Compassion – Thy name is woman

 “Son, you should always have respect for the ladies ” – my mother one day said.

In those adolescence days, we were used to innumerable counselling sessions. Dinner was a favourite time for our parents for delivering those sermons and many a times, it marred the excitement of relishing the delicious food served on the table.  As a rebellious teenager, I was sceptic to my mother’s advice and  thought it was biased with mother herself being a woman. Being at the doorstep of 42nd spring of my life, I know, I was not right. My respect for the women has only grown over the years.

In 2007, I was part of a Project team to construct and commission a new Process Unit for production of environment friendly Petrol at Digboi Refinery. The site we chose for the new project was majestically occupied by one of the World’s oldest Delayer Coker Unit built in thirties of the previous century. Building a Oil Refinery in a far flung area like Digboi in the year 1901 was  an arduous task for the British. Steel and every commodity, small and big, had to be imported from Europe and America through a tortuous journey requiring phenomenal logistic acumen and perseverance. The equipments were installed over raft foundation unlike today’s RCC piling. The British Engineers used pipes, torn rail pieces and anything made of steel for preparing those civil foundation.

After dismantling the over ground equipments of the old unit, it was time to unearth the civil foundation beneath the ground. As the first trailer unloaded the dismantled civil structure in the area earmarked outside the Refinery, commotion broke out amongst the large group of rag pickers assembled immediately around the rubbles equipped with hammers to crush the concrete pieces for the prized scrap iron part. All of a sudden, the trailer infused excitement to the otherwise dullness of the area. A group of truck drivers also joined the carnival as audience leaving aside their makeshift kitchens near the trucks. Sitting inside my car,  I switched off the Engineer in me and allowed my mind to drift apart looking at the surrounding with a pack of Mad Angle potato chips and a Coke.

The initial enthusiasm of the people soon turned out to despair as the civil structures constructed by the no nonsense British started returning the banging hammers with equal gusto without yielding an inch. Soon one after another, the defeated and dejected warriors of young and old alike started retreating from the scene except one woman. I still remember her fiery eyes. She was a frail physique and I thought would collapse any moment with every hit on the structure by the mammoth hammer she was swinging. But with steely resolve, she continued to pound the concrete with the same energy, viciousness and interval.

After few hours, we came back to the site once more to see whether the soft ground could withstand the wheels of the heavy machineries of trailers and bulldozers for another day. As dusk had befallen, the area was deserted and I saw the lone lady was going home with her treasure of few iron pieces over her head. As she walked past me, I saw the fire in her eyes was doused by a sense of accomplishment and hope of  a caring mother going home back to her family.  

With destiny being kind, I have a relatively easier life in a country where one third of the population are bereft of the basic necessities.  Each day, at office, home or over friendly chit chats, the ladies I interact, often make me feel awed by their beauty, intelligence and elegance. But what is common with the women I am familiar with as wife, mothers, sisters, friends, colleagues  and that lady with a bundle of iron pieces over her head is the compassion, love and sacrifice   for the dear and near ones which put us, the men,  in poor light and far behind. 

You can contact Kamaljit at kamaljitmedhi1975@gmail.com

Dr. Sarita’s death and an unexpected message

These days, News Papers hardly carry news of hope and life in the morning to your living room. As I opened the front page of the paper in anticipation of another  appalling information, I stumbled upon the news of bail being granted by the High Court to the killer of a young lady doctor at Assam Medical College, Dibrugarh. The gruesome murder rocked Assam for quite some time and the  killer happened to be  a disgruntled colleague whose marriage proposal she turned down.  
 

While the news of Dr. Sarita’s death kept me dismayed,  I had a  message least expected. The sender of the message informed me of being a regular reader of whatever mundane staff I write in my blog with the sole complaint that in the last two years I have missed  something important. 
 

“I too was an important part of your life at some point of time which your blog continues to miss”, She wrote with her usual effervescence.
 

The message brought back memories of those days when I was just past the age of 21 and joined Steel Authority of India Limited at Durgapur as a Management Trainee. We met literally on the road in one of those boisterous evenings at Durgapur, the evenings which we could spare in abundance over a cup of hot coffee and kebab or a chicken roll at Durgapur Steel Market.  We were not bold enough like today’s young couples. Some phone calls, short meetings here and there and sharing of Archies Cards and chocolates kept the relationship going. Was it love or something else I didn’t know as I kept on asking myself? But I enjoyed talking to her and her simplicity, sensitivity and intelligence kept her spaced out from the others. 
 

One evening to scare her, I rang her up in to inform that I was coming to her home .  Till then, she didn’t have the courage to tell her parents about me. While she laughed away my words as prank, I rode straight to her home and knocked at the door pretending to enquire about some “ Mr.Bagchi”. Scared to death, she prayed the moments to pass on safely as I had water and chatted comfortably with her mother . I was from Assam and Auntie was pleased to hear that I belonged to the land of Ma Kamakhya.
 

While I was recuperating at the Hospital and fighting one of the toughest battles of my life, she often managed time to come from Jadavpur to the hospital skipping classes, with a bag full of drawing sheets, T-Square and what not at her back. She prayed for my recovery and holding my hand, showed her unstinted support. Yet, when my father met her in my Hospital chamber, a so called good boy from a middle class family, I couldn’t muster over enough courage to introduce her as my friend. I knew, my timidity did hurt her, but she never vented her feelings for once to unsettle me at the hospital bed.
 

As it normally happens in most such stories of youth, we too broke up rather in an unconventional way. There was guilt, self inflicted pain and many sleepless nights pondering at both sides. Years latter, I think, the parting was mutually beneficial and even better for her. While we parted and moved along, my friend has done well in life as a professional and a loving wife. Today, she manages works for a large MNC and more importantly lives life with dignity. These days, we don’t have much correspondence except exchanging birthday greetings. Perhaps like me, today she laughs, remembering those days of naïve immaturity, yet, with no hard feelings, I know I have a well wisher in her and so she has one in me.    
 

When my two sons grow up to read this blog, they should know that their father was a normal human being like them , prone to slip-up. As he trudged along, like them, he did all the mischievous acts as a child, wanted to desperately fall in love in his early youth and was as dreamy as them as a young man. Like others, their father erred too, not once but many times, but he was no hypocrite either to hush them up under the veil of fake righteousness.
 

The murderer of Dr. Sarita had a brilliant academic career too. But, perhaps more than the human anatomy and fat mark sheets, which he was regular at getting, someone needed to tell him that it is important to achieve whatever you desire in life, but more important is to learn to respect the time you were at relationship with someone, even if it was one way traffic.

You can contact Kamaljit at kamaljitmedhi1975@gmail.com