65-year-old Pataruni Ghosh from the Indian state of West Bengal has been forced to lead a very strange lifestyle for two decades, which hardly any of us will envy. Since 1998, a sick woman has to spend most of her time in the water. On the best days, our heroine goes with the first rays of the sun to the nearest pond, where she spends 12 to 14 hours up to her neck in water. After sunset, the Indian woman returns home, where she does her usual business, like other women in her remote village, then go to bed, because early in the morning she has to go to the reservoir again.
On the worst days, Pataruni spends almost round the clock in the lake. Interestingly, after the start of such "procedures" the woman began to rapidly lose her appetite. Now it is enough for her to eat some rice with vegetables several times a month. Gosh does not like loneliness very much, and relatives and neighbors constantly visit her to keep the unfortunate company and entertain her. Some villagers seriously believe that over time the pensioner will turn into a water maiden and will live in the pond forever.
At the end of the last millennium, our heroine developed an incomprehensible ailment, characterized by constant and severe inflammation of the skin. The situation is significantly worse when the Indian woman is in the sun. Once swimming in the lake, the woman suddenly realized that fresh water effectively relieves pain. Since then, this has become the only salvation for an elderly villager.
Pataruni cannot seek help from doctors because she is very poor. The journalists who made a report about her hope that the woman's unusual problem will attract the attention of the Indian public, and caring compatriots will try to raise funds for her treatment in the hospital. In the meantime … In the meantime, the Indian woman really "turns" into a mermaid, and this is expressed not only in the absence of a normal appetite, but also in her ever greater attachment to the lake. Close relatives even fear that one day they will come to the reservoir and will not find Pataruni here, who will pass into another world, and not spiritual, but water …
