Ramesh walked in alone, into my clinic. He had bought an auto rickshaw recently and drove it around Delhi streets from 6 am to 11 pm at night. He barely made enough money to pay the mortgage for the auto, rent for his one room home, just enough rations to keep his family of four children, his wife and himself, alive.
Stomach almost concave, touching the spine, gaunt face and sunken eyes, he had been coming to my clinic with a regularity that was predictable. Four growing children and a wife needed medical attention far more than he could afford. Always gentle and soft spoken, he was different from other garrulous patients.
A visit to me meant he was cutting his driving time in exchange for a meal less. I called him instantly, mindful of his wasted time in my waiting room.
“Yes, Ramesh, what’s the matter,” I asked in a crisp voice.
He looked miserable so I continued.
“Yes, tell me Ramesh, who is sick?” I said in a softer tone gesturing to him to take a seat on the bench across from me.
“Madam, madam,” he stopped, his eyes darting wretchedly around the room.
“Madam,” he articulated again and looked at the floor.
“Say something Ramesh, I have other patients waiting,” I said impatiently because I needed to pick up my children from the school bus stop. I had promised that I would have lunch with them.
“Madam, madam, my wife is pregnant,”
“So what, that is not a big deal,” I said, not picking up the cue of his hesitancy.
“No no madam, you have not understood,” he looked at the floor intently, not meeting my eyes. His eyes downcast, he looked ashamed.
Maybe he is feeling guilty for not being too careful, I presumed.
“Hmmm,” I did not get his dilemma because a tablet could solve his problem.
“Madam, the baby is not mine,” he whispered so my staff and other patients would not hear.
“Oh my, that’s complicated, how did it happen, did she get assaulted?”
I still did not get his hesitancy because I knew his wife Meena to be the gentlest soul I had ever met. She was a school teacher and interacting with preschoolers made her timid and gentle.
“No madam, she wasn’t assaulted, she went to her village and met her old friend there.”
They had been married for twenty years. I looked at him aghast but he returned a cautious yet calm look.
“What do you want me to do?”
‘Maybe he wants help in divorcing her,’ I thought.
“Please get it cleared up, I will pay for it.” He gathered enough strength to say this clearly without a doubt.
“Why would you pay for the abortion,?” I looked incredulous.
I looked at him and wondered. He didn’t look angry or upset with his wife.
“You are not angry with her?”
“Why would I be angry, she has been a good wife to me, I love her very much, she has made a mistake,” he said simply.
“Anyone can make a mistake,” his face glowed with a certain confidence.
“She is a good but naive woman, why should I be upset?” I could see there was not an ounce of doubt in his words and there was no trace of an impulsive decision. It was a well thought out plan of action to save his family. It seemed like a Godly decision.
I was touched and frazzled at the same time because I couldn’t think of a single man in the elite people I knew, who would forgive their wife so easily for having a fling and getting pregnant. I had seen highly educated men slap, kick and push an errant wife.
The next day Meena, his wife came and sat on the patient’s stool. Her head covered and bowed in a gloomy silence.
“Meena, what happened, why, why? I asked,
“Why did you do it?”
“Your husband is such a nice man and your daughter has just gone to college,” I added.
“I am so sorry, madam, I made a mistake, I don’t know what happened to me.” She started sobbing, soft, muffled sobs.
“I was just chatting to him and then we walked towards the fields, then it happened,” she narrated. She sat twisting the end of her saree pallu.
“I even went to the railway track to lie on it, but I thought of my daughters,” she continued, “I thought of my husband and I couldn’t die, Madam,” she was sobbing a bit unrestrainedly now.
The next day, I called them for the procedure to get rid of her folly.
One minute of insanity.
Ramesh stood by his wife, rubbed her back when she was in pain. He stood near the foot end of the stretcher and rubbed her feet, wiped her tears gently because he knew they were the tears of remorse. They held hands and supported each other during the procedure. She did not wince as I performed the needful procedure on her.
The guilt tore and ripped her apart. Silently, she bore the cross, stealing ripped looks at her husband.
He knew that her suffering was more. Her guilt was killing her and she didn’t have the content of being the good person in the relationship.
Had he hit her or screamed and shouted at her, it wouldn’t have been so bad. I gazed at the couple, trying to absorb the elevated humanity of this moment.
I realized that guilt itself is the biggest punishment of all.
Love and acceptance of the erring is enough to send the guilty to depths of misery.
Although Ramesh had no intent to make his wife miserable, it happened anyway.
An uneducated man, unread and ignorant of profound books. How had he climbed to such a lofty place?
I learnt a life lesson from a small man and went home, enriched and entranced by the purity of this relationship.
I entered my urban world, so different from the rurality of my clinic, lost in thought. I could not erase Ramesh’s face from my mind. This nondescript man had shaken my settled life. New definitions, new standards of love and a whole lot of respect spread a warm glow into my being.
The story is deeply moving and thought provoking. Forgiving infidelity is a difficult subject, but the writer handles it with remarkable sensitivity and balance. Ramesh’s quiet strength and compassion leave a lasting impression.
A story that redefines love. I like the way the author narrates it matter of factly… Resisting the temptation to indulge in or ‘decorate’ with artistic writing. She let’s the content do the emotional weightlifting.