Rummaging through old trunks the other day, I came across my Box of Treasures. About six inches by six inches and made of dark wood, its the kind of box that you often spot at handicraft melas, at the Colaba Causeway kind of street markets and of course at Dilli Haat. Mine was bought nearly twenty years back, a gift from an old friend. Its probably Rajasthani in origin or maybe Kashmiri; I'm not really too sure. But its beautiful, with leaves and flowers and vines carved on the lid and all around and I use it to store what I call my 'treasures'.
I think all women possess a little 'box of treasures', especially those born under the sign of the crab ( I'm a part time believer in astrology). They say we do it because we are emotional hoarders, hoarding both things and feelings......!
I was seeing the box after almost three years and I happily rummaged through its eclectic contents....a beige and brown hoopoe feather, a tiny lac hand mirror, a wire finger ring, a yellow ceramic incense holder, two fading photographs, some pressed flowers, a thin ball point pen bought from an urchin at a traffic signal, silly notes from teen besties, a laterite stone picked up from Masai Mara, old letters from friends and acquaintances, a now friable oily piece of paper napkin scribbled with lines from four friends recording their getting drunk at a pub, love letters from aeons back......all worthless, all precious........
....and along with all that, a letter in a white envelope addressed to Dr Aibee!
I turned it over. The sender's name was scrawled at the back: XX Mary Hxxxxx, XY, Manipur.
And in an instant I was back, back into the deep bosom of this Far East state, to my little OPD under an asbestos roof with the huge banyan tree standing guard outside. Rows and rows of local Kuki women and children were queuing up for a consult, ambulances plied in and out belching smoke and clatter, medical assistants rushed past, shouting pulse and blood pressure readings of patients at me, children fearful of injections and bitter medicine bawling endlessly..... My ears buzzed with all the commotion......
But in that ocean of chaos, there was one single steadfast island of calm. There was Mary : Smt XX Mary Hxxxxx, female attendant, OPD sahayika and currently right hand woman of Dr Aibee.
Every morning when I landed up at the OPD, Mary would be there by the clinic doorway, palms crossed in front politely. 'Good Morning Madam!' she'd smile at me, her 'madam' pronounced like in the original French, a way mostly all NorthEasterners do, the 'd' of 'madam' more like a द rather than a ड.
Inside, my desk would be spotlessly clean, not a speck of dust anywhere, my tools of trade placed just the way I liked them. And the icing on this cake of order would be a tiny metallic vase filled with flowers.
Mary set this flower arrangement freshly everyday, with flowers she picked from the hospital garden; simple marigolds, hibiscus, periwinkle, sometimes zinnias and during winter maybe a some bright purple larkspur. And it would not be only flowers. She always placed some foliage too, her own special artistic touch.
And through the entire morning, she would be at my side, guiding patients, ferrying office paperwork, acting interpreter, assisting is preparing women patients I wanted to examine, tying the cuff of the blood pressure instrument.....all performed with a calm, silent professionalism that I admired terribly. At times when the patient rush would be too much, all crowding at the entrance and trying to enter all at once, Mary would stand at the doorway like a fierce little bouncer, regulating the flow of patients with a firmness that belied her diminutive frame.
She had a soft voice yet never raised it; somehow she never did need to, her calm presence being enough to ease both harried patient and staff. She usually kept to herself, never engaging in frivolous chatter with other staff; yet they all respected her and gave her a regard that ordinarily they would never give a mere patient attendant. But then that was the magic of Mary.
On lighter days, we'd get talking and I came to know that her husband was retired and she had two grown up daughters. She'd invite me over to her home but that never did materialize, something I regret deeply as I write this.
I can still picture her vividly, a tiny woman, frail framed, middle aged face lined with a thousand wrinkles, dark coloured phanek skirt, light coloured blouse, hair tied back neatly and a piece of cloth worn like a dupatta or aanchal in deference to modesty......all spotless, creaseless, immaculate......
We became close, an unlikely comradeship, she 'just' a lady attendant, me 'Lord' of the OPD....but then that's how things were. Then one day, returning from leave, I found that the hospital 'powers-that-be' had replaced Mary with another woman. I was furious and this fury was fuelled by the fact that this new person was adept at inefficiency. I desperately missed Mary's quiet presence and her silent efficiency but there was nothing that I could do. When I enquired around as to why she had been removed, I was told that her husband had been arrested because he was found to have links with unsavoury persons. I ranted as to how this affected her functions at our little hospital, given that she was not her husband, but being the youngest in the hospital, no one paid me any heed. And so perforce, I had to put up with the new completely unsuitable lady attendant.
I missed Mary and so did my staff and most of all I missed the flowers on my table every morning. The new lady attendant though inept, tried very hard to please me and so, one day, I told her of the flowers that Mary would put on my desk. The woman obligingly placed a vase of fresh flowers on my table the very next day but I had become so partial to Mary that I found myself actually comparing their flower arrangement techniques....And when I communicated the same to this new woman ( I know, my bad!) I could see the loss of morale in her eyes....
One afternoon after a particularly hectic OPD, I was delighted to find Mary at my doorway. I welcomed her in, offered her tea and of course eagerly enquired of her affairs. She had only one request to make: with her husband in jail, his pension stopped and two daughters in college, she was finding it very difficult to make ends meet. Could मदाम help?
Mary's eyes haunted me that whole week. She had looked gaunt, her wrinkles more hollowed than ever, her always neatly tied hair askew, her phanek shabby and she herself smelling of sweat and despair. Though she still spoke in her quiet soft voice, desperation tinged its edges.
But what could little Dr Aibee do?
Then, I did do something, something that was and still is, way out of my usual comfort zone: I used a सिफारिश. I had had to really conquer a lot of mental barriers and break some personally set up ethic codes but because it was Mary, it had to be done.
Thankfully, it worked. The right strings were pulled, subtly and gently and in a few days, Mary was back at the clinic door and so was the vase of flowers on my desk.
I came back to the letter in my hands. Its from Mary, written a few years after I had left the hospital. Its on a piece of paper from an exercise copy, in Hindi Devanagari. Even today, I am as amazed as I had been so many years back on receiving the letter because I had never imagined Mary being Kuki, could write in Hindi. But then, I shouldn't have been surprised for, after all, Mary was Mary.
The letter had been accompanied by a pair of baby blue pillow cases, a gift from her. I had treasured these cases and used them with such ferocity that they had soon worn out and had to be discarded. But the letter had remained, intact, inside my little box of treasures.
I sat with the letter on my lap, thinking about Mary from two decades back, thinking of what she taught me, this little Kuki woman from so far away. And it came to me that Mary had taught me the enduring value of dignity. She had been an example of an old virtue we are all explained as children, that no job is small or menial or without value if done with honesty and dignity.
Mary had ended her little letter, 'Aibee Madam, I will pray that you always prosper, both in your personal life and in your career..........."
Mary, I don't think I've exactly 'prospered' in my home and my career; but you'll understand and you'll be glad to know:
I've tried my best nevertheless to infuse both with honesty and with dignity.
Just like you.
