A government hospital is where you see people managing their own health with very limited resources. In the scorching summer heat, they move from one ward to another — carrying a patient's IV set, pushing a stretcher along the road. When I witnessed this, it felt like a complete nightmare to me. And yet, there was no grudge. They were bound by duty, knowing that failure could mean losing a breadwinner, a mother, a father, a cousin, or their own child. They kept their faith in God and the system — even while knowing that the system has multiple loopholes.
I was posted in OPD 16 in the Physiotherapy — Neuro department. One senior citizen, who had been a driver in his younger days, suffered a stroke that left half of his body non-functional. With no mental, emotional, or financial support, still showing up alone for his own treatment on a government bus — that is literally hitting a six off destiny's ball. You can only stand there and cheer.
There were many like him — a pregnant mother, a young man who had to remove his engagement ring because someone had already decided to move on, a sole breadwinner of the family. Sometimes I felt like I hadn't counted them as fully human, because I believed these problems could never happen to me. But these people are champions on a battlefield that I had never even seen before.
"It reminded me of what Krishna said —"
सुखदुःखे समे कृत्वा लाभालाभौ जयाजयौ।
ततो युद्धाय युज्यस्व नैवं पापमवाप्स्यसि॥
Treat pleasure and pain as equal, gain and loss as equal, victory and defeat as equal — and then go forth and fight. In doing so, you shall incur no sin.