സെന്റ്. ആഗസ്റ്റ്യൻസ് എച്ച്.എസ്സ്. കലൂർക്കാട്/അക്ഷരവൃക്ഷം/The Run
The Run
Watching TV, Appa and Amma were discussing on the plights and carelessness of the Covid-19 affected. ‘‘ Sujatha... Tea...’’ ‘‘It’s on the table, Amma..’’ It was a conversation limited in two or three words. The snack box and water bottle went inside the bag in an uncanny speed. The night shift team included a group of twelve nurses including Sujatha, Shifana and Aleena. The superintendent recommended them only because no other departments were willing to send their nurses to the Covid – 19 isolation ward. And the only male nurses were Alan and Sudhakaran. Pinching the ear of the ninth grader Siddharth, who knowingly placed his Malayalam text not beside him to play his favourite ‘ Mini Militia’ without any disturbance, and going out in a haste, it was then that Sujatha recalled something – ‘‘ Oh my God !! If I’ve forgotten you then..’’ she exclaimed, and then a fast conventional prayer and a cross drawing, somewhat an amalgam of various prayers, checking whether the kumkum on her forehead has been spread, drinking the evening tea for namesake, and a speedy scooter journey was about to start.
To some extent, this journey meant an absence- a blissful absence- for Sujatha from some daily scenes and tumult. She can avoid herself from those horrible evenings, when her drunkard husband Shibu returns in a sway, fuddled, and catches her throat, and when the children scream and hopelessly struggle, and it’s indeed a good thing. But these surroundings have made his alcohol craving problems seemingly worse. But it’s much better than those cloudy evenings. Yet, as a mother, still she is very tensed.
When Sujatha was appointed to the IW, with her 11 peers , from the casualty department, she remembered Lini Perisserry, the tragic face of the Nipah survival story of Kerala. And she also remembered that they were classmates as well as bench mates. But Lini defeated her only in the area of sacrifice, and went, leaving here some cries and memories. SHE IS HERE , BUT ISN’T HERE. But such a scene wasn’t so easily digestible for Sujatha. However, for her, benevolence wasn’t just a professional virtue. It was always in her blood.
It was the lockdown time. Closed stores and silent streets looked at her. Sujatha suddenly got paused, and checked her cell phone. It doesn’t meant that she was a nomophobic, and had a habit of blindly digesting all the info popping up on the sensitive screen. She was skilful in deleting all the incessant news and baseless messages emerging on her mind folder. Reaching the ward, Sujatha went to the cloakroom. Looking at the Medical suit, she saw inside it the epitome of suffering – the Virgin mother. And she intentionally tried to forget her daughter, Ponnu alias Archana, Siddharth’s twin sister, a Navodayan, who was in the north on migration studying, aloof from her land and oblivious of the events, even if she had tears. Because emotions had no place there, and they will always mean a good hindrance for the runner. For the senseless story tellers in the media , people like her may be lunatic, stupid, tempered and lazy. There is no problem, if those ‘amigos’ who demand outings and strike, and those persons, who nonchalantly say ; ‘‘ Let them shout. What they can do on us ?? ’’, and carry out pleasure trips and refresh, feel some prick of conscience. Moreover, this run had different names in different times. And, it never had a full stop Oh !! Her arena is calling. Sujatha ran.
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