Rajendra Yadav -राजेन्द्र यादव- "Two In the Next World"

"Two In the Next World" by Rajendra Yadav-राजेन्द्र यादव-(1958, 2 pages-trans. in 2006)

Medical Corruption

A Story by an Eminent Hindi Author

"Two in the Next World" by Rajendra Yadav is a starkly realistic look at how medicine is practiced (or was in 1958) in the North  Eastern India.   Yadav (1929-Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India) comes from a very distinguished family that traces its origins back 1000s of years.   He was born into a Maratha caste many of whose members are government officials, land owners, and army officers.   His own father was a medical doctor.   Yadav studied Hindi literature in college and began to publish short stories and essays while still in college.   He has written several novels, one of which in the 1960s sold over a million copies.   He edited a prominent literary journal.   His wife, Mannu Bhandari, is also a well known author.   He has translated Russian and French literary works into Hindi.  

"Two in the Next World" is narrated from Hell by a man who died as a result of surgery by an incompetent doctor.   He was scheduled to have his surgery done by a government doctor but he found out the doctor was "a reserve quota doctor" meaning he came from once discriminated castes (Dalit or untouchables) which in the mind of the man telling the story that the doctor was just given his degree no matter how stupid he might have been to satisfy government quota requirements that there must be a certain number of Dalit doctors.   Instead he takes all of his families spare cash and hires a young very professional looking doctor right out of medical school.   It turns out the doctor got through school by bribes and passed his medical exams in the same way.    The narrator is now in what he thinks is hell.   He says he will look up the second wife of the doctor that killed him as she killed herself when her family could not give her husband all the money he demanded from them.


"Two in the Next World" (the man and the doctor's second wife) is a simple tale about a world where it is just natural that doctors are all either corrupt, incompetent or uncaring.   It is just how life is!   


The story was translated from Hindi by Pratik Kanjilal.




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