Your Dreams Are Mine Now

by Ravinder Singh

  Besides, they were anyway waiting for the rain . . .

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  60 HOURS LATER . . .

  Things had changed. But not for the better. They had further deteriorated. The tests that were being conducted at regular intervals exhibited this. The numbers on the test reports, which were supposed to be closer to the normal range, were instead drifting away—some far below the minimum, some far above the maximum limits. More powerful drugs and higher doses had made their way into the arsenal of the nurses in the ICU.

  The doctors didn’t have much to say. So far, at different points in time, they had said the same thing in many different ways, just to make it different from what they had said before, just to make it less painful to absorb, just to keep the hopes alive. But beyond a point, you don’t have much to say, especially when the test reports say it all.

  The doctors had never promised the moon, but now they were not even showing the silver lining. So they resorted to their default statement.

  ‘We are doing our best. And everything else is in the hands of God.’

  No wonder the walls of hospitals hear more prayers than those of churches. But Arjun was not sure whether he was going to pin one of his own to the walls of the ICU in AIIMS. If everything was in God’s hands, then what had happened to the girl he loved was also the same God’s will. Why did He let that happen in the first place? What wrong had she done for which she deserved to become a feast for those monsters? Why had nobody come to save her?

  Once again, the higher power had failed him.

  He wasn’t sure whether he should beg God to save her or hold him responsible for the events that had taken place in the past sixty hours. So he did both. That’s the nature of a tragedy that threatens to take away the precious love of your life. It makes you do anything and everything, and sometimes even contradictory things.

  So he abused the God in whom Rupali believed in and appealed to him as well.

  Frustration and helplessness took its toll on his mind. Hunger and sleep had long escaped his life. Even though his body demanded them, his heart and mind were not at peace to look after his body. Whatever little rest he had got on the bench outside the ICU the night before made him even more restless. He had nightmares—of doctors and nurses running and trying to save Rupali. The visual of her lying unconscious on the ICU bed, with a dozen tubes piercing her body never left him in peace. It was exactly the way he had seen her, earlier in the day, when he was allowed to step inside the ICU. She was put on life support system, the doctors had told him. Machines were keeping her body alive. A thick tube that was externally connected to a ventilator ran insider her mouth, another one ran inside her right nostril, then there was one more than penetrated inside her neck. He had seen those units of saline, blood and sedatives that hung over her head. The urine bag that was tied to a corner of her bed and that white bedsheet over which showed the patches of blood that time and again was seeping out of her dressing. He had seen the monitor behind her bed that was continuously generating numerous multi-coloured graphs—he had no idea how to read them. But something in them told him that things were not well. And then there was this continuous beep generating from the monitoring machine that made this entire set-up look so delicate and critical. Those beeps continued to echo in his dreams. He wanted to run away from them. Then he heard Rupali in distress, calling out to him. He heard men around her. He wanted to save her. But for some reason, he could not make out from which direction her voice was coming. He woke up suddenly, a scream died in his throat as he saw the surroundings of the hospital.

  On the one hand, he was burning from inside to avenge Rupali’s misery; on the other, Rupali’s critical condition was testing his endurance. Awful anger and constant fear had made their space in his heart. A combination of both was more bitter than anything he had felt before. It made his life miserable and, to add to it, time crawled and tested his patience. Even after two days, there were no answers to his questions; there was no end to his suffering.

  In some moments when he couldn’t digest the horrific reality of what had happened to his love, his blood boiled. He wanted to help his close friends who had joined the police in trying to hunt down the criminals, the beasts. He wanted to join his agitated party members who had called the mass protest against the system demanding justice. But every time he thought about it, he imagined his worst fears coming true. He imagined Rupali suddenly wanting him there and him not being around. And that made him step back.

  ‘What do you mean you can’t say? Haan? What do you mean you can’t say?’ Arjun shouted in anger and jumped at the doctor. ‘When will she open her eyes? You are a doctor but you can’t say?’

  ‘Mr Arjun, I understand your mental condition but I’m afraid we don’t have any answers at this stage . . .’

  ‘Then who does! Who the hell does!’ Arjun had lost his cool.

  ‘Arjun! Arjun! No! No! No! Hold yourself back, Arjun!’ Madhab pulled him back while he kept apologizing to the doctor on his friend’s behalf.

  Arjun kept asking his question in a daze, ‘She is going to survive, right? You’d better tell me if she is dying.’

  ‘Arjun, shut up! Calm down, Arjun! ARJUN!! SHUT UP!’ Madhab pushed him to the wall to stop him. ‘You are not going to lose it. All right? You are not going to lose it, my friend. Have some faith.’

  Madhab looked into his eyes. There were tears in Arjun’s eyes.

  He sighed.

  A ward boy arrived and stood next to them. ‘You can collect the patient’s clothes in room no. 204. That’s the laundry room near the Emergency.’

  Those were the clothes Rupali was wearing the night she was brought into the emergency ward. The cops had asked for forensic tests on them.

  ‘You must positively claim them today, as we dispose of the patient’s clothes after three days of admitting them,’ the ward boy added.

  Madhab nodded. He asked Arjun to have a glass of water by the time he went and collected the clothes. Arjun wiped his tears. ‘I’ll go. They are Rupali’s clothes. I should go.’ And they hugged each other.

  Then Arjun asked Madhab to check on Rupali’s parents who were due to arrive any time. ‘Saloni is getting them here. You take care of them, I will be back,’ Arjun said while leaving to take the elevator.

  In room no. 204 a heart-wrenching moment awaited Arjun. The moment he entered the room, he found himself surrounded by piles of towels, bedsheets and cushions. He walked around in a shocked state, looking for what he was there for.

  That’s when a housekeeping lady entered the room and, on seeing Arjun, she shouted from a distance, ‘Yes mister?’

  Arjun immediately reached out to her.

  After taking the patient’s information she took a few seconds to check her record book, after which she pointed at the extreme right corner of the room.

  Arjun noticed smaller piles of clothes kept on large plastic trays. There were tags attached to each of the trays. From the bed numbers mentioned on every tag, he understood that they all belonged to various patients in the ICU. The sight of those piles of clothes, of people whom he didn’t know but could empathize with, disturbed him. He sighed.

  They would all have been brought in a terrible condition to the emergency ward, he thought to himself. Did they survive? Or was he looking at dead people’s clothes? No, no, they are all alive. They will all be well, he answered to himself.

  Suddenly, his eyes fell on a tag that mentioned a bed number he was familiar with. He immediately looked at the clothes and recalled how he had asked Rupali to wear that dress. The thought of Rupali wearing that salwar suit to please him made him emotional. ‘She would have worn this for my sake, to make me happy,’ he realized. The very dress he wanted to see her in, would have been forcefully taken off her body by those men whom he didn’t know, he thought in agony. The irony made him weak on his knees.

  The clothes were nearly in shreds and covered in mud and dried blood. The white churidar was soi
led with dirt and now appeared cream and brown. When he stretched it in both his hands, the visual of it stabbed his chest. A pool of blood had dried at its centre as well as on both sides of the upper portion of the legs. It was Rupali’s blood; his beloved’s blood. He saw how it was torn off from the middle. When he tried to pick up the clothes, a dirty white sandal rolled out. He didn’t find the other one.

  The housekeeping lady stopped behind Arjun, ‘This is all that came along with her,’ she said in a soft voice.

  Every inch of Rupali’s clothes narrated the heart-breaking story of what had happened with her some sixty hours back. Along with them, they brought the horror of that night. They had witnessed the injustice.

  Arjun grabbed all her clothes with both his hands. And that’s when it fell out—a little golden heart with a small ruby on it. He picked it up. It was his gift—his confession of love!

  He realized what he was holding in his hands was the aftermath of something so brutal. His girlfriend had to undergo it. Hot tears streamed down his cheeks and fell on Rupali’s bloodstained clothes.

  Half an hour later, when Arjun reached the ICU, Rupali’s parents and her brother had just arrived. Saloni too had walked in along with them. Madhab introduced Arjun to them.

  Fate has its own destiny. Never in his weirdest dreams could Arjun have thought of meeting Rupali’s parents like this. Not outside an ICU. Not holding her torn-off blood-soaked clothes stuffed in a polythene bag. Not when Rupali herself wasn’t there to introduce them. What will he tell them? How shall he tell them what their daughter, who is fighting a lonely battle with death, means to him?

  Saloni jumped in and said Arjun was Rupali’s closest friend. Arjun bent down to touch their feet.

  But those worried souls were not there to differentiate who among them was closest to their daughter. Ever since they had got the ill-fated news they had been fighting with their fears. They didn’t respond. They couldn’t. After a suddenly planned day and a half’s journey, they wanted to see Rupali. Their tired and sleep-deprived eyes wanted to get one glimpse of their daughter. They wanted to speak to the doctors and know how exactly their daughter was doing. But before that, they had to go through the process of knowing the bitter reality.

  Till then they had been kept in the dark about the real circumstances. They only knew the half-truth. Over the phone, Saloni had said that Rupali had met with an accident and that her condition was critical. She had cooked up the accident part only to lessen their shock. Back then, when she had called, the doctors hadn’t confirmed anything. She hadn’t even seen Rupali. It was only later that they had confirmed rape. Saloni didn’t have the guts to tell them another heartbreaking news till they reached Delhi. Moreover, it wasn’t going to change anything in Rupali’s recovery. It would have been a terrible shock to her parents. By the time the media broke the news, Rupali’s family had already boarded the train. With Rupali’s identity not revealed, there was no way they could have made out that the DU girl in the newspapers was none other than their own Rupali. But the time had come when the complete truth had to be revealed.

  On knowing that Rupali’s family had reached, one of the doctors from the team and a senior inspector arrived at the spot. They called Rupali’s parents into a closed chamber. When they saw Tanmay accompanying them, the inspector insisted that he wait outside for a while. Looking at their expressions and gauging the atmosphere, the fear on the faces of Rupali’s parents began to take the worst of shapes. Meanwhile, Saloni took Tanmay along with her to the canteen. She thought she could make him eat something.

  All hell broke loose the moment the truth was revealed in the closed chamber. Rupali’s mother screamed out in pain. She refused to believe the fact and kept denying it.

  ‘Aisa nahi ho sakta . . . aisa nahi ho sakta,’ (This can’t be true . . . this can’t be true) she kept repeating those words in disbelief.

  It took a while for the truth to sink in. Yet she kept denying it. Perhaps, in reality she wasn’t actually denying it, she was denying confronting those words, the raw reality of the moment. Every subsequent time she repeated her words, the pitch of her voice kept going down. A sense of painful acceptance of the truth began emerging in every subsequent denial of hers.

  ‘Meri bachchi! Meri bachchi!’ (My daughter! My daughter!) came out of her mouth, after which she couldn’t utter anything. Tears made their way on to the surface of the table at which she sat.

  Rupali’s father, who had been standing, lost his balance as soon as he heard the inspector. Arjun jumped to catch him and helped him sit on the chair behind him.

  ‘Oh God! Oh God!’ Her father wailed and held his head in his hands, cursing his ill fate. The shock of the moment didn’t even let him cry. He wanted to, but something within him choked him and didn’t let the pain flow out.

  He let Rupali’s mother weep. He didn’t stop her. He didn’t even look at her at that moment.

  They looked completely shocked. The doctor urged them to have water, but none of them moved.

  Tanmay wasn’t present there to look at his parents grieving over the heartbreaking news. But then he wasn’t completely unaware. He had already got a sense of the bitter reality. He had connected the dots much before he arrived at the ICU that afternoon. The front-page news of a DU girl’s rape, the ICU at AIIMS, the date she was admitted, the mass protest of the college students outside the hospital where he had overheard his sister’s name when someone had shouted at Saloni who was accompanying them to the hospital. He had guessed it all.

  Looking at the flatscreen television installed on one of the walls of the canteen and following the breaking news of mass protest for the DU gang rape, Tanmay finally managed to politely ask Saloni, ‘Is this about my sister?’

  His innocent eyes didn’t leave the television screen when he asked that question. He had a right to know what had happened to his sister.

  He had his fingers crossed. In his heart, he desperately pleaded that Saloni would rubbish his thoughts.

  But that didn’t happen; not in the next moment, not in the moments after the next moment.

  Saloni hugged him, tears streaming down from her eyes. So far she hadn’t cried. She had been brave. But now she couldn’t stop.

  Tanmay could hear Saloni weeping secretly. That was his answer. He uncrossed his fingers and didn’t speak a word. Later, when he met his parents again, he didn’t ask them a single question. He was silent for the rest of the day. Saloni couldn’t understand if that was his way to deal with the shock or if he was yet to deal with it.

  Back in the closed chamber, after Saloni had arrived there with Tanmay, Arjun thought they needed to give the family some private time. The situation demanded time. He wanted to let them absorb the grave truth of the moment.

  Just then Madhab came running to let Arjun know that the protests outside the hospital were getting out of control. Arjun asked Saloni to look after Rupali’s family. He said he would be back soon.

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  72 HOURS LATER . . .

  Protests had erupted in other parts of the country. People were extremely annoyed at the ever-increasing crime in society, particularly against women. And this particular incident had blown off the lid of their patience. The brutality with which Rupali had been raped and left to die had touched a raw nerve in people. They wanted stricter law and order—not just on paper, but also in action. They demanded a stringent judiciary, one that would deliver swifter justice. Status updates on Rupali’s health and the progress of the case became the regular content on all media—television, newspapers and radio alike.

  For all that was happening, the ruling government in the capital came under immense pressure. Delhi became highlighted as the crime capital of India. People held the government responsible for the complete lapse of law and order in the society. They wanted answers. The leaders of the party were left red-faced. Answers were demanded on every social forum. The Opposition parties saw an opportunity in the whole thing and jumped
in, demanding the resignation of the leaders from the ruling party. Their motive, though, was to capture the vote bank shifting in their favour.

  Under media pressure and facing the wrath of the entire country, the government was certainly placed on the back foot. The state tried to pass the buck to the Centre—because Delhi police was controlled by the Centre, the law-and-order machinery wasn’t under their control. The least it could do was to ensure that the best possible care was being provided to Rupali. With every passing hour, the story of the DU girl’s rape was getting more and more of a political makeover. From the home minister to the chief minister, a series of leaders, including those from the Opposition, had paid a visit to AIIMS.

  It was only late in the evening that Arjun got back to the hospital. He had thought he would be back sooner but the agitation outside the hospital premises kept him busy. He and his party were determined to keep the protests on. Meanwhile, he had paid a visit to his home to see his mother, who was equally worried about Rupali. She too wanted to visit the hospital, but Arjun suggested that she does that once Rupali regains her consciousness.

  On his way back to the hospital, Arjun had got some food for Rupali’s family that his mother had cooked.

  Arjun asked Saloni and Madhab to leave, though Saloni insisted on staying back for some more time as Imran, her boyfriend, was supposed to pick her up. A tired Madhab assured Arjun that he was only a call away and left.

  In one corner of the waiting room outside the ICU, Arjun arranged a small table and pulled up a few chairs. He placed the food and some disposable plates that he had got on the table. He then called Rupali’s parents to eat.