“One of my friends, Deepak, saw a lady lying near the railway station of Dhanbad since many weeks. Her entire face was covered with dirt and her head was covered with bugs. One could clearly see bugs crawling on her head from a distance. She was very fragile, not able to move, and smelled very bad.
We asked the people nearby about her, and one of them told us that she was suffering from tuberculosis and was in the last stage of her life. After hearing this, we cried. We thought we should let her live the remaining few days of her life in a better way. So we went to her and asked her if she wanted to eat anything. She told us she want to have a lemon pickle. It seems like a minuscule thing, but we didn’t find it in any of houses nearby, and somehow we arranged it in half an hour along with rice and dal. She was unable to eat anything by herself as she was too weak, Deepak fed her.
To remove bugs from her head we asked many barbers nearby to cut her hair, but no one agreed even when we were willing to pay 500 to them. Then Deepak and I bought gloves and scissors from the market and cut her hair. She was so dirty and smelling and full of bugs. I felt like giving up, but seeing Deepak motivated me to continue, and it took approximately an hour for us to do this.
A lady who works at a government hospital saw us helping the lady. The next day, the nurse brought an ambulance. After going to the hospital, doctors told us that she did not have TB; she was just having weakness and fever. Since I was out of town, Deepak went to the hospital daily with some fruits and food to feed her. After a week, she became healthy competitively and gained approx 10 kg weight in 2 weeks.
Ankit, an acquaintance, helped us in admitting her in an NGO in Patna where she learnt sewing. She lived there for about ten months, and just three weeks back one of her relatives came to know about her and now she is in her home.”
Author: Devanshu Mishra.
