The instruments were set out on a small foldable table. The patient had had a shot of penicillin, the only antibiotic available. They were both gowned in full-sleeved shirts and gloved. All was now ready. The light, held by a stout-hearted neighbour, threw its yellow light on the patient’s iodine-wet skin, making it shine. For a moment, Dr Ravikumar looked up at the crude rafters and tiles hardly two feet above his head, and hoped a gecko would not fall into the incision. With that last worrisome thought, he cut down boldly on the woman’s abdomen. The blade left a swath of crimson in its wake, warm blood bathed his gloved hands and he entered another world. As he caught the bleeders and searched for the correct planes, he forgot the geckos, he forgot where he was and everything else. In less than ten minutes, he was inside the womb. He wedged his right hand below the baby’s head and levered it out through the wound.
The shoulders and then the rest of the body followed. He caught the infant by his feet and lifted him high, giving him a smart slap on the back. To his relief, the baby took in his first breath and let out a wholesome cry as though protesting his entry into a cold and cruel world. Gowri survived the operation and so did her son. She named him Ravikumar after the person who had saved his life, and hers. This watershed event changed everything overnight; Dr Ravikumar’s competence was more than accepted by the hill people and patients filled the ‘hospital’. It soon became clear that he could not function any more from this thatched shed; he would need more staff and a hospital—and this time, a real one. Suresh had often wondered how Ravikumar had acquired the present premises and meant to ask him sometime. This thought again crossed his mind now, as he was having his bath. Ravikumar had invited him for dinner and perhaps, this very evening, he would hear that story from the doctor himself. Suresh finished his bath and got dressed to visit the Ravikumars. He wore the blue shirt, the light blue one, the one he had worn for his graduation. How much things had changed for him from that time. It brought back other happy memories—morning light on mango leaves, the taste of Grandmother’s fish and tapioca, an evening walk with Sunithi—there it hit a block!
A barb had snagged the train of thoughts and he dragged his mind back to what needed to be done. After dinner, he would take a walk to casualty in case there was somebody there. It would save the ward aide and him an extra trip. The small torch helped him pick his way through the grass, the wicket gate and onto the road. When he had reached it, he turned right and walked along the driveway that led to Dr Ravikumar’s house. The structure had a tin roof, like most of the buildings, and brick wall with no plastering, giving it an earthy elegance. In addition, they said it saved on the plaster and whitewash—things that did not add to the strength of the building. The eaves reached out to shelter the front porch, which was bordered by a simple wooden balustrade but otherwise open on all three sides. Red oxide flooring covered all the rooms and the porch as well, from where a few steps led down to the grass below. The porch light was on and it threw large patches of light onto the ground outside. Suresh went up to the door and knocked gently. It was soon opened and Malathi ushered him in with a smile; she bade him sit down, saying, “Ravi will be with you soon.” A five-year-old head with ponytails swinging peeped through a doorway and quickly disappeared. That would be Serina, the older one. Puffed up puris and delicious potato mash with plenty of onions made up the main course of the meal. After dinner, Ravikumar and Suresh each carried a cane easy-chair out onto the veranda. They sat down with a hot cup of lime tea in their hands. Just the thing for a cold November night.
At three thousand feet above sea level, the evenings could be quite chilly. They sipped their tea in silence for a time. In the stillness, they heard the sounds of the night—the shrill rhythmic chant of the crickets, the croaking of frogs and the call of an owl. It was Suresh who spoke first, “What about that X-ray machine, Ravi? It’s been lying there for months collecting dust.” “I know,” replied Dr Ravikumar, irritation showing on his face. “Those Babus at the electricity board office will not give us permission for the extra load.” “It can be sorted out, can’t it?” enquired Suresh. “Yes, but I don’t want to sort it out in the usual devious ways. When the means are wrong, the end can never be right.” “Have you tried?” asked Suresh. “You bet!” replied Dr Ravikumar with a sneer on his face. “I have gone there at least five times. You haven’t been to many government offices, have you?” “Thankfully not,” said Suresh quickly, with a smile on his face. “Government offices are the unfriendliest places—ever,” continued Ravikumar. “There are tables arranged in no particular order, piled up with dusty files, the narrow aisles between them as intimidating as ever. Behind every desk, there is a Babu, each with a mask-like face. “When you hesitantly enter one of these offices, the masks don’t look at you, but you know they have seen you for the expressions change just a tiny bit, enough to let you know that you are as inconsequential as a fly on the wall. If you take another step, the masks become noticeably harsher. ‘What are YOU doing here?’ they seem to say. ‘Get lost! Don’t you know that we are busy?’
“I wonder why they are called government servants, they are really the masters. There are about half a dozen of them. There are no signs, no indication as to which desk you should approach. “The boss sits in a different room at the far end beyond all those desks, as inaccessible as an emperor on holiday. If you do happen to manoeuvre your way through the narrow aisles and then disarm the peon at the door, you get to see him. He listens to you and asks the peon to take you to one of the desks outside, and you are back to square one. “The Babu this time looks up condescendingly and asks you curtly what you want. He takes a cursory look at your papers and waves you away to another desk across the room. I weave my way to the table I think I have been directed to; it turns out that it’s not the one, it’s the next one. So I finally arrive at this desk and stand there like a schoolboy until the exalted one deigns to give me his attention. He looks at your consumer bill, and then I think I see the faintest hint of a perverse grin on his face as he pulls out a file and goes through it. After a while, he looks up at you gravely as though you are the relative of a dying patient, and hands you a list of a dozen different documents that I should procure, many of them from equally difficult offices. Crestfallen, I clutch the paper he has given me and walk slowly out of the room. I feel several eyes boring holes through my back, but I dare not look back.
“As I walk away from the office with my eyes on the floor, I am greeted by a cheery voice. I look up into the smiling face of Moorthy the peon. ‘You should have come to me first, sir. These are small things, we will be glad to help; of course, there will be a few expenses.’ As he sees the hesitation on my face, he adds, ‘I don’t charge that much, sir, that other peon…he will charge you much more.’ “I realise that he is the pimp for the Babus inside. Seeing no response from me, he walks away with a smug look on his face and disappears into the office.” “If an educated man like me has so many problems,” said Dr Ravikumar finally with a sigh, “just imagine the plight of the poor illiterate villager. He stands no chance at all. And then there are agents for all these things. Easiest would be to go through them, they will sort out all the paperwork. You go through a driving school for the road transport department and you go through the auditors for the income tax department. Because I am a professional, I could pay and pass on the expenses to my clients, but to whom will a coolie pass on his burden? It’s a vicious whirlpool that breeds inflation and black money—takes us all down.” “It seems very bleak,” said Suresh, looking glum. “We have all got to make a stand, Suresh, do our bit.” “There is another thing I wanted to ask you for a long time,” said Suresh purposefully, almost as though he feared the night would go by and he might forget to ask. “I heard that you got this property at a throwaway price?” “Oh, about Ratanavadivel,” replied Ravikumar knowingly. Then he went on to tell Suresh about Ratanavadivel and how he became a changed person.
Ten years ago, Ratanavadivel was one of the wealthiest men in the area. But he was not born rich. He was the second son of peasants with very meagre means. By the sixth grade, he had had enough of school and quit to help his father with his work and do odd jobs for people. He would sometimes play cricket with his buddies. They had sticks for stumps and a crude bat shaped from the flat part of the large midrib of a palm leaf. But then, this boy was different, he seemed to have his feelers about him and a keen ear to the ground. Between errands, you could see him quickly scan through the newspaper at the tea stall. This boy was inquisitive but not in a nosy sort of way. He would discreetly enquire about people, places and things; a question here, and an answer there, and soon he knew more about the world around him than all his peers.
By the time he was sixteen, his hands had become calloused with working as an assistant to a mason. Before long, he knew not only how to lay on a good brick, but what it would cost to buy one and how much cement it would take to finish a particular job. Along with a few people he met at work, he took on a few minor repair jobs. Soon, he had a band of loyal workmen behind him. Small houses came his way, which he did with not much gain to himself, but it was a fair deal for his clients and his workers. He bought more of his own equipment and hired a shed to store them in. By the time he was thirty, his name had become known and he was getting bigger contracts, often juggling two or three projects at the same time. Then came marriage and a family. His oldest child was Meena, a vivacious little lass who was her father’s delight and joy. When Meena was four, her brother was born. So, on the whole, life was good for Ratanavadivel. By now in his early forties, he was bidding on government tenders and winning quite a few. Small check dams for the public works department, bridges for the highway department.
With the government, he learned to adapt to the different tunes that he would have to dance to. He learned how to keep politicians, engineers and clerks happy. He learned who was important and who could be ignored. He also learned that the straight and narrow way would leave him little by way of profits. On the other hand, there was money to be made with a little give and take; a little adjustment here and there. In time, he became acquainted with a new friend—Greed. He hardly even noticed as it slowly grew on him and its dark roots silently reached the depth of his person. But his workers noticed, and some of the old hands left. But Ratanavadivel didn’t care; there were others to be had, to be squeezed. These newer workers were often from other poorer areas, and having no local connections, they worked long, uncomplaining hours. His newer buildings looked just as good as his older ones; that is, on the outside. But his masons would tell you they were different inside. A case in point was the bridge over the river Neeri. Now, River Neeri was one of the big streams that fed the Parapalar dam. It ran across the main road carrying the traffic from the hills through Pachalur down to Oddanchatram and the plains. Their point of intersection lay about 15 kilometres down from Pachalur. Most of the year, it was only a tiny creek meandering over its sandy bed and flowing through a shallow concrete gutter at the bottom of a large dip in the road. So it was usually no impediment to traffic. But a thundershower could bring out the beast in her. In a few hours, the rivulet could swell to a raging torrent that could stretch across its full thirty-feet breadth. At those times, the road lay smothered under a brown surging ten-foot torrent of water that nothing could navigate, not even the big trucks. A line of vehicles would pile up for hours on either end of the road. Some of them, especially the smaller vehicles from nearby places, would turn back, most would opt to wait. They would spend the time dozing in their seats or chatting loudly; you could hear the rhythmic thump of music from some trucks. As the rains died down, some would emerge into the open, sit on the grass smoking a beedi or two. The drivers would once in a while take a peek at markings on the steel rod depth gauge set to one side at the deepest point of the dip. A few years ago, all this changed when the government decided to build a bridge across Neeri at this point. Ratanavadivel got the contract and the bridge was built. It looked like any new bridge with fresh distemper and paint and at the grand opening, the minister had a word of praise for him. It was a few months after Ratanavadivel’s 47th birthday and he felt proud of having done something with his life. Yet, the bridge held weakness, the full extent of which could not be easily known. The structural drawings required the central columns to contain a total cross-section of 25 square feet of reinforced concrete. The actual bridge had only 70% of that amount, the rest was a façade built up with bricks and a coat of plastering. The engineers knew this, but by itself, this would have been fine since they traditionally overestimated requirements to meet any eventuality.
Comments (0)
See all