Her body lay unclaimed for 48 hours. The children had brought her, in failing health, to the hospital. After 5 days of intensive medical care, she died and her family could not afford the Rs50,000 hospital bill. Somebody did, finally, step in to pay and she was properly cremated.
This incident took place 3 years ago but came back vividly when I heard, last week, that a well-known academician had identified lack of personal dignity as one of India’s biggest issues.
Indignity is all around us. It’s there when your domestic staff goes broke because someone falls ill in their family; when someone yells at the waiter in the restaurant or when we must wait interminably for VIP chief guests to arrive. People with mental illnesses are looked down upon, executives out of a job face this, and the disabled suffer when they find themselves at the doorsteps of buildings they can’t climb.
