A Personal Connection

Days later, I still wonder why Lakshmi chose me to speak to that fateful Sunday afternoon.

We had just returned from a morning session providing medical assistance to several persons affected by the tsunami. The medical camp had been held inside a temple and there wasn’t much protection from the sun. It was a hot day and we had survived the heat by drinking water and Pepsi. It was too late to eat lunch and we wanted to get some rest before we started an afternoon session. We had just gotten out of the cars and were picking up our belongings when Lakshmi came up to me.

Perhaps she had heard me speak in Tamil to the drivers and that is why she chose me to speak to.

“Please save my baby. He is all I have got. I lost my seven-year-old son to the sea and my baby is dying in front of my eyes. Please, sir, save my baby.”

Her plea was impassioned. There were no tears in her eyes, just despair and a faint hope that this stranger might be willing to do something for her.

Of course, there were no tears. She had shed them all in the five weeks since the tsunami, grieving for her older son.

“What’s wrong with your baby?” I asked.

“He just fails to thrive.”

Failure to thrive: a common expression among pediatricians about undernourished babies. Almost subconsciously, Lakshmi chose to use words that could not be translated any other way.

“I raised my other son like a king. I lost him to the waves. And now I am losing my baby too.”

“Show me your baby”.

Lakshmi unwrapped the end of her sari to expose a sight that shocked me: a tiny baby with an emaciated body, a large head and a distended stomach with stick-like limbs, something that I have seen in photos from famine-ravaged countries such as Sudan or Ethiopia.

“What have you been feeding him?” I demanded.

“I have been nursing him but I have no milk anymore.”

Oh my God, she has stopped lactating when she most needed it to save her baby!

I rushed up the steps to some of the doctors and asked them if they would see a patient and they readily agreed.

They put the little baby on the bench and examined him. His skin was dry and he didn’t move his limbs. He made no vocal protests about the hard bench on which he was laid. His little muscles had withered and there was nothing to him except that enormous head and the bulging belly. Dr. Ushaben and Dr. Jayaben asked how old the infant was.

“Five and a half months”, replied Lakshmi.

That would make him four months old when his mother grabbed him and ran away from the waves, perhaps forced into making a choice between him and his older brother.

The doctors concluded that the baby needed just baby food and a little bit of daily massage to get him back into shape. Going through their supplies, they located three tins of formula. I explained to Lakshmi how to prepare the formula and how often to feed him. The doctors showed her how to massage his limbs and to gently exercise them. The doctors then retired to their room to lie down.

Then Lakshmi did something that I least expected. She bent down and touched – not my feet, I am sure she was raised not to touch people of higher station in life – the ground in front of my feet and raised her hands to her eyes, a gesture of respect, but in this case, of gratitude, or worse, abject surrender.

I was filled with rage as I considered the situation. By what right did I have the power of life and death over that little baby? Fifty-eight years after Independence, we have the situation where a woman has to plead to get some help for her baby. What did she do wrong? I may be classified as a glorified knowledge worker because of the fancy degrees I possess, because of my supposed ability to analyze business situations and make recommendations but does her husband have less knowledge? After all, he can be out several kilometers from the shore with no navigation charts and just a compass as an aid and he can find his way back home. He knows when to put out to sea, when to stay on shore because of approaching storms, knows where to find fish. Is that not knowledge? Yet he is wiped out because his boat and nets – the tools of his trade – were destroyed whereas I could make my living – a far more luxurious one -- with just pen and paper.

“I didn’t do anything. It is the doctors who helped you”, I stammered. Which only set Lakshmi off to find the doctors to offer them thanks in her own way.

Eleven days later, as Neetha took leave of us in Chennai to return to Bombay, she bent down to touch my feet. I was faintly embarrassed by her gesture but took it for what it was: a mark of respect to me as an elder.

We knew that Lakshmi was staying just across the street in a hall used for weddings and festive occasions and so we could keep an eye on her and her baby. She could also catch us easily as we assembled in front of that hall daily for breakfast and dinner.

When there is a limited amount of resources, it is going to be spread among the large number of people in need. Perhaps people would get all they needed for a short period of time, or they would get reduced amount of aid for a longer period of time but in neither case is it enough. I knew that we had provided formula for only three weeks, which would take Lakshmi’s baby to about six months of age, too early to start him on solid food. I somehow became possessed of the need to save Lakshmi’s baby.

In this case, I guess I am different from doctors. Doctors cannot be involved with their patients. They can diagnose and offer prescriptions but it is then up to the patient to buy the medical supplies. I decided that somehow or other I was going to ensure that Lakshmi’s baby made it. I guess I am also different from the charity organizations that have been distributing relief supplies. They distribute what they have equally among the people but if it isn’t enough for a special case, they cannot – they do not – do anything about it. As we went about our medical camps, Lakshmi’s baby was always on my mind.

The following Thursday morning, I asked one of the evacuees when they were expected to be resettled. In about a week, I was told.

That evening, as we returned from our medical camp, I found there was nobody in front of the wedding hall. I asked someone what happened to the evacuees and was told that they had been transferred to the temporary camp at Kadambadi, just north of Nagapattinam on the way to Nagore.

I had seen Kadambadi as we drove down from our hotel in Nagore. Kadambadi with what looked like a thousand dwellings! How am I going to find Lakshmi there? Have we lost Lakshmi completely and with that the chance to help her baby?

A couple of days later, as we were driving past Kadambadi, we stopped and went into the resettlement camp. There was a small police outpost where I asked about the people who were resettled from the wedding hall at Naduvar Sannidhi Street. He asked if the persons were from the fishermen’s village near Arya Nattu Street. Sheesh, how do I know I was supposed to know that information? I told him that I didn’t know but these would be people who were brought there just two days earlier.

“They all came here two days ago, sir”, was the answer.

With that, I pretty much lost all hope that I would be able to find Lakshmi again. But Providence had other plans for Lakshmi and her baby. The policeman asked a man who came by if he could identify the person we were talking about. To our surprise, he said he could and took us into the camp. On the way, he identified another man as Murugesan, Lakshmi’s husband. Soon we were at Lakshmi’s dwelling and heard the baby crying. The baby hadn’t picked up as much weight as we expected because Lakshmi had misunderstood my instructions and had fed the baby the formula three times a day instead of every three hours. We corrected her mistake and left feeling that we had made a difference in the baby’s life.

Before we left, I asked Lakshmi the baby’s name. “Kandan”, she replied. And the son she lost? “Muruganandam.”

Muruganandam. Just a name. And memories in the heart of Lakshmi. There was not even a photo to associate the name with. In its ferocious hunger, the tsunami left nothing behind. I didn’t – couldn’t – ask Lakshmi if she ever found Muruganandam’s body.

A couple of days later, as we left Nagapattinam for places further north, we stopped at the Kadambadi camp again. Neetha and Dr. Ramanan had rummaged through the Seva Bharathi warehouse and located more formula and powdered milk, enough to take little Kandan to about nine months of age when he could be started on solid food. We delivered it to Lakshmi and went on our way.

That was the last I expected to see of Lakshmi or little Kandan. But Fate had other plans. About four weeks later, I was asked to accompany Adrian Page, an Australian freelance news reporter, to Nagapattinam as an interpreter. We stopped by to visit Lakshmi and to see how the baby was doing.

As we turned the corner into the alley where her dwelling was located, Lakshmi’s aunt who saw me called out, “Lakshmi, your kinsman is here!” Lakshmi stepped out of her hut. Her eyes widened in surprise and she broke into a smile. She welcomed us warmly into her little one-room hut. I asked how little Kandan was doing. It was Lakshmi’s aunt who answered, “He’s alive because of you.”

Again, I was struck by the injustice of it all. Lakshmi’s husband had enough income to support his family yet in an instance his livelihood was snatched away from him and suddenly they were living in desperate circumstances.

There was still enough powdered milk for another six to eight weeks. Kandan would have his milk till he could be weaned on to solid food. As I took leave of Lakshmi, she touched my feet as mark of respect. This time she did touch my feet and strangely enough, I accepted her gesture without any feelings of guilt. A personal connection had been established five weeks ago and been strengthened by this visit and maybe that helped me accept her gesture with equanimity.

Life is full of uncertainties. Little Kandan has a lot of hurdles to cross before he reaches adulthood. Childhood diseases could take their toll unless he is immunized; he could be in an accident; the possibilities are endless. However, there is now a stronger likelihood that he will reach his first birthday than if his mother had not made her desperate plea.

But about one thing I am certain.

In the years to come, I will be wondering about what is happening to little Kandan. And whether the baby who had cheated death twice in his first six months of life will still remain lucky when he sets out to sea as an adult.


Postscript: Life is like a stream. Any chance disturbance causes an eddy. My association with the medical team was one such disturbance. It took me to Nagapattinam with the medical team, again with a news reporter and for a third time when I was asked to arrange for delivery of student uniforms donated by the medical team to a school. I was at the school before the teachers arrived. The students who had seen me earlier at the medical camp held in their school were excited to see me again. One of the girls tugged at me. I asked her what she wanted. She said she knew me. “How so?” I asked. “You saved my brother,” she replied. I stared at her dumbfounded. She was Vidya, the eldest daughter of Lakshmi. She and her younger sister Vinnmathi are attending the school that the medical team had decided to adopt and support.