Scenes from Childhood

Scene One, The MI Room on Cornwallis Road, New Delhi

June 15, 1959

Unfortunately, a true account, mostly.

Picture this, a play unfolding at your local theatre. The curtain goes up on a split stage. On the right side is the waiting room at the local MI Room, (Military Hospital) in New Delhi, and on the left side, is the doctor’s office where he is busily getting ready for the next patient.

In the waiting room his next patients are sitting with their mother. A boy of 7 and a girl of 6. The boy is sitting on a cane chair swinging his legs rather violently to the annoyance of his mother and sister. He’s busy looking around the room, which is not very hospitable. His sister, Meera, is sitting closer to her mother, very sedately with a look on her face of let’s get this over with, wearing a light-coloured cotton dress which her mother had bought from some emporium. Their mother, Janet, loved shopping in emporiums under the mistaken sense that the money collected by the government shop, would eventually make its way to the village where the artisan had diligently spent hours making the clothes. Needless to say, she was mistaken. The money never left Janpath.

The door opens. A stern looking man in his late 50s wearing a white coat, forces a smile and says, “next,” as if the waiting room is full of people. The mother, an English woman in her early-forties, gets up and Meera immediately grabs her right hand, while Ramesh, who is sitting some distance away pretends not to be a part of the group. Janet looks over at her son and without saying a word, she is definitely the disciplinarian of the family, glares at him. Ramesh finally after deciding he may never see his 8th birthday, slides reluctantly off his chair and slowly moves one foot in front of the other and grabs his mother’s left hand.

The doctor walks ahead of them and closes the door behind them.

“Hello Mrs Joshi,” he says sounding somewhat pleasant, but to Ramesh behind those innocent words lies a demon. “And what brings you in here today?” a superfluous question because he knows why they are there.

“It’s time,” replies Janet, “for the children to have their booster shots.” Oh no, the colour drains from Ramesh’s face. Until then, he pretends they were going to the MI Room for show and tell the next day but now, but now there was no escaping it. He is going to be assaulted. His body is going to be destroyed. His eyes dart everywhere. He sees an open window. He plans his escape, but he has to be nonchalant about it.

“Who’s going first?” asks Dr Chaudhary.

“She is,” replies Ramesh, before anyone volunteers him. Meera, being the little 6 year old angel steps forward and sits down on a stool near the doctor. The doctor for his part in a well rehearsed scene, walks over to a steel tub and lifts the lid. Immediately the room fogs up from the steam that escapes from the contraption. Ramesh was now close to the end of his life. He didn’t like what was happening. The doctor picks up a pair of tongs and expertly moves it around in the tub as if he is stirring chicken curry and extracts a spear. Ramesh gulps. It’s a needle which is not only 6 inches long, at least it looks that way to Ramesh, but it is boiling hot.

The doctor places the large steel spear on a piece of cloth and then goes hunting again. Ramesh watches his eyes as he knows what he is looking for. The doctor’s eyes shoot open. Yes, he has found it. Out he comes with a barrel which he attaches to the spear which is still steaming. It is now to Ramesh, an instrument of war!

The doctor moves closer to Meera and picks up a small sealed bottle with a clear liquid in it. He turns it upside down and after picking up the entire instrument of war, he plunges the tip of the spear through the rubber cap and sucks out the liquid. He then extracts the needle and holds it up and pushes the plunger in the barrel until a little squirts out. Then with a look of glee he turns to Meera and shakes his head a couple of times. He places the head of the needle near Meera’s arm and with what Ramesh thinks is a violet push punctures her skin.

Ramesh expects his sister to scream in pain and so he closes his eyes, but no scream comes. He hears the doctor say, “well done! that didn’t hurt did it?” Ramesh opens his eyes. Meera smiles and slides off the stool. Ramesh knows what’s about to happen next. He cannot let that happen. The doctor expertly disengages all the parts of the instrument of war and plops them back into the tub. An unmistakeable hiss akin to a human being thrown into the mouth of an active volcano escapes from the sterilizing contraption. Ramesh sees his last chance in life.

Before his mother who has relaxed a little, or the doctor who’s thinking about his beer at lunch at the officer Mess on Wellesley Road could think, Ramesh jumps out of his chair and on to the window sill and is bolting down the road. The two adults are stunned, Meera is giggling. The stunned doctor barks orders. “Orderly, orderly!” Soon a young man in unform appears at the door. He salutes the doctor who then shouts instructions at him. They look through the window and watch a speck in the distance, which Meera knew was her brother. The orderly jumps onto the windowsill and sprints towards the speck.

A few minutes the inevitable happens. The orderly reappears at the door to the doctor’s office with one 7 year old boy under his arm. He places the boy who is now crying uncontrollably on top the stool where he holds him down and the doctor proceeds to extract another instrument of war out of the boiling water and plunges the steel tip into Ramesh’s upper arm. Needless to say his mother is thoroughly embarrassed.

“Oh, don’t worry about it Mrs Joshi, we have this happen all the time!” The doctor laughs, going over the entire incident in his mind and finds the humour in it. Mrs Joshi apologises profusely and the orderly salutes smartly and exits the scene. “Anything else Mrs Joshi?” he asks.

“Yes,” says Ramesh, “how come my mummy doesn’t have to have an injection?”

“I have immunity Ramesh as a nurse.”

“That’s right,” the doctor explains, “we in the medical profession are immune from all these things.” It’s at that moment Ramesh decides his future plans. He will become a doctor!

“Would you like some kulfi or a Choc bar?” Ramesh’s mother asks Meera.

“Yes I’d love some mummy,” replies Ramesh.

“Oh no, not you. That will be your punishment for this incident.”

Scene Two, India Gate, Raj Path

Later that afternoon.

Ramesh, Meera and their mother are standing next to a Kwality ice cream vendor. He is busily constructing an ice cream cone for Meera. Once completed, their mother asks for one for herself. The ice cream vendor turns to Ramesh, “and for the little boy?”

Janet replies while paying the man, “Him? No nothing for him. Maybe next year.” Ramesh collapses in agony on the well groomed lawn.