I don't know how many people even gave a second thought about this woman. I am sure there were other people who have wondered like I have. She was in her late-fifties or early sixties. Fair-skinned. She looked like she had, at some time in her life, been well-off. It just showed in her face. There was something about her - she looked kind, dignified. In any other setting, she would have easily been a friend's mother - the kind of person you meet when you visit your friend's home and who offers you coffee and snacks.
Only this woman was begging on the streets, in front of one of the busiest restaurants in one of the busiest cities of India. She could not walk. She was always sat there with her legs straight in front of her. So typical of an old Indian woman. She did not have any of the cunning of the professional city beggar. She was not aggressive. She was not demanding. She just sat there, pleading sad eyes, hands that would occasionally rise, driven more by hunger than by her will. There was an indefinable dignity about her. I have been tempted to speak to her so many times, to find out who she was. I was certain that she had been abandoned there by her sons or family. I never got around to speaking to her. It is just one of those things that stick to your memory, because of its incompleteness and because it shows, how all those times when I wanted to talk to her, I have always given myself excuses about other, more important things to do. I wonder if she is still alive. I wonder if her family took her back. I wonder who she was.
But, I did not have a minute to talk to her then, so why ponder now! It is just the strong emotion it evokes every time I think about her. It makes me think of everything else in my life that are important enough for me to pause and take in but never do.
The worst of partialities is to withold oneself, the worst of ignorance is not to act, the worst lie is to steal away. - CHARLES PEGUY (1873-1914) A few months ago, I was faced with an exceptionally difficult situation. It was fairly routine to start with. A 68 year old man was brought into A&E with a leaking abdominal aneurysm. He was in hypovolemic shock and I was the surgical doctor on call. It was obvious that he needed urgent surgery and I spoke to the vascular surgeon on call and agreed to transfer the patient to the oeprating theatre while he got to the hospital. The patient was on the operating table, fully anaesthetised, 30 mins after I first saw him in A&E. And, he was deteriorating fast. The consultant anesthetist asked me if I had clamped the aorta before. I said that I had never done it before though I had assisted numerous aneurysm surgeries and knew how to do it. I said I probably could do it if the situation was desperate. At this stage, I asked the theatre s
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