Angels in Cancer Ward

A friend of mine shared The Starfish Story the other day on WhatsApp. The young girl in the story is seen picking up starfish left on the beach by the tide one by one and throwing them back to the sea. An old man approaches her and says, “There are thousands on the beach….you cannot possibly make a difference”. The girl walks to pick yet another star fish and throws it back to the sea and then says: “It makes a difference for that one”.

Even as I read the story, memories of an incident in RR Army Hospital, Delhi came rushing to my mind.

A friend of mine was admitted there to undergo spinal surgery. It was a sunny Sunday and I was staying just across the road. My wife made something for the friend for lunch and so I just walked across to call on him. He was in good cheer and we chatted for some time before I took leave to go home. Instead of taking the lift, I decided to walk down all the three floors.

As I turned into the corridor of the floor below, I noticed three ladies standing by the side wall. Well dressed and holding themselves so graciously, I couldn’t help lingering my look a little while. Just then, one of them turned and happened to catch me looking at them. And, she smiled as graciously.

I bowed my head and said, “Good Morning”.

“Good morning, how do you do?” she said.

“I am fine, ma’am. I am Wing Commander Srinivasan. What are you doing here? Is everything alright?” I said.

“Oh, I am Mrs….. My husband is a Colonel. Well, yeah, actually things are not pretty okay for someone. So, we were just wondering what next?”

The chivalrous soldier in me rose to the occasion. Stepping forward, I said, “Can I do something, ma’am?

 She looked at me for a few seconds and then said, “Perhaps not. But you can come in and have a look”.

She led me then into the Ward with the sign board – Terminal Patients.

The ward was full of young and old, with everyone apparently having the messenger from the Maker standing at hand. Notwithstanding the life support or other medical equipment that surrounded their beds, each one propped, waved, raised a hand and smiled looking at the three ladies. Many of them called out “mai” (mother) in voices that were laced with love. Their eyes glistened and wherever the ladies stood, hands reached out and held to them.

The ladies in turn sat by the bedside, holding hands, placing their palms on cheeks and simply ruffling the few curls still left on those pates. Their eyes were also moist but they poured out a compassion that ran like a river, immersing everyone in the ward.

Even I stood there watching, my eyes welled. It felt though my chest was caught in pincer, squeezing a strange emotion that I knew not the name. I cried.

The Colonel’s wife came over to me and placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. Led by her, I went over to a bed where a patient was cocooned in a plethora of medical equipment. Ironically, it looked as though the plethora of tubes running around and through him were actually sucking the juice of life out of him. The scrawny, skeletal body screamed a song of pain, though his lips hardly moved. There was not enough fluid in him even to moist his eyes with misery. I was immobile, both in body and mind, even to think what he must be going through.

She looked me into the eye and guided my sight to a board that hung by the bed. The patient was on Chemo for over six months. And, now the light of life was exiting him, anytime. He was just 23.

I stood frozen in a cocktail of emotions.

All our life, we spend every neuron of our energies into controlling things around us. We seek constantly to embolden and fortify our lives with money, material comforts, power, position and accolades. We crave to bring newer vistas under our power, seeking them not only in planet Earth, but also in the Moon, Mars, and the universe beyond.

We have everything and have the power to possess anything that we set about to want. Yet, thins fleeting thing called life refuses to bow down in front of our colossal might. It enters and leaves our beautiful bodies at will, sometimes devastating this cage of bones and muscles in ways that no human eye ever wants to see. At least, never want to imagine affliction with one’s own body.

What use is that power which conquers the mighty oceans and mountains and vales, yet remains so vulnerable to a thing that eyes cannot see? What use is that power which conquers worlds beyond, yet is bereft of the power to understand the world within?

The Colonel’s wife gently touched my shoulder again. I turned and walked slowly towards the entrance door. As I stood there, she patted me gently, not needing words to communicate. Both of us remained quiet for some time.

As I turned to look at her, she said quietly, “Please pray. He will be gone any time now”.

I bowed my head and nodded as I left.

I pray every day, even though I know he is gone long back.

There are thousands of starfish on the beach. You may not rescue any of them. But when you pray, you do not know to which when you are making the difference.

PS: I have come to believe that there are angels on Earth, especially in Cancer Wards.

Tale of Three Cities and Three Women

Story I: Madras

This is a tale of three cities – Madras, Bombay and Calcutta - and three women. In fact these are three stories that together built what would eventually come to be known as “the Crown Jewel of British Empire” – British India.

Madras

Francis Day- for those who are familiar with the history of Madras, along with Andrew Cogan, is the founder of Madras. But then, the raison d’etre for founding Madras was not merely commercial. It was a story of love.

In 1625 AD, the English East India Company (EIC) managed to obtain permission from the Raja of Chandragiri to build a fort on the Coramandal coast 35 miles North of Pulicat Lake, in a place called Durgarajapatnam, One of the main persons who assisted EIC to secure the permission was Arumugam Mudaliar[1] who was the accountant of the village. Grateful to Arumugam Mudaliar, EIC named the fort Armagon – in the manner in which they could pronounce his name!! For the next 14 years, EIC conducted its trade procuring fine cottons, silks and textiles from the areas adjoining Pulicat, including Conjivaram (Kanchipuram).

Francis Day, in his capacity as Factor of Armagon, traveled across the landscape to conduct his trade. In the process, he developed “liaison” with a Tamil lady who lived in a village near the coast of present day Marina beach. His love for the woman grew in time to make it necessary for him to visit her village frequently.

By 1639, Armagon nearly fell into disuse, being struck by malaria amongst other commercial reasons, necessitating the establishment of alternate site since the trade in the area was considerable. So in 1639, 22 August to be precise, Francis Day succeeded in obtaining the grant on lease for two years a ten-mile strip of sand closer to a village called Madraspattinam[2]. In due course, Fort St George was built at the beach by Francis Day. Work on the fort was commenced in 1640[3].

With the establishment of a trading post guarded by a fort, at last, later Sir Francis Day could continue his visits to the lady of his heart without much ado. That Madras, now Chennai, grew into the Presidency town and the seed from which East India Company will go on from a mere trading corporation into the master of Hindustan is of course, a matter of later history.

Story II: Bombay

Bombay

“On 23 June 1661 a marriage treaty agreeing upon the union of Charles II of England and Catherine of Braganza of Portugal was signed. Catherine brought a dowry of £500,000, as well as Bombay, Tangier and the right of free trade with the Portuguese colonies, and also popularized tea-drinking in Britain”[4].

The map and route to ‘Bumbye’, which was part of the marriage contract, unfortunately went missing though the Lord Chancellor believed it to be somewhere near Brazil[5]. Finally, fourteen months after the marriage, Sir Abraham Shipman with 450 men arrived to claim Bombay for his King. His entry into the port was blocked at gun point since the Portuguese Governor of Bombay had received no instruction to handover the port. It would take three more years and the death of Sir Shipman and nearly two thirds of his force (due to fever and heat), for the Portuguese to hand over Bombay to the British. By then, even though he inherited Bombay as his dowry, Charles II did not want the trouble of ruling these islands and in 1668 persuaded the East India Company to rent them for just 10 pounds of gold a year[6].

Twenty years later, the English had grown bold enough in Bombay to even attack Mughal fleet, of an empire that was in its peak military prowess under Emperor Aurangzeb. While they managed to capture over a dozen Mughal ships in 1688, a year later in 1689, the Mughals retorted by landing a large force in Bombay docks and laying siege to the fort. Hundreds fled and many were killed when the fort eventually fell. Thoroughly subdued, the British sued for peace.

Notwithstanding such declines in its life, Bombay became the capital of East India Company in 1687 and continued as such till 1708, after which it shifted the capital to Calcutta.

Reverting back to Catherine of Braganza, Charles II was advised by many and he himself had shown only a ‘disinterested acceptance[7]’ for the marriage with her. But for this marriage, British possession of Bombay would had had to perhaps wait till the final conquest of Marathas by Major General Arthur Wellesley (Duke of Wellington) in 1803 AD. 

Catharine of Braganza may never have known India personally. But Bombay (Mumbai now) would never have the history it has, but for her.

Story III: Calcutta

Calcutta

In the aftermath of the catastrophic battle with the Mughals in 1689[8], Mughals had seized all the EIC trading forts at Bombay, Hugli, Kasimbazar, Masulipatnam and Vizagapatnam. The Surat factory, one of the oldest in India, was also closed. British Factors and their men were arrested and kept in chains in Surat castle and Dhaka Red Fort under conditions insufferable to English pride. It is only when Aurangzeb was satisfied that the English had repented and submitted themselves to Mughal authority, he agreed to forgive them[9].

This fiasco led one young Company Factor named Job Charnock to look for alternate place for establishing a trading post in what would in due course became Calcutta. In August 1690, Charnock began building a settlement in the swampy ground between two villages of Kalikata and Sutanuti in Bengal, with the permission of now condescending Nawab of Bengal[10].

Even though Charnock was accused of even brutality to Indian prisoners and mismanagement,[11]he had an interesting personal story.

Charnock had served as the Company Agent in Patna, Bihar, between 1659 and 1664. While on one of his many trips to procure saltpeter for the Company, he chanced upon the Sati of a young widow. Smitten by her beauty, Charnock sent his soldiers to forcibly take her away from her gruesome fate and eventually married her[12]. At the time of rescue, she was reportedly of fifteen years of age and of a Rajput princely family. Charnock christened her ‘Maria’, though she continued to practice her native faith. She even managed to influence Charnock into accepting practices of her faith so much so that when she died later, Charnock buried her and continued to sacrifice a cockerel over her grave in her memory every year[13]. He fathered many daughters by her and they were married into wealthy English families. In fact, Mary, his first daughter was married to Sir Charles Eyre, the First President of Fort William, Calcutta.

There were raging controversies about celebrating Job Charnock as the founder of Calcutta. Primarily the challenge to this distinction came from one of the oldest families in Calcutta, of Lakshmikanta Majumdar and his descendants, who claimed that the land in question belonged to them and it was merely leased to Charnock for 99 years by Lakshmikanta Majumdar. The Hon’ble High Court of Calcutta instituted a commission of five eminent historians to study the issue. Based on the recommendations of the Commission, the High Court ruled in May 2003[14] that Job Charnock cannot be held as the founding father of Calcutta and therefore 24 August 1690 cannot be held to mark its birthday[15].

But there is adequate historical evidence to prove that the young widow rescued by Job Charnock played a key role in his life.

That brings me to the end of the Tale of Three Cities and Three Women who shaped history of India, whether they consciously knew it or not. 

   

---

[1] http://madrasmusings.com/Vol%2024%20No%203/the-forgotten-harbour.html

[2] Through his Dubash (Translator) Beri Timmappa, whose proximity to Ayyappa Naik, brother of Damerla Venkatappa Naik of Wandiwash (Vandavasi), Francis Day procured the permission. Persian Horses and military protection was offered in returned to the Naik. See: The Madras Tercentenary Commemoration Volume (1994), Asian Educational Services, Chennai. Pp 160-164.  ISBN 8120605373, 9788120605374

[3] Dalrymple, William. The Anarchy, Bloomsbury Publishing, London, 2019. P 21.

[4] https://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/articles/charles-ii-and-catherine-of-braganza-a-loveless-marriage/

[5] Dalrymple, William. The Anarchy, Bloomsbury Publishing, London, 2019. P 22.

[6] https://www.bl.uk/learning/histcitizen/trading/bombay/history.html

[7] See Footnote 4 above

[8] Popularly known as “Child’s War” named after the British Director of East India Company Sir Josiah Child who believed that the English sword can put the Mughals into place.

^[9] Dalrymple, William. The Anarchy, Bloomsbury Publishing, London, 2019. Pp 24-25.

[10] Dalrymple, William. The Anarchy, Bloomsbury Publishing, London, 2019. Pp 24-25

[11] https://www.britannica.com/biography/Job-Charnock

[12] Alexander Hamilton, A New Account of the East Indies (1727), ed. William Foster, 2 vols (London: Argonaut, 1930), Vol. II, pp. 8–9.

[13] Moorhouse, Geoffrey (1971): Calcutta, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974

[14] Sabarna Roychowdhury Paribar ... vs The State of West Bengal And Ors. on 16 May, 2003 (citation: (2003) 2 CALLT 625 HC)

[15] For details see: https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/indiascope/story/20030602-job-charnock-not-the-founder-of-kolkata-calcutta-high-court-792769-2003-06-02. See also: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Job-Charnock-not-Kolkatas-founder-Expert-committee/articleshow/36080070.cms