[Reader-list] wrong number in a small town

[Aman Sethi]

Satish Kumar, bed number 53 Rajan Babu Tuberculosis hospital, is dead.
 He was discharged on the 11th of July.  They said his TB was in
recession, they said he would make it.  He died on the 13th of  july
2006 at Sewa Ashram, Narela.  No one at the mandi even knew when it
happened.  They still don't know.  I found out today.  I am preparing
myself to tell them.  A nurse at the Ashram told me that the last
rites were performed at the electric crematorium at Rajghat.

I found out when I went to the hospital and found someone else in his
bed.  Singh Sahib, right across in Bed 56, told me that the bed had
been re-assigned to another patient.  He told me that several people
had been discharged in the same week.  Singh Sahib and the gruff
babuji down the hall are the only recognizable faces left.  Singh
sahib is an emaciated shell - TB has hollowed him out.  Satish is only
one of the many he has seen die around him.  He has been in ward M-13
for almost four months without dying or being discharged – practically
a record of sorts.  He spends most of his time lying flat on his back,
alternately calling up his "chandigarh walle sardarji," who doesn't
pick up his calls, and castigating his family via telephone for not
visiting him.  It used to be a running joke in the ward that no-one
who walked in with a cell phone could walk out without  having dialed
a number for Singh Sahib.  But now there is no-one to laugh anymore.

Everyone has left: Manoj the electrician in the yellow shorts who used
to fill Satish's water bottles, Krishna the aspiring social worker who
used to run down tot the STD to make calls for Satish, Pratap Singh –
Satish's self appointed caretaker, and former colleague at Chunna
Mandi, and even Ammi and her son Salil.  Ammi who used to stay up
nights nursing Satish's coughing with glucose solution.

Singh Sahib says that, after a point, Satish just lost his will to
live.  Three months in hospital had worn him down. Then a young boy
across the room died and  someone else took his place.  Then Pratap
Singh was discharged and went home to his village.  Then Krishna, then
Ammi and Salil, and finally Manoj.  Only Satish and Singh Sahib
remained – staring blankly at each other across the narrow aisle.  And
then Satish left.

Now there is only Singh Sahib in bed 56.  Someone else has taken
Satish's place - the same way he took someone else's. On the bedside
table, Satish's earthen water pot is gone, as is his spare underwear
that used to hang on the headrest.  His pink plastic bowl and steel
tumbler have been replaced by plastic pepsi bottles (now filled with
water), a loaf of Harvest Gold bread, and a solitary boiled egg. The
hospital authorities claim to change linen as often as possible, but
the sheets still bear un-washable traces of their many previous
occupants: sweat stains , grime, and flecks of blood.

During what were to be his last days, Satish often vacillated between
going home and staying back in the hospital.  Some days he declared he
wanted to leave for Beena by the next train.  "Its  a big junction
..Beena Junction.. everyone knows of it." He had a phone number- a
simple six digit number with a bulky imposing area code. He last
dialed it 10 years ago, He wondered if the number would be the same –
so much had happened since he left home at thirteen.

Ashraf often wondered why Satish left home .. What sin could have
forced him out of the cozy sleepiness of Beena junction  into the
uncontrolled chaos of Delhi?   What could he done at 13? Murder? Rape?
Theft? While Satish spoke little of his motivations, Ashraf spent
hours agonizing about the past of the quiet, deaf painter who reminded
Ashraf of his own brother. "He must have stolen some money from his
father's pocket, that could be the only thing," Ashraf concluded, "But
how much could it have been?  Now he will go home, and I will give him
500 rupees and even if his father doesn't forgive him outright, his
mother will; and she will make his father forgive him!"  But Ashraf
never did convince Satish to go home. Satish just sat through Ashraf's
remonstrations – smiling grimly, and occasionally shaking his head to
indicate his disagreement.

Satish borrowed a cell phone from someone in the ward, and dialed the
number…07580-221083.. the phone rang for a while, and then
disconnected – so the number still existed.  Fortunately Beena was a
small town, its phones insulated from the incessant violence of
changing numbers and differing exchanges.  He prefixed a "2" as with
all phone-numbers in India, but the number itself seemed reassuringly
solid.  He dialed the number again and this time a strange voice
picked up  the phone ..

"Hello, who is this?"
"I'm calling from Delhi, I want to speak to Lallan Singh of Paliwal."
"Sorry, you have the wrong number, there is no Lallan Singh here."
"Wait, wait, is this Beena junction, Madhya Pradesh?  I am calling from Delhi,"
"Yes it is, but.."
"Lallan Singh is your neighbour.  He doesn't have a phone. Please call
him, I am his son speaking."
"No, I'm sorry, Lallan Singh's not my neighbour.  You have the wrong number."
"No wait, one last question, I'm calling all the way from Delhi.  Is
this the kirane ki dukaan near the doodhwalla?"
"No, it isn't.  I'm sorry."

Beena is small town, and the numbers don't change.  But people do.
People change and people move- from one house to another, from one
mohalla to the next. Boxes are packed, trunks are brought out from
under the beds, telephone numbers surrendered , security deposits
collected, and the numbers, just like hospital beds, are transferred
to other homes and families.  They are circulated among new sets of
relatives, new colleagues at work, new sons in different towns, new
daughters now married and settled.  But the sweat, grime and flecks of
blood remain, forever staining the wires of the telephone exchange in
a small town near a big railway junction; waiting to respond to the
call that came ten years too late.
"Hello I'm calling from Delhi, can I speak to Lallan Singh?"
"I'm sorry, but this isn't his number