2020: Story 3: Half Salary, Double Husband

Amar stumbled on the last step of the staircase. Thankfully, he hadn’t let go of his hold on the handrail, and so, there wasn’t any harm done. “Come on,” he chided himself, “You’ve dealt with bigger problems during your office days. This is nothing! Just your ego being hurt a little. Chin up.”

In all our lives, sooner or later, there comes a turning point. We change, and then, we can never return to what we were before.

For Amar, that point had come this morning. He’d been sitting in the mild morning sun, leisurely turning the newspaper page, sipping his second cup of coffee, when he saw his wife Lata shaking with laughter, looking at something on her phone.

“What’s so funny, dear?” he’d asked, not realizing what was in store for him.

“Hahaha, nothing really! It’s only this message on our apartment ladies group that sounds so very apt. Just one of our little jokes!”

“Quite a joke it must be to make you laugh like that! Tell me, what it says,” he’d insisted; foolishly, as it now turned out.

Lata had grinned and passed the phone so he could read the message for himself.

‘When a man retires from work, his wife gets half the salary, and double the husband,’ declared an image, which showed a man blown to unnatural proportion with a wife cowering in the background. 

Image courtesy: Gransnet

Lata was still laughing at the memory of the words. Looking at her, Amar had smiled too, but only with his lips, and not his eyes. He’d retired just six months ago. Was Lata already getting fed up of him being around at home for most of the day? The thought had been tormenting him and maybe that’s why he, Amar of the steady gait, had stumbled today.

“Come on, don’t start being a sensitive old man,” he told himself, “She was only laughing at the joke, and not at you.”

Amar shuffled around the block, keeping to the edge of the pavement, well away from the rash drivers on the road.

His walk took Amar close to the government hospital around the corner. As he waited to cross the road, Amar saw a young woman helping an old man complete the paperwork for registering as a patient. From his garb, the old man appeared to be a villager, unused to the ways of the city.

“It’s nice of you to help him,” said Amar, greeting the young woman.

“Thank you, sir,” she smiled back. “I volunteer here for a few hours every Monday and Wednesday. Many of the villagers coming to this hospital are illiterate, and they feel lost with filling out the forms. So I do it for them, and then guide them to the right place to see the doctor they must consult. It’s such a big hospital, and can be quite confusing for someone new to the place.”

“You’re doing a great job! How did you get this idea?”

“Well, sir, I’m part of a group called ‘Helping Hands’ and we’re trained to volunteer for such activities. All of us take turns at this desk depending on which days we have some free time.”

Amar chatted with the young woman, asking questions, trying to find out more about the volunteering group. She patiently answered all this questions and then, sensing his interest, she finally asked if he would like to join the group.

Amar considered the idea. It would take him out of the house for some time. “Some relief for Lata from my constant presence,” he thought. “She’ll be relieved at having only half the husband, I guess.” And it would give him something to do besides reading the newspaper, checking WhatsApp messages and the morning and evening walk.

“Ok, I’m game, what do I need to do to join?”

Amar’s young friend took him to an office close by and introduced him to the Helping Hands coordinator as a wannabe volunteer. He signed up for a 3-day short course and learned the basics of listening, asking open ended questions, and helping fill out paperwork for the patients coming to the hospital. The coordinator was happy with Amar’s willingness to learn. She was even more thrilled to learn that he was fluent in English, as well as two of the local languages – Kannada and Tamil. With Amar on the team, they wouldn’t need an extra person to translate what the patients or their caregivers were saying.

On day 4, Amar stood with another volunteer at the Helping Hands desk outside the hospital, hoping he’d remember all that he had learned in the past three days.

The first patient soon came by. By the time he’d helped fill out her form, Amar knew everything about her – right from her age and ailments, to the number of children and grandchildren she had, and even their names and eating habits. When his co-volunteer pulled his leg about getting the entire life history in greater detail than the doctor, Amar laughed and said, “See this grey hair on my head, young man? That’s what made her tell me all that!”

Soon the next patient came, and Amar learned of how this man’s farm was not doing too well, and the loan he had taken to procure seeds, and his hopes for a good spell of rain in the months to come.

A little while later, Amar attended to a young mother with a baby girl running a fever. He got drawn in by the mother’s grief at having a husband who was good except when under the influence of alcohol, which, it turned out, was not all that rare.

One patient after another kept coming up to the desk where Amar sat, as word spread of him knowing the local languages, and so it went on till around 1 pm, when the outpatient department closed. Amar went to the Helping Hands office, and reported the day’s events to the coordinator. She listened with a smile, sensing that he had really taken to the task. Amar’s co-volunteer had already told her that Amar was terrific at comforting the ailing souls and their caregivers.

Thus began a new chapter in Amar’s post-retirement life. He hurried through his morning walk, for he had to get ready to leave for the hospital. No more chitchatting with friends sitting on the benches inthe park.

Slowly, Amar got more involved with the activities of Helping Hands, shouldering greater responsibility. The younger volunteers began turning to him for advice with their personal issues too. In him, they found a parental figure with one major difference from their own parents – he listened without interrupting with words of advice or censure. They could talk to him and feel really heard and so, they were more open to the suggestions he gave on how to deal with certain difficult situations. Sometimes, Amar would say nothing, he would simply listen with attention, and the other person would feel that the problem wasn’t really that bad.

Now, Amar left home every morning after breakfast and returned only in time for evening tea. Lata had taken to packing lunch for him like during his office days. Their son, busy with his work as an analyst at a reputed software firm, was amused to see his father get so involved with the volunteering.

“How much do they pay you, Dad?” he quipped one day, only to be surprised at Amar’s reply.

“Nothing.”

“Then why are you straining yourself at this age, spending so many hours there, even carrying a lunchbox instead of eating freshly prepared food in the comfort of your home?”

“They offered me a fee, but I refused to take anything because the entire operation runs on donations. Some of the other volunteers are actually needy. I’m not. Our needs are being met by my pension amount.”

Amar’s son muttered something then about people growing stubborn in their old age, and walked out of the room. Amar turned to his wife and asked, “What’s your take, Lata?” She simply smiled and said, “You’re right.”

A few weeks later, Amar’s friends began pulling his leg about how he was too busy to reply to their messages on WhatsApp. He played along, not saying anything harsh to them, but to himself, he admitted that his life had now taken such a turn that made him feel their messages were very childish. Being exposed to people whose lives were not very rosy, Amar had come to appreciate his own good fortune. Besides, he now spent time thinking of how he could help this or that person to overcome their issues and that left him with no time for things like politics about which he had been passionate in the earlier days.

Just as Amar completed one year of volunteering with Helping Hands, disaster struck. The COVID-19 pandemic swept across the entire world, killing thousands of people. Even as he began to realize the horror of the situation in countries in Europe, Amar heard that his friend’s son had returned from the USA, and been diagnosed with the disease.

A few days later, the Indian Prime Minister appealed on national television to the entire populace to strictly adhere to social distancing. For a country that couldn’t boast of the healthcare services of the developed nations, it was the only hope to keep the community safe. A lockdown was announced, throwing lives into disarray. People could only go out at fixed times to purchase essential supplies. Amar’s son was asked by his employer to work from home.

For Amar, it was a testing time. The government hospital where he volunteered was one of the designated hospitals to isolate and treat COVID-19 patients. His presence in the hospital was needed now more than ever. Already understaffed, the hospital was stretched to its maximum capacity, and Amar decided to join the COVID-19 case monitoring and documentation team.

Seeing him at the team meeting, the doctor leading the team took Amar aside, and advised him to go home.

“Your age works against you, sir. Your risk of catching the infection is greater. Please leave this to the younger folk.”

But Amar was adamant.

“I’ll take all the necessary precautions, Doctor. I’ll sit in the office and do the paperwork. I’ll type up reports, and prepare your data sheets. I won’t go into the wards. But I want to help during this crisis.”

Amar coaxed and cajoled and the doctor was forced to relent, for in these difficult times, it was tough finding volunteers. As days passed, and the number of cases entering the hospital kept increasing, Amar stretched his volunteering hours. Now, Lata too started getting worried. She pleaded with Amar to stop going to the hospital. When he didn’t listen to her, she tried emotional blackmail.

“At least think of me and our son,” she begged, “What if we catch the infection too?”

Amar’s reply was a hard stare, and a proposal that only worsened Lata’s fears. “Then I’ll stay at the hospital itself so as to keep you safe!”

Lata then used the only other weapon in her arsenal. She spoke to her brother and tried to get him to put pressure on Amar to stop going to the hospital. Nothing moved Amar’s resolve.

“The country needs us to help at this crucial time. It’s ok, everything will be alright in a few days time,” said Amar with finality.

After two weeks of hectic activity, Amar returned home late one night, feeling drained of energy. The next day, he had a mild cough, and when the team doctor caught Amar sipping some home-made decoction out of a flask, she ordered that he should be tested.

The results showed that Amar had been infected, too. The doctor ordered him to be admitted in that hospital itself, but Amar would have none of it.

“I’m capable of paying for my treatment, Doctor. Keep this bed for some poor patient who cannot afford his or her own treatment. I’ll get admitted in the private hospital that’s been put on our list of designated treatment centres.”

Amar went alone to the private hospital and got himself admitted. When he called his son to make the online admission fee payment, he was angry at his father’s decision “Why did you have to refuse treatment at the government hospital? After all you’ve done for them, free of cost, for all these days, giving you free treatment was the least they could have done,” he fumed.

Lying in bed, too tired in body and mind to argue, Amar could only cut the call. After a few minutes, he called Lata and told her to make sure the payment was made. He cautioned both of them to stay under home quarantine, and not go out for any reason whatsoever.

Lying in the hospital, Amar felt frustrated to think that he wasn’t out in the field, helping combat the deadly disease. But as the team doctor had insisted, he had to now focus on his own health. Luckily for Amar, his diagnosis had come early. Also, thanks to his naturally robust constitution and the fact that he did not suffer from any other ailments, his recovery was rapid.

Amar was discharged from the hospital and ready to go home. As he made the short journey, he saw signs of the town limping back to normal life. Traffic was still light, though, and there weren’t too many people on the street either. As he walked to his house, it was midday. Yet, he could hear the chirping of the birds and squeaking of squirrels – sounds he hadn’t heard for ages in this city.

Lata opened the door to Amar’s knock, and from the strained look on her face, he could see the toll things had taken on her. Travel restrictions had been eased, so their son had gone to work, and it was only the old couple who sat down to lunch.

“After that dreary hospital food, this tastes really delicious,” grinned Amar.

Refusing to rise to the bait, Lata had only a tremulous smile in reply.

After lunch, Amar took a stroll through the walking area that skirted their apartment complex. His phone beeped with WhatsApp messages. Two of them. One he simply glanced at and sent a reply saying, “OK.” The other one made him stop. Surprisingly, it came from Lata. Reading it, Amar threw back his head and laughed out loud, surprising the passersby.

It was the same old picture about “half salary and double husband,” but Lata had appended it with a little message of her own. “I’ll take double husband any day over no husband!”

Still smiling, Amar walked into his home, wondering how best to break the news to Lata. He had agreed to attend a Helping Hands meeting tomorrow. 

After all, isn’t it true that in all our lives, sooner or later, there comes a turning point? We change, and then, we can never return to what we were before.
How did you feel reading this story? Waiting to hear from you! By the way, the prompt for this month was "Translation" and the word count was 2500 words. I kept this last bit of info till the end to make sure the high word count didn't scare any readers/drive them away from the story ;-)