Treasure

On a Sunday morning, Sumed was busy cleaning the attic. Sumed’s grandma had expired five years before and he inherited their ancestral property of an acre of land with a beautiful house, surrounded by coconut trees, timber and rubber plantations in Kerala. Sumed and his wife Subadra have planned to lease this property, and after a few years they were planning to convert it into a private resort. Sumed and Subadra were searching the house for their granny’s decent picture, as they planned to hang a life size portrait of in the veranda.

Sumed’s have seen his granny, Shantha, known as Shantha amma often going into the attic and staring at a wooden box, very passionately. Sumed had a secret wish to find more precious treasure in that, so he was in the attic searching for the precious wooden box. After ten minutes of search Sumed eyes fell upon the box. The box was made of wood, with elephant and deer carving, it was a 150 years old antic piece, and the wooden box was inherited by his granny from her great-grand-ma, who served the Queen of The King Marthanda Verma.  Sumed lifted the box as if he was lifting a new born; the scent of original teak wood infiltrated his nostril. On close range he could see ivory carving, embed with emerald stones – he made a mental note to verify the originality of the stones with his wife later. Sumed dusted the golden handle and key knobs, with a pounding heart got ready to open the box. To his surprise he found the box unlocked. All sort of thought aroused in his head, why was the box unlocked? Was it unlocked by someone else? Was the treasure inside was been taken by some one long ago? Or is it a careless mistake of Shantha amma herself? What a careless person was Shantha amma to leave a valuable box like this in the attic, without any protection?  Or the box doesn’t have any valuables for such a safe guard?

With anxiety and excitement he pushed opened the box. The precious box had lots and lots of chocolate wrappers and notes in it!

Sumed was confused, he dumped the wrappers and checked the box inside for any secret compartments; he used the magnifying glass to read any secret notes engraved in it. He found none. With frustration he sat on the floor and his attention dragged on the various notes scared along with the chocolate wrappers. Again with a ray of hope he unfolded the notes, the notes opened the new door way to his life, and Sumed was not the same man again.

Few of the notes read;

Thank you Shantha sister for saving my young one.

My hearty thanks to you Shantha sister for looking after my infant, with such a care.

Our humble Namaste for humanity you exhibited.

Shantha amma, thank you for your kind service, we will remember you till our last breath.

Shantha sister, the way you looked after my infant, is more than what I did carrying him for nine months in the womb. You are like a mother to my kid.  We will never forget your service. Thank you.

Like these there were 50 odd notes in various languages were lying in the box. These notes triggered Sumed to know more about his granny. On enquires he learned that Shantha amma was a head-nurse in the town hospital. She was head in charge of neonatal intensive care (NICU). She was very famous in the hospital, because of her humble and dedicated work. She looked after her patients not like a case, but as alive human and attended the anxious mother patiently.

To understand his grandma well, Sumed visited the town hospital where she worked. After a lot of struggle he got permission to peep into NICU, for 15- minutes. There the realization drawn upon him -Handling the new born in intensive care were much difficult of all. Firstly the new born lacked the immunity to fight against any disease condition, so probability of survival was less, they couldn’t express their discomfort – everything should be understood just by their cry. Most of these infants are placed in a temperature controlled incubator, which beeps every five-minutes once to control the temperature, the infants had to be fed every second hour, had to be cleaned after every natures call, had to be rocked along with the various combination of wires and drips carefully. When they were, injecting, piercing and monitoring such a fragile infant, they needed a solid heart to accomplish the task.  One fragile cry of these infants will melt the heart of any devil, only these nurses know what mask they are wearing to solidly hold their pounding hearts. Above all they answered each anxious parent’s, repeated monolog of how was their baby doing? Patiently, with a smile “everything is fine”, “our doctors are very good, don’t worry”...

These are the magic words that Sumed noticed, brought a moment of relief in the parents face. He could see the patents looking at these nurse like Gods own angels. The nurse in NICU ward had literally no time to sit and relax even for five- minutes too. They had to ask each other duty nurse help to go for coffee break too, like MNC they couldn’t afford tea break. Their routine was very hectic.

Sumed was thinking of his grandma, with all modern equipments the job was so difficult, what would be the situation in his grand-ma’s period. The service done by Shantha amma, and the value of those notes and chocolate wrappers in the precious wooden box, slowly sunk into his heart. He analyzed his present, where to earn more he and his wife Subadra left their children in day-care, and his parents in old age day care home.  Whole day his children spend time in school and day care, his parents in old age day care center, and evening are spent with servant- maids in four walls of their home. Sumed wanted to do some sort of service to society, but to start with, he lovingly served his family. Sumed extended his activity like – not just dumping the medicine bag of his parent, but slowly asking them whether they had it daily and personally gave it to them. He learnt all day today news affairs from his dad, instead of reading it online. To his children he spend daily half hour time playing or chatting, weekends they all day lunch together in a family table, lovingly serving each other. These small changes made Sumed happy and complete from inside. Sumed and Shubadhra donated their grandma’s property to government child trust hospital. In that ancestral home now stood a multi- specialty hospital for children, and in the center of the hospital there is a life size portrait of Shantha-amma, the wooden box placed below, with it its chocolate wrappers and notes in display to inspire the next generation of nurses.