by Dilip D’Souza
Some mornings, I wake up thinking of Ahmedabad. It’s a city I’ve visited a few times; for a few reasons, it’s a city I’ve never really warmed to. But I’ve roamed widely there, often by autorickshaw. And on those mornings I’m talking about, it’s two of those rides I remember.
The first: I’m going to see a friend. My rickshaw is operated by a burly man, greying and unshaven, I’d say in his mid-50s. We stop at a traffic signal. The little bump we feel as we wait, it doesn’t seem like anything to be concerned about. The white car behind has nudged us accidentally (we think) but gently. I mean, so gently that I’m certain there isn’t even a scratch registered. My driver must think the same – he waves his hand in what I can only describe as half-hearted irritation, doesn’t even get out to look. The light changes, we drive on.
Seconds later, the white car pulls alongside, then ahead, forcing us to the side, then to a stop. Man leaps out. Gleaming black shoes, spotless white shirt, creased trousers, looks 30 years old – must be an executive somewhere, I think. Right now, his face is twisted in fury. He bears down on us, yelling that he honked three times, wanting us to move over. (So maybe it wasn’t an accidental bump?) My driver steps out. He and executive-man go nose-to-nose, abusing each other loud enough for passing drivers to do a double-take.
I try to pacify them. I’m not even fully sure what the executive is really upset about, and there is no visible damage on either vehicle. For a moment, I think I have succeeded in calming him down. But only for a moment. Because he suddenly turns, lopes back to his car, reaches in and pulls out … absolutely the last thing I expect. It’s a long, sturdy stick.
He lopes back. Before I can react, or even comprehend what he’s doing, he swings at my driver’s forearm with a ferocity I would not have believed had I not seen it. The sound the stick makes, as it connects with flesh and the firmness of bone underneath, is nauseating. He has hit the driver so hard that the stick … it breaks in two.
No more loping, He runs back to his car, jumps in and is gone. My driver is doubled over in pain, holding his arm, groaning quietly. I am too stunned to record the car’s registration number. But as if in a dream, I notice one of the pieces of the stick, settling in the dust at our feet.
We sit in the rickshaw. Beyond offering him some water, I find I am unable to speak. Ten minutes later, he signals that he feels better, and we resume our journey. At my destination, as I pay, he gives me a wry smile. His arm is swollen, but he volunteers that the pain is already subsiding and “haddi-vaddi to kucch toota nahin!” (“No bones broken!”)
***
The second: Some years later, I’m in Ahmedabad again. A friend and I are in a rickshaw, riding over a bridge. To our right in the heavy traffic, a woman on a scooter wobbles, tries to regain her balance, wobbles some more and then, almost as if it was inevitable and in near slow-motion, she tumbles to the ground in a flurry of pink salwar kameez and flying dupatta and flailing arms and black scooter metal and streaming long hair and the blur of rushing swerving honking traffic.
We stop as soon as we can and rush back to her. A young man has run up too. Together, he and my friend help her to her feet, pick their way through the traffic that will not slow but will gawk, to the side of the road and sit her down. She has a cut on her nose, a bump on her forehead, but her real pain and shock is from her right arm, which hangs awkwardly. She holds it and moans. Twice, she seems about to faint from the sun and the trauma. I give her a bottle of water. She takes a couple of sips and then asks, weakly, if we will instead pour it over her head and face.
Then she asks: “Can you put my arm back?”
The accident dislocated her right arm at the shoulder, she says, and she wants one of us to “put it back” so she can drive home. Certainly I don’t feel competent to try something like this, not least because she moans in pain every time we even touch her arm. Nor does my friend feel thus competent, nor the young man, nor any of the others who have gathered around us by now. And even if we could “put it back”, we can’t let her drive home in this state.
Someone suddenly clicks his fingers and says, “There’s a doctor just below the bridge!” So we get her to stand, but then quickly sit her down again because she starts fainting. A few more minutes pass, more water over her face. Eventually, we manoeuvre her as gently as we can into our rickshaw. Every move draws moans and wincing. But at least we can take her to the doctor. The young man says he will drive her scooter and follow us.
Down the bridge to a U-turn. Drive 50 metres to a right turn. Then another 100 metres down that road. It really is not far at all. But this is a slow and tortuous journey. The roads below the bridge are just stretches of mud and stones, and each bump of any size draws an agonized squeal from her. By the time we reach the doctor, my nerves are on edge. But, I think, what about her nerves?
And now we realize: this doctor is a harvaid, the Gujarati term for a bonesetter or chiropractor. Best of times, I’m sceptical of such guys, and that’s putting it kindly, but now we have no choice. She’s in such pure, visible agony that what’s most urgent is some relief. She’ll get that here.
Inside, the harvaid looks her over, asks some questions, pokes firmly at her shoulder. That draws more squeals, of course. Then, with an imperceptible nod to us, he picks up a towel, sticks it under her arm, holds the shoulder firmly and in one swift fluid businesslike motion – drawing one long loud moan from the lady – he twists and pulls and pushes the arm. “It’s OK now,” he announces to her and to us. And it is. She says she doesn’t have the courage to try moving the arm, but he moves it for her, gently, to show her that it’s back in place. She winces in anticipation, but that’s all.
“But you’ve got to be careful for the next six months!” he tells her. Meaning, no lifting things above her head, no driving around … “But what will I do?” she wails. “What about my kids?”
“Tell your husband,” he advises.
“Mera pati chhe mahine pehle off ho gaya“, she says. (“My husband died six months ago.”)
The harvaid says he needs to put a splint on her shoulder – as he speaks, he’s cutting a strip of what looks like shaved bamboo – which means she will not be able to put her kameez back on over it. She shakes her head. My friend says she will go now and buy her a new, looser kameez. She shakes her head again. Eventually, the harvaid uses her dupatta and some gauze to immobilize the arm. We can take her home, he says, provided she gets herself a splint within an hour. The young man says, again, that he will drive her scooter and follow us.
Another long and tortuous journey, most of it on roads whose horrible state I would not notice were the poor woman not moaning in desperation every time we approach a bump, or pothole, or even a rough patch. At her building finally, she gives us a weak smile and says, “You must at least come up to my home!”
We do. We settle her on her sofa, have a glass of water, remind her about the splint, and leave.
I call the next day. She has her splint.
I think about my friend and the young man, sympathetic and helpful as they had been. About the harvaid, who refused to take any money for his gentle and effective kindness. Note: I’m no longer so sceptical.
And some mornings, for years afterward, I wake up thinking, wincing as I do, of two arms.
***
Postscript: over twenty years ago, these two episodes! Yet they surprise me by how often they come to mind.