A sau mein ek patrika for a horoscope, a loving and
successful fiancé, a rewarding job, starry dreams for her future, and a zest
for life- just about everything a 25 year old could dream of. As on 27 November
1973, she thought she was the happiest woman on the face of the planet. A staff
nurse at (then) Bombay’s reputed KEM hospital; she had spent the day taking
care of a batch of school children who were down with food poisoning. She was
loving as well as disciplined. Unlike the seedhi saadi village belles Aruna was frank & fastidious; a senior nurse nicknamed her as Chatak Chandni, while her room mate called her a good hearted girl but with a ’’muscle in her mouth’’!Adored by most of her juniors and all her patients, she was
Aruna Shanbaug. India’s most well known living existing nurse.
At the tender age of 18, newly orphaned Aruna had moved from
her ancestral home in Haldipur, Shimoga, Karnataka to Bombay with her older
brother Balkrishna. She was young and ambitious. She soon finished a course on
nursing and went on to join the reputed KEM hospital. Her remarkable good looks
were soon the reason young doctors were falling for her. She, in turn fell in
love with one of them- Dr. Sandeep Sardesai, a junior doctor in the same
hospital. He was good-looking, caring and was soon going to do an MD. Aruna’s
life was ‘set’. She decided she’d continue being a nurse even after they were
married. They’d spoken of the children, their home and the two dogs they’d have
after marriage. They were soon engaged, and their wedding date, fixed.
Her career was her priority, and Aruna made sure she was dutiful.
She had recently been posted in the dog surgery research laboratory. One of the
male nurses she supervised was Sohanlal Walmiki- irresponsible, rude and a
thief- something his senior Aruna could not stand. She had rightfully accused him
of stealing medicines and dog food; and had reported him to the admin and other
concerned authorities. And this dutifulness would soon cost her a lot.
As her problems with Sohanlal increased, his grudges against
her did too. He just needed an opportunity to get even with her. And so, when
on 26 November 1973, she told him she’d reported his latest misdemeanours to
the Dean, he decided it was time to get down to work. He thought the next day
would be a ‘do-or-die’ day beca And so he hatched a plan. A sinister plan that
no one could’ve dreamt of in the most horrific of dreams.
She went about her work smoothly on the 27th. She
spoke to all her co-workers about how she was looking forward to getting
married. She was unnaturally happy that day- like the lamp that burns brightly
for once just before it goes off forever. Her shift ended at the scheduled
time, 4:50pm. Now, she only had to change and go home. And so she headed to the
basement of the hospital where she and her friend always changed, ignoring for
the millionth time the matron’s advice to change in a more secure place. After all,
changing was a daily thing and what could possibly happen to her in that tiny
window of a few minutes? The next day, everybody who loved her wished she had
not been so confident.
Early next morning, a cleaner found an unconscious Aruna on
the basement floor, drenched in blood, a dog chain wound tightly around her
neck, her body leaning against a stool. It did not take the cleaner long to
correctly guess who the culprit was. Aruna Shanbag’s friction with Sohanlal was
by now known to everybody in the hospital.
Medical exams revealed that Sohanlal, lurking in the shadows
of the basement on that fateful night, had forced himself on Aruna while she
was changing. Well-equipped with a dog chain, he used it to immobilze her as he
attempted to rape the just nurse. On realizing that she was menstruating, he
stooped to levels unheard of- sodomy. His revenge extracted, he left her to
die.
Immediate medical assistance was provided but asphyxiation
by the dog chain had caused irreparable damage to Aruna’s brain as she lost her
hearing and motor functions. She also became cortically blind- she could see,
but her brain could not register those sights. Paralysis was yet another effect
that impaired her forever. Her doctors hoped against hope that she would
recover, and they worked for years to bring her back to normal. The Dean of the
hospital thought they ought not disclose the case of anal rape, for that would
rob her and her future husband of all respect in society, if she were ever to
recover and marry. Even as her immediate family deserted her, Dr. Sandeep
Sardesai visited her daily and reminded his once lively and now vegetative fiancé
of the dreams that they’d dreamt of together. Four years later he too lost hope
and got married to another woman. A day before he got married, he visited Aruna
for one last time and told her he was sorry. He was sure Aruna heard him and
gave him her blessing. Doctors believed that she’d at least recognised him, if
not heard him.
Aruna: then and now
Sohanlal, in the meantime was held guilty of ‘attempted
murder and robbery’. He served his prison sentences- two consecutive 7 year
terms. His involvement in the ‘unnatural sexual assault’ could not be proven in
the court of law as the hospital had wanted. He then changed his name and went
to work as a ward boy in a reputed private hospital in Delhi, but not before
visiting Aruna in her hospital room and trying to push her off her bed in order
to kill her. She was then shifted to a more secure room in Ward IV of the same
hospital. Sohanlal’s lecherous ways brought about his death due to AIDS recently.
Cut to three decades later. Oblivious to Sohanlal’s fate, Aruna
Shanbaug, beautiful as ever, still lies on the same cold metal bed in Ward IV
of KEM. Attended to by the hospital staff, she’s still breathing. She’s still
in the same vegetative state she was in, 39 years ago. In 2010, Aruna’s
journalist friend and journalist, Pinky Virani moved the Supreme Court of
India. She begged for permission for the plug to be pulled on Aruna. Crippled
digits, a featherweight body, brittle bones that could break if somebody held
on to the body for a long time, a toothless mouth, gray bristles to call hair-
coupled with inability to hear, speak, or even see properly defied a human being’s
right to live with dignity, she pleaded. Aruna’s situation was declared as
incurable by the doctors anyways.
But the caregivers of the former nurse at KEM said she still
exhibits signs of life- prominent signs at that. When she is fed mashed fish or
chicken soup, she smiles. She blinks once in every 6 seconds like a normal
human being does. She hyperventilates when she hears a man’s voice. She can
sense if her room gets crowded with visitors- and on such occasions, lets out a
very audible gruntle. And if she hears devotional music being played on the cassette
tape kept next to her, she calms down. When she soils or wets herself, she
whimpers to attract the attention of the nurses to come down and change her
bedclothes.
And so, Pinky Virani lost the case. Passive euthanasia was
denied to Aruna Shanbaug.
Aruna’s attendants wash her everyday; they clip her
fingernails once a fortnight. Every night, a nurse, her fingers dipped in oil,
massages her scalp and combs whatever is left of her hair. True, they do the
best they can to give her the life she deserves. They want her to live the rest
of her life comfortably, if not happily. And they pray everyday for a miracle.
They come to her room everyday, silently hoping to see 65 year old Aruna cured.
How, they do not know. But killing hope is impossible, right?