in my seat, head bent towards the black trash bag that Kate took from our hotel room trash can. We are going to the Taj Mahal. 

The churning in my stomach occurs at the speed of the car wheels. The bile inside cyclones at forty kilometers per hour. I close my eyes and wish for expulsion, but it doesn't come. We continue down the mostly empty road, weaving in and out of colorful trucks carrying oil, chickens, and people. Some of them hang onto the sides of truck beds where ever they can find a hand-spot. 

We enter a small town and sail through. Men groggy with sleep in their faces sit on plastic stools and stare at our car passing by. Stare at the women inside. Us. They smile. Point. Wave. I close my eyes and time my breaths with the clicking of the air conditioner. Click click click. Breathe In. Click click click. Breathe out. 

The car slows as we approach a small traffic jam. The driver maneuvers around road bikes and auto-rickshaws. Our windows are up. The cold air blows. We stare at the people staring at us. We stare at the people staring at someone else. 

On the ground, a motorbike is on its side. A crowd of men standing in a semi-circle. Staring. We stare. 

A woman sits motionless in the street, legs straight, staring at the hazy air in front of her. Her salwar kameez is pushed up around her waist. One foot has a flip flop on it. The other foot is mangled, bloody. Slick and pink like raw chicken. A young girl stands behind her. She wears a red shirt with Tweety Bird on it. Her mouth is open so wide that I can see the back of her throat as she screams. Her hands are clenched, both arms stretched at forty-five degree angles from her stiff body. 

Click, click, click. She breathes in. Click, click, click. Her breath out is shrill. Her brown saucer eyes stare at the shredded foot. She still has a tiny bit of baby chub in her cheeks and her black hair is held back by a headband. The sound of her scream cuts through the glass of our car windows and joins the churning bile in my stomach like creamer poured into just-stirred coffee. 

Our axles keep spinning. All of the questions that will never be answered radiate through my limbs, the question marks popping out of my pores. I know that I will never see the shredded foot woman or the screaming child again. I put my head back into the black trash bag but nothing happens.

Hours later we are at the Taj Mahal. A palace built by an obsessed man. It is with this man-made world wonder in my periphery that I am sitting on a ledge, the roiling bile finally close to evacuation. People stare. Sweat rolls over my eyelids and down my nose onto the ground. I stare as each drop hits the same spot repeatedly.

I close my eyes. 

And it is the not image of the slick, raw chicken foot that makes me finally vomit, but the terrified little girl standing. Tweety Bird. Saucer eyes and 22 teeth. I wretch over and over into a ziploc bag. Bright yellow bile and a scared child's howl.

Hati, Hati

Another morning with the girls.

I slip on my sunglasses and carry my mug of coffee up to the roof. The sun hits me and instantly all of the moisture in my skin evaporates into the hot air.  I cross the roof quickly, slide the bolt across the iron gate, and enter their territory. When I round the corner, I hear their tiny voices from above, "Pishimoni!" I smile and wave and start the unsteady walk up the iron slatted staircase to their home. Each metal rung burns the soles of my feet and when I reach halfway, a set of tiny hands reaches down to take my coffee mug. A few quick wipes on the concrete with a wet rag to rid the floor of loose grains of cooked rice, and they unfold the mat that I always sit on.

And then, we begin.

"Rainbow violet, indigo blue.
Rainbow green and yellow too.
Rainbow orange, rainbow red.
Rainbow smiling overhead."

"ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYANDZ"...

"Kabhi ek, ek, ek
Swasa kay kay kay
Kabhi dui, dui, dui
Swasa no no no
kabhi tin, tin, tin
Swasa cleem, cleem, cleem"

And then after our songs, we move on.

"Pishimoni, binuni!" (Auntie! Braid!)

I say, "Thika. Ek or dui?" (Okay, one or two?)

"Mmmmm....ek." (One)

"Hah. Thika acche." (Yes. Okay.)

One of them digs around until they find the tortoiseshell comb, and Lalita plops in front of me. Kumkum watches with fascination, leaning on my thigh, as I turn her sister's long hair into one french braid. At the end I put both hands on either side of her head to smooth out any loose hairs. I kiss the braid and say, "Sesa." (Finish.)

And Lalita puts her hand on the braid. Kumkum holds up the mirror and Lalita says, "Voooowww!"

I take a break in between braids. I sip my coffee and they offer me some of their breakfast, which I have plenty of downstairs, but I take a few tiny bites of luchi or rice puffs or halwa because it means something to the girls when I eat with them. Sharing food is a bonding experience between us. They find it hilarious when I attempt to eat with my right hand. "Nay, Ami Bengali!" (No, I Bengali), I once said as a joke when I was offered a spoon. Now every time they see me eat with my hands, they repeat the phrase and giggle at me and give me pointers on the best way to scoop rice and dahl and slide it off of my fingers with my thumb, into my mouth.

Lalita points to the elephant charm around my neck. Hati, hati!" (Elephant, elephant!) I point to the matching charms around their necks and say, "Hati, hati!".

When I first got here I was able to find 3 cheap little metal elephant charms. I threaded each on a thin red rope. One for each of us. They are our Hati necklaces. The girls have not taken them off since I tied them around their necks. Nirmal even added another charm.

Kumkum uses the hati around her neck to attack mine. "Ahh!" I feign fright. And they laugh and I laugh and I am so thankful that something so small could make us all so happy.

By the time I finish with Kumkum's two braids, Juma is finished in the kitchen downstairs and she joins us up in their home. We play with the doll, who now sports a red bindi as well as a red fingerprint on her forehead, the kind that the entire family comes home with after a visit to Kalighat Temple. I use the doll to show Juma how to french braid, something we've been working on for the last few weeks.

The girls flip through their school workbooks, eager to show me the English words they've learned.

"Comb, comb, comb your hair.
Brush, brush, brush your teeth."

"Bhalo, bhalo. Khub bhalo" I say. (Good, good. Very good.)

Then it's time for me to shower and begin my day at Durbar. We blow air kisses, hold hands, and Lalita says, "Bye!"

Kumkum puts either hand on my cheeks and stares into my eyes. I send her everything.

"Sundohr," I say. (Beautiful).



And then I stand. Back down the scalding stairs. I'm dripping in sweat. My ponytail sticks to the back of my neck and I know my face is pink. Above me I hear, "Pishimoni?" I pause and look up. "Hmm?"

Lalita is standing on the stairs. She cocks her head and says, "Tomorrow coming?"

I smile. "Hah." (Yes.)

With my empty coffee cup in my hands, I pass through their gate and cross the roof, my heart full.

Case 458

Last year when I was hospitalized because of the rat bite my days were spent laying in a bed, connected to wires and IVs, in a room on the fourth floor of Apollo Gleneagles hospital. I'd lay on my side and stare out the window. By then, since it was the end of June, the monsoon clouds would begin to creep closer and closer, my signal that the day was half over and perhaps in the morning I would be released and go home. Laura, the TA, spent as much time at the hospital as she could, it was still an hour taxi ride from our apartment and she had many responsibilities with the other students so she could not always be there during the day. 

I quickly became lonely and bored. And just as quickly, I made two friends. Two wonderful Didis from Kerala who were nurses on my wing, 4L. One in particular, Jyothika, would take her time when inserting new channels (IVs) into my already bruised and marked arms and hands. And each day, as she slowly worked, we began to get to know each other. We talked about my life in The States and about her home state in Kerala. I'd just returned from a trip to Kerala and had many photos. She happily looked at all of my photos of the food we'd eaten there. 

Over the next few days I spent less time staring and waiting for the monsoon clouds to bruise the sky and more time waiting for my friend Jyoti to come to my room to change my IV bags or give me my pills or just to say Hi. When I heard the door opening, I wished with all of my heart that it would be Jyothika or Greeshma. My favorite Didis. Five minutes of interaction with people who spoke English and who laughed with me at the terribly bland food I was being fed (rice and boiled chicken only...tea with no sugar or milk). Who held my hands when a procedure hurt. Who fixed my blankets, brushed my hair and took such amazing care of me.

One day Jyothika showed up for her shift with two rosaries. One for me and one for Laura. I put mine around my neck and didn't remove it until I got home from the hospital. 

I became known at Apollo as "Case 458" or "Rat Bite Case". Hospital employees would come to my room and peek in the door to get a glance at the girl from America who'd been bitten by a rat in Calcutta. Some of them snapped photos with their phones. Jyoti and Greeshma quickly put a stop to it, and they began to stand guard so that no other people would come and gawk at me. 

The day that I left Apollo, I was able to get Jyoti's phone number and we have kept in contact all year. We usually chat about once a week. She sends me photos of her family, I send her photos of mine. She sends me photos of her lunches and dinners and I send her photos of my strange looking American food. When I told her I was coming back, she couldn't believe it. I think that back then, I could not either. 

And finally yesterday, we were able to meet. Jyotikha and Greeshma brought two of their nurse friends who also work at Appollo, and I brought four of the students with me to meet them. We met at a large mall near the hospital and it was a heart exploding type of reunion!

We caught up, took many photos, and shopped around a bit at the mall. It was so good to see them. They will always be my Didis...even though technically Didi means "older sister", it's a term used for nurses in India. Once they realized last year that actually, I am older than them by 4-5 years, we began to joke that really, I am the Didi. ;-)

Once again I am left with an experience here in India that has left me nearly speechless and my heart exploding and full all at the same time.