This time he was a free man. So, all crime reporters were waiting for Bunty at the Lodhi Road Police Station on Thursday. I was the odd one out. I had met Bunty a year ago when we managed to meet him in the prison. I had given him my number then.
Bunty walked in. He looked at me. Then he said "chinki?"
I hollered "Bunty Chor"
And that was all that was needed. I spoke to him for a few minutes. He said he wanted to be good again. I said it is good to be good again. He asked me if I had cut my hair. I said a little. He said he remembered me. He asked for my number. I scribbled it on a piece of paper and handed it to him. Maybe I will see him again.
An edited version appeared in the Indian Express on Friday, June 25, 2010.
Chinki Sinha
New Delhi, June 24, 2010
From the futuristic submarine he had wanted to build, the one that would also crisscross the skies last year when he gave his imagination a free run, Bunty Chor aka Devender Sharma, now 39, after he was released from Tihar Jail last week, is now hopping on to the city buses, trying to start afresh. He is a nobody now. From the madman who rambled about having been to heaven and how peaceful it was compared to the cramped quarters of the jail where he thought everyone was out to get him, Bunty is now saner but a worried man.
The lovable, suave thief who ruled imagination, and even inspired film scripts like Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!, a movie that chronicled his whimsical style, is looking for a regular job, anything that would help him lead a straight life.
“ It's not easy. But at least it is not as bad as jail. I am happy to be a free man again,” he said. “I just need a chance.”
As he walked into the Lodhi Road Police Station on Thursday evening, he didn't look like his former self. At Tihar, when we had met him last year, he had looked shrunken, his collarbones were prominent, his eyes sunken. Here he was in his bleached hair, a red cap and a matching red Polo T shirt and blue jeans. His brother's gift, he said.
But his brother Balvinder Singh said he didn't buy him the clothes. He said he didn't want to keep his brother. Not after the family attempted to try to reform him twice earlier.
“ We can't keep him anymore. He always runs away,” he said. “I don't know where he is staying. Probably at the police station itself. But no, our doors are closed for him.”
Ever since he was released, Bunty, a Class IX dropout, has been coming to the police station hoping the man who nabbed him in 2002 and 2007, the cop who understood him and who he confided in telling him about all his exploits, his weaknesses, would help him lead a straight life. But for the cop, who can't stop talking about the unusual thief, it is like walking on a tightrope. In 2006, Bunty had promised him he would stop stealing and live an honest life. After he was released from jail in 2006, when he promised Singh he would lead a straight life. But after cars being stolen were reported from Defence Colony and Malviya Nagar in south Delhi, SHO Rajinder Singh knew it could be none other than Bunty. He was later arrested from a house in Noida. It had been a dramatic episode. The police broke into the house but not before Bunty had called the Police Control Room saying some goons had got into his house. The two sets of police argued and it took sometime for Singh to convince them how the suave looking man who had pictures of his wife and children displayed all over the house was indeed a conman and the photos were of another man's wife. Finally, Bunty was arrested. He had given the police a slip thrice before.
Singh still swears by Bunty's good and moral character. He said he is not a violent man. When he had arrested him, the super chor asked him not to slap him, he had asked for a chair and like a respectable man, admitted to his wrongs. More than Rs. 5 crore worth of goods were recovered from his instance. Later it was all distributed.
Leaning against the chair in his office, Singh’s eyes wander. He is waiting waiting for Bunty. Earlier in the day, Bunty called him and said he would be coming to meet him. Bunty is now staying with his elder brother in Vikaspuri. His family had first denied him saying they didn't want him to return. His tag of a thief would not rid of so easily.
Bunty was released from Tihar on May 30 and was then taken to the Amritsar Central Jail and released finally on June 14. He had already served three years in Tihar's Jail No. 4, a high security prison, for burglary and theft. He had at least 550 cases against him. Most of them were cases of unusual theft – a parrot, cutlery, a little dog who caught his fancy.
“ Bunty had a typical style. He stole only what he liked,” he said. “Girls loved him. He was in love and that's what led to his mental state. The girl is now married. Bunty when he came back tried to meet her but I guess she refused.”
The clock struck 4:30 p.m. Bunty had said he would be at the police station by 3 p.m.
“ This is his test. But I know he will come,” Singh said.
At 5 p.m. Bunty walked in. He was on the bus. It took time, he said.
“ For a man who drove expensive cars, even owned one that he fitted with gadgets, this is proof enough that he is trying hard to be good,” Singh said.
On Jun 15, a day after he paid the Rs. 2000 fine imposed by a sessions court in Amritsar, Bunty called Rajinder Singh. He wanted to meet him. The same day, Bunty Chor walked in with a little bag. He looked worn out. Singh got him a pair of shirt and trousers, then fed him lunch. For fours hours, the thief and the cop who had put him behind bars spoke about his life, his recovery from the mental illness, and his future.
That night Bunty stayed at the police station. He had nowhere to go. On the following night, he spent the night at his friend's house.
The Lodhi road police station is not new to former convicts staying and helping out with chores. Twenty-one-year old Abdul Wahab ,who was arrested for burglary after he ran away from Gujarat, is now an errand boy at the police station. The police officials are helping the young man with his studies, contributing to pay his fees. In return, Wahad runs errands for them.
But with Bunty, it isn't easy. He is an intelligent thief and you got to be cautious, Singh said.
“ He is trying to reform. But we are watching him. I am trying to get him some sort of a job but it is difficult given his reputation,” he said.
Singh has been approaching his friends, acquaintances, anyone to help out Bunty. He feels he has a responsibility towards the thief who wants to live a decent life.
“ My only worry is that if he doesn't get anything soon, he may turn to burglary again and that would not be good for us and the society,” he said. “I hope somebody would come forward.”
In fact it was Singh who called Bunty's elder brother asking him to give Bunty a second chance. The man was trying to make amends, he said.
All that Bunty had amassed is no longer there. He was duped by his friend, and then his lawyer, Singh said.
“ He has nothing,” he said.
Nobody will confirm where Bunty is staying. Bunty said he is living with his brother and would be helping out with his spare parts business but his brother denies the story.
Bunty had once told Singh he could help out a private detective agency, or assist the police with cracking burglary crimes. Now, he wants to get a passport and drive cabs in Japan. But he can't get a passport or a visa. He is having trouble getting a driving license with all his past records, Singh said.
“ Someone at some point will have to trust the man. Someone will have to give him a chance,” Singh said. “Maybe Dibakar Banerjee should compensate him. At least he could start some business with him. They made a story on his life. The crew came to my office to do research. They even went to meet Bunty in Tihar.”
Bunty said he would like the director to acknowledge him, maybe give him a role in one of his movies.
But then the man's past has already paved his future path with doubts.
“ What is the guarantee? We are extending help. Where is the process of rehabilitation? We think he doesn't want to indulge in crime. But who can be sure,” Singh said.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Miracle babies
Sitting in the hospital waiting for Bhateri Devi, the oldest mother to give birth to triplets at 66 years, my stomach churned when I saw her drag herself towards the ICU to feed the babies who are premature.
We had been to Jind earlier in the day to meet Rajo Devi Lohan who is the oldest mother in the world to give birth to a girl. In 2008, at 70, she delivered a baby girl at the same clinic.
It is a health hazard for these women. Regulations must be put in place before it becomes a popular trend.
We left for Haryana early morning to track thee women down and to understand why they go for the IVF at such an advanced age.
An edited version of the story appeared in the Sunday Express on June 20 in Section 2.
Chinki Sinha
Hisar, Jind
A little plastic baby doll in a swing smiles from the ceiling of the lobby at the National Fertility Clinic in Hisar. It is the sum total of the desires, the aspirations of the couples that walk in tempted by the promise of the IVF – pro-creation. Age isn't a restrictive force here. Motherhood is a limitless opportunity.
It transcends all barriers – infertility, age, situation in life. The plastic baby's arms are stretched out, the smile on its lips is permanent. It seduces the women, the men alike. The dangers, the complications then fade away, they get filtered out. What remains is the urge to procreate, to hold and rock the baby just like the baby that sits and smiles from the swing above. In this space, there is no getting into the right or wrong debate. It is only about demand, and the muchness of it.
National Fertility Centre was established in 2000 in Hisar by Gyanwati Bishnoi, a gynecologist. In ten years, the numbers of couples coming in for IVF has gone up exponentially. From a mere four or five couples, now the centre has more than 100 couples flocking to it per month hoping they can give birth despite all odds.
This is where Bhateri Devi came too. Twice the doctors transferred two embryos in her uterus. But it didn't work. In the third attempt, they transferred three embryos. All of those fertilized. At 66, Bhateri Devi from Satrod in Haryana became the oldest woman to give birth to triplets. She suffered. She went on the ventilator, she bled excessively. But the triplets were born. Complications were forgotten. In her village, everyone is waiting. For years she suffered the taunts, and she lived with the tag of being barren. Now, she proved to herself and to everyone else that she could have children too. Motherhood wasn't going to elude her.
National Fertility Centre is probably the only IVF clinic in the country that has the reputation of being the only centre where women of any age can go and conceive successfully. In its reception area, newspaper clippings adorn the walls. Boastful clippings from local media and national newspapers are everywhere. There's the miracle story of the 70-year-old Rajo Devi Lohan from Alewa in Jind who gave birth to a daughter in 2008. According to Dr. Anurag Bishnoi,Gyanwati's son and an embryologist, she is the brand ambassador of IVF in India. She is the oldest mother to give birth in the world at 70 years. Two years later, Rajo Devi's miracle tale dictates the directions to her village in Jind. There is the happy picture of Inder Devi who also gave birth to triplets at the age of 48 in 2007. Across the waiting area, the is Chameli Devi holding her twins she gave birth to in 2007 at 58. The story in the newspaper charted her painful survival and her miraculous achievement despite high blood pressure.
Almost all the stories about the elderly women trying the IVF as the last recourse to escape the stigma of being barren and not producing an heir, a must for a wedded wife, have a similar narrative. Their husbands married twice, thrice even desperate to get a child. Chameli Devi, the doting mother in the three-column picture, was her husband's second wife. From Santo Devi, his first wife, he wasn't able to produce an heir. So he married again. But Chameli Devi was unable to bear him children too. Then the couple discovered IVF and all was well, the narrative ran.
For Bishnoi, the criticisms that it is a health hazard for women at an advanced age to produce babies and that the doctor is acting immoral by helping them as it produces dysfunctional families where the child might be orphaned after a few years, are baseless. That the baby would be rendered motherless and fatherless too soon is not what is his call. He is only doing what is asked of him.
“That you should ask the families that want to go for this,” he says. “I am doing it because we can and it is what they want. There is a demand for it. We have the technology. We are doing it.”
A social change is in the works and this is what it is. Nothing less of a revolution, a change that is for the good. The IVF is the solution to the ills of the society. The rising numbers of people who are resorting to this technique is an indicator of its success and its relevance, he says. “It is changing the conservative thinking that women should be blamed for the problem. The attitude is changing. Every woman should have a child,”
Bhadur Ram, 60, sat hunched in the waiting area of the centre. He came from Hanumangarh in Rajasthan with his wife and neighbors to the centre hoping for a miracle. Nothing less than that, he said. He married twice but none of his wives could conceive. The second wife Lilawati is much younger than him. But at 40 years, it is like swimming against the tide if you hoped to conceive naturally, he said, his neighbour translating for him. As Lilawati waited inside for the tests, Bhadur Ram was suspended between hope and dejection. He had tried the shammams and the babas who promised healthy children in exchange for sacrifices and rituals, doctors who prescribed pills – red, green, yellow, blue. Nothing worked. Then, he found out how other women in his town had got pregnant despite being pronounced as infertile. It was the IVF. He bought into it. For Rs. 90,000 for the first injection, it was expensive but he would do it.
At first, the IVF when it was introduced in India as the other option was not a popular recourse. But over the years, its success in a society where stigma about childless women in deeply entrenched has permeated the economic stratas, the rural-urban divide, and the inhibition of the people. It has cut through the barriers. It is the the miraculous cure, the best gift of science to them.
“At first they looked down upon the IVF. They thought it was never clear if the father was the real father. But now having read in the newspapers about the older women successfully giving births, I know this is the option for us,” he said. “I don't want to die without having babies. I have to leave something of me behind. An heir, and a name.”
Bishnoi, who joined his mother's centre soon after he finished his medical training, says.
“You know they tell me that panchayats here now tell the man to try IVF when he approaches them for permission to marry for s second or a third time because his wife is unable to bear him children. Now panchayats interfere. IVF is heralding in a change that's positive. This is showing to a man-dominated world that money can be spent on women's treatment and that they should be given a chance before being relegated to the second position. Now the societies are accepting that there are techniques and they are worth trying.”
He says they don't guarantee that all women who come to them will be able to bear children. “We can tell them results are good,” he says.
More than 20 percent of the women that come to the centre for IVF are above 50 years of age. Around 40 percent of them are in their 40s and the rest are less than 35 years of age. Yet another doctor in Hisar where there are two IVF clinics disapproved of the centre's practice. Govind Fertility and Research Centre came up in Hisar three years after the National Fertility Centre was founded. But Dr. Manju Khurana said they never encourage women more than 40 years of age to go for IVF.
“It is about right and wrong. You can play God. There is technology available but with technology there is the question of responsibility,” she said. “What kind of a family it will be. Imagine the child who will have to grow up knowing their parents are not there for long. It is a very selfish thing. It also has initiated a dangerous trend. Complications can happen at that age. The government must intervene, set up a cut-off age, an upper age limit. The guidelines are ready and they will be submitted soon. I guess the age we have proposed is around 45 or 50 years. This isn't healthy. See, IVF is a positive thing like ultrasound. But look at the flip side of ultrasound when it started being used to determine the sex of the baby. Then the government cracked down on the clinics that did it. Something like that must be done with regards to IVF, too. At the bottom of it all, it is a question of right or wrong. You can do it but should you do it. That's the question we must ask ourselves.”
In Haryana, there are around six or seven IVF clinics. In the country, there are more than 150. The first IVF centres were established in Jaipur, Delhi and Mumbai in 1991. Then these centres mushroomed everywhere spanning rural, semi-urban and metropolitan cities. One has come up in Bhatinda in Punjab. But a lot of people desirous of having a child still flock to the National Fertility Centre because of the success stories. There are no regulations for IVF that exist in India currently. This is the baby boom of a different kind.
Anyone can become a mother. The test tube baby has arrived and infertility can no longer subdue their spirits, their being. No longer will they have to live with the tags – barren, infertile, un-woman like, a traitor to her husband and her species. For the women, it is the ultimate dream, the eventual fulfillment. After all they were created for a purpose. That they should procreate is what the God mandated. The technology is only the means to that end. Nothing is without God's will. This is what he has willed, Bhateri Devi's husband Deva Singh said.
“She told me even if she dies while doing it, it is worth the try,” he said. “It was Bhateri who asked me to marry twice. My children are beautiful.” Deva Singh promised Bhateri the world for the children. He bought her gold bangles, he said. “She can ask me for anything,” he said. “She has given me what I yearned for all these years.”
***
In creating life, Bhateri Devi started to lose her own grip on it. Blood gushed out. It just won't stop. Breathing came in spurts on the night of May 29 when the 66-year-old mother gave birth to triplets in Hisar in northern Haryana.
At the National Fertility & Test Tube Baby Centre, they moved her to the ICU for the night. She was on the ventilator but she survived, her husband said.
Bhateri Devi who set a world record for being the oldest mother to give birth to triplets bled through the night and days after.
Yet another operation and she survived. The bleeding stopped eventually. But it took its toll.
As she walked to the intensive care unit of the Java Hospital in Hisar where the triplets weighing 1.2 kilogram, 1.1 kilogram and 780 grams are kept, to feed the babies, she almost dragged herself. Her face , wrinkled and crumpled as rivulets of sweat ran down her cheeks, looked haggard.
Outside in the hospital's lobby, a crowd of scribes and locals had gathered to see her. A celebrity now, Bhateri Devi lashed out at the media. She doesn't want the attention. She already went through a lot.
On the night of the operation, she was moved to the ICU. She had difficulty in breathing and according to doctors, she was on the ventilator. But the triplets emerged one after the other. All three embryos that were implanted in her uterus fertilized. Bhupinder, Isha and Bhupesh are premature babies born one-and-a-half months before they were due. Every two hours, Bhateri Devi goes inside the ICU where the triplets are lying in an incubator along with several IVF babies, to feed her children hoping they gain weight fast and she can return to Satrod, her village, and celebrate. That would also mean more loans. Already her husband took out a loan of Rs. 7 lakhs from a cooperative bank in Hisar mortgaging his land. It was all worth it, he said.
He saw the triplets once. He cried when the doctor at the National Fertility Clinic told him the babies had arrived. He had waited for a child for 48 years.
“We put everything at risk. This is god's wish,” he said, sitting inside the Room no. 104 at the child care centre in Hisar. His phone rang constantly. Relatives had been camping at his house, waiting for the children to come home.
Not that Bhateri Devi didn't anticipate the dangers. The couple knew their third attempt was a huge risk. No, the doctors at the clinic didn't tell them what the operation involved. They conducted the tests, said Bhateri could conceive and that was it. At the same clinic, the couple had tried conceiving twice before. But they weren't lucky. In the third attempt, the doctors transferred three embryos.
God was more than willing, Deva Singh, 70, said.
“Children are important. I hope I live until 100 to see them grow up,” he said.
Deva Singh, her husband, who married thrice so he could produce children, was a little nervous at first.
But the temptation overrode any concerns. At least nobody would taunt him in the village saying the couple was unable to produce children, that they didn't have an heir. Adoption was never an option for them. They wanted their own blood and flesh no matter what it cost – lives, limbs, anything. In yet another village, a 72-year-old woman is trying to hold on to life. The house in Alewa in Jind is a landmark. This is where the miracle happened. A pair of pink sandals with Cindrella's pictures was brought in by the visitors who haven't stopped coming to the house. Upstairs, in a closet, boxes of new clothes and toys are piled up. All are gifts. Rajo Devi holds the little fingers of her 18-month-old daughter Naveena, almost grips them. She isn't prepared to let go.
Rajo Devi Lohan who gave birth at the age of 70 years also went to the National Fertility Centre. But she developed complications. Two months ago, she started to bleed again. The couple went in for another operation recently. The bleeding has stopped but the woman is too weak. She tires too soon. A couple of years ago, a neighbour had brought in a newspaper clipping about the success of the centre. It even mentioned the women who had successfully given birth at an advanced age in Uchana. So Baba Ram, 75, went with Rajo Devi and his second wife Omni who he married because Rajo couldn't bear children, to Uchana. They were convinced and then the three went to the National Fertility Centre in Hisar.
Omni, who is Rajo's younger sister, had high blood pressure so the doctors said she couldn't. But Rajo could. They didn't warn them about the complications that could develop later or during the birth.
“We only go ahead in cases where the women are strong and healthy. We do thorough check-ups and then allow,” Dr. Bishnoi said.
Naveen was born in November 2008. The father sold off his buffaloes, his cart, and mortgaged his land. It cost him around Rs. 5 lakhs. They threw a grand party where guests from neighbouring villages came. Almost 2,500 guests ate at the celebration, Baba Ram says.
“Blood is thicker than anything. I am against adoption. The child is not your own. He will not take care of you,” he says. “I know we are old. But Omni is there. She can take care of her when we are gone. We have relatives who can do that. The child is a toy. We play with her the whole day.”
Two years later, the debt hasn't been repaid. Rs. 50,000 is remaining. But the family is planning on a grand birthday celebration again on Naveen's second birthday. After Rajo Devi's miracle feat, a biological wonder, two other women in their forties also went to the Hisar centre but weren't able to conceive. Baba Ram waited for almost 40 years for a child. Now, he wants to live till eternity. Rajo Devi wanted to go for a second child through IVF. The couple wanted a boy. But then complications developed and the uterus had to be removed.
“We can die sitting here only. The fear of death shouldn't stop you from trying for a child,” Rajo Devi says. “I am happy I could do this before I died.”
The anguish of living in a village where people referred to you as the family that didn't have children was gone. It was a relief. Baba Ram's sperm was fused with an anonymous donor's egg. But it was in her uterus that it began to take shape. It was hers. It emerged from her.
“The baby belongs to the uterus,” Bishnoi says. “This has been happening for years. Only now people are able to admit it because awareness about IVF has increased.”
As the child suckled at her breast, Rajo Devi's face lit up. A few moments later, she collapsed on the bed. The daughter ran around her. But her frail fingers had already lost their grip.
We had been to Jind earlier in the day to meet Rajo Devi Lohan who is the oldest mother in the world to give birth to a girl. In 2008, at 70, she delivered a baby girl at the same clinic.
It is a health hazard for these women. Regulations must be put in place before it becomes a popular trend.
We left for Haryana early morning to track thee women down and to understand why they go for the IVF at such an advanced age.
An edited version of the story appeared in the Sunday Express on June 20 in Section 2.
Chinki Sinha
Hisar, Jind
A little plastic baby doll in a swing smiles from the ceiling of the lobby at the National Fertility Clinic in Hisar. It is the sum total of the desires, the aspirations of the couples that walk in tempted by the promise of the IVF – pro-creation. Age isn't a restrictive force here. Motherhood is a limitless opportunity.
It transcends all barriers – infertility, age, situation in life. The plastic baby's arms are stretched out, the smile on its lips is permanent. It seduces the women, the men alike. The dangers, the complications then fade away, they get filtered out. What remains is the urge to procreate, to hold and rock the baby just like the baby that sits and smiles from the swing above. In this space, there is no getting into the right or wrong debate. It is only about demand, and the muchness of it.
National Fertility Centre was established in 2000 in Hisar by Gyanwati Bishnoi, a gynecologist. In ten years, the numbers of couples coming in for IVF has gone up exponentially. From a mere four or five couples, now the centre has more than 100 couples flocking to it per month hoping they can give birth despite all odds.
This is where Bhateri Devi came too. Twice the doctors transferred two embryos in her uterus. But it didn't work. In the third attempt, they transferred three embryos. All of those fertilized. At 66, Bhateri Devi from Satrod in Haryana became the oldest woman to give birth to triplets. She suffered. She went on the ventilator, she bled excessively. But the triplets were born. Complications were forgotten. In her village, everyone is waiting. For years she suffered the taunts, and she lived with the tag of being barren. Now, she proved to herself and to everyone else that she could have children too. Motherhood wasn't going to elude her.
National Fertility Centre is probably the only IVF clinic in the country that has the reputation of being the only centre where women of any age can go and conceive successfully. In its reception area, newspaper clippings adorn the walls. Boastful clippings from local media and national newspapers are everywhere. There's the miracle story of the 70-year-old Rajo Devi Lohan from Alewa in Jind who gave birth to a daughter in 2008. According to Dr. Anurag Bishnoi,Gyanwati's son and an embryologist, she is the brand ambassador of IVF in India. She is the oldest mother to give birth in the world at 70 years. Two years later, Rajo Devi's miracle tale dictates the directions to her village in Jind. There is the happy picture of Inder Devi who also gave birth to triplets at the age of 48 in 2007. Across the waiting area, the is Chameli Devi holding her twins she gave birth to in 2007 at 58. The story in the newspaper charted her painful survival and her miraculous achievement despite high blood pressure.
Almost all the stories about the elderly women trying the IVF as the last recourse to escape the stigma of being barren and not producing an heir, a must for a wedded wife, have a similar narrative. Their husbands married twice, thrice even desperate to get a child. Chameli Devi, the doting mother in the three-column picture, was her husband's second wife. From Santo Devi, his first wife, he wasn't able to produce an heir. So he married again. But Chameli Devi was unable to bear him children too. Then the couple discovered IVF and all was well, the narrative ran.
For Bishnoi, the criticisms that it is a health hazard for women at an advanced age to produce babies and that the doctor is acting immoral by helping them as it produces dysfunctional families where the child might be orphaned after a few years, are baseless. That the baby would be rendered motherless and fatherless too soon is not what is his call. He is only doing what is asked of him.
“That you should ask the families that want to go for this,” he says. “I am doing it because we can and it is what they want. There is a demand for it. We have the technology. We are doing it.”
A social change is in the works and this is what it is. Nothing less of a revolution, a change that is for the good. The IVF is the solution to the ills of the society. The rising numbers of people who are resorting to this technique is an indicator of its success and its relevance, he says. “It is changing the conservative thinking that women should be blamed for the problem. The attitude is changing. Every woman should have a child,”
Bhadur Ram, 60, sat hunched in the waiting area of the centre. He came from Hanumangarh in Rajasthan with his wife and neighbors to the centre hoping for a miracle. Nothing less than that, he said. He married twice but none of his wives could conceive. The second wife Lilawati is much younger than him. But at 40 years, it is like swimming against the tide if you hoped to conceive naturally, he said, his neighbour translating for him. As Lilawati waited inside for the tests, Bhadur Ram was suspended between hope and dejection. He had tried the shammams and the babas who promised healthy children in exchange for sacrifices and rituals, doctors who prescribed pills – red, green, yellow, blue. Nothing worked. Then, he found out how other women in his town had got pregnant despite being pronounced as infertile. It was the IVF. He bought into it. For Rs. 90,000 for the first injection, it was expensive but he would do it.
At first, the IVF when it was introduced in India as the other option was not a popular recourse. But over the years, its success in a society where stigma about childless women in deeply entrenched has permeated the economic stratas, the rural-urban divide, and the inhibition of the people. It has cut through the barriers. It is the the miraculous cure, the best gift of science to them.
“At first they looked down upon the IVF. They thought it was never clear if the father was the real father. But now having read in the newspapers about the older women successfully giving births, I know this is the option for us,” he said. “I don't want to die without having babies. I have to leave something of me behind. An heir, and a name.”
Bishnoi, who joined his mother's centre soon after he finished his medical training, says.
“You know they tell me that panchayats here now tell the man to try IVF when he approaches them for permission to marry for s second or a third time because his wife is unable to bear him children. Now panchayats interfere. IVF is heralding in a change that's positive. This is showing to a man-dominated world that money can be spent on women's treatment and that they should be given a chance before being relegated to the second position. Now the societies are accepting that there are techniques and they are worth trying.”
He says they don't guarantee that all women who come to them will be able to bear children. “We can tell them results are good,” he says.
More than 20 percent of the women that come to the centre for IVF are above 50 years of age. Around 40 percent of them are in their 40s and the rest are less than 35 years of age. Yet another doctor in Hisar where there are two IVF clinics disapproved of the centre's practice. Govind Fertility and Research Centre came up in Hisar three years after the National Fertility Centre was founded. But Dr. Manju Khurana said they never encourage women more than 40 years of age to go for IVF.
“It is about right and wrong. You can play God. There is technology available but with technology there is the question of responsibility,” she said. “What kind of a family it will be. Imagine the child who will have to grow up knowing their parents are not there for long. It is a very selfish thing. It also has initiated a dangerous trend. Complications can happen at that age. The government must intervene, set up a cut-off age, an upper age limit. The guidelines are ready and they will be submitted soon. I guess the age we have proposed is around 45 or 50 years. This isn't healthy. See, IVF is a positive thing like ultrasound. But look at the flip side of ultrasound when it started being used to determine the sex of the baby. Then the government cracked down on the clinics that did it. Something like that must be done with regards to IVF, too. At the bottom of it all, it is a question of right or wrong. You can do it but should you do it. That's the question we must ask ourselves.”
In Haryana, there are around six or seven IVF clinics. In the country, there are more than 150. The first IVF centres were established in Jaipur, Delhi and Mumbai in 1991. Then these centres mushroomed everywhere spanning rural, semi-urban and metropolitan cities. One has come up in Bhatinda in Punjab. But a lot of people desirous of having a child still flock to the National Fertility Centre because of the success stories. There are no regulations for IVF that exist in India currently. This is the baby boom of a different kind.
Anyone can become a mother. The test tube baby has arrived and infertility can no longer subdue their spirits, their being. No longer will they have to live with the tags – barren, infertile, un-woman like, a traitor to her husband and her species. For the women, it is the ultimate dream, the eventual fulfillment. After all they were created for a purpose. That they should procreate is what the God mandated. The technology is only the means to that end. Nothing is without God's will. This is what he has willed, Bhateri Devi's husband Deva Singh said.
“She told me even if she dies while doing it, it is worth the try,” he said. “It was Bhateri who asked me to marry twice. My children are beautiful.” Deva Singh promised Bhateri the world for the children. He bought her gold bangles, he said. “She can ask me for anything,” he said. “She has given me what I yearned for all these years.”
***
In creating life, Bhateri Devi started to lose her own grip on it. Blood gushed out. It just won't stop. Breathing came in spurts on the night of May 29 when the 66-year-old mother gave birth to triplets in Hisar in northern Haryana.
At the National Fertility & Test Tube Baby Centre, they moved her to the ICU for the night. She was on the ventilator but she survived, her husband said.
Bhateri Devi who set a world record for being the oldest mother to give birth to triplets bled through the night and days after.
Yet another operation and she survived. The bleeding stopped eventually. But it took its toll.
As she walked to the intensive care unit of the Java Hospital in Hisar where the triplets weighing 1.2 kilogram, 1.1 kilogram and 780 grams are kept, to feed the babies, she almost dragged herself. Her face , wrinkled and crumpled as rivulets of sweat ran down her cheeks, looked haggard.
Outside in the hospital's lobby, a crowd of scribes and locals had gathered to see her. A celebrity now, Bhateri Devi lashed out at the media. She doesn't want the attention. She already went through a lot.
On the night of the operation, she was moved to the ICU. She had difficulty in breathing and according to doctors, she was on the ventilator. But the triplets emerged one after the other. All three embryos that were implanted in her uterus fertilized. Bhupinder, Isha and Bhupesh are premature babies born one-and-a-half months before they were due. Every two hours, Bhateri Devi goes inside the ICU where the triplets are lying in an incubator along with several IVF babies, to feed her children hoping they gain weight fast and she can return to Satrod, her village, and celebrate. That would also mean more loans. Already her husband took out a loan of Rs. 7 lakhs from a cooperative bank in Hisar mortgaging his land. It was all worth it, he said.
He saw the triplets once. He cried when the doctor at the National Fertility Clinic told him the babies had arrived. He had waited for a child for 48 years.
“We put everything at risk. This is god's wish,” he said, sitting inside the Room no. 104 at the child care centre in Hisar. His phone rang constantly. Relatives had been camping at his house, waiting for the children to come home.
Not that Bhateri Devi didn't anticipate the dangers. The couple knew their third attempt was a huge risk. No, the doctors at the clinic didn't tell them what the operation involved. They conducted the tests, said Bhateri could conceive and that was it. At the same clinic, the couple had tried conceiving twice before. But they weren't lucky. In the third attempt, the doctors transferred three embryos.
God was more than willing, Deva Singh, 70, said.
“Children are important. I hope I live until 100 to see them grow up,” he said.
Deva Singh, her husband, who married thrice so he could produce children, was a little nervous at first.
But the temptation overrode any concerns. At least nobody would taunt him in the village saying the couple was unable to produce children, that they didn't have an heir. Adoption was never an option for them. They wanted their own blood and flesh no matter what it cost – lives, limbs, anything. In yet another village, a 72-year-old woman is trying to hold on to life. The house in Alewa in Jind is a landmark. This is where the miracle happened. A pair of pink sandals with Cindrella's pictures was brought in by the visitors who haven't stopped coming to the house. Upstairs, in a closet, boxes of new clothes and toys are piled up. All are gifts. Rajo Devi holds the little fingers of her 18-month-old daughter Naveena, almost grips them. She isn't prepared to let go.
Rajo Devi Lohan who gave birth at the age of 70 years also went to the National Fertility Centre. But she developed complications. Two months ago, she started to bleed again. The couple went in for another operation recently. The bleeding has stopped but the woman is too weak. She tires too soon. A couple of years ago, a neighbour had brought in a newspaper clipping about the success of the centre. It even mentioned the women who had successfully given birth at an advanced age in Uchana. So Baba Ram, 75, went with Rajo Devi and his second wife Omni who he married because Rajo couldn't bear children, to Uchana. They were convinced and then the three went to the National Fertility Centre in Hisar.
Omni, who is Rajo's younger sister, had high blood pressure so the doctors said she couldn't. But Rajo could. They didn't warn them about the complications that could develop later or during the birth.
“We only go ahead in cases where the women are strong and healthy. We do thorough check-ups and then allow,” Dr. Bishnoi said.
Naveen was born in November 2008. The father sold off his buffaloes, his cart, and mortgaged his land. It cost him around Rs. 5 lakhs. They threw a grand party where guests from neighbouring villages came. Almost 2,500 guests ate at the celebration, Baba Ram says.
“Blood is thicker than anything. I am against adoption. The child is not your own. He will not take care of you,” he says. “I know we are old. But Omni is there. She can take care of her when we are gone. We have relatives who can do that. The child is a toy. We play with her the whole day.”
Two years later, the debt hasn't been repaid. Rs. 50,000 is remaining. But the family is planning on a grand birthday celebration again on Naveen's second birthday. After Rajo Devi's miracle feat, a biological wonder, two other women in their forties also went to the Hisar centre but weren't able to conceive. Baba Ram waited for almost 40 years for a child. Now, he wants to live till eternity. Rajo Devi wanted to go for a second child through IVF. The couple wanted a boy. But then complications developed and the uterus had to be removed.
“We can die sitting here only. The fear of death shouldn't stop you from trying for a child,” Rajo Devi says. “I am happy I could do this before I died.”
The anguish of living in a village where people referred to you as the family that didn't have children was gone. It was a relief. Baba Ram's sperm was fused with an anonymous donor's egg. But it was in her uterus that it began to take shape. It was hers. It emerged from her.
“The baby belongs to the uterus,” Bishnoi says. “This has been happening for years. Only now people are able to admit it because awareness about IVF has increased.”
As the child suckled at her breast, Rajo Devi's face lit up. A few moments later, she collapsed on the bed. The daughter ran around her. But her frail fingers had already lost their grip.
Saturday, June 05, 2010
The other Delhi
I was invited by friends to take the Ring-rail but never quite made it to the station that's minutes away from my house in Nizamuddin. I didn't know something like this existed. But on Saturday I took the ring-rail service and saw a different city.
An edited version was published in the Real Page 3 section of the Indian Express on June 6, 2010.
Chinki Sinha
New Delhi, June 4, 2010
From the windows of the grimy train of the ring-railway service, a showpiece during Delhi's Asiad Games in 1982, an invisible, embarrassing city unfolds.
This is the city they are trying to hide this October when the tourists come pouring in for the Commonwealth Games. They have built the swanky Metro with its sleek air-conditioned coaches, its shiny metallic body, and there are the new buses. They have fancy stations, modern-day bus stops. That's the illusion of the city.
But a parallel city, the underbelly of the capital, with all its poverty, squalor and vulgarity and numerous slums, spills on to the platforms of the railway line and the train doesn't rush past them. It is not avoiding them. It halts, blows its whistle. People – mostly daily-wage labourers, students, and saleswomen with their sacks – get off. A few get in. Stench from the manufacturing units in Daya Basti, from open-air toilets next to the tracks because in the slums teeming with the poor, private toilets are a luxury, and smoke from the stoves get in too. The passengers don't squirm. They are used to it. It's part of their life. The train is part of their life, too.
The coaches are never full. But the train has retained its loyal passengers like Rajinder Singh who once was tempted with the Metro and hopped on to it once to get to work from Mundka. After changing five trains and then boarding a bus to get to work at INA, he ended up spending Rs. 76. One-way ticket on the ring-railway cost only Rs. 4.
He was back on the sooty, grimy train the next day.
“I have been using the ring-railway from 1985. It takes me an hour to get to Daya Basti and then I take another train to Bahadurgarh. This train has never betrayed me. The city has forgotten this exists because I guess they are uncomfortable to see what lies beneath the polish,” he says looking out of the window.
At Inderpuri Halt, a old man with thick, misty glasses had set up his bidi shop on the platform. The shanties had slowly made their way on to the platform. Tarpaulin sheets and colorful mud walls hid little of the squalor, the crumbling lives, the resurgent spirit. They had all spilled on to the platform. The boundaries between private and public had been blurred. They weren't bothered by the oncoming train. The eyes would rest on them for a moment only. They had an understanding with those who stared out at them. Those eyes were not intrusive. They weren't judging them for their situation in life. The train would go on, show other lives.
“Poverty can't be hidden. On both sides you have slums, you have naked children running around,” he says. “Maybe the tourists should not be told that this train is there. Then they will never know this side of the city.”
On the dilapidated tracks that were laid in the 1970s, the drab train travels around the city, exposing its ugly back lanes, the windows that led into dark rooms, exposed the vulnerability of the walls that had cracks on them because nobody bothered to or afford to fix them.
It's a city that you never see from the steel and metal windows of the metro. The metro never criscrosses its path with the ring-railway. But it can be seen. At one point, the tracks run parallel – one above the ground, the metro train perched on the narrow pillars, the other close to the ground.
There are slanted houses that looked bent with all the people that were sharing the small space, there are threadbare curtains covering up the shame of poverty on the way. But there is beauty, too. In the city that's feeding on aspirations, a journey on the ring-rail is comforting. There are so many who have been left behind in the race.
On the tracks, they are the ragpickers who are busy doing drugs. The train doesn't startle them. They are used ot it. It is always on time.
Rajinder Singh, who works in the Delhi Development Authority, said he likes to look out of the window and ruminate. The train ride takes away all his regrets in life. He thinks of God as the train lurches past the numerous stations. He has done well for himself and his family. He can tell that when the stench from the slums gushes in from the windows.
In the distance, from under a sooty footover bridge, Daya Basti emerges. Kamla rushes in with her two daughters – Aasha and Anuradha. She has been living in the jhuggi for the last 10 years.
She was going home in Gorakhpur and the train would take her to New Delhi Railway Station for Rs. 12 only.
Kamla works at a mobile charger assembling unit in Daya Basti and earns Rs. 3000 a month. That's not good enough, she says.
Everytime she takes the ring rail, she thinks about the metro. It looks enticing. But it is so out of reach. The metro doesn't connect with the ring rail at all. Most of the 21 stations on the circular track are in places that are not connected by feeder services. Perhaps nobody thought of giving that luxury to those who used the ring railway. Maybe she will go on it once, she says.
“But where will I go. It can't take me anywhere,” she says.
Her daughter Aasha craned her neck out of the window and pointed to a little lane. That's where her school is, she says.
A mountain of garbage, colourful with pink and yellow plastci bags, hid the school. Then came the tin sheds at Kishan Ganj and then yet another slum.
The train goes around the city. The life along its tracks too goes around in a circle. The misery, the poverty is a vicious circle too.
There are 12 electric trains on the ring rail and it can accommodate 7,000 people. But many have broken off from the circle and from the ring rail. There's not more than two to three percent occupancy in most electrically maintained units.
There are only four ring-rail services in the day – two in the morning starting at 7 a.m. and two in the evening starting at 4:55 p.m. from Lajpat Nagar station.
The people on it are familiar faces from the city. There are sweaty, tense, and nervous faces. A few urchins squat near the door. Others are quiet, absorbed. Only here you know where they return to when their drudgery in the city of the future ends.
An edited version was published in the Real Page 3 section of the Indian Express on June 6, 2010.
Chinki Sinha
New Delhi, June 4, 2010
From the windows of the grimy train of the ring-railway service, a showpiece during Delhi's Asiad Games in 1982, an invisible, embarrassing city unfolds.
This is the city they are trying to hide this October when the tourists come pouring in for the Commonwealth Games. They have built the swanky Metro with its sleek air-conditioned coaches, its shiny metallic body, and there are the new buses. They have fancy stations, modern-day bus stops. That's the illusion of the city.
But a parallel city, the underbelly of the capital, with all its poverty, squalor and vulgarity and numerous slums, spills on to the platforms of the railway line and the train doesn't rush past them. It is not avoiding them. It halts, blows its whistle. People – mostly daily-wage labourers, students, and saleswomen with their sacks – get off. A few get in. Stench from the manufacturing units in Daya Basti, from open-air toilets next to the tracks because in the slums teeming with the poor, private toilets are a luxury, and smoke from the stoves get in too. The passengers don't squirm. They are used to it. It's part of their life. The train is part of their life, too.
The coaches are never full. But the train has retained its loyal passengers like Rajinder Singh who once was tempted with the Metro and hopped on to it once to get to work from Mundka. After changing five trains and then boarding a bus to get to work at INA, he ended up spending Rs. 76. One-way ticket on the ring-railway cost only Rs. 4.
He was back on the sooty, grimy train the next day.
“I have been using the ring-railway from 1985. It takes me an hour to get to Daya Basti and then I take another train to Bahadurgarh. This train has never betrayed me. The city has forgotten this exists because I guess they are uncomfortable to see what lies beneath the polish,” he says looking out of the window.
At Inderpuri Halt, a old man with thick, misty glasses had set up his bidi shop on the platform. The shanties had slowly made their way on to the platform. Tarpaulin sheets and colorful mud walls hid little of the squalor, the crumbling lives, the resurgent spirit. They had all spilled on to the platform. The boundaries between private and public had been blurred. They weren't bothered by the oncoming train. The eyes would rest on them for a moment only. They had an understanding with those who stared out at them. Those eyes were not intrusive. They weren't judging them for their situation in life. The train would go on, show other lives.
“Poverty can't be hidden. On both sides you have slums, you have naked children running around,” he says. “Maybe the tourists should not be told that this train is there. Then they will never know this side of the city.”
On the dilapidated tracks that were laid in the 1970s, the drab train travels around the city, exposing its ugly back lanes, the windows that led into dark rooms, exposed the vulnerability of the walls that had cracks on them because nobody bothered to or afford to fix them.
It's a city that you never see from the steel and metal windows of the metro. The metro never criscrosses its path with the ring-railway. But it can be seen. At one point, the tracks run parallel – one above the ground, the metro train perched on the narrow pillars, the other close to the ground.
There are slanted houses that looked bent with all the people that were sharing the small space, there are threadbare curtains covering up the shame of poverty on the way. But there is beauty, too. In the city that's feeding on aspirations, a journey on the ring-rail is comforting. There are so many who have been left behind in the race.
On the tracks, they are the ragpickers who are busy doing drugs. The train doesn't startle them. They are used ot it. It is always on time.
Rajinder Singh, who works in the Delhi Development Authority, said he likes to look out of the window and ruminate. The train ride takes away all his regrets in life. He thinks of God as the train lurches past the numerous stations. He has done well for himself and his family. He can tell that when the stench from the slums gushes in from the windows.
In the distance, from under a sooty footover bridge, Daya Basti emerges. Kamla rushes in with her two daughters – Aasha and Anuradha. She has been living in the jhuggi for the last 10 years.
She was going home in Gorakhpur and the train would take her to New Delhi Railway Station for Rs. 12 only.
Kamla works at a mobile charger assembling unit in Daya Basti and earns Rs. 3000 a month. That's not good enough, she says.
Everytime she takes the ring rail, she thinks about the metro. It looks enticing. But it is so out of reach. The metro doesn't connect with the ring rail at all. Most of the 21 stations on the circular track are in places that are not connected by feeder services. Perhaps nobody thought of giving that luxury to those who used the ring railway. Maybe she will go on it once, she says.
“But where will I go. It can't take me anywhere,” she says.
Her daughter Aasha craned her neck out of the window and pointed to a little lane. That's where her school is, she says.
A mountain of garbage, colourful with pink and yellow plastci bags, hid the school. Then came the tin sheds at Kishan Ganj and then yet another slum.
The train goes around the city. The life along its tracks too goes around in a circle. The misery, the poverty is a vicious circle too.
There are 12 electric trains on the ring rail and it can accommodate 7,000 people. But many have broken off from the circle and from the ring rail. There's not more than two to three percent occupancy in most electrically maintained units.
There are only four ring-rail services in the day – two in the morning starting at 7 a.m. and two in the evening starting at 4:55 p.m. from Lajpat Nagar station.
The people on it are familiar faces from the city. There are sweaty, tense, and nervous faces. A few urchins squat near the door. Others are quiet, absorbed. Only here you know where they return to when their drudgery in the city of the future ends.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)