Worst day for the entire family

It was 7^th June 2010, a typical Kolkata summer day. All of our family members had different works to do. My father had his regular work to attend. My mother had to go to Kolkata because of some construction work taking place in our new house in Kolkata. My elder brother Saumik , who is a medical student and stays in his college hostel, had an exam to attend whereas I had to go to the passport office to issue my passport.\

I left my home at 1am in the morning when all of my family members were all fast asleep. It was because in a day only 60 passports are issued under tatkal scheme and the queue gets flooded right from 12am.Also token numbers are issued from 4pm on weekdays so normally a person has to wait in the queue for nearly 14 to 16 hours straight without leaving the place else the place gets occupied by someone else. So for me it was 14 hours straight in the pavement.

Back at home at around 8am there arose a situation. Just when my mother was about to leave home for Kolkata, my eldest brother and cousin arrived to our home seeking medical advice from my elder brother Saumik  because of some gynecological complications his wife was in. Apu is my cousin brother who stays with his wife and daughter just a few kilometers away from us.

He arrived at our home in a Tata Sumo .When he opened the door of his Sumo a motorcyclist from behind tried to give way which in turn led to his losing balance. There was an accident.  

My father being the senior most person to witness the chaos, quickly decided to take responsibility. So he told Apu to leave the place immediately or the public may want to beat him up. This could jeopardize the health of his wife who required immediate medical assistance. Since my mom also had to go to Kolkata so my father requested my mom to board his car.

In a few second’s time our house contained only my father and the injured man from the accident. He nursed him back to normalcy .But it did not end there.

Now while in the Sumo my mother, Apu and his wife were travelling in quick speed, in an hour’s time they arrived at our house in Kolkata and my mother got down. She travels very less and so travelling afar and not knowing what was going on to her husband made her giddy. She bade goodbye to Apu and his wife and while she tried to walk to reach our new home, the summer heat made her unconscious. But before that she had tried to call up my dad, my elder brother Saumik and me. None of us had answered her call.

Saumik did not receive the call because he was still writing his exams, I could not receive the call because my phone was silent and inside my bag, my dad was not able to receive the call because just after the accident, a mob of people surrounded our house cross-questioning dad. The mob accused dad of several things including the loss of the motorist’s cell phone .A little mistake from my dad could lead to the mob getting exited and even end up beating him to death.

It was the most helpless moment of my mother’s life. When I called her back she was probably unconscious. Also, even if I knew that my mother was sick at that time I would still think twice of leaving my place in the queue because I had spent almost 10 hours then for my turn in issuing the token for my passport. Probably my dad did not even let me know that my mom and he himself were in trouble.

Fortunately the mob surrounding my dad started getting less hostile because he had given the man from the accident a first-aid. And my mother was in the new home and under the protection of our newly sun blocked roof and a soothing fan.

While these events were going on, Apu had arrived in my elder brother’s medical college along with his wife. The college where my elder brother study is a government college and the procedures are quite lengthy. In a government hospital all kinds of treatment are available so if a person comes with chest problem and require a broken-bone treatment, he can access both these features which cannot be found with specialists. So choosing this medical college was obvious. Apu left his wife in the parking lot while he stood in the queue for issuing a ticket for treatment. But patience was dying down because his sick wife was still in the Sumo and waiting for treatment. He called my brother several times but his exam had not got over yet. So Apu left immediately to settle for another private nursing home. He was really annoyed with my elder brother.

I was still in the pavement trying to dodge the summer heat and waiting for another 4 hours before the counter would allow my turn in the passport office. The summer heat was getting unbearable and I grew a lot of rashes and heat burns. I felt dizzy and unoccupied. My stomach was going upside down not just because I was hungry but I was having some digestion problems.

It was at 4:30pm that my turn arrived. The passport officer asked me some random questions to which I spoke very softly knowing that I had undergone a nervous breakdown after spending 14 hours on the foot-path, sitting, standing and sleeping. I quietly left after receiving the token, visited my mom and went to sleep instantly.

What a bad day it was, not just me but my mom, dad, cousin brother and his wife. Not to forget that my brother, Saumik also had written a bad exam while planning hard to attend Apu and his wife because they were in trouble.

       

It was a day that I spent 14 hours in the Kolkata footpath. It was a day when my mom got unconscious and got help from none of us. It was a day when my cousin’s wife could not receive any medical treatment and my cousin spent the whole day searching for a proper government hospital. Also it was the same day my dad could have easily become the victim of the mob's fury and my two brothers would end up fighting with each other. Luckily no one was hurt and Apu’s wife received treatment on the next day.