Till the Last Breath . . .

by Durjoy Datta

‘He didn’t have any choice! Who else would marry him?’ he mocked.

  ‘That’s mean!’

  ‘I am just kidding. And it’s beautiful. I am happy for you. On the other hand, who wouldn’t marry you!’

  ‘Aw. That’s sweet now.’ She blushed.

  ‘Where are your parents?’ he asked. And just as he did, they heard footsteps approach the door of the hospital room.

  ‘They are here—’ she said and stopped as she looked at two unfamiliar faces staring all around the room, their eyes wide open and their mouth agape.

  ‘Ishhhhh!’ the woman shrieked and immediately rushed to Dushyant’s bedside while the man stood at a distance with one hand on his chest and the other on his face in disappointment.

  Pihu couldn’t make out what the woman was saying behind the wailing and the sobbing. She kept caressing and kissing Dushyant’s face and hair furiously. Pihu didn’t get a single word she was saying in her weepy Bengali accent. For the next half hour, the high-pitched crying continued. Sometimes, the woman looked at her husband and said something to him in angry sobs. She couldn’t get the words, it was in Bengali after all, but she could tell that Dushyant’s father was being blamed for everything.

  Meanwhile, Dushyant, who was at first unmoved, even irritated, had started crying and had taken his mother in his arms. His father still stood there motionless, watching the whole saga unfold. What a jerk! thought Pihu. It was only after his mom scolded the man that he came near the bed and sat on it. The revulsion and disgust found its way back to Dushyant’s face and he couldn’t meet his father’s eyes. While his mom cried, he just looked away from his father. Seeing his son’s antipathy, the father excused himself while the woman still had her face buried in her crying son’s chest.

  Pihu’s parents walked in too, after a little while, and sat beside her. All three of them were looking at the woman who was sobbing feverishly on the adjacent hospital bed. Pihu filled them in on who she was and told them a little about how Dushyant and his father didn’t see eye to eye. Her mother nodded disapprovingly as if to say, ‘Who would want such a son?’ Pihu promptly reminded her of how it was Dushyant who had saved her life even as he was about to die himself. Her mother muttered something about the unlucky room number and her eyes glazed over.

  For a change, her father, too, sat on the other side and held her other hand. Almost instantly, he discovered the gold chain with the little diamond and looked at her with questioning eyes. She blushed stupidly and it became apparent where it came from. Her father grinned approvingly. If only she had more time to go on unnoticed dates and night-outs without her father knowing and to stash Valentine’s Day cards in the corners of her wardrobe, to save money to buy her boyfriend expensive gifts and to have her heart broken and lose her love to someone else and get married. If only …

  Her father’s grip tightened on her hand and though she couldn’t feel it, she could sense it … the anguish, the irreparable loss, the defeat. Both sets of parents sat near their kids. Often her eyes would meet Dushyant’s and they would both smile. A little later, Zarah walked into the room and asked Dushyant’s parents to follow a ward boy for the blood and tissue tests. They wanted to check for possible donors. Zarah’s face screamed anxiety and she never looked straight at Dushyant.

  Pihu’s parents, too, excused themselves for lunch after she forced them to. She was sure they hadn’t eaten anything substantial in days. Her mom had been beautiful in her college days; now she looked dead and lifeless.

  Zarah was checking Dushyant’s charts when Pihu finally greeted her: ‘Hi!’

  ‘Hi, Pihu. How are you doing?’ Zarah answered with a forced smile.

  ‘You tell me? You’re the doctor,’ she chuckled.

  ‘She is doing great. Ask me,’ Dushyant butted in and Pihu gave him a reprimanding look. ‘Oh, wait, you don’t know, do you?’

  ‘What do I not know?’ a confused Zarah queried.

  ‘Pihu almost got married,’ Dushyant smirked. Pihu blushed.

  ‘WHAT?’ Zarah exclaimed.

  ‘I mean not really married. But look at her wrist. That’s Arman’s great-grandmother’s pendant meant for Arman’s wife. Now, if that doesn’t sound straight out of a clichéd Hindi movie, I don’t know what does. So symbolically, they are married. Who cares about the paperwork and all that shit! Right, Pihu?’

  Zarah bent over to see the chain and the piece of sparkling rock dangling from it and broke into a big smile … which slowly turned into a big grin and she hugged the life out of poor Pihu. Obviously, she couldn’t feel the hug, but she could feel the love.

  ‘Yes, Dushyant is right. You’re married now,’ she quipped. ‘So congratulations!’

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ Pihu snarled and blushed at the same time.

  ‘But this is so sweet, Pihu,’ Zarah said and sat by her side. Pihu’s joy knew no bounds. It’s a very girly thing to do … to blush and feel ecstatic when your girlfriends approve of the guy you have chosen. Zarah wasn’t really her girlfriend but who cared? It was her moment. For a few seconds, she closed her eyes and imagined herself crying as she walked into a car adorned with flowers and with a number plate that said ‘Just Married, Rx’.

  ‘I am glad I came here,’ Pihu said, her mood wistful and her eyes distant.

  ‘That’s the first time I’ve heard someone be thankful to be in a hospital,’ Dushyant quipped and they all laughed.

  ‘I wish he was here,’ Pihu said.

  ‘Aw. He would have been, but he is preparing for the surgery. I have never seen him so tense before. I hope it goes well,’ Zarah said, as the tension in her eyebrows returned. ‘There is still hope, Pihu.’

  ‘Fingers crossed!’ Pihu said with false happiness. ‘All I want to know are the chances of my coming out of that operation room alive.’

  Zarah didn’t say anything. After a long pause, she said, ‘My guess is … one hundred per cent!’

  She forgave Zarah for lying. She knew she might not ever open her eyes again after the anaesthesiologist pricked her with his injection filled with stuff that was supposed to put her under one more time. The feeling passed. It had come way too many times to mean anything now. She had told people she loved that she loved them … many, many times. Her goodbye to her parents had lasted over a year. Over the past year, she had been waiting for her death. As she lay her head back on the pillow, she smiled. Her wait had been long and weary and she decided she didn’t want her last few hours to go by in dread.

  ‘I will just be back, then,’ Zarah said and hugged her.

  ‘Be back soon. They will take me away in a few hours and Dushyant will be all lonely then. He really needs you.’ Pihu winked.

  Contrary to what she had thought, she didn’t spot a smile on Zarah’s face. If anything, it drooped a little.

  ‘He has people to take care of him. I don’t think he needs me any more than as a doctor,’ Zarah said. Dushyant and Pihu looked at each other, shocked, not knowing what to make of it.

  ‘Obviously, he needs you. Haven’t you noticed the way he looks at you?’ Pihu said excitedly even as Dushyant’s face flushed with obvious anger and embarrassment.

  ‘I am sure there are other people who would respond to his looks and overtures in a manner better than mine,’ she said, irritably.

  Dushyant was still confused and fidgeted with the tubes around him. Pihu, on the other hand, grasped immediately what Zarah meant and stayed shut. Before the light of realization dawned on Dushyant’s face, Zarah had left.

  ‘You know what she was talking about, right?’ Pihu asked.

  ‘I have a faint idea,’ he said. ‘Kajal.’

  ‘Who do you like more?’ Pihu asked.

  ‘Does it matter? I might not make it tomorrow, or the day after, or the month after that.’

  ‘It matters to them. Don’t you think it matters to Zarah what you think about her? After you go, if you go, do you think it will be easy for her to grieve for you and yet not know what you thought about her?’


  ‘I have no idea. It’s a really hard question. I mean, Kajal and I have a history together. We have seen things, been through shit, but Zarah and I have seen worse. With Zarah, I don’t think I have given her a single reason to smile or feel good about us.’

  ‘Trust me, you have.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘She stands at the door for hours, watching you sleep.’

  ‘You’re kidding me!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘I am not. You mumble her name in your sleep too,’ she said.

  ‘I DO NOT!’

  ‘Okay, yes, the last one was a lie, but she really likes you.’

  ‘And Kajal?’ he asked, confused.

  ‘She loves you, too.’

  ‘And I?’

  ‘With that, I can’t help,’ she said and shrugged.

  ‘Why? I am an asshole. Why would they even like me? It’s horrible. Why can’t they go out there and find someone who is cute and lovable and adorable and not dying like me?’

  ‘For them, you must be cute and lovable and adorable and … you are not dying,’ she said.

  Dushyant broke down in tears like a little girl. He cupped his face, his lips looked like an inverted kayak, and his eyes were little puddles of tears.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I … am … so sorry I was rude to you,’ he said and collected himself and wiped the tears off. ‘I wish we could have talked before.’

  ‘It’s fine. Though a word of advice—don’t cry. Like, ever. You’re the bad boy. Movies get made on you, Dushyant. You can’t afford to be a sissy.’

  ‘What sissy? Roger Federer cries and he is pretty kickass,’ he defended himself.

  ‘Is Roger Federer more dateable and irresistible … or say Mick Jagger?’

  ‘Whatever.’

  ‘Don’t whatever me,’ she said angrily.

  ‘Whatever.’

  They both laughed. They lay there, talking about anything that wouldn’t remind them of what was going to happen to them. The clock touched five. There was a shuffle of feet near the door. With Pihu’s parents, the ward boys and Arman walked inside. Seeing her mother in tears, her tears came back, too. Only momentarily. They pulled the curtain between Dushyant and her and she could see Dushyant’s horror-struck face hidden behind the curtain.

  ‘Do we really have to do it now? You said seven, not five,’ her father begged.

  Arman’s head hung low. He said in a soft yet assertive voice, ‘I know, Uncle, but the surgery room will be inspected later, early tomorrow morning. We have to schedule the surgery right now or we won’t be able to. Please try to understand.’

  ‘But … but …’ Her mother wailed and threw herself at Pihu, who felt helpless and a little scared. ‘Don’t take her, she is fine!’ she shrieked.

  ‘I will be okay,’ Pihu whispered, with tears in her eyes.

  Her father, too, joined Pihu in her bed and both of them hugged her. There was no stopping the tears now. Arman cowered in a corner and he looked scared, too. She waited for Arman to look at her and when he did, she smiled meekly at him as if to say, I am ready.

  The ward boys shifted her to the stretcher and slowly started to roll her away, her parents still clutching both of her hands and walking beside her. She took a deep breath and braced herself for what was going to follow. She had led a good life. She had no regrets. As she passed Dushyant, she noticed the shock on his face, too. She smiled at him and moved her lips to say, ‘I will be back. Don’t worry.’

  Dushyant smiled at her and the stretcher was out of the room. Her parents said a million things to her about how much they loved her. She closed her eyes and thought how superfluous and unnecessary those words were. She knew. If she died, their loss would be far greater than hers. She knew they knew she loved them.

  As Arman bent over, pretending to help the ward boys roll the stretcher into the lift, he whispered in her ears, ‘I love you, my beautiful wife.’

  29

  Dushyant Roy

  Time had slowed down. It had been four hours now. Dushyant had spent a major chunk of his time in the hospital not talking to the girl on the other bed, but he felt lonely without her on the bed beside him. He missed her cherubic, irritating presence. The empty bed and the perfectly ironed bedsheet, which had been changed since she last slept on it, scared him.

  His mother had dozed off on the bed after some high-intensity sobbing and his father had been looking at Dushyant as if to ask if he was forgiven—or if he had driven Dushyant to the condition he was in right now. Or so Dushyant thought.

  Constantly, his eyes went to the bed alongside his and he could still see all the books scattered around, the crutches Pihu had used when he first saw her, the wrapping paper of the gifts her friends got her. There was a crushing sensation in his heart like he had lost something important. No matter how hard he tried to shake off thoughts of Pihu’s pulse dropping to zero, her lifeline flattening out and she breathing her last on the surgery table, he wasn’t able to do so. His own heartbeat slowed down every time he thought of her not being there.

  Zarah walked in a little later with an envelope in her hand. Dushyant didn’t think anything of it before she handed it over to him.

  ‘How’s she?’ Dushyant asked as Zarah started to walk away.

  ‘It’s still going on. I am too scared to go in and disturb them,’ Zarah said.

  ‘And what is this?’ he asked pointing to the envelope in his hand.

  ‘I have no idea,’ she replied curtly. Her mood since the morning hadn’t changed. It seemed as if she was still hurting from what had happened earlier that day. Dushyant would have stopped her from leaving the room but he wasn’t sure himself about what he wanted.

  Nervously, he tore off the top of the envelope. There was a slightly crumpled piece of paper inside with something written in a familiar handwriting. He read:

  Hey Dushyant,

  I hope you are doing well. I have always hoped.

  I am leaving. I would have stayed, but I can’t. It’s my time to go. For the second time and this time it’s because of me. You deserve better. I shouldn’t have come back, but then I couldn’t help it. As I leave, I want to let you know that every moment I had spent with you made me a better person, a better lover, a better daughter and a better sister. I know the world warned me against the obsessive, paranoid, angry guy that you no doubt are, but you’re a lot more than that and they will never know it. I experienced it and I know that any girl who gets to walk into the sunset with you will be the luckiest girl there has ever been.

  I lost you the day I left you. I don’t want to go back in time and brood over what happened between us. But what happened is something that I will take to my grave, smiling. It’s time for you to move on, find a new life, find someone who will accept you the way you are, love you for the person you are. And as I see it, that person is around you. You just need to acknowledge it.

  I hope you have a good life. I will be thinking of you. I always have. No matter whom I was with.

  Love,

  Kajal

  P.S. I am not disappearing from your life; I don’t think I can do that any more. I am going to London. Call me if you need me. I will always be there. Stop drinking.

  As Dushyant finished reading the letter for the second time, he realized two things: though Kajal meant a lot to him and always would, he had paid his dues, and that he had suffered a lot to love her again as insanely as he used to. The sleepless nights he had spent wondering if he still meant anything to her had extracted every bit from him. Loving her was tiring and he didn’t know if he had the strength to go through that again. Even so, the last line brought a smile to his face. She would still be around, be a part of his life, be there when he threw the big parties, and be with him in his heartbreak if he had any. That in itself meant a lot to him.

  Maybe he needed someone damaged, like Zarah, and not someone with the perfect life like Kajal. For one thing, he was sure he wasn’t in love with Zarah yet. But it was an infatu
ation, and it was growing. She was with him in the worst of times and she had helped him keep his shit together. Who knows where it might lead him? He closed his eyes and fantasized about him asking Zarah out on a date. And he thought about how Pihu was doing in the surgery room. Quite a few hours had passed and, ideally, it should have been ended by now.

  He closed his eyes and the monitor showed a flat line.

  There were shouts across the corridor.

  ‘CRASH CART!’ Zarah shouted and two ward boys came rolling in with one. Dushyant’s heart was a flat line, his body had had a violent seizure seconds ago and had now gone limp. His parents were shrieking, wailing, shouting at the top of their lungs, ‘HOW COULD HE …!’, their faces pale and hands flailing wildly.

  Zarah rubbed the paddles together, ripped his robe apart and sent an electric shock flying into his heart. Nothing happened. She tried it again. Nothing. And again. Finally, the heart picked up and Dushyant started breathing again in short coughs. All his stats were still low and dipping. Zarah asked the ward boys to shift him to the Intensive Care Unit and rushed out, ignoring the pleas and the shouts of his parents.

  ‘He needs surgery. NOW!’ Zarah shouted to someone on the phone. Zarah face drooped. There was nothing she could do. There were no matching donors.

  30

  Fifteen Days Later

  We all have our places in this world. I do, too. I, Dushyant, am the rotten apple of the basket. I stay in the basket too long, I tend to ruin everything. That’s my place in the world. That was supposed to be my identity till my last breath. Like the identity of Zarah is to unscrew herself, for Arman it is to do what no one else would, for Kajal it is to try to find what her heart really wants, for Pihu it was to smile and make the world a better place. It’s what defines us.

  But that day when I had decided to do three extra shots of vodka and five extra drags and three extra snorts of cocaine and then passed out after a seizure, I didn’t know I would wake up to a new morning and to a new identity. I was in pain, in considerable pain, and there was just one person who still smiled at the rotten assemblage of human tissues that I had become. That person was Pihu. A little girl with the brightest of smiles and the biggest of hearts who didn’t think anyone was bad inside. And for someone like me, who has ten thousand layers of bad before the slightest of good, it meant a lot. What would have happened had I decided to do that one month later? Who knows? I would have died, that’s for sure. But I would have died a bitter, angry guy. Am I happy now? Will I be happy five years from now? I don’t know. Do I thank her for saving me? Yes. Do I feel good about being saved? Again, I am not sure. Why should I be happy just because I have a few years more to live, why should I be happy just because I have more time with my parents? Why should I be happy because my folks won’t grieve? For Pihu, these questions were the answers. Then why didn’t she get those last few breaths? The extra few years?