She kept her eyes wide open and stared at me. She didn’t blink even once in the 5-6 minutes staring session that we had…finally I had to smile back.
Her tongue was sticking out, her eyes were wide open…she had a peculiar hair do…and she was somewhere around 2-3 years old.
The minute she saw me smiling, she smiled back and started clapping her hands.
She began saying something which I bet only she could understand….and kept drooling all over the place.
Her mom quickly got out a small piece of cloth and wiped her mouth and tried to get her in control.
She was a mentally challenged small girl who was struggling to understand things around her.
She kept kissing her mom while she lay on her lap.
I tried to be negligent at first as i thought i was responsible for her over enthusiasm.
I looked at her mom who gave me a very helpless but a pleasant smile.
“Should I hold your bag for u?” who seemed quite uncomfortable trying to hold her bag that kept slipping.
Without much thinking she handed me her baby’s bag.
The kid saw this and the minute she realized her bag was with some stranger, she started throwing tantrums.
The entire bus was annoyed at this whole chaos.
I held the girls hand and made her hold one handle of her bag assuring her that i wasn't gonna take it away from her.
She calmed down and again started staring at me with those wide open eyes.
“What’s her name?” I asked her mom.
“Lucky”…. That was such a sweet name! But I wondered why they named her that.
I had this instant “why” look on my face….I happened to realize this as her very next statement was “I named her this cuz I think she is very lucky to be alive”
My face went blank…as though I had a whole wave of questions that were ready to be spilled out…
I was shut for a while and looked back at the kid…by now she was busy chewing her mums hand that was holding her.
I slightly felt her soft chubby cheeks…making sure I wasn't disturbing her.
She frowned back but then got busy again.
“Why do you say that?” I found myself asking her this question – for reasons even I am not aware of!
“She wouldn’t have been like this….” She said this as though she was sure and ready to tell me the whole story.
“When she was born, she was a very healthy and a normal child. But in some months we realized that she was not responding back as any normal child would do. We took her back to her doc who examined her and sadly broke the news to us saying that she was mentally retarded! We didn’t believe him at first but then doctors are considered as gods heralds.
We had to live with this fact so we began her normal routine check ups.We changed her doctor due to some superstitions my family had, but that actually proved to turn some stones over!...
Her new doc told us that she wasn’t a mentally retarded baby since birth. It was because she was badly hit on her head. Me and my husband dropped our jaws and started looking at each other. “we don’t remember ever dropping her” I divulged.
The doc suggested we go back to the gynac to get the answers. We did as was told and confronted him.
At first we could just simply ask him wether our daugther was mentally disabled since birth.Without a second thought he answered with a yes.He sounded quite reluctant as he was shocked to be questioned about our daughter after so many months.
We had to threaten him with all sorts of police n court stories.
He then finally confessed. It was his nurse who had dropped her on her way to the check up room minutes after she was born and inspite of knowing all this he had to keep this a secret as it posed to be a threat to his upcomming hospital!... I couldnt believe what i just heard!!
I dint want him to give us this answer as I had truly wished that it was a natural accident rather than a man made one."So what about my daughters life??" I broke into tears but i was very helpless.
My husband broke into immense anger and in no time filed a case against the doc.Its been a whole year but we are still fighting the case.”
she sighed and looked at her daughter,as though she was just waiting to open up her heart!
I saw her almost getting back into tears but she managed to hold them. She moved her hand over her baby’s face who was fast asleep by now.
“I’m so tired of all this…cuz even if we do manage to prove the doc guilty…he would never feel guilty by heart…and we have to live with this fact that we have a small girl whom we must raise just like any other parent would.”….
I went numb by now. I had no reactions on my face but to just nod my head.
She was craving to tell the whole world that she did not deserve this!
She couldn’t blame her sweet daughter for she didn’t even know what it felt like to be normal as everyone else.She was too little to understand the seriousness of her life.
“I hope you find some treatments that could cure her”… I had made a baseless statement but those were the only consoling words I could mutter at that time.
“Thanks” and she smiled at me.
I had missed my bus stop but managed to get off at the next one.
I pondered at every statement that she said to me. I thought to myself…should I consider myself to be lucky too?Not cuz im alive,but maybe because im born as a normal kid?What was the lilttle girls fault...?She too could have played and enjoyed her life just like anyone of us... is this wat we call as destiny??
I had numerous questions hitting me like bullets.
God creates us with some thoughts in his mind. He creates each creature on this planet for a reason.
I often wonder on what basis he decides if a human being should be normal or not or for that matter how he would look, what color he should have, what size should he be….there are endless traits.
What would you say about such challenges in life? Would we blame god for this?
I guess not!
P.S - this incident does not resemble to any person living or dead and is not meant to be a generic one.Plz be assured that not all doctors are the same :)
The Face-Off!!....