Plight Beyond Hope

Photo courtesy Facebook 

Last Saturday I opened my Facebook and saw a quote uploaded by a fellow Fb friend. It read - "Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind. Always". Every time I read it I like it very much. I always find it so meaningful. 

That day the whole day I was alone as both father and daughter had a lunch invitation at dotty's dance class. They returned home at around 3.30 pm and the Mister went out in a hurry saying that he would explain everything after he returns. He just said that he was taking a nephew of us along with him and that he was going to meet a person he never met before. I was worried when he did not return till 12 midnight. I called him up and found that he was parking the car. When he entered, he looked exhausted and starving. After having his dinner he narrated what he was up to.

Anindya received a call from one of his friend from Bangladesh when he was in Akanksha's dance class, saying that a man from Bangladesh was in Kolkata and was facing trouble to cross the inter country border with the dead body of his daughter he took to Chennai for treatment and asked him if he could help him in any way. Anindya said that at first he thought that the person's daughter died at a hospital in Chennai and he wanted to take her body to his motherland and as he wanted to take a dead body he might be facing  some problems with the paper work. He thought that he would meet that person and take him to the concerned office and make the papers ok. But when he went there and met the man and listened his story, Anindya said he was awestruck. He could not believe what he was listening.

Anindya said that when he met the person, the man seemed to heave a sigh of relief, to find a fellow community man in a foreign land. Then he narrated what happened to him. He told that he is a teacher by profession and has two daughters - the elder one is eighteen years and the younger one is nine years old. His younger daughter was diagnosed with brain tumour in Bangladesh. To provide the best medical treatment, he brought her to Chennai, in India. But the tumour was in such an advanced stage that the medical authorities asked him to take her back home. But her condition was so bad that neither the airlines or the railways were willing to provide her a ticket to Kolkata.

But, a desperate father booked an ambulance for seventy thousand rupees (Rs.70,000/-) and started their journey from Chennai to Bongaon. Bongaon is the place near Indo-Bangla border, from where they were supposed to cross the border. In the ambulance was his wife, his eldest daughter, he himself and his ailing daughter. After travelling for quite some time his daughter looked quite healthy and fresh. He said that, he thought that might be with the thought of returning home she was feeling better. But the condition of the road was so pathetic that he himself, a hale and hearty person was finding it tiresome and he said how much his ailing daughter would have suffered. Suddenly, the girl made a sound like a hiccup and she never opened her eyes. 

The forlorn parents drove all the way to Kolkata with the body of their deceased daughter and got her admitted at a hospital where she was declared to be brought dead. The parents then continued their journey towards the border after taking the death certificate from the hospital. But it was not the end of their plight. They were denied permission to cross the border as the papers to cross the dead body was not complete.

The father then with the help of some local volunteers managed to keep the body in a morgue and his wife and daughter in a hotel in Bongaon and he booked a car and came back to Kolkata and the whole day he was wandering cluelessly from one office to another. It was only after Anindya and Santosh (our nephew) met him that the actual official procedure started. So, for the final permission they were asked to go the next day morning at 10 am. They dropped the man at a city hotel and they returned home.

Next day too Anindya and Santosh were  there with the man, struggling with the government procedures, till the job was done and they helped him board a train to Bongaon. The man after crossing the boarder called up Anindya to let him know that they were able to cross the border. After that Anindya looked relieved.

After I heard the whole story I was just not able to react. I was just thinking, what would have been the condition of the parents. If I would have been in that state I would have gone mad and it was also the reaction of Anindya. I was at the same time glad that Anindya was able to help the unfortunate father. I could not sleep that night and felt that God had shown me the truth of the quote with an example. It is so very true that, "Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind. Always"