I still remember that smoggy breeze that I felt through my lungs and the rustling, dried leaves on the streets crunching under my feet….
It was only 2 days since my engagement with M. Bindhu that demonetization was called in and we had to rush back to Hyderabad, to our work places. Hyderabad, the city where the roads are rough, there’s nothing sluggish rather everyone seems is all the time hasting everywhere…
After my office hours, I withdrew some cash from an ATM in Madhapur and while I was heading back, I received a kind of a panic call from my fiancée, “Where are you?” said her frantic voice on the other side. “I just came out of an ATM”, was my quick response, worried evidently at her worry. “Oh, alright…can you get some cash and some sanitary pads to my hostel?” she asked.
And the dinner that we had planned to go for never happened that day… after an hour, we did go out though and after 10 minutes of sullen silence all through which he held my hand tight and kept staring at the engagement ring…
“Is all okay?” I broke through the silence. She said, “Yeah, all is well.” We had some juice and it was almost 11.30 when I dropped her at the hostel before which we stopped at a medical store at the corner of the street where she bought some tablets.
She went through the gates of the hostel and then returned almost immediately, “Shall we go out for dinner?”
“I have a client call early tomorrow, so let me plan, will let you know accordingly,” I replied.
The next morning, I did call, but there was no response. Later, she texted saying ‘I was at work (night shift), so couldn’t answer.’ ‘Alright, you take care, we shall catch up in the morning’, I texted back.
It was a Saturday and we went out for lunch to a fine-dine restaurant. Began a casual talk, basically sharing our interests, the order arrived and in the middle of it, she bawled holding her stomach… I didn’t get anything!!
Amidst the pain, she mumbled asking me to take her to a gynecologist and I promptly drove her to the nearest at once. The doctor there attended her, administered some medicines and Bindu was put to sleep for almost 2 hours.
In all this while, I was only confused not knowing what actually was going on, that’s when the doctor asked me to come and meet her in the cabin and began, “Firstly, let me congratulate you on your engagement.” Then she continued, “How are you doing?” “I’m good doctor, thank you,” I replied, “but will you please tell me what happened to Bindu? Is there anything to be worried about? Is she fine?”
“Oh, there’s nothing to worry about, it’s an issue with her menstrual cycle,” said the doctor reassuringly.
Once M. Bindhu was ok to travel, I dropped her back to the Hostel. The following day, i.e. Sunday, she was unable to come out anywhere.
I went to the doctor again, this time actually wanting to know what went wrong with Bindhu. After some initial hesitation, the doctor first asked me, “What do you know about a woman’s menstrual cycle?” When I began telling her what I know, she interrupted me in between and said, “Alright, so now listen to what I have to say. Keep calm as you listen. Your fiancée has had a long break from her regular menstrual cycle.” “Are you like serious, doctor?” I retorted.
“Well, yes I am and I have been seeing such things quite commonly now a days. Such is especially true in women working in the MNCs, most importantly in the night shifts. They don’t have a proper time for eating or even rest. They don’t get enough sleep with project deadlines and mental illness in balancing work and family. Their diet consists of highly processed, semi-cooked food. Non-veg food of this kind is the main reason for this king of disturbance in the body and changes in their regular menstrual cycles. Usually Non-veg takes 24 – 36 hours to digest. As a result, the body becomes a victim of hormonal imbalance and the effects are shown at once,” revealed the doctor.
She continued, “I have recently had a similar case where in the girl got her periods only twice in a year because she made to use pills in skipping her menstrual cycle for four months. She was working as team leader in one of top MNC’s company for 4 years in night shift and fortunately we can count her last seen sunrise and She got married last week. Now she is under medication to normalize her cycles.” On serious note for coming generations it was finest problem to women and its highly risk to get pregnant.
I understood what I needed to do. I went to Bindhu’s hostel, told her roommate to pack her luggage and other things. We moved to a new flat after explaining to both our parents that she has some health issues and we need to stay put together in this. It has been three months now since we moved together and she is undergoing treatment.