Back to Puneet’s present life...
Life is really strange and so are we! We keep asking it so many questions; why, who, when? But the day life starts answering our questions, we start wondering why the hell is it doing this to us? Can’t it just keep quiet and hear our crap without answering them? Strange!
My whole life, my whole fucking life was nothing but a lie. A lie told by my parents. They knew everything but never told me. They let me sway away with my assumptions; they threw me in the darkest cave from where there was no escape.
“Why, mom? Why did you do that to me? You knew everything, right?” We were both unable to make eye contact now.
“We did that to bring you back son; bring you back to normal from that state of depression. There was no way left for us.” My mother knew that these words would leave no impact over my injured soul but that was the best attempt she could make.
I chuckled and stood up, “See mom, I am back. You brought your son back from that horrible state. Now feel proud and happy.” I was furious. I had never before screamed at her, the way I did that day. She continued to sob and I left for my room.
We both loved each other; we were both ready to live together and also to die for each other. Now I didn’t remember anything about her but her love never allowed me to forget her. She visited my dreams; she tried to make me remember her but I had felt afraid of her. I tried to block her thoughts from my mind. I tried to search for someone else when there was already a girl out there who was madly in love with me. She remembered me, cried for me, prayed to God for my return but I remembered nothing.
Tears were free to flow now; there was no reason for them to stop. They deserved to flow and keep on flowing till I myself got drifted along with them. I had broken someone’s heart, I had broken a promise, I had broken a trust; why the hell was I still alive. What was the point of going on living now?
Wait! Where was Rishi? He had seemed to know everything. He had turned things right for me. He had directed me to find the missing link in my life and sometimes he also spoke to her, to Roshni.
“RISHI!” I burst my lungs out and screamed his name but he did not appear. I called his name out again; and yet no response. I looked for him everywhere in the house; I found him nowhere. My mother got afraid to see my reaction. She followed me everywhere, tried to stop me, but I was not going to stop now. I wanted Rishi back; I wanted to talk to him; I wanted to know where Roshni was and how she was doing. I wanted to meet her once. Just once..........
“Do you know what the best thing about you is?” I asked her while lying on her lap. We were naked, exhausted and very happy.
“What?” Roshni said. Her wildness was slowly transforming into cuteness. She was a lady of various colors.
“It’s the language of your body. It speaks to me and asks to explore every part of it again and again and again.” I ran my fingerfrom her neck to navel and transformed her into a tigress once again.
Suddenly everything faded like it had never existed and at that very moment I understood that I was dreaming. A white color white filled the space around me. Everything was bright, very bright but still bearable for the eyes.
I knew that at any moment, Rishi would pop up from somewhere in front of my eyes. I waited, I called out his name; but he didn’t appear. Then suddenly, I felt like I was falling; I was falling as though from high in the sky. The feeling was so real that I couldn’t stop myself from screaming. I could see the hard concrete floor waiting to hurt me the very moment I would hit it. I knew it was all a dream but still, that feeling took my breath away for a moment.
I was about to hit........ 5 ... 4.... 3.... I closed my eyes in fear. Waited
for the ‘crash ’-moment but nothing happened I opened my eyes and saw Rishi standing in front of me; pale and expressionless. I wanted to ask him many things but words weren’t coming out of my mouth. It was as if someone had controlled my mind and ordered it to shut down. The next urge which grew within me was to look around; to look at the place around me. It wasn’t my will to look but it was like someone was ordering me and controlling my actions.
I looked around, it all looked familiar. I had seen this place before, in another dream. Yes, it was a railway station in Ahmedabad. But what was here? Why was this place so important, that it kept coming in my dreams again and again? Rishi really wanted to show me something here.
I turned my gaze back to Rishi. The moment our eyes met, he started walking away, I followed him. While following him, the surroundings started to change again. It firstfaded, turned white and then a new scene emerged. I could see Rishi entering a huge building. I tried to find out the name of the building and saw it written on the top. It read Apollo Hospital’. What was in there?
I followed Rishi inside the hospital but the moment I entered the building, he disappeared. I looked around but he was gone. ‘Where was I to go now?’ I asked myself but got the answer from the lady at the reception.
“Room no. 209. ” She said and showed me the stairs. I ran towards the indicated direction and followed the stairs till I reached the second floor.
Room no. 209 was now in front of me. I could see Rishi standing in front of the closed door of 209. He crossed it without actually opening it. I didn ’t try that. I opened the door and saw her; Roshni lying on the bed with so many machines around indicating that she was ‘just alive’. Behind her bed, Rishi was standing. The moment he saw me, he said, “Hey dad! Meet my mom!!!”
Suddenly I woke up. My breath was totally out of control. It took me around 5 minutes to regain control over it. I thought nothing for a moment other than packing my bags and travelling to Ahmedabad.
I had a long journey to think about various possibilities. I kept on thinking about my life, I wanted to think of a future but it was too scary. A part of my life had entered from the past to the present by replacing the existing one. Roshni had entered my life by kicking Myra out. What would I say to her? How would I face her? And what about Roshni? Will I ever be able to find her? And what if she asked me where I had been for such a long time? For 10 years she had waited for me, loved me and I came to her, just asking her to forget me and live life happily without me. Most importantly, what was she doing in a hospital? And where had Rishi come from? How did he know everything?
There were so many questions hovering in my mind that had no explanations whatsoever. The deeper I dug, the deeper it went. The best thing was to leave everything to God. He was the one who had given me the questions to think, and He would answer them too. I just had to follow the links.
I reached ‘Apollo Hospital’ in Ahmedabad by hiring a taxi at the station and got bewildered because it was all exactly the same as I had seen in my dreams. I pinched myself to confirm that I wasn’t daydreaming again.
I went inside; I wasn’t surprised to see that the interior too was the same as I had seen before. Even the receptionist was the same. I had no idea how all this was even possible. I asked about the patient in Room No. 209 and felt my heartbeat rising for a moment as she scrolled through her records in the computer. Then she confirmed that Roshni was there. She had been in a coma for the past 8 years.
I took the stairs and rushed to Room No. 209. I skipped a few breaths while climbing two stairs at once. I could hear someone calling out my name. I didn’t stop because I knew whose voice that was! My Roshni knew that I was there. I could feel her somewhere around.
I threw open the door of 209. She was there on the bed. The constant beep of the instruments around was the only noise I could hear other than my own heartbeat. I froze for a moment. Then slowly I started to proceed towards her. The beeps increased in frequency. With every step I took towards her, its frequency increased. The nurse standing nearby rushed towards the door. I didn’t notice her. I just kept on looking at my Roshni. With each step I took towards her, all the memories came rushing back to my mind. It was like watching a movie again for the 50th time. I recalled every moment I had spent with her. My angel was there, just a
few inches away from me. The doctors came rushing in; they held me and dragged me out of the room. That very moment woke me up and brought me back to reality. I resisted going away but the doctors forced me to leave. In the meanwhile the beeping sounds kept increasing in frequency.
I was almost at the door of the room when I heard her speaking, “I didn’t want you to come here. I am sorry, Puneet, I just couldn’t control Rishi.”
She had woken up from her coma after 8 long years.
“I know you have plenty of questions running in your mind but truthfully speaking; even I really don’t have any answers to what just happened inside.” The doctor looked just as confused as me. There was a long silence between us when he took a few deep breaths and tried to gather his experience over weird cases like this one. We were sitting in his cabin.
“Last.... I mean, is there anything strange in your life which happened with you in the last few months or days?” The doctor hit the bull’s eye with that one. I explained to him everything just the way I had to my uncle. I also told him my past story with Roshni and the dream I had had of this place.
The doctor looked thoughtful. He tried to gather everything and when I finished talking, he took his laptop and typed some keys over it in hurry. I could see his expressions changing as he took intervals between different searches.
Finally he broke the silence and said, “This is strange, Puneet but I think this is the only reason that explains the whole scenario.” He took a pause and then continued. “Coma, as you may know, is a kind of sleep which usually occurs because of some kind of a trauma. Now, when we sleep, usually our last thought gets trapped in our mind and reaches our unconscious mind which slowly gets jumbled with our memories and produces a weird kind of a dream. We all experience this.” He took another pause to see whether I was getting his point or not. I showed no response. So he continued, “In the same manner, a state of coma also traps our last wish, memory or thought and produces dreams when we are sleeping deep in coma.”
“But there is one strong difference between coma and a normal sleep and that is the activeness of our unconscious mind. It has been more active in Roshni’s case. Much more than we can imagine.”
“I am still clueless, sir. What’s your point?” I asked.
“The boy you see all around is not your son, it is Roshni’s unconscious mind; travelling with you everywhere you go.” He said not believing in his own words.
“Ah.... I mean... how could.... You know.... ” I wanted to ask many things but couldn’t frame my thoughts.
“I know it sounds weird, being a medical practitioner even I don’t believe in such things but I do believe in love, much more than any medical book. I have seen dead people coming back to life because their loved ones were not ready to give up on them. I have seen miracles and this is one of those miracles.” He took a pause and then again continued, “Her love towards you was the last image in her mind which grew multiple times and became superficial and started to roam all around in search of you. She was told that you were dead but she believed that you couldn’t have left her alone. In the meanwhile, your memories regarding the girl were erased, so maybe that’s why you saw her in the form of your son because that’s the only image left in your memories regarding Roshni. She found you, she talked to you, and she reminded herself to you and maybe solved some of your issues too in your life. She enjoyed being in coma because that’s how she could connect with you and maybe that has been the reason of our failures at waking her up from the coma. But finally when she saw you here, she realized her mistake and woke up saying all those things inside.”
“But doctor, I have heard of some coma stories wherein people could hear the things happening around them; these things seem more realistic somehow. But I don’t understand how a person lying 100’s of kilometers away from someone can communicate with him without any technology or anything?” I had no clue what I was saying or hearing; because it was all appearing like a stupid dream that made no sense. The deeper I tried to dig, the more awkward and weird I felt.
“Our mind is the creator of every technology around us, so just imagine the power of the mind. We have no idea what it can create or invent. We don’t even know 2% of its working. Love acts like a fuel for the mind and that’s what happened in this case. Answering your query Puneet, I would say yes, our mind is capable of creating telepathy with the ones we love. My mother always gets alert whenever I am not feeling well or if I’m in danger. Everyone experiences these things but we have no scientific explanations for it. It just happens.”
He turned the laptop screen towards me and let me see a whole lot of Google searches of weird stories related to coma patients. “Look Puneet, the internet is full of weird stories about coma patients. Similar cases have occurred in England, Australia, Finland, everywhere. See this story of Geoffrey Lean, it somehow resembles our Roshni’s story.” I scanned through it and yes, the doctor did have a point. His story did resemble the explanation of the other doctor’s whose case we were going through.
It was all weird but I had no other choice than to accept it. It was like a story narrated by your child, which made no sense and had no meaning in it and yet you had to believe in it to take the conversation ahead. I was eager to talk to Roshni now but the doctor had to take some tests before letting her meet me. I had nothing in my mind; it was all blank as if I was dead; as if there was nothing left in life now.
Chapter 21
I wanted to feel her face; I wanted to touch her but the only thing I could touch right now was the window glass of the closed door of Room No. 209. Numerous doctors and nurses were roaming around her taking different notes, talking about different things to each other. They wanted to make sure that Roshni recovered soon. She was not ready to be exposed to the world. I had to wait outside. I had to maintain distance from her, for her.
2 days went by but still, I didn’t get to meet her. She was asleep, said the doctor. Her family gathered outside the room, the moment they heard the news. They had given up all hope of being able to see her awake and hear her speak again. They were happy but were also angry to see me there. They never tried to talk to me; I never bothered to talk to them either. We all had a kind of mutual understanding between us.
Every time I saw someone coming out of the ‘treasure’ room, her family gathered around them as they were obviously very anxious. I just stood somewhere in the corner, wondering what was going to happen next? Was this the moment? But it didn’t come.
That day, my phone rang and the name which got displayed over it induced a strange feeling within me. The call was from Myra. My first thought was to just reject the call in the same manner as I had rejected my mother’s calls but without knowing why, I answered it.
“Where are you?” She asked without saying anything else.
“I am..... I am in Ahmedabad.” I tried to lie at first, but then said the truth.
“I know that but where are you right now?” How did she know that?
“I am at Apollo hospital.” I said.
“Okay, I am coming in an hour or so.” She said and disconnected. In an hour? How? And why?
I had no idea, what was going to happen; how I would face both the ladies of my life. I couldn’t lie to them. They both possessed the two halves of my heart. They both knew me, more than I knew myself. I just sunk my head between my legs when I heard a nurse calling my name.
“Who’s Puneet Shrivastava?” She said. Everyone stood up but only I spoke up.
“Yes?”
“The patient is calling you. She wants to talk to you.” She said and left for her work somewhere else. I looked at everyone there. Roshni’s entire family had the same question on their faces; Why you?’
I entered the room, closed the door behind me and sat on the stool lying next to her. She was looking brighter than before. I first felt reluctant but then couldn’t stop myself from holding her hand. We both had big smiles on our faces but they slowly faded and turned into cries. Both of us were
crying madly, tears had no obstruction at all; they kept on flowing and with that our hearts started to feel lighter. That was magical; the aura of that meet was just magical.
“I am sorry, Puneet.” She still had the same cuteness in her voice.
“No... I am sorry, Roshni. I left you alone for all these years. I broke the promise we made to each other; I broke the trust...... ” I said while crying like a child. Her hand in my fist was the only thing which felt in my control; everything else was flowing freely away from me.
“That was not your fault. That was completely my fault. You could have lived your life happily if I could have controlled Rishi. I was happy to see you, happy from a distance. I was happy to talk to you, I was happy to give you back your son but I destroyed everything.” I tried consoling her. Her words made no sense to me. I was clueless. But I didn’t ask her anything. That was not the right time. I kept on running my hand over her head; I kept on playing with her hair, till she slept.
Slowly, after about an hour or so, I came out of the room. Her family wanted to ask me about her but their egos stopped them. It didn’t bother me. I slowly settled down on a bench and tried to relax and consume the environment when I felt someone caressing my hair. Her touch was enough for me to know her presence. Myra was there.
“How’s she now?” Myra asked. I had no courage left to ask her anything or even maintain decent eye contact with her. She was the most cheated one in our story. I was the only person who was to be blamed.
“She’s doing fine.” I said. Our eyes met for the first time. We both smiled and then withdrew. I was looking at the floor and her eyes were wandering somewhere in the lobby area. She smiled at everyone she could recognize as Roshni’s family but no one greeted her in the same way.
A few minutes passed without any words but then I gathered some courage to start our conversation. “Listen Myra, I am so sorry for what........ ” She put her finger on my lips before I could speak any further. She just flattened her lips in a jolly way and shook her head to indicate that she didn’t want to hear my apology. She smiled. I didn’t want to admit it but at that moment, I fell in love with her..... again.
Hey Dad! Meet My Mom Page 12