On Tuesday, the ‘side room’ of Ward No. 4 at the King Edward Memorial Hospital was opened to the world, though briefly, after decades of being locked from the outside. As staff allowed cameras into Aruna Shanbaug’s home of 42 years, the only world she saw for decades from her hospital bed, was captured in the frames — a red striped bedspread, her much-loved audio-cassette player, a flower pot, a small cupboard, a grubby washbasin, a bucket and an accompanying mug, chipped tiles on the wall and a single cupboard. Instead of the room’s occupant, her framed photograph was propped up on the bed. [related-post] What the cameras could not capture were the seven sets of clothes she wore in her last years, a box of talcum powder and a packet of bindis inside the cupboard — her only belongings. The music player remained silent on Tuesday, not playing the Gayatri Mantra on loop as it had for many years. An air cooler, especially arranged for Aruna during the summers, remained switched off. Sujata Jadhav, the nurse in-charge of Ward Number 4, said, “Nothing will be removed from the room yet.” According to another nursing tutor Kalpana Gujula, Aruna’s forehead always had a red bindi. On Monday, the nurses placed a bindi between her eyebrows, the way they did every day before the 66-year-old contracted pneumonia over a week ago. According to a ward boy, no one has cleaned the room since Shanbaug was shifted to the medical intensive care unit for ventilator support. The music player soothed her down, recalled Anuradha Padhare, the nurse who looked after Shanbaug. Gujula, who was a student in 1973 when Shanbaug was sexually assaulted by a ward boy, said, “We are used to seeing her in that room,” adding how the memory would be a very difficult one. Gujula feels the room should be opened for patients, which would be a better tribute to Aruna than keeping it locked. Another nurse, Surinder Kaul, too said the room could be used for relatives of patients who were otherwise not provided any space to rest. “KEM receives 3,000 patients in OPD. Why not use a spare room for ones who need it,” she said. On Tuesday, ashes from Shanbaug’s funeral pyre were kept in the reading room of the nursing hostel’s ground floor. A steady stream of nurses kept visiting to pay their respects. Hospital dean Dr Avinash Supe said, “The room will be used for patients eventually.” tabassum.barnagarwala@expressindia.com
