#537 The Treatment of Bibi Haldar- Jhumpa Lahiri
Bibi is afflicted by an unknown ailment that gives her
violent seizures and causes her to live a strained life. She has been brought
to every doctor, healer, spiritualist around, but nothing seems to help. She is
not treated like a human, she is treated like a sick person.
“Bibi had never been taught to be a woman; the illness had
left her naïve in most practical matters.”
So when she is old enough to see and wonder about the world
around her, she gets resentful and wishes a normal life. “Her soliloquies mawkish,
her sentiments maudlin, malaise dripped like a fever from her pores.” A doctor
prescribes a cure for Bibi…marriage will help her out.
Her cousin and his wife are her caretakers and refuse to
allow her to marry. They won’t offer a dowry and think of her as a shame to the
family. “What won’t be cured must be endured.” Their ill-treatment of BIbi
causes a backlash in town and they are forced to close up shop and leave town.
They leave Bibi behind to fend for herself. Months later she is found to be
pregnant, father unknown. She raises the child, restarts her fathers old
business, and her illness dissipates.
Treat someone like s sick person, and that’s all they will
be; treat someone like a human, and…
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