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Filling the gap after the ‘Fall of
Socialism’ A vacuum was created with the so-called “downfall of socialism” that took place between 1988 and 1990. Earlier there was the possibility of an alternative to capitalism which was the predominant way in the west. To the capitalism of the First World consisting of the United States, Britain, Germany, France and their economic allies there was the alternative of the socialism of the Second World consisting of the Soviet Union, China and their socialist allies. It mattered little that there were critics of capitalism within the capitalist First World or that there were critics of socialism as it was practised in the socialist Second World. To us in the Third World there were two clear alternatives: capitalism or socialism. And we chose socialism. Jawaharlal Nehru could not have been clearer: “I am convinced that the only solution to the world’s problems and of India’s problems lies in socialism and when I use this word I do so not in a vague humanitarian way but in the scientific, economic sense ... I see no way of ending the poverty, the vast unemployment, the degradation and the subjection of the Indian people except through socialism. That involves vast and revolutionary changes in our political and social structure, the ending of vested interests in land and industry ... This means the ending of private property, except in a restricted sense, and the replacement of the present profit system by a higher ideal of cooperative service. It means ultimately a change in our instincts and habits and desires. In short, it means a new ciWilization, radically different from the present capitalist order.” That was in 1936 in Nehru’s Presidential Address before the Lucknow Congress. SWRD Again in l952 in his first Presidential Address to the First Annual Conference of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party on 28 December: “I said that we are democratic. We are also socialist. What does this mean? In short, it means that the resources of our country should be utilized more fully and effectively for the benefit of all the people. In our country, still the large majority of the people are living below the poverty line, and if they are to be given a proper standard of living and be provided with the necessary social services, e.g., education, health etc., this cannot be achieved effectively or satisfactorily except on socialist lines. So did the spectre of a socialist Third World arising in Asia, Africa and Central and South America haunt western political leaders and social ideologues. But they could not exercise the spectre until the “fall of socialism”. By l99O within the space of only three years the Second World lay in utter disarray. Roman Papacy and American Presidency clapped their hands in glee. Margaret Thatcher grinned in delirious delight. Not one bit did they heed the Voices of unbelievers in the Third World. •hat had fallen, these voices said, were some governments that proclaimed themselves to be socialist. But the idea and the hope were by no means dead. To the potentates of the western world these were inconsequential Woices, still pleading for a way of life that had been cofined and unceremoniously buried. The future was with capitalism. And so we had from the roof tops the protagonists of the End of History. In 1844 Marx had said “Communism is the riddle of history solved, and it knows itself to be the solution.” In 1990 western pundits were proclaiming that all history had achieWed its final consumation in Capitalism. There was nothing more for history to do. The process was greatly helped by the coming into centre stage of the world social order of Transnational Capital, led by the World Bank and its Siamese twin, the International Monetary Fund. Gone now are the old UN slogans of Growth, Growth with Redistribution, Basic Needs. Transnational Capital has no need of any slogan. What it imposes eWerywhere is a project and a programme. The name of the project is Structural Adjustment. Social scientists What exactly is it that is being offered by these approaches to Social Action or by what one of their main proponents called in l994 a the emerging family of approaches and methods? Succinctly, it is an alternatlWe to the socialist approach which had so powerfully attracted social thinkers and social activists in the Thlrd World. That approach had proceeded by way of the social analysis of the economic base. The analysis revealed the presence in society - whether the society of the Willage, or the town, or the country, the region or indeed world society - of the phenomenon of oppression. Everywhere were detected a few oppressors and many oppressed. Social action was geared to social change towards the ultimate goal of a free and just society for all, where each would give according to ability and receiWe according to need. Techniques One of the ideologues of PRA (who have now obtained a job in the World Bank) triumphantly proclaims that the technique has moved from its beginnings in Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Sudan to Bangladesh, Botswana, Francophone West Africa, Indonesia, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sudan, Uganda, Wietnam, Zimbabwe, “at least a score of other countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia”, and to our own Sri Lanka. The list is as imposing as it is sonorous. PRA is therefore offered to countries in the Third World as a method and model of social action. It is meant to fill the gap left by the demise of socialism. Significant Indeed, in a Handbook on PRA published in 1992 by the United States Clark University with support from USAID, PRA is defined as “an attempt to systematize a Wery old approach to development: community participation. However, such sophisticated systematization is not at all necessary. As the definition itself admits, the People have always known what development is and how it had to be achieved in the context of their time. They did not have to wait for PRA initiators to teach them methodologies to structure, organize, rank and plan what they knew and would have liked to plan to do. To use more or less fatuous ways to know again what they already know is only to demoralize them and lower them in their own self-esteem. It is to draw red herrings along their path to liberation. Fatuity PRA, RRA, PSA, LFA, ID-OS demoralize the People. They also serve to deradicalize social workers in social organizations, and deftly deflect them away from what should be their main goal: to identify and strengthen the forces of production in order to humanize the relations of production, thus making the oppression of the many by the few in untenable modes of production no longer possible. The task of the propagators of PRA and the like is to teach the poor to know their situation and promote among them little self-help programmes to make that situation a little less intolerable. The task of social activists is to change it. Between the lines “We lack experience and often ideas on what to do,” Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said candidly when I asked him to go over the 200 days of his government in office and point out its achievements. And as if he was trying to pinpoint the fault he said, “the bureaucracy is a problem”. He found it strong and entrenched. It was not a formal interview, just a conversation that lasted about an hour. He was beaming with good health, radiant in the matching mustard kurta, dhoti and jacket he wore. He was relaxed, often laughing. Not even once during my stay with him did I get the feeling that he was not well. Why there were doubts about his health? I asked him. “It is media’s doing,” he said. “Television and other cameras catch me in such a posture as would support their thesis of ailment.” But this is not the first time that ugly rumours against Vajpayee are afloat. His own partymen and ministers have tried to pull him down in the past. During the Janata government (1977-79), when he handled successfully the portfolio of foreign affairs, a whispering campaign was initiated against him in the north to malign his character. I will not be surprised if the same people are at their game once again. Vajpayee stands shoulders above his colleagues in government and in the RSS parivar. They cannot match him in popularity. The next best thing they think they can do is to defame him so that some people somewhere may be taken in by the lies they spread. But he did not seem ruffled. Even when I asked about the differences between him and some BJP leaders, Vajpayee kept quiet. He looked to me as if he wanted to say something. Still he did not. I came straight to the topic of his government’s rule of 200 days and asked him what he considered was his biggest achievement since he assumed power. He thought for a while and said: “the Cauvery water agreement.” People have welcomed it, in fact, every one. Even AIADMK chief Jayalalitha came round to appreciate it, although she was critical in the beginning.” He took a long breath and said that at least one problem was out of the way. He would like to sort out some other pending issues like Kashmir and the northeast. On the northeast, he said the problem was that there was too much money in wrong hands. When I told him that during my visit to Kohima I found extortionists living in ministers’ houses, he nodded in agreement. He did not volunteer any solution on Kashmir but expected that some settlement with Pakistan would contribute to the solution. He was happy that after his meeting with Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in New York on September 23, the talks on all outstanding issues, including Kashmir, would start in right earnest. “It could have happened in Durban but then Nawaz Sharif could not make it to the NAM summit,” said Vajpayee. “I only hope that they will not postpone the implementation of agreements reached earlier in other fields on the plea that the formula on Kashmir’s settlement had not been found yet,” said Vajpayee. “Whichever problems the two countries are able to sort out, the agreement should be put into operation straightaway”. Vajpayee recalled his meeting with Sharif at Colombo. “l liked him. He is a good hearted person,” he said. Sharif, during the meeting at Colombo, recalled his visit to Lucknow along with Begum Nawaz Sharif. “I told him that I fight the Lok Sabha election from Lucknow,” Vaipayee said. “My feeling is that left to him, Sharif would try to find a way to bury the hatchet with India.” I pointed out to Vajpayee that the fault of his government was that it did not contact the opposition to achieve a consensus on important matters, something that the previous governments were doing. He disagreed with my assessment: “We are talking to them all the time. What breaks the rhythm or harmony is when there are remarks by persons like Congress MP Natwar Singh.” Vajpayee did not mention which remark he was referring to but he was highly critical of him. Asked why Nelson Mandela’s innocuous remark was played up so much, Vajpayee said that it was not his doing. In fact, after the remark, he sat with his officials and others and decided to ignore it since the remark was too general and had come from a tall person like Mandela. “At the banquet, I only said that the Indian government supported the speech minus the remark on Jammu and Kashmir. Nothing beyond,” said Vajpayee. The following day Mandela’s deputy came to offer an apology. The media was there and they took it up in a big way. I personally think there was nothing in the remark to suggest a third party’s interference in Kashmir After having visited Aligarh last week and learning about the extra-constitutional doings of UP chief minister Kalyan Singh’s son, I told Vajpayee that it was horrifying to find corruption at high places and spreading among their children. I told him that sons were using their fathers’ name to make money. Vajpayee expressed his helplessness. “We should accept it as the fact of life. None can do anything about it,” he said. Commenting on Bofor gun Vajpayee said that the probe was going on but Rajiv Gandhi’s name was not there. The evidence collected so far was weak for a court case. The only sustainable evidence was against Italian national Quettrachi. His name was already out. “Relations with Washington,” Vajpayee said, “have improved and we should be having good results. I do not know if the present situation in America will come in the way.” He was, however, sorry to note that the US told Russia not to sell weapons to India. “The Russians have confirmed it to us,” he said. (The American Embassy in Delhi issued a contradiction to say that America never told Russia to stop selling arms to India). Vajpayee had a good word for the economy. The fact that the country had been able to sustain itself after the sanctions and the currency crash in Asia showed that “we are doing very well.” He said the price factor bothered him. But otherwise the economy was looking up. Foreign investors, according to him, were coming in. He was highly pleased with the response to the NRI bonds. “We could have collected more if we had extended the period.” Reminded of the Babri Masjid, Vajpayee said that he wanted the matter to settled through the court. “We have again approached the judiciary to decide the matter quickly.” He assured me that his party would accept the judgment, whatever it was. “At one stage, we had persuaded even the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP),” he said. He was unhappy that the police had begun to take sides. “The kar sewaks did not demolish the Babri mosque, It was the police,” he said. In the same context, he bemoaned the role of police in the Mumbai riots. But he had not liked the Justice Sri Krishna report. It did not take into consideration the bomb blasts which, he thought, were not connected with the riots. “A bit one-sided report,” he said. I wanted to bring to his notice the way M. F. Hussian, the painter, was being hounded by the RSS parivar. But once I saw Hussain’s painting in his room, I kept quiet. Maybe, this is his way of telling people or others, including the VHP, on which side he was in the campaign against Hussian. Historic anti-personnel mine treaty ratified The Ottawa Treaty (banning production, sale, stockpiling, transfer and use of anti-personnel mines) became international law on the 9th September after it was ratified by 40 countries. “Today, the world has taken a step toward becoming a safer and more humane place,” declared UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, following ratification by the African nation of Burkina Faso. This means that on 1st March, 1999, the treaty will become binding international law for almost a third of the 130 states which have signed it. The Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel mines and on their destruction was concluded in Oslo, Norway, on 18 September, 1997 and was opened for signature in Ottawa, Canada, on 3-4 December of the same year. The adoption of the Ottawa Treaty was the first time in history that a weapon in widespread use was outlawed. Its ratification by 40 States less than a year after it was opened for signature is also a unique achievement - in fact the fastest ratification of any international treaty in history. The 40 countries that have so far ratified the convention are: Andorra, Austria, the Bahamas, Belgium, Belize, Bolivia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Britain, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Fiji, France, Germany, Grenada, Holy See, Hungary, Ireland, Jamaica, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Malawi, Mali, Mauritius, Mexico, Mozambique, Niue, Norway, Peru, Samoa, San Marino, South Africa, Switzerland, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkmenistan, Yemen and Zimbabwe. Since the treaty was agreed in Canada last December, 130 countries have signed it and now 40 have ratified it. The ratification of the agreement should speed up the removal of an estimated 100 million active landmines scattered across 70 countries. The treaty will compel countries to destroy all stockpiles within four years, remove mines from the ground within 10 years and bind governments to compensate victims. Why the need for a treaty? Furthermore, mines have increasingly been used as part of a brutal and systematic war against civilians, especially in the bitter internal conflicts that have come to characterise warfare in the late 20th century. It is these tragic realities which make anti-personnel mines a particularly abhorrent weapon and which have led the ICRC and many other organisations and individuals to call for their prohibition and stigmatization. The use of poison gas and exploding bullets has already been stigmatised and condemned by the international community. Both are weapons of war that are considered to violate the most basic principles of humanity however and whenever they are used. Now, with the adoption of the Ottawa Treaty, anti-personnel mines will also be considered as a weapon of which the humanitarian costs far outweigh their limited military value. Landmines: The Gruesome Facts • Landmines kill or maim more than 2,000 people a month, primarily civilians. • Once landmines have been laid, they are completely indiscriminate in their action. • The UN estimates that landmines are at least ten times more likely to kill or injure civilian after a conflict than a combatant during hostilities. • 30-40% of the victims of landmines are children under the age of 15. • Each year 2-5 million new mines are put in the ground. • Anti-personnel landmines laid during World War II are still killing and maiming civilians. • The Red Cross has estimated that over the last 50 years landmines have probably inflicted more death and injury than nuclear and chemical weapons combined. • The UN has estimated that a landmine which costs $3 to purchase costs between $200 and $1,000 to clear. • Angola is the most mined country in the world, with approximately 15 million uncleared landmines. More than 30,000 Angolans have had limbs amputated as a result of mine explosions. The Human Impact Statistics gathered by the ICRC in 1997, in Afghanistan, paint a bleak picture. The ICRC admitted over 1,900 mine-injured patients at seven of Afghanistan’s hospitals in one year alone. Bearing in mind that only a minority of victims would reach these hospitals in Afghanistan, and that Afghanistan is just one of the many countries affected by mines, the number of peopled killed or injured by landmines every year must be far greater than the 24,000 previously suggested. In Bosnia Herzegovina, another severely mine-affected country, in the six months immediately after the war ended, an average of 50 people were killed or injured by mines every month. Since mid- 1996, this number has gradually decreased. From August 1996 to August 1997, the ICRC estimates that there were 30 to 35 casualties per month. The typical mine victim in the post-conflict period is the male farmer. The Role of the Red Cross In November 1995, for the first time in its history, the ICRC and National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies launched an International Media Campaign on Anti- personnel Landmines, in print, television and radio media for distribution worldwide. Its message ”Landmines must be stopped!” Its aim - to mobilise public opinion and political will for the stigmatisation of anti- personnel mines and for an increased commitment to the care and treatment of victims and to mine clearance. The ICRC took this unprecedented step in recognition of the increasingly crucial role of the media and of public opinion in changing the course of modern history. The Importance of Mine Awareness Mine awareness programmes aim to reduce the risk of death and injury by promoting safe behaviour and facilitating appropriate responses to the problem. In general, programmes provide information on the identification of mines and the dangers that they represent, and seek to teach safe behaviour to civilians living in or moving in mine-affected communities. This includes guidance on how to recognise that an area may be contaminated by mines as well as what to do if someone accidentally finds him - or herself in the middle of a minefield. Instruction in basic first aid for mine victims will often be part of the programme. Programmes are also increasingly aiming to facilitate solutions to high-risk behaviour. In many post-conflict settings, economic necessity is such that returning refugees or internally displaced persons knowingly venture into mined areas in search of food, water or wood. For example, to minimise the risks involved in collecting firewood from a mined area, a programme may try and encourage the community to contribute jointly to fuel costs, or may prioritise a wooded area for mine clearance, or even implement an income-generating programme to enable people to purchase firewood with their additional income. The development of participatory strategies to enable mine- affected communities to find solutions that are best tailored to their own needs is essential to reducing the number of deaths and injuries. As the ICRC president, Cornelio Sommaruga, emphasised after the milestone ratification of the Ottawa Treaty, “ The Ottawa Treaty is the result of a remarkable process, involving the mobilisation of public opinion and of a myriad of private organisations, international agencies and governments in response to a humanitarian crisis. It demonstrates that, for once, in the face of atrocious suffering, humanity has been neither powerless nor incapable of achieving results. – ICRC Colombo It is three months since you departed. Standing beside your still body and gripping your
wrist, It really was hard on me when I had to tell the doctor
to stop the machines. Over four agonizing days which we felt like an
eternity, There were High-court judges, Having lost your Mum at twelve and Born a Catholic, you wanted to marry a Buddhist. Love and compatibility and not the religion, the race, You had a big, big heart. for your small family of four. Thank you Kanthi for being what you were, Suduakka, ‘Security Council must be representative
of UN membership’ The address of the Prime Minister of India A.B. Vajpayee to the 53rd UN General Assembly on September 24, 1998 India has, over the years, sought to enhance its national security by promoting global nuclear disarmament, convinced that a world free of nuclear weapons enhances both global and India’s national security. The negotiations on a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) began in 1993 with a mandate that such a treaty would “contribute effectively to the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons in all aspects, to the process of nuclear disarmament and therefore, to the enhancement of international peace and security”. India participated actively and constructively in the negotiations, and sought to place the Treaty in a disarmament framework by proposing its linkage with a time-bound program for the universal elimination of all nuclear weapons. It is a matter of history that India’s proposals were not accepted. The treaty, as it emerged, was not accepted by India on grounds of national security. We made explicit our objection that despite our stand having been made clear, the treaty text made India’s signature and ratification a pre-condition for its entry into force. CBBT These tests do not signal a dilution of India’s commitment to the pursuit of global nuclear disarmament. Accordingly, after concluding this limited testing program, India announced a voluntary moratorium on further underground nuclear test explosions. We conveyed our willingness to move towards a de jure formalization of this obligation. In announcing a moratorium, India has already accepted the basic obligation of the CTBT. In 1996, India could not have accepted the obligation as such a restraint would have eroded our capability and compromised our national security. India, having harmonized its national imperatives and security obligations and desirous of continuing to cooperate with the international community is now engaged in discussions with key interlocutors on a range of issues, including the CTBT. We are prepared to bring these discussions to a successful conclusion, so that the entry into force of the CTBT is not delayed beyond September 1999. We expect that other countries, as indicated in Article xiv of the CTBT, will adhere to this Treaty without conditions. After protracted discussions, the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva is now in a position to begin negotiations on a treaty that will prohibit the production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices. Once again, we are conscious that this is a partial step. Such a treaty, as and when it is concluded and enters into force, will not eliminate existing nuclear arsenals. Yet, we will participate in these negotiations in good faith in order to ensure a treaty that is non-discriminatory and meets India’s security imperatives. India will pay serious attention to any other multilateral initiatives in this area, during the course of the negotiations in the CD. As a responsible state committed to non-proliferation, India has undertaken that it shall not transfer these weapons or related know-how to other countries. We have an effective system of export controls and shall make it more stringent where necessary, including by expanding control lists of equipment and technology to make them more contemporary and effective in the context of a nuclear India. At the same time, as a developing country, we are conscious that nuclear technology has a number of peaceful applications and we shall continue to cooperate actively with other countries in this regard, in keeping with our international responsibilities. A few weeks ago, at the Non-Aligned Summit in Durban, India proposed and the Movement agreed that an international conference be held, preferably in 1999, with the objective of arriving at an agreement, before the end of this millennium on a phased program for the complete elimination of all nuclear weapons. I call upon, all members of the international community, and particularly the other nuclear weapon states to join in this endeavour. Let us pledge that when we assemble here in the new millennium, it shall be to welcome the commitment that mankind shall never again be subjected to the use of threat of use of nuclear weapons. The decade of the 1990s has fallen for short of expectations; nowhere is this more apparent than on the global economic scene. The sense of triumphalism that heralded the wave of global capitalism is now giving way to caution and realism. What was initially seen as an Asian flu is now spreading to other continents. The hypothesis that unfettered capital flows would foster economic development with the global financial markets adjusting the exchange rates stands falsified. What we have seen is the growth of a large volume of “virtual money” that has not been generated by productive economic activity. But the power of the “virtual money” is real, evident in the fact that national regulatory mechanisms are unable to cope with the impact of its rapid movement in and out of currencies. Its volatility in the short run does not follow economic logic but rumour and sentiment with results that are self-reinforcing. In developing countries and in western financial capitals, there is now a growing acceptance that premature liberalization of capital markets has been a primary cause of the current crisis. Does it mean that the world should turn back from globalization? Our answer is an emphatic NO. Rising economic inter-dependence is a phenomenon driven by the technological imperative, but we must learn how to manage the change, India has not been affected as severely as some other countries, largely because we adopted policies that were more prudent. But a drop in commodity prices, by 30 per cent in a year and a reduction in net capital flows by 50 percent to the emerging markets will have a negative impact on growth everywhere, including in the developed world. I must emphasize that democratically elected leadership in open developing societies, such as India, also faces another challenge. We cannot let an unbridled free market system aggravate existing economic and social disparities. In fact, we need policy instruments to reduce disparities thus creating a more stable environment in the long term. Such policies are necessary in accountable democracies and in no way inconsistent with managed liberalization. It is high time, that we begin a new international dialogue, on the future of a global and Interdependent economy. This is a task for the sovereign states represented here and cannot be left solely to the dynamics of an unregulated market place. I think speak for all of us when I say that we are on the threshold of a new age. This is an over-used phrase, but we are all aware trial an exciting new universe is within our reach. Several centuries ago, Isaac Newton described his scientific discoveries as pebbles on the beach, while the Ocean of Truth lay undiscovered. It was modest of that great scientist to so describe his work, but I believe that we are now actually sailing in the Ocean of Truth. We have made exciting discoveries and will make many more which will move humankind forward. Message India has a message: not a new one, for almost all religions have expressed the thought before. But we have preserved the tenets of freedom, equality and tolerance in our daily lives. If the world of the 21st century is to be a better place than the world we have seen so far, these values must prevail. History also shows that these are easier to prescribe than to observe. And yet, as we move towards ever-closer interdependence, there is no alternative. The world and its leaders must summon the will to rise to the occasion and enter the new age with a new outlook. This is the task before us and I declare India’s readiness to make its full contribution in the testing times ahead. I close with an ancient sloka from the Rig Veda composed thousands of years ago in Sanskrit, the oldest language in the world: “Svastir manushebhyaha Oordhvam Jugatu beshajam Sam no astu dvipathe Sam chathusthpate Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti”. Meaning Let all human beings be blessed with prosperity, Let all flora and fauna which are life line of all creatures, grow abundantly, Let there be harmony with all two-legged creations, Let there be harmony with all four-legged creations, Let there be peace; peace, peace, (OM Shanti, Shanti, Shanti.) Concluded From the book 'The Palm of His
Hand' by E.C.T. Candappa
Continued from yesterday His uniform was freshly laundered and starched, and it shone. He was not chewing betel and, when he gave the merest wisp of a smile, his teeth sparkled. There was no doubt about it, this was a different Dracula. He was on duty at the theatre and if he was not found in this condition the surgeons who demanded and obtained nothing less than perfection would certainly have cut off his increments. Raj knew, however, from prior conversations that he had had with the patients that Dracula’s appearance at this stage was a matter of great comfort to them. This meant that he would not be on night duty when they would need the greatest attention and sympathy. The big ogre that hovered over their dreams and dominated their nightmares was the catheter. Departing patients had sloughed off this fear as they left the hospital and incoming patients invariably picked it up. In the dead of night they would want to urinate because their thirst would be so intense after surgery that they would drink in frugal sips, and even that after begging. But eventually they would want to pass water but be unable to as the kidneys would not be functioning normally yet. Some attendants would be patient with them. Others would summon the matron and the catheter would be applied. What everyone had heard of was only the pain, described in exaggerated terms, of the needle passing into the penis. The thought had made them sweat. But if Dracula was not there it wouldn’t be so bad. So they hoped. The operating theatre had intruded into the ward in the form of a whiff of pethidine given to surgical patients. By eight the trolleys were wheeled in, and in a matter of minutes the three men were wheeled out. Murrel raised a bony arm as he left and the others raised theirs in response though he did not see them. His eyes were shut very tight and Raj noticed, as he passed his bed, that a teardrop glistened in the corner of the old man’s eye. When the other two patients returned four hours later and Murrel had not, the rest of the ward was anxious to know where he was but they had been informed that because of his age his condition had deteriorated and had been transferred to the Intensive Care Unit. But from the faces of the nurses and attendants it was quite clear that something graver than that had occurred. And Raj, with his reporter’s instincts stirred, decided to find out. He knew exactly where he could obtain the information. He went up to the hospital Police Post and found an officer he knew on duty, by the name of Sergeant Walker (who on a celebrated occasion had saved him from an irate matron) and found out in a few minutes that Murrel’s body was already in the morgue awaiting an autopsy. But being a responsible reporter, and knowing that a responsible reporter always knew more than he wrote, he kept the information to himself. The morning visiting hour saw the relatives of two operatees, Patil and Ranasinghe hovering solicitously round the screened-off beds. The patients were in deep sleep after heavy sedation. Murrel usually had had very few visitors but when his son arrived, he was discreetly taken away and informed of his death out of the hearing of others. He moved sombrely away to make the necessary arrangements. Raj could not bear to remain in the ward that afternoon. He found it too depressing. So he drifted across to the next ward where he found the only patient who was not having an afternoon siesta was an elderly man of whom he had only heard earlier but had not met yet: Mr Weerasinghe. He seemed eager enough to meet Raj for he raised himself up on his elbow and beckoned to him to approach his bed. His sheet was pulled up at his stomach so Raj could not see what he knew was underneath, the plastic bottle at the waist to collect his waste, for the man was dying of cancer. Raj found him to be a man of a surprisingly cheerful disposition. He was fair-skinned as Asians went, stocky, with short, very white hair. He had a crop of black warts under his eyes. He was willing enough to talk but more so after he learnt that Raj was a reporter. They found another bond when Raj discovered that the old man’s son was also a journalist on a rival paper, whom Raj knew slightly. Weerasinghe was an even greater veteran than Murrel who had been in hospital for a mere three months while Weerasinghe had been there for more than nine months. He was really the senior citizen of the ward and probably of the entire wing. It was obvious he was not one of nature’s whingers. Not once in the twenty minutes that Raj spent with him did he speak of his illness, or of the untold hardships that he might have endured, and still endured. He spoke instead of cricket, of school cricket, which was an absorbing interest in Sri Lanka. The season was on and two of his sons were playing for a school that was next to his house. The brief visit ended on a note of irony, underscored by Raj’s private knowledge. "Look here," he said, "if there is anything you want, any complaint, just let me know. All right putha? These are all my good friends now. I can ask any favour and they will never say no to me. They think I am going to die. What rubbish! I am an old toughie. Good living, boy!" He thumped his chest. Raj noted how the veins stood out on the back of his hands, on his emaciated arm, the veins blue against the parchment-dry, yellowed skin. Raj thanked him very much, promised to visit him again soon, and got back to his ward and to his bed. He took pen and paper out of his bedside cupboard and began to write, as usual, his impressions of the day. Everything around him was momentarily quiet. The muffled sounds of traffic were soothing. He looked up once to see how the operatees were faring and they all appeared to be, and most likely were, in deep sleep after sedation. He got back to writing and then like the sudden recollection of the detail of a forgotten dream he saw in his mind a spot of blood. This was followed by a sensation of chill in the marrow of his bones. It was an unmistakable feeling of death. It seemed death had entered the room. He put the writing paper down on his stomach and cautiously looked around. He looked again at the two patients. Patil who was right next to him was calm in sleep and nothing seemed amiss. He looked to the left where he could hardly see Ranasinghe’s face. But he was strongly impelled to walk up to him and take a close look. And when he did, the first thing that attracted his attention and riveted his eyes was a patch of blood, not more than a couple of inches long marring the whiteness of the bed sheet. While Raj watched, it grew. He fled to the matron’s office and informed a nurse. She rushed round and fetched a male nurse, a trainee from the Sri Lanka airforce who came with fresh bandages and lint and deftly removed the old bandages and dressed him afresh. He then came round and thanked Raj. The nurse was not a very demonstrative man but from the fervour of his thanks Raj guessed shrewdly that his absence had been remiss and that had anything untoward happened he might have been in deep trouble. Raj did nothing for the rest of the afternoon until the visiting hour but watch the clerk’s abdominal region with an eager fascination. That evening Raj’s sister brought fresh irises, a great bunch of them, sufficient to be divided by a freshly beaming matron into two and installed effusively in the next ward where they too shed their sweetness on the diseased air. The visitors of other patients, as all who had not been distinguished by surgery would have to be called collectively, were also more occupied with the latter and gazed numbly at them and barely spoke to their own. This was by no means a sign of neglect. On the contrary it was a sign of reversed concern which their patients, too, fully understood. Some of the town callers, and even the bolder ones, went up to the operatees’ beds and glanced at the bedhead charts and noted with some interest how the temperature had risen and fallen and fluctuated in between. Ranasighe, Raj’s father noted, was still running a high temperature, and there were two nurses still tending him. Raj did not think it expedient to tell his people what had happened to the clerk earlier. It was an old saw that a good reporter also knew more than he jabbered. Except, he noted, sourly, at diplomatic parties where some of his colleagues talked more than they knew and often spilt some vital information given in confidence to some embassy underling whose function was to fake being drunk and tap inebriated journalists for precisely such information. Of course, the information thus obtained had to be carefully sifted in the days following a DPL party to see how much of truth can be separated from the bucolic chaff. They would be glad enough for a single grain and would consider the cost of third-rate eats and diluted scotch reserved for the less favoured guests, such as the scribes, well worth it. That evening, in the mysterious ways in which news percolates down to the lowest levels in spite of censorship of the staff and the passive collaboration of Raj himself, word reached Ward 37 that Murrel had died. But because of his age and obviously dehydrated state no one seemed to mind it very much. As though there was any difference at all between the death of an infant, or a foetus for that matter, and a human being in such an advanced state of decrepitude as to seem less than human. Life was always life, thought Raj. There was a streak of the moralist, the preacher in him that he strove hard, well, not to stifle by any means but to keep in check and in the background while asking questions at an interview or in interpreting answers. "Keep to the facts, Raj. Don’t desecrate them with your views," the previous news editor had told him, oh, more than once. "If you want to air your filthy opinions," he had added once, venomously chewing off the end of a cheap cigar, "then tout them in the features department." Old Haniffa reacted in a strange manner. He beckoned Raj to his bedside at about seven and grabbed his hand with his bony arms. Here comes another muffled diatribe against the Sinhalese in general and against the school teacher in particular, thought Raj. Then Haniffa,moving his feet, which were close together, vigorously apart to and fro, like the opening and closing of a fan, began a weird song in Sinhala. It was, indeed, an obscene song about love making, but it was also outrageously funny. He held Raj down when he wanted to move away, mostly to go somewhere and laugh out loud, and Haniffa sang, in a low and gravelly voice, about ten verses, each more daring and more droll than the earlier verse. At length he let go of Raj’s hand, stopped waving his feet, pulled the sheet up to his neck and assumed an expression of such surpassing sanctity and even innocence that when Miss Hapangama entered she asked quite naturally: "Ah, Mr Haniffa, praying again?" Had the old man been trying to mitigate his own fear of death by such misplaced levity or had he, past such fears, sought to allay Raj’s fears, the fear of a young man with hopes before him? Raj looked down at the still subdued form affectionately. All through the evening, Raj had noticed, just after the last of the visitors had left that the village schoolmaster had been wearing an expression that could be described as a blend of surprise, amusement and annoyance. His mouth was half open, his brow elevated and furrowed, and the hint of what could be called a smile; well, not exactly playing but kicking its way around his mouth. Suddenly he turned round and called Raj to his bedside with a small and coy wave of a hand looking at Mr Jayawardene at the same time to ensure that he would not intercept the gesture. When Raj got to him he beckoned to him to get closer. Raj was beginning to feel like a father-confessor. What further obscenity would assail his ears this time, he asked himself, even wondering whether such a trait was possibly a pre-surgery syndrome. It turned out to be quite a different matter. "Come here, come here" he said in a low tone in Sinhala, drawing him close and gripping his arm hard. He was not a person who would ever whisper as that would suggest timidity and he was accustomed to commanding respect and even fear. (c) E. C. T. Candappa Continued tomorrow |
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