Being in America

Finally at sundown we decided to drive back to MD. This was the NJ picnic in July of 2005. We had just moved to MD and it was taking us a lot of effort to sever ties with NJ. That made us drive 3 hours from MD to visit friends, every month or so.

As Abhijit got into the car with his hand on his chest, our friends were teasing us "Since Abhijit is injured, how about Julie drive back to MD today". I hadn't gotten my drivers license yet and apart from that never believed that I could drive in this country. With a frown on my brow and fastening my seat belt I asked him what had happened.

While we were engaged in hula hoops and antaksharis, the men had been engaged all afternoon in cricket. Reminiscing their days in Orissa when they were much younger and more able bodied, they had played their hearts out or rather their paunches out. And while on a batting spree, Abhijit was taking a run and had a head-on or rather head-to-chest collision with a fielder. The enthusiastic fielder's block (!) head had collided quite dramatically and forcefully with Abhijit's chest almost breaking some ribs. As he explained the situation we had a laugh but he was already in some pain. As he drove on, he complained much less than what a woman would have done in such a situation and I assumed all was well.

A trip to the physician's, few days, and a dozen Tylenol's later he felt better and in order to prove this as well as his athletic capabilities, he went and played some badminton in the apartment court with the kids.

That night he came back with a bad pain in his chest. No amount of Tylenol or Ibuprofen would help him. As the evening wore on he was barely able to move from the sofa. It was a lot of pain. Somehow at night, he managed to reach the bed and lay down waiting for the morning to get an appointment with the doctor.

Past midnight he woke me up. There was excruciating pain in the chest and he could barely breathe. He held on to his chest and I asked him the most relevant question at that point in time: do you think its a heart attack? He said a definite NO. But also added that the pain was quite unbearable.

I had only heard of 911 in India when my sisters visited us, and seen episodes of its graces on the TV when I had landed in this country. I did not know for sure what happened when you dialed that number.

Very reluctantly I dialed the number on our land line only to hear 'this facility is not available on your phone'. I was surprised. Abhijit grunted 'this is a VO IP. 911 cannot be dialed from this number, use my cell phone'. Another fact to know in this country.

I ran out to the patio to call the number because our apartment never had any signal inside the house and was just about to punch the number when I heard Abhijit call. I hurried back. What? At a painstakingly slow rate he explained to me what I should say and what I should not. 'So', I thought, 'there is something you CAN tell them and some things that you should not'? He continued, 'they may ask how the problem started? Don't tell them 'he was playing cricket and some ox rammed into his chest''. I did not see any reason to lie. He continued, 'the insurance may not pay if they know I have been hurt while playing'. I was about to laugh thinking 'is there a list of specific things you need to be doing when you get hurt for the insurance to pay?'. He was beginning to lose patience in my immaturity. Again he repeated 'they may not pay if they think I have been hurt playing in New Jersey'. To my immature-unacclimatized-to-US-laws brain that made some sense. Well you can be hurt where your insurance can cover you--like where you live now, but not where you lived a year back!

Still unsure of what I would say and more eager to get him a doctor, I dialed 911. It was very early in the morning. At the first ring, I heard a very calm voice reply. I told her some story that Abhijit had asked me to "...hitting something at the workplace in MD". She asked if the patient could move, where exactly the pain was and so on. I hung up the phone shivering in the cool summer breeze and waited for less than 5 mins when a huge ambulance pulled up in front of our house. These were 2 burly, big, white men that walked into the bed room and asked a couple of questions to Abhijit, made him walk up to the stretcher (they must have known it wasn't a heart attack, otherwise I guess they wouldn't have done that) and asked me if I wanted to accompany. We did not know any neighbours. I told them that the kids were still sleeping so I would call a friend to pick him up.

The ambulance pulled away into the weak morning light and I called my sisters. And then in the few hours that we waited for him to return home, I marveled at the value of life in America. Not just the value of life for an American but also an immigrant like me. God can send angels in 5 minutes?? I knew of many many Gods, 36 crores to be exact that I prayed to, but none sent their angels in 5 minutes! This IS a different world I thought.

A few days later after Abhijit had recovered, he sat in the living room, pressing a cushion to his chest, taking deep breaths. The doctor had advised him to do this as physiotherapy for his injured ribs. He could not press the cushion hard enough and he asked me to push it for him. I was leaning towards him with the cushion, pressing it to his chest. That's when Anu walked in saying "I know what you guys will do now". I looked at her in askance. She said "mukhu kissie". "Ahh..", I thought, "I hope this America that answers prayers in less than 5 minutes, teaches her more than just 'mukhu kissies'".