Balloon for thought
By Dayal Johan Niranjan Pandian

29th Oct 2024

Would that one balloon have made a difference? 

Today was supposed to be another field day, a malaria screening, just like the day before. We went in, as usual, asking if anyone in the village was unwell. Faces turned blank, evasive. “No sickness here,” they told us, insisting we had no reason to stay. And then, as we turned to leave, we were called back—a baby, they said, with a fever. I wasn’t prepared for what I saw next.

The child was barely a year old, his tiny chest heaving and pulling inwards with every breath, struggling for air. His skin was pale, his body limp, almost lifeless. He didn’t even flinch when we pricked him for a blood test. It was like life was already slipping away. I felt the urgency pulsing through me. This was an emergency. He needed a hospital, and he needed it now. But the village didn’t move at the same pace. Every step felt slow, agonizingly so.

Finally, the father arrived, confused and uncomprehending. A health worker snapped at him, asking him how literate he was, demanded to know why he hadn’t brought the baby in sooner. I couldn’t let him continue. I told him to speak with less anger and more understanding. How could we know what burdens this father was already carrying? What this life had already demanded of him? How could we judge his choices without understanding his life? Judging him wasn’t going to save his son.

We tried to explain the urgency, waited as he took it in. And then the mother arrived, heartbroken. She clung to her baby, sobbing. I tried to comfort her, resting a hand on her shoulder, offering words of reassurance and saying we’d do everything we could. Her sobs quieted, just a little. And I wondered, would that kindness make a difference? They say tribal communities handle loss easily, that they’ve lived with death so long it’s woven into their lives and it’s something they’re accustomed to. But watching this mother cling to her baby I couldn’t believe that. Her grief was as deep, raw and real as any other mother’s. 

As we prepared to leave, the baby’s elder brother began to cry. Panicking as he saw his family about to leave with strangers , must’ve been terrifying. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a balloon I’d brought along, a habit I started in Rajasthan ,a small gesture to soothe and pacify frightened children. I blew it up, handed it to him, watched his tears stop as he took it. And I couldn’t help but wonder—would that little balloon help soften this trauma? Could it somehow break the cycle of fear and distrust that so often takes root here?

The villagers gathered around us as we finally left, some of them still asking if they could bring a healer or visit the temple before coming to the hospital. They wanted to turn to their own traditions, their own beliefs. And I found myself wondering if we’d somehow violated that by insisting on the hospital. What right did we have to doubt their faith?

At the primary care center, we stabilized the baby as best we could, but he needed more. Udaipur was his only chance. But when we told his mother, she refused. She would rather walk back home with her baby’s body than risk what might await her in the big city. I felt a flicker of understanding, in a way. Who were we to force her into a choice that terrified her? There has to be something more to that thought process that we don’t understand. 

We ended up leaving with the father and grandmother instead, hoping for the best. 

In the ambulance, I kept leaning back and listening to catch the baby’s breaths, each one though fragile was a reassurance that he was still fighting. Counting the seconds I worried about the oxygen levels, the drip that had stopped flowing, the frusemide that we should’ve given before we left. Everything in that ambulance felt like a fragile thread, one snap away from unraveling. With every second seeming like a lifetime for them as though one small misstep could tip the balance .

When we arrived, they took him to the ICU. The doctors and nurses seemed almost callous, joking and laughing as they worked, as if it was just another day. The father stood there, helpless, unacknowledged. I tried to stay with him, explaining each step, the tubes, the machines. I thought, could this small gesture—this simple act of explaining—calm his fears, make this nightmare more bearable?

At one point, they handed him a form, told him to register. He looked as lost as I felt. And I thought, if I could barely understand their instructions, how could he?

I lifted the baby myself and carried him to the ventilator. The father walked beside me, his face a mixture of fear and hope. I explained each step as best I could, showing him how the ventilator would help his son, how it could make the difference. As they hooked the baby up, I felt a glimmer of relief—the oxygen saturation levels began to rise. I pointed to the numbers, reassuring the father, telling him that this machine, this strange contraption, was giving his child a fighting chance and this is what would make  the difference their place and ours. 

But just as hope seemed to settle in, I watched the saturation levels drop. The ventilator had stopped. Panic crept into my mind, but I couldn’t show it. I stayed with the father, kept a steady hand on his shoulder, kept explaining as calmly as I could. The staff scrambled over several minutes to fix it, but those minutes felt like eternity, with the baby’s oxygen slipping lower and lower. I couldn’t help but wonder—was this it? Would this delay, this one failure, be the reason he wouldn’t make it?

The baby died an hour after we left.

But whose fault was it, really? Should I blame the doctors for not checking their faulty equipment or realising it sooner ? the parents for not seeking help sooner? Myself, for not catching these small, crucial details in time through the journey? The hospital, for failing him in those last critical moments? Or was it just fate, a painful reminder of how thin the line between life and death can be? What ever it was , it felt futile to point fingers as the damage was done, a life was lost and one is forced to think how things could’ve been different if we didn’t force the referral in the first place? The mother’s fears proved right. 

As we finally sent the father and grandmother back home with their child, not a word was spoken. It felt right to say nothing, as if silence was the only respect I could offer. No words felt right.  I wanted to do more, to mourn with them, to share their grief. But I was told to stay away, to avoid being seen. They feared the villagers might see me as the outsider who started this chain of events, the one who led them here.

As I raised my hand in a small helpless wave as the ambulance pulled away, I found myself thinking of that little brother and the balloon. I wanted to believe that small act of kindness could ease his pain, that it might help him avoid the anger or mistrust so many others feel. I wanted to believe it could help him grow up with hope, despite today’s tragedy.

But deep down, I’m left with questions that linger. Did my small gestures mean anything in the end? Could they outweigh the pain I couldn’t stop? Or are these moments just fragments, scattered pieces of a story I may never fully understand?

Update :

A week later, I returned to their home. I had to see them again, to understand. My suspicions were right—there was more to their story than we knew.  

The father, I learned, had been abandoned by his own father at the age of five. By seven, he was already working to survive. What could he possibly know about fatherhood, about nurturing a child? And they’d lost three children before this, all around the same age. It was no wonder the mother didn’t trust the system. It wasn’t indifference—it was heartbreak, layered over years of pain and disappointment.  

That’s when it struck me: a simple question—“Why are people the way they are?”—can reveal so much. It’s easy to judge, to lash out at someone for not complying, for not trusting, for seeming indifferent. But behind every action, every choice, is a story. Even if we don’t have the answer, even if we can’t know the whole truth, just asking that question—just imagining there might be more—helps us find empathy.