Usha, our maidservant, was very close to us and performed every kind of chore in my home. Her husband was physically challenged and he had to depend on Usha for his living. She too suffered from health problems. With arthritis frequently bothering her, she would complain of excruciating pain.
One day, Usha frantically came and gave the news that her husband had developed some cardiac complications and has been hospitalised. She had to cough up Rs 30,000, which she somehow arranged after pledging all her jewels with a pawn broker.
Unfortunately, the next day her husband’s condition deteriorated. Now she had to pay another Rs 40,000 towards expensive check-ups. Her husband’s health care expenses alone drained all her savings. This was all too much for a family living on a shoe-string budget.
I took the investigation reports of her husband and consulted my cardiologist for a second opinion. “Nothing can be said. But there has been one too many investigations. This is the way of private hospitals,” he said.
That night Usha’s husband kicked the bucket, despite the best efforts of the doctors, we were told. Now the knotty problem was over the disposal of the body. I never thought I would witness a melodrama. Usha looked sullen and sick. Her face turned pale and yellow. Submerged in sorrow, she was deprived of all her hard-earned savings as well as her husband.
Along with her, I approached the hospital authorities to take possession of the body. The man in the counter was very stiff and demanded another Rs 30,000. Usha’s only choice was to beg, plead and cry which she did pitifully. She offered to pay the amount within a week. The man in the counter was stony-hearted and too adamant. He wanted to extract his pound of flesh without any qualms. “Is he a serpent hearted guy?” I thought. I guaranteed the hospital that the amount would be repaid. But his adamancy was unshakable.
Usha’s face stiffened and she mused for a few moments. A brave spirit should have descended over her nerves. In a resolute voice, she spoke, “I decline my husband’s body. You keep it with you.” She was a picture of courage and confidence. The authorities huddled for a few minutes. All the adamancy soon melted and turned into a kind of submissive reverence. In an ambulance within moments, the body was moved to her home. She vehemently declined even to pay the ambulance expenses.
Usha was an illiterate from a remote hamlet, but demonstrated to everyone that in the face of a worst possible crisis even someone at her wit’s end could stand up to it.