Hemashri in DifferentTruths.com spotlights women’s overlooked labour in crises—ICUs, election nights—revealing institutional reliance and silent endurance.
AI Summary:
- Two frontline women—Niharika in an ICU and Chayanika during elections—face personal crises while institutions demand uninterrupted duty.
- Systems exploit female labour: emotional caregiving, logistical burdens, and bodily indignities go unacknowledged and unsupported.
- The narrative exposes systemic failures and calls for policy changes, humane protocols, and organisational accountability to protect dignity, health, and work-life balance.
Niharika (name changed) stood at the doorway of the ICU, trying to steady her breath. Her cousin, Surjyo Dada, lay on the stretcher—his body still, his brain almost gone. The beeping machines were soft, as if even they were afraid to disturb the silence of that grief. For a moment, she forgot she was a senior officer; she was only a daughter, a sister, a pehi of the clan, expected to hold an entire family together.
Her phone buzzed. It was her boss, a lady officer, calling on WhatsApp. Niharika answered gently, explaining that she was in the ICU and that it was a medical emergency. But the voice on the other end did not soften.
He rose, sharp and angry, shouting and yelling at her for missing a meeting. The lady had already shouted at her twice earlier that day, enquiring about an important file that had, in fact, been pending with the senior officer herself since November 25, 2020.
They were different nights, different crises, the same unspoken demand: women expected to be unflinching pillars while the systems around them frayed. Niharika’s grief in the hushed ICU and Chayanika’s (name changed) exhausted vigilance on a chaotic election night both reveal how duty overrides bodily needs, personal loss and dignity—how institutions lean on women’s labour without adjusting a single protocol to hold them back.
Chayanika stared at the order in disbelief: she was assigned to receive election materials. Enormously, visibly pregnant, she was stationed far from home, managing with only part-time domestic help.
Her husband, Prakash—an officer in the same service—was tied up with distant duties. Her first worry? Who would care for their child if she returned late? She convinced the maid to stay overnight.
Election day erupted in chaos. Two polling officers ignored announcements and vanished with the EVMs. Traced through the personnel cell, the OC found them: two drunk college lecturers, sprawled on campus, machines abandoned under their heedless watch, dragged in at dawn.
Advanced pregnancy brought quiet indignities—mild incontinence.
Toilets were remote; her clothes soaked in urine’s hush. “Did her staff notice the odour?” haunted her every moment.
Plenty of male officers for this risky night shift—and yet there were none!
Picture design by AI
Hemashri Hazarika is an Officer of the Assam Civil Service since 1997. Her research on Assam Civil Service brought reforms in 2015. A first-class Postgraduate in Economics from Gauhati University, she was awarded JRF/NET by UGC in 1997. Her experience as a bureaucrat has sensitised her to human sufferings. A solutionist by passion, she takes an active interest in issues related to Governance, Development, Women, Children, etc. Reading, Writing, Speaking and Painting are her hobbies.
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