THE OUTSIDER

The angry sunlight woke him up after a listless tired sleep which was quite unusual for Chami especially when he had the smoothening company of a young lady’s body inside the mortuary under lock and key .He sniffed the early mornings air and felt the hang over easing .The hospital was slowly coming back to life and the early bells for the days milk from the kitchen brought forth a flurry of patients and bystanders alike forming the first queue of the day. He strolled over to the make shift hotel shed after shaking back to life .the hospital security and had his morning strong free tea which made him feel that all was well in this world of his .The night duty doctor and the night staff were eagerly returning home after the change of baton .Chami smiled at them wondering why they looked so tired even though the night duty as usual was light with 3 admissions 4 casualities, 2 deliveries and 1 death, since it was a 150 bedded hospital though the census showed only 72 patients . He lighted the Kaja beedi and felt the first surge of nicotine clearing his brain and surveyed the already bright cloudless sky and uttered “damn”.Why had he forgot about the Body in his unofficial custody, brought by P.C 125 from Sreekrishnapuram police station yesterday night and left as usual handing him a bottle of Nadan. Chami even remembered two howls from the mortuary in the dead of night which he ignored .conveniently .
Chami was a pure breed Indian ,even you can classify him under the label ADIDRAVIDAN .He looked tall for his 5 ft, lean , pitch black or bright black sturdy body and yellowish teeth gleaming in a smallpox scarred face beautifullised by a 2 inch round swelling in the right cheek, an outward squint of left eye and astonishingly black unruly hair . But nobody knew his age which according to the oldest staff ranged anywhere between 60 to 80. When somebody had the guts to ask him he laughed aside and declared I was born with the hospital .He had no parents to claim nor any relatives to bother, literally a ‘son of the soil’ . but he had a home that was the postmortem shed through which he learned the harsh realities of life and death and hence his life was a celebration unadulterated by money which was a piece of paper and he never needed any since the mortuary provided him all his needs without the paper roll.He was no hospital staff appointed by the P.S.C or even the employment exchange.Yes he was a voluntary staff with no pension benefits or casual leaves or fringe benefits neither PAY, leave alone under table dealings ..He worked since he liked the work and he was master of himself and even the Superintendent respected him for his blank sincerity to job on hand .In fact he was an institution unto himself .
He had mastered the art of undertaker from an old orderlie who had taken an undue interest on the young lad and spotting his talent in the art of managing the un-naturally dead yet human bodies, gradually tutored him to the finesse of the game including the stitching part which he was not supposed to do under article203 of the constitution since he was not a paid servant so to say.But he excelled and enjoyed getting back to shape the dis membered clients either iatrogenic or that due to accident . More over his master taught him that the’ dead should be given more respect and care than the living’ ,which though didn’t make any sense to him when the guru said,but over years that became his moola mantra once he knew about the’ alive dead’ .Thus the boy thrown to the dust bin by the society became one of the rarest but truly needed gem of the same old society and never looked back and his mentor at the time of retirement blessed him”You are in a noble profession and never shirk duty to the DEAD since they need you “.
What upset Chami was the way this society treated him in return for the thankless job , Atleast once in 4 or 5 months he had to face the ultimate challenge ,I mean ,the 5 day and above degenerated bodies covered with layers and layers of white maggots totally engulfing the body [In a sense, the time of death was ascertained in forensic medicine by the age and growth of these maggots ], obliterating the identity even the gender of the body, leave alone the cause of death. Once such a body was brought in nobody kith or kin , the doctor or the orderlies dared to come to the mortuary and Chamy will be the ultimate coroner rincing the body with kerosene and petrol to get rid of the worms and most often a futile work. After some how finishing the work which the eagles wont dare, he used to announce the probable cause of death to the duty doctor who stood miles away . At other times the police brought the body in different multiple containers each one supposed to contain either a severed head or badly mashed up limbs usually after a train had the grace to pass over a poor man sleeping or crossing intentionally or accidentally on a railway track and Chami had to work overtime to bring him back to a semblance of a human being.All these he did without any complaints though,occasionally he cursed the Gods on the clients behalf .But what did the society did in its turn? . It never gave him the PADMA awards which he truly deserved,not even a decent citizens rights were given to him . To this day he had no ration card,no identity card nor was he in the electoral rolls of this great country .In return he was looked up on as an out caste and even the canteen people had a separate glass for him and the little children beat a hasty retreat on his sight . Some people jested that he emitted the smell of death when passed by .Chami never bothered about or was resigned to this public response .But what upset him most was when a doctor ordered a coffee to him and noting the urgency in his voice Chami ran to the canteen and after much heckling got a really hot coffee for the respected doctor and hurriedly brought it personally and was astonished and crest fallen to note the coffee being emptied on the wash basin and heard the great man ordering for nother cup through nother orderlie .This did not happen decades back nor some where in a remote village in Bihar but in 2004 in the land of Parasurama famous for the Punnapra wayalar struggle and the famous Vaikkom struggle of the great Mahatma against untouchability .In short he was given the staus half way between the LIVING AND THE DEAD.
He smelled trouble this morning since his left upper lid has started twitching and wanted to convey the same to the superintendent whose morning arrival was signalled by the scootie’s indicator music,but the man’s glowing smile, eventhough everybody knew was contrived,couldn’t resist it . H e went to order the first of many teas to follow .The mortuary by this time had its first few relatives to cater, waiting eagerly for the P.C who was yet to arrive for the initiation of the ordeals of postmortem . Chami concealed his smile since he knew that atleast sun has to go up for nother 2 hrs before the P.C to arrive and another hour or more before the duty doctor will appear that too only if some political dwarfs intervened .He casually walked over to the eagerly awaiting crowd ,sized them up twice before he could spot the prey in the crowd and asked him to follow to the shades of the banyan tree , witness to so many similar scenes being enacted everyday and it sighed in dejection.
Chami was a skilled counsellor in these matters and unlike those greedy govt. servants enlightened the poor man as to how to proceed in such complicated procedures and gave a brief in a simple language which only the poor could grasp without embarrassing him. He took out his diary from his knickers lifting his lungis and presented him with a long roll of ribbon like paper in which was listed out 23 essential items written neatly with a pencil [ofcourse Chami had n’t the time to learn the nuances of the written language,but at any time carried around five copies written out courtsy the security staff],the most prominent among them were 1. 3 glass bottles with .5 kg salt in one 2. 1 packet of agarbathy preferably the CYCLE brand .3 . 1 LUX soap. 4. twine thread 1 roll .5. 3 full scape blank paper and 2 carbon papers[for the rough notes of P.M. to be noted by the doctor .6 .one ball point pen . 7. 2 mundus 8. 1 long needle 9. 3 disposable gloves 10. 1 packet of candle sticks 11. 3 full bottles of country arrack 12. 1 packet of blades preferably 7 0 clock 13. 1 litre of kerosene[for extremely degenerated bodies, not a must] and so on the list goes to the extent of 2 large plastic buckets of water when there is water shortage in the hospital . In fact Chamy never accepted money even if offered but preferred the country liquor and a parcel of chicken biriyani .Once the details regarding the George kutties for the khaki uniformed and the white uniformed orderlies were worked out not forgetting the higher ups in the profession Chami felt tired and went for the well earned rest since he had to be FIT after the doctor finishes his work .
Today true to his intuition everything went wrong. As soon as the mortuary door was opened by the P.C to show the body to a late arrived relative the kith and kin, they were astonished to see acres of skin missing from the left leg and the right side of the forehead with part of one eye missing in action .The crowd charged to the supdt’s office baying for his life and soon cornered the man . The Supdt unable to escape, heard their story and pretending utter coolness asked the councilor who was in front” “But the body is there,no?.2 month’s back we had a case where in a dog was spotted running with the right lower limb in it’s mouth and it took Chami nearly 1 hr to retrieve the same .Thank God,this is only a trivial matter and I will ask Chami to do the needful and your body will be handed over back more charming than ever .Any way I will go in to the matter and the culprit whether it’s a dog ,cat ,or rat will be punished. I had infact constituted a three member commission after the last tragedy yes !three sitting ,standing or about to die Judges with beautiful secretaries but pending their report 4 secretaries of state have been deputed to a two week tour of Europian nations to report on the security measures to be taken to prevent a future attack by a man eater “..Thus pacified the crowd retreated back
Chami hung his head in shame and two tears sank back in to his eyes .Yes he had heard the two howls in the dead of night and had done nothing to save his victim He felt miserable and wanted to resign even though he was not eligible for the same since he was not a govt employee. Not even a minister . And duty beckoned him and soon after the duty doctor had left after postmortem he spend an agonizing extra one hour resetting the body like a plastic surgeon and with deft hands which was an envy of the present general surgeon managed to hide the deformity to a large extent . and handed over the body to a visibly relieved crowd .The job at hand being over he returned to the shades of the banyan tree and emptied the whole full bottle in a single gulp and threw away the biriyani parcel in utter disgust .He was soon lost in sleep in which the angels of death danced to his delight ..