Outside the Firozabad medical college, a 12-year-old boy was running around carrying a little girl. The girl had high fever, so much that she could not open her eyes.
The boy and his parents kept begging the doctor at the emergency to admit the girl but the doctor said there was no place available. "Take the medicines and take her home," the family was told.
But the girl's condition was worsening. My cameraman Ashok Mahale and I were shooting in the vicinity. Suddenly, we spotted the girl's mother crying. When we went there and asked, we learnt that five-year-old Savanya had been unwell for two days and the family had been running around since morning, desperate to get hospital admission.
But the child was so weak that she couldn't open her eyes. Her mother kept saying she had not eaten for two days. I decided to follow the family to the ward. The staff stopped my cameraman but I slinked in. Savanya started thrashing about. Her parents tried to force some water through her pursed lips. But she vomited it out. Her mother took her in her lap and said soothingly, "See... we have finally got a bed for you. Now you can rest... you won't feel so warm." Little Savanya opened her eyes and turned to see her mother. And her eyes stayed open. Her mother screamed: "Doctor! She is awake and not blinking".