Nirmal Hriday

Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.

Mother Teresa

All you have to do is hold somebody’s hand and simply be there.

I came to Calcutta with one thing on my mind only - to volunteer at Mother Teresa’s Nirmal Hriday - Home for the Dying Destitutes. This is what I have been doing for the past five days. Here is the account so far:

Day One

I enter Nirmal Hriday with little apprehension. How bad will it be? The surroundings are already unsettling. The home is next to the Kali Temple - the worship place of a Hindu goddess who requires ritualistic daily sacrifice of tens of animals (mostly goats). As I enter Nirmal Hriday (Pure Heart), I see a big room with 50 beds. On them are dying people, or rather, live human skeletons. If you’ve ever seen footage of famine in Ethiopia or the pictures of the liberation of Auschwitz, you get the feeling. They all lie in three rows - all men, too weak to move, many with limbs eaten away by leprosy or disfigured by some other disease. It feels like a run-down hospital ward during the Great Depression era. On the other side of the building, there is a similar scene with 50 women. A few nuns, in their instantly recognizable blue-rimmed white saris, supervise 20 or so volunteers. In between the patient rooms, there is a large, dark laundry/kitchen room. As I enter, ten volunteers are doing laundry, the Indian way. In huge, stone basins, they jump on piles of soaked clothes and blankets. Others are busy rinsing clothes. The water is sloshing all around. Everybody is barefoot. The air smells of hospital disinfectant. The contrast between the energetic washing and the stillness of the dying patients across the wall is stark. An Italian friend later described the scene as purely Dante-esque, but I yet have to read Dante to confirm it.

Initially, I am reluctant to go straight to the patient room. I want to adjust to the scenery. Luckily, I get assigned the wringing of the clothes. This goes on for a while and my hands start to hurt. When I’m almost done, a dead body - all wrapped up in white linen - is carried out of the small room in the back and through the laundry room. The body is adorned in flowers. Everybody stops for a minute. One of the seasoned volunteers puts more flowers on the body, and soon the body disappears and we continue our washing. I am struck by how little sorrow everybody has shown. I will understand why later on.

I catch a glimpse of a man lying down in the corner of the room. I see one of the nuns sitting on the bedside, just touching the dying man’s head. There is nothing but pure love on her face. Her hands are so gentle, so comforting - this is exactly what I came here for, to experience something like this, nothing but pure love. I sit next to her. The man’s name is Oujia. Somebody found him on the streets. The nun says that his family most likely rejected him, not able to care for him - this is the case with most patients at Nirmal Hriday. He is dying, unconscious, breathing slowly and heavily. He is the epitome of human suffering. His skin is all wrinkled and dehydrated, cheekbones sunken deep, and his fingernails are black with dirt. The whole body is ravaged by malnutrition. I am deeply moved. The nun leaves me alone with him. I try to think like Mother Teresa, who said that every one of these patients is Jesus in disguise. But it is not necessary for me to create that religious image. In fact, I immediately see Oujia as simply somebody close to me, a family member. It could have been my brother, or my father, or my son. I don’t know why, but I start referring to him as my son. I am overcome by sorrow. There is no need that anybody should die like this.After a while, the sorrow gives way to compassion, or rather simply pure love. I sit there holding his hand for a long time. It’s OK. You are going home. Just a little bit longer. The feeling is peaceful and uplifting. There are no other emotions, just this one. It’s rare that I get to experience it. Sometimes when I visit my son in California, I get that feeling, but most often there is so much else going on that it is hard to stop and simply feel. This is the joy of Nirmal Hriday - there is nothing else to really feel. All you have to do is hold somebody’s hand and simply be there. It’s revealing when you think that among the dying, you can experience the best part of life.

Day 2

I come in the afternoon. There are too many volunteers in the morning and not enough in the afternoon. From now on, I will come only in the afternoon. Things are quieter. There is no laundry to do. I spend a lot of time with Oujia. A Japanese journalist comes to photograph the place. When she sees Oujia, she is deeply moved. She stands silent for a while, then she just kneels down next to him, takes his hand, and starts sobbing.

Day 3

As soon as I enter, I see Oujia’s bed empty. He died earlier during the day. I wish I was there. I see his body in the little room in the back, already wrapped in white, waiting for cremation. The inscription on the wall says, “I am on my way to heaven.” I say my last goodbyes, but can’t spend too much time. With fewer volunteers, there are things to do - food to serve, urine, and stool to wipe, clothes to change, arthritic legs to massage.

Day 4

Things become more routine. I start to get the rhythm of the place. I know which patients can go to the bathroom and which wet themselves and need wiping and changing. A few need to exercise - you hold them by their arms and try to get them to walk. Their legs are so weak that it is more like dragging them through the room than walking. I try to not get lost in the “doing”. It is not always as easy as it was with Oujia. Many patients are mentally ill. Some scream at you with frustration for not understanding Bengali. Some just scream. There is this one patient who loves to count to 100 in English and to give massages to the volunteers. He is cheerful; I often sit next to him. He starts gently punching on my arms and legs, counting with every punch: one, two, three, four…. Sometimes he stops his counting, and starts talking to the crucifix on the wall, pointing to me and to the crucifix as if he was really having a conversation. It’s eerie. I wish I understood Bengali. Four people die today.

Day 5

As I get more and more accustomed with the place, I get to talk to the nuns a little more. They have such devotion for their patients. Could I do this for the rest of my life? I don’t know. I haven’t spent enough time there to ponder this question. I have only one more day to volunteer, and so I won’t get the answer, but it’s OK. I found my joy in this city, even if for just a few days.

PS. There are no photographs in this entry. If you really want to see how it looks, you probably can find some on the internet. I did not want to be a photographer there. Besides, it is easy to photograph hunger, death, and disease. Nirmal Hriday for me is not about any of these. It’s about love, and that is much harder to capture on camera.