A Friend of a Lifetime Passed away!
I sincerely hoped, and prayed, that my dear friend Phul Chand ( P C Singh) would battle his way out of danger from the hospital bed; but that was not to be. When I received a phone call very early in the morning from Mukti Upadhyay, a mutual friend, I knew all our hopes have been dashed.
PC was admitted in the Critical Care ICU of the AIIMS three days ago, last Sunday. This is supposed to be the best medical care facility in the national capital. But possibly the admission into this specialised ICU came quite late, when PC’s physical condition had gone beyond redemption.
It’s a tragic irony that PC died of an infection which he acquired during his hospital stay. He was initially admitted for neurological issues as he had difficulty in keeping balance while walking. The doctor in AIIMS who was treating PC asked him to get admitted so that a thorough investigation could be done. I think, he was admitted into AIIMS on February 22, Saturday. But apparently it was an inordinately slow process; nothing seemed to be moving for days. The doctors advised him to go home, if he wanted to, on 26th, the day of Maha Shivaratri, as the hospital was virtually shut that day.
PC returned the next day; some routine investigations were carried out in the next few days, but even after three weeks, there was no diagnosis. The professor who had seen him in the OPD and had advised him to get admitted, was abroad. Other Senior Doctors rarely visited; the resident doctors and attending nurses kept saying that they were seized of the matter but they had not been able to come to a diagnosis.
PC was initially admitted to the neuro general ward, as the private ward was not available. There were six patients in the general ward; it was a crowded place filled with anxious friends and relatives; there was no restriction on entry. That was a hotbed for infection.
With a lot of efforts of friends and family members, PC was finally allotted a private ward; but that seemed to be too late. PC seemed to have acquired infection during his general ward stay. He developed breathing problem last Friday. He was put on oxygen. The doctors shifted him to the general ward again for better supervision.
Since Friday, it became difficult to talk to PC. Everytime, he had to take off the oxygen mask to speak. He told me with a straight face: “Mohanty, it’s possibly leading to a point of no return”. But I strongly rebuffed him. “Don’t entertain such thoughts. It’s just a minor breathing issue. You will come out of it in a day or two”, I insisted.
In fact, there was something to cheer about. PC had been taken for a biopsy test for a suspected cancerous patch in the lungs, but the doctors had ruled out that the very same day. That had brought a lot of comfort to PC and his relatives/friends that Friday evening.
But that comfort was short-lived; the very next day, PC’s condition worsened and he was put on a ventilator. When my wife and I went to the hospital last Saturday afternoon, it was a state of mayhem. PC’s all vital parameters had gone haywire. Pooja, PC’s daughter, was all tears and frantically coordinating with the attending resident doctors and nurses who were making a desperate effort to stabilise the blood pressure and oxygen level which had fallen drastically. The doctors told us that PC had not passed enough urine through the day and he would be sent for a dialysis to flush out the fluid in the body.
It was a difficult situation for the resident doctors and nurses as well; they were very sincere but they are trained to handle neuro issues and they were treating a patient suffering from pneumonia! The doctors said that they had strongly recommended to shift PC to the Critical Care ICU ( AB 8 ICU) but they had been told that no bed was available there.
We got a clear impression that it needed intervention at the highest level to get admission to the Critical Care ICU. PC’s children, relatives and friends made a Herculean effort to get it done. Harivanshji, deputy chairman of Rajya Sabha, who knew Phul Chand personally and intimately, spoke to the health minister; that helped. PC was admitted to the Critical Care Unit at 7 pm on Sunday.
This ICU was completely out of bounds for friends and relatives. Only one attendant of the patient was allowed in the waiting room. PC’s daughter and two sons sat there taking turns. They were told by doctors that PC’s dialysis was done successfully and PC’s blood pressure as well as oxygen level had stabilised but the infection in the body was spreading; they said PC was not responding to the medicine being administered to him. The doctors had said that they would change the mode of treatment.
All this while, we hoped, and prayed, that PC would emerge victorious in this battle for life. But when I got the phone call at 3.30 am, I knew what we feared in the heart of hearts had happened. My conversation with PC last Friday on that hospital bed in the neuro ward turned out to be the last.
I lost a friend for almost 45 years. PC was tall, handsome, well-built but what distinguished him was his sobriety and unfailing decency. In the university days, we were in different centres, he in sociology and I was in political science. But we were part of the same political-ideological persuasion and banded together very well.
PC was a close friend of Digvijay Singh ( Dada) from his Patna days. Dada and I were part of the same JNUSU Students’ Union. When Dada became a Union Minister in Chandra Shekhar government and later in Vajpayee government, PC was appointed his Political Secretary. Anyone who had interacted with PC those days knew what a man of golden heart he was. There are many who suffer from hubris when they walk on the corridors of power. But PC was just the opposite: he was more humble than his usual self when he held a position. He would tell me: “All this power and position are ephemeral; if I can be of some help to anyone, that would give me the best satisfaction.”
That was the way PC was all his life; about 10 years ago, I invited PC to come and take a few classes in the Jagran Mass Media institute ( JIMMC) which I was heading. He was an instant hit; students yearned for his classes. At that time, I requested PC to join the institute as a full-time faculty. He agreed; that gave us the opportunity for close interaction on a daily basis.
I was a strict disciplinarian; I would insist that students coming to the class late must not be given attendance. But PC was always more accommodative. He would accept every pretext a student ladled out for delay and condone him or her with a warning that they must not do it again. But students knew he was a man of soft heart and he would never punish them.
PC was a thorough professional when it came to teaching. He would come well-prepared for the theory classes; however, he was a marvel when it came to practical lessons. Our Institute was primarily driven by practical training — our aim was to prepare students for the media industry. PC played a stellar role in fulfilling that objective, with his rich experience in the media world and with his felicity with both Hindi and English language. PC was instrumental in providing internship and job opportunities to scores of our students over the years.
PC was never a polarising figure. He would often upbraid me for my strong, one-sided attack on the saffron establishment. He was more balanced, both when he spoke and when he wrote. We had a YouTube channel of our Institute to which students and faculty could contribute. I used to do a daily monologue which usually was a harangue on the Modi regime for undermining our democracy. But it was a democratic platform; we had a faculty who was besotted with the saffron world and PM Modi in particular and he churned out day after day what good Modi government was doing for the country. I had I insisted that PC should do a daily programme to bring in the much-required balance. He rose to the occasion very well, meticulously presenting a balanced perspective on every issue that he discussed.
When it became difficult for PC to climb stairs last April, PC stopped coming to the Institute. But he completed his course through online classes. Despite his strain in the legs, PC travelled to his village in Mokama, Bihar several times in the last year and built a modern home at his ancestral property. He wanted to settle down in that enticing rural ambience, but the love for his children drew him back to the NCR. His wife, a true companion of his all his life, had passed away during the Covid due to a brain stroke. But PC could not leave behind his three handsome, adorable children — Pooja, Harsh and Anand, all established professionals — who virtually doted on him.
I saw these children’s devotion to their father during the last four weeks when PC was on a hospital bed. Pooja, the eldest and an accomplished lawyer, had postponed all her briefs; she was constantly engaged with the nurses and doctors to administer medicine and do all other medical paraphernalia on time; Farzana, a senior resident doctor told us that she was truly inspired to see the brave daughter working relentlessly for her father; her both brothers juggled work, home and hospital to attend to their father round the clock.
PC had many devoted friends and well-withers; there was a long stream of them visiting PC both in the private ward as well as the general ward. Mukti Upadhyay deserves a special mention that he and his wife, Chandralekha, went there every night with soup and other items PC loved when he was in the private ward.
PC had a premonition: when his breathing problem accentuated last Saturday morning and he was being shifted to be put on a ventilator, he told his daughter, Pooja, “Beta, it is time to say, Good Bye”. Pooja could not hold back her tears but kept assuring her dad that he would get well soon.
As I write these lines, I can’t hold back my tears. I have not spent so much time with amy other friend, as I have with PC, in all my life. He was a friend one looked forward to for spending time with; he was never overbearing; he was always a charming company. In the last few months, PC was telling me that he was using his time watching classic movies and reading social thinkers. I had suggested to him that with the help of his film-maker son, Anand, he should do a weekly video programme on current issues. That would give him an active engagement and a larger connect with the outside world. But he dismissed the idea saying that nobody would listen to his videos. I assured him that he had at least 100 close friends who would be interested in knowing what he had to say. He read so voraciously and he was so open-minded in his thoughts and positions that they would love to listen to him. In any case, it did not matter how many read you or watched you, if you presented your thoughts with true sincerity, I said. But he did not buy that argument. He preferred to remain completely anonymous.
Last November, the elections to the Press Club of India was on. I was contesting for a position in the Managing Committee. PC had been a long-standing member of the PCI. He had canvassed for me. But on the day of the election, he had his train ticket booked to go to Patna. I suggested that he go to the railway station straight from his Noida home instead of making a long detour to Raisina Road to vote and go to the station in the peak traffic hour. But he insisted that he would come and vote. What are friends for, he chastised me.
That was the quintessential Phul Chand! He was a friend of a lifetime! Fond memories will linger forever till I live!
Nalini Ranjan Mohanty
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