By: Gope Kamal
Translated by Param Abichandani
 
The round-faced, plump nurse cast her eerie look on me. She had pierced my body at a dozen places with the syringe, but not a drop of blood could she draw. She held my wrist to feel the pulse. A futile effort. No throbs, no pulsations, no beats. She brought her head near my chest and put her ear on the place of my heart. Her swollen boobs touched my body. The warm touch brought no vibrations or any reaction and my body remained frigid.

Surprised, she said, "Well, your heart doesn't beat; how strange, you are still alive."

I said steadily, "I don't have a heart. How will you then hear the heart- beats? I had gouged it out of its place a year ago. Unnecessarily it used to be in turmoil almost all the time."

"You don't have any drop of blood in your body; and you have come here to donate it. You must be certainly out of your mind."

I said, "There isn't anything like being out of my mind. I am sure wherever my brain is presently placed, it ought to be in the right place, for I had got rid of it also along with my heart a year ago."

"How do you think then?"

"With my empty skull. If you have a brain, you will think of matters of no significance. In the process you will be unhappy. But without brain one thinks of good things and remains in the state of bliss. If you want to be happy, get rid of your brain."

"You must be crazy, but you talk wisely."

"Please don't jeer at me by calling me wise. I am afraid I shall be thrown into a mental asylum if someone heard of this."

"Are you scared of mad people?"

"No, I am not. But I fear hospitals. I don't find a difference between the patients in the wards and the people living out of hospitals. If you have to live among the same people, why, then, be imprisoned in the hospital? Why can't

one live freely outside?"

"You don't have blood. Do you eat?"

"It's years since I have been living on promises. I eat promises and live contended. In view of this, you don't feel the necessity of eating food."

"You knew you didn't have blood; why, then, did you come here?"

"I pondered over luxury today. If blood runs in your veins, don't you think it's a luxury?"

"You should know that this is a Blood Bank. It isn't a charitable hospital. We buy people's blood. We don't give them blood."

"A strange type of bank, this! In other banks you transact, you give and take. Why this one way traffic in your bank? Is it that you draw the blood of people and drink it yourselves?"

"We supply blood only to government hospitals. If you need blood, why don't you go to a government hospital?"

"I had been there, too. They demanded three hundred rupees for a bottle. I asked them a simple question, 'Is it that your bottle of blood that costs three hundred rupees contains more intoxicating power than that of a bottle of country liquor that is sold for ten rupees?' I thought that the better thing would be to buy a bottle of Scotch Whisky for two hundred and fifty rupees and drink it."

"So?"

"'Don't argue', they said, 'If you need a bottle of blood, out with three hunred rupees.' I said I was an unemployed person. I needed blood free of cost."

"And, then?"

"It was government blood, they said, and I had to pay for it. 'So what?', I said. So many people suck blood from other bodies without paying anything. I should also get a chance in this democracy."

"What did they say?"

"They asked me whether I was the brother-in-law of a minister or a government contractor or an agent of a foreigner to book orders here, to be entitled to have free blood."

"That means you didn't get blood there."

"Obviously not. Had I got it there, I wouldn't be here."

"I am sorry I can't help you."

"No? Under no circumstances?"

"No. But, yes. Had you been my boyfriend, I would have stolen a few bottles for you."

"Now, then, let me be your boyfriend for a short while."

She stared at me and said, "Even if I take you as a boyfriend for a short while, how can I ensure that you will not take advantage of this short-while-

friendship?"

I tried to convince her, "Now, look sister. Anything on sale in this country doesn't carry any guarantee. If anything carries such a guarantee there isn't any guarantee for that guarantee. I am an honest person, and I must tell you that in this country only that person is considered honest who doesn't demand his reasonable rights."

She was immersed in meditation.

I said, "Just ponder over this for a moment. Had I any intention of taking advantage, I would have easily taken it the moment your high breasts touched my body."

"Okay, okay." A simper played on her lips. "Now tell me whose blood would you like to have? I can give you the blood of a person who was the first one to donate it here."

"Oh, no. I don't need the blood of a minister. I am an honest person and want to live honestly."

"How do you know the person who was first to donate blood to this blood bank was a minister?"

"I had watched on T. V. the ceremony of inauguration of this bank by the Health Minister. He was the first person to donate blood here."

"You stupid, this drama was enacted only for the viewers. In fact, we had placed a beggar beneath the bed on which the minister lay, but the blood that flowed into the bottle was that of the beggar."

"Well, then, I don't need the blood of the beggar. I shall be out looking for alms to fill my belly if I have the beggar's blood running in my veins."

"Okay, then, I shall give you the blood of a poet. He often sold his blood to have his books published and to fix a rose in the hair of his beloved. The day came when she got sick of listening to his poems and of the fragrance of the rose. She elopped with a smuggler. The poet wanted to kill himself, but he didn't have money to buy poison to swallow. The poet who had sold his blood to publish a book of his poems and to buy a rose for his beloved, sold the last bottle of his blood to buy poison."

"I don't want his blood either. I am afraid the moment his blood runs in my veins, a new kind of heart may be planted in my body and its throbs may pierce my eardrums. It's better for a useless thing like the heart to remain unfunctional."

"In that case I shall give you the blood of an intellectual, who, one day, thinking and wandering, arrived here. Before he could realise his mistake, we drew out all his blood."

"Excuse me, I don't need his blood, too, for, if I started thinking like him, I don't know what's going to become of me."

"Tell me then what kind of blood do you need? Since you haven't got a

drop of blood in your body, we can't even determine the group of your blood."

"Have you got blood not belonging to any group?"

"Don't talk nonsense. Is there any blood not belonging to any group?"

"Tell me if you stock any other kind of blood here?"

"Why of course, we have every kind of blood. We have the blood of a Muslim, a Hindu, a Christian, a Sikh, etc. Tell me what religion do you belong to, so that we may give you that kind of blood."

"Haven't you got the blood of a human being, merely a human being, and not belonging to any religion?"

She went through the list. The bank didn't have the blood of a human being. I got up and flicked my clothes. I was just getting out of the door when she came running. She said, "Wait for a moment. A bottle of blood just received may be of some use to you."

"Whose blood is that?"

She said, "It's the blood of a mother whose son was shot at and badly wounded by terrorists. She gave blood to save her son; but before the blood could be transfused into the body of her son, he died."

"Oh no... Oh no... I am not worthy of that blood." I walked silently out of the blood bank.

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Published in the 'Indian Literature' Vol 187 by Sahitya Akademi