’’I met a big learned pujari who said I had a sau mein ek patrika [a rare horoscope], that I’d be a success, will live long & would go abroad..... but even if he was talking rubbish it does not matter because I know that I will become known in my field’’ Aruna Shanbhag, a ambitious & dynamic 25-year-old girl with a fulfilling profession uttered these words whilst talking to her cousin about her plans to pursue her dreams of studying abroad. Little did she know that what waits for her is something so unimaginable, a future so horrid that even the best of pujari wouldn’t look forward to predicting!
Soon she was to be cortically blind & without speech, she would lose the use of her limbs & the control of her muscles. Her brain would be partially dead but a part of her brain as a sly survivor would be alive, this part would also experience pain.... she would suffer from atrophying bones, the joints at her fingers, her wrists, knees, ankles would bent inwards & to try straightening them would cause her pain. She would suffer emotional trauma, so much that it would result in inappropriate laughter & bouts of screaming. Her memory & most of her other mental faculties would also be gone. Aruna would continue to live in this neither-alive-nor-dead existence, reacting to stimuli yet unable to otherwise communicate..... she has now been like this for the past 30 years.
Aruna’s ki kahani
The story of Aruna Shanbhag, begins at KEM hospital where she is working as a staff nurse. Focused, eager to learn & efficient with her work she has excellent prospects of working her way to the top in her chosen field. She has chosen this career defying her family & has bravely achieved her dreams in a new city, without any influences. Unlike the seedhi saadi village belles Aruna is frank & fastidious in temperament, a senior nurse nicknamed her as Chatak Chandni [a little moon, whose rays can give an electric shock] while her room mate called her a good hearted girl but with a ’’muscle in her mouth’’! Being pretty to look at, it doesn’t take long for Aruna to attract the eligible doctors in her work place, one of whom she falls in love with & the two decide to get married.
Aruna has recently been posted in the dog surgery research laboratory, where Sohanlal a temporary cleaner often behaves arrogantly, he is rough with the dogs, dragging them along with their chains & he also steals the dog food. As she is responsible for the department Aruna doesn’t hesitate to pinpoint Sohanlal’s mistakes, warns him to keep to his limits or he would lose his job. Despite several warnings Sohanlal continues with his behaviour & also ill talks about Aruna, leaving her no choice but to report him to her senior. Just around the same time she also announces her wedding plans & her going on a leave. The very same evening Sohanlal decides to take his revenge on the bride to be. As he attacked & raped her, he also choked her with a dog chain cutting off oxygen supply to parts of her brain thus depriving her not only her dignity but of the power to express herself or to live a normal life.
As she slips into coma & struggles to survive, Sohanlal is convicted but just for a seven-year concurrent sentence for assault & robbery. Had he been convicted for rape Sohanlal would have to serve a 10-year sentence too. However, the KEM doctors did not report the crime to the police, to spare Aruna & her fiancé the pain of such a public exposure, as they were to be married soon. To make matters worse for Aruna, her family is not supportive at all, even to the extent of refusing to hand over her case to the hospital. The only people who come to her aid are her colleagues & staff of KEM, who till date continue to look after the 55 year old permanently bed-ridden Aruna.
Yes, Aruna Shanbhag became well known in her field, after her tragedy India faced it’s first nurse’s strike demanding protection & proper treatment for Aruna with better working conditions in Bombay’s municipal hospitals.
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The Author/Book:
Journalist Pinki Virani is the author of three books -- Aruna’s Story, Once was Bombay & Bitter Chocolate - all of which are nonfiction books confronting uncomfortable subjects. In her note she tells us about the reason of why she decided to carry this ’assignment of 75, 000 words’; after a stupendous response to her little article about the rape victim, Virani was asked to write more about Aruna. Unsure of how she would get the details after so many years, she set out to investigate further & on learning that the rapist didn’t even serve for rape, Virani decided to recreate this real life tragedy of Aruna’s brutalization, through painstaking & relentless research. It was also decided that half the royalties from the book will go towards Aruna’s continued care & treatment & after her death, to a nursing school.
The book is structured into three segments where in the first segment Virani with her imagination narrates the horrendous incident with utmost care as not to make it into a bollywood rape scene that we all are so accustomed to by now. Thereafter we read the immediate repercussions in vivid details of how she was found, what she went through & a mind-blowing account of everyone’s reaction to her tragedy!
The second segment takes us back to Aruna’s early adulthood, this is where the reader gets to know the real Aruna; her personality, ambitions, her dreams & even her faults. Even as she reprimands the sweeper she herself is not ’obeying’ her superiors when she ignores their order not to use the dog laboratory change her uniform because it was conveniently close, unlike the regular nurses’ room. When her matron wonders if Aruna has been punished by God or is paying for her past life crimes, the reader is appalled because Aruna is just a normal human, who have tendencies to flout rules but surely she doesn’t deserve such a punishment for a minor mistake where people who have committed far worse crime make a clean getaway. With the imaginary dialogues between senior & young nurses, Virani tries to tell a warning tale to the young working women who may face personal dangers due to their behaviour, which would be perceived as ’’brashness’’ in the male world. Even though most of the conversations & descriptions come from the author’s imagination, Virani appears to be partial to some characters like Dr. Sardesai who finally abandons Aruna to marry elsewhere & one can sense her intense hate for Sohanlal, given his ghastly description [comparing him to an animal with the glittering eyes] makes one wonder if this hate was the reason there is no report on what happened to Sohanlal after his release.
The final segment talks more about the present situation, of the decay of the medical profession, hospital management & society. Here the book also looks in several issues from rape, the safety of working women to class-n-caste conflict & even euthanasia where Virani seems to wonder if Aruna was better off dead than to be in this continuous non-living state.
Aruna’s Story is simple yet gripping & thought provoking. It makes an interesting read, especially where it is peppered with lively anecdotes showing Aruna’s relation with her colleagues & her lover. It is evident that Virani has put her heart-n-soul in this book & if she could she would surely put life back in Aruna.
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