Real life story of a Rotary Volunteer who ventured against threats to his life to argue and convince aggressive mobs trapped by misinformation and fanaticism propagated by vested interests, political clouts and self styled medicos, that Oral Polio V...
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Hussainabad and Naipura are separated only by a stretch of wheat fields, say by about ten minutes brisk walk by the macadam road which ran parallel to the Ganga Canal. Residents of the two villages used to interact with each other very frequently as they were connected with inter-marriages, and during the peak periods of agricultural work. Many rich Hindus of Hussainabad owned lands in Naipura, where the Muslims and Dalits of Naipura worked. Prosperity and adversity of each reflected on the other. The intervisitation during festivals at temples and mazars (tombs of Sufi saints) were not limited by their religious beliefs. Most of the rich inhabitants of Naipura were merchants and traders while those in Hussainabad were landlords, and employed in government, bank or private service as teachers, clerks and the like in Gaziabad, Noeda, Delhi or Lucknow.
Hussainabad had cleaner roads and lanes than Naipura. Houses were more traditional in appearance with the floors plastered with cow dung. One could see cowdung biscuits – sun dried discs of about a foot or 30 cm in diameter and half inch or 1.25 cm thick – neatly stacked in heaps or domes along the walk-ways. The dried stuff was used as fuel, manure and for floor plaster.
Annamma and Fatima had just returned from Jehangirnagar and had been assigned as supervisors for this usually trouble free village.
The health visitors were instructed to ensure that all the eligible children in every household have been given the polio drops. If satisfied they were to mark the door with letter 'P' with the date. If some children remained to be immunized or if the householders refused then the house should be marked with an 'X'. The supervisor's job was to verify the correctness of the markings and help resolve any problems with regard to the houses marked with an 'X'. Passing through the streets and lanes one could see the doors marked and dated during some six or eight NIDs in the past. In contrast one could also see many doors cleaned of chalk marks, lime washed or repainted although the householders were instructed by the vaccinators to keep the marks at least for two or three weeks, for the supervisors and monitors to see.
The supervisor was at liberty to select a few of the 'P' marked houses for test-check.
Houses closer to the village centre or along good roads had occasional 'X' marks. Annamma was astonished to find all the houses in certain remote lanes, particularly the dirty ones, marked with 'P'. And to her surprise the 'P's and date marks here were different from others. Or else the doors were quite clean. Annamma's intuition told her that there must have been some kind of cheating done here. She decided to check all the households, not to be satisfied with selected samples.
She entered a house and casually enquired with the lady of the house. 'Did you take the child to the booth on "Sunday ?"
"No." That was an honest answer.
"Did anybody come here to give drops"
She first hesitated and then added, "Yes, that was two days ago"
