by Anirban Bose
Adi was confused. What else could it be? Her liver enzymes were off the charts, she was severely jaundiced and now had encephalopathy…
‘Did we check for malaria?’ Dr Choksi asked upon returning, his eyes glowing with enthusiasm.
‘No… I don’t think we did, Dr Choksi.’
The glow in Dr Choksi’s eyes got brighter. ‘Dr Pershovan said she could have cerebral malaria. Because of the heavy parasitemia, the liver function can be abnormal. Let’s get a peripheral smear for malarial parasite. We need it done right now. Send it to Bombay Hospital again.’
Adi found himself retracing his actions of the morning. His hands shook as he collected her blood…if indeed it was cerebral malaria, it was potentially curable! There was a chance…a chance for life.
This time he ran all the way to the lab at Bombay Hospital and waited outside the door anxiously for the results. Twenty-five minutes later, when the technician handed him the envelope, Adi opened it right away.
‘Gametocytes and trophozoites of P. falciparum seen,’ he read. Adi whooped with joy, kissed the sheet of paper in his hands and cried out, ‘It’s cerebral malaria, thank God… It’s cerebral malaria!’
He suddenly realized that everyone there was staring at him with surprise. Adi smiled apologetically and then ran all the way back to Cama.
That afternoon they started her on intravenous Quinine.
Adi stared nervously at the humble looking bottle hanging upside down on the IV pole. He watched as the clear liquid flowed along the thin plastic tube, ballooning into shiny drops in the air trap chamber. The drops hung precariously at the tip, vibrating with indecision before lurching into the collection below, only to be eagerly replaced by a sparkling new recruit. One after the other, like a well-trained battalion, they appeared with remarkable steadfastness, eager to wage battle as they flowed into her veins. She lay comatose, completely unresponsive except to painful stimuli. Her face was absurdly serene: other than her breathing and the occasional stirring of her baby in her swollen belly, the lack of distress belied the seriousness of her illness. If it hadn’t been for the fact that she was hooked up to an IV, she could well have been sleeping peacefully at home.
Adi wondered if this was the quiet dignity of death.
Anxious, he looked for any sign of life. Anything: the twitch of a hand, the flutter of an eyelid, a groan of discomfort…anything to suggest the battle had not already been lost. Then, afraid that his expectations might somehow threaten the fickle temperament of her life, he switched to prayer instead. Hope, he realized, is a double-edged emotion. It provides as much anxiety as solace, as much doubt as faith, as much fear as courage.
He remembered reading about Quinine. Extracted from the bark of the cinchona tree, it is a highly effective but toxic medication. It kills the malarial parasite rapidly, but at the same time, it can lower blood glucose to levels that would starve the brain to death. It can stop the heart abruptly or send it into a tailspin, beating so fast that there isn’t enough time for it to fill up with blood in between beats. Encumbered with this alarming knowledge, Adi decided to spend the night in the wards and keep a close eye on her. Her husband sat on the floor next to her bed, quietly running his hand through her hair.
Adi watched the nurses change shifts. One of the nurses got him some food, another offered him her chair. He watched some of the other patients watching him. Outside, the noisy bustle of the afternoon gave way to the disorderly hubbub of the evening. Adi stared at the life around him, waiting for the one that mattered most, to prevail.
Somewhere in between worrying about her and watching over her, Adi fell asleep.
The next thing he knew, someone was shaking his shoulder. He heard Dr Choksi’s voice say, ‘Dr Bhatt, wake up… It’s 8 o’clock. Look at what you’ve done.’
Rubbing his eyes, Adi collected his thoughts, remembering the events of the previous day. As he focused to get a better look, he first saw Isha standing next to him, smiling. Then, he saw the reason why. On the bed lay the young girl, looking around with a dazed expression, as though woken up from a long, deep slumber.
She looked at Adi and gave him a shy smile.
It was a moment unlike anything Adi had experienced before. He raised his hands and started laughing even as tears raced down his face. His heart was bursting with happiness. He had never experienced so much joy in his life. He needed to share it with someone…someone close.
He turned around and hugged Isha.
NINETEEN
Although Adi had promised Neil that he would talk to Renuka, his heart was not in it. He could think of a host of reasons for his unwillingness, but most importantly, he had got closer to Isha and worried about jeopardizing their relationship. Isha and he were spending a lot more time together, both in and off the wards, and found themselves in the midst of an unplanned but enjoyable routine. Everyday, after wrapping up their work on the ob-gyn floors, they’d spend the evening together, strolling down Marine Drive, walking up to Mantralay or ducking into Gaylord’s to watch the rain over a quick cup of tea. They sat on decrepit benches and chronicled the crowds, leafed through second-hand books on the pavements of Flora Fountain, admired on Fashion Street clothes they had no means of buying, sampled food that the vendors offered for free or walked barefoot on the wet grass of Cross Maidan, losing the weariness of a day’s work in each other’s company. Sometimes, engrossed in intense discussions for hours at a stretch, they would lose all track of time till the rapidly thinning crowd would remind them of the last bus to campus. Hurriedly racing towards the bus-stand they’d make it back to the ladies’ hostel just in time for another round of suspicious glares from Khadoos Baba. Soon it became such a routine that Khaddos Baba gave up on them, yawning sleepily as he opened the door to let Isha in. Adi would stare at her figure disappearing into the labyrinth of corridors behind the collapsible gate before the wooden doors slammed shut on his face, suddenly reminding him of the long tread back to his room and the hundred things that still remained to be said.
Despite their growing proximity, a strange characteristic of their outings was the complete absence of any discussion about themselves. Adi’s promise to keep their relationship platonic restrained him from letting it progress into anything physical, even though a nascent desire often nagged him mercilessly. It was especially acute in the hostel’s inhospitable isolation, where Adi sat estranged, waiting to escape into the next day’s arrival. So he’d tie his desire to denial and imagine how he would hold her hand while helping her up the stairs, or scheme to take her in his arms if she tripped. But there were no staircases on Marine Drive, and the only one to trip during one of their walks was Adi.
He sensed her physical presence every minute in her company, but didn’t do anything for fear of losing what he had…the relationship he’d promised not to define. When frustrated with this arrangement, Adi would swear to abandon his pledge and demand a clarification the very next day – only to hastily abandon such thoughts the moment he laid eyes on her. He feared losing the contentment of having her next to him much more than his own aching insecurity. So he’d stash the thought at the back of his mind and continue to struggle with its meaning in the bitterness of his ostracized alienation. Somewhere, deep in his heart, he knew that the day they talked about Renuka would be the day they’d talk about themselves. Which led Adi to revisit the issue of meeting Renuka; not to keep his promise to Neil, but because he wanted to achieve some clarity on what he’d tell Isha. But his discussions with Isha remained self-effacing and platonic, and Adi felt too insecure to change their nature.
The strike spilled over into its second week.
The night before Toshi was to leave for Nagaland, Adi walked over to his room to wish him goodbye. Toshi remained the only one to accord him any affection, and Adi’s desperate need to hang on to this last vestige of friendship overpowered his reluctance to run the gauntlet of the others whose voices he could hear from outside Toshi’s door. He hesitated for a few minutes in t
he hallway, waiting to muster up enough courage before finally stepping in.
Rajeev and Pheru were helping Toshi pack and immediately stiffened upon seeing Adi.
‘Hi, Toshi,’ said Adi. ‘I just stopped by to say, have a good flight and enjoy yourself at home.’
‘Hey, come in, man. Come in…come in,’ said Toshi warmly, smiling from ear to ear.
‘Toshi… I…’
‘Come in, man…come in, Adi.’
Adi took one perfunctory step inside the room. He looked around, trying to search for a quick topic of conversation.
‘Wow,’ he said, ‘you have too many suitcases, Toshi… Don’t they allow only two per person?’
‘Yeah…all these gifts I bought for my family won’t fit into two suitcases,’ he said. ‘But I’ll manage. I’ll turn on my Toshi charm to convince them to let me carry more.’
‘Make sure you go to the ladies at the check-in counter, not the men,’ cautioned Adi in jest.
Toshi smiled. ‘Unless it’s Praful behind one of those—he may want to give me a personal ride,’ he said, rocking his hips suggestively.
Adi laughed. Rajeev and Pheru remained silent.
‘I should go,’ said Adi. ‘ I have to get up early tomorrow…’
‘To go to the wards!’ said Pheru, cutting him off.
Adi stiffened. ‘Yes…to the wards.’
Pheru snapped. ‘Saala, Adi… I still can’t believe you’re doing this to us!’
Adi grimaced, trying hard to curb his irritation. He ignored Pheru and said, ‘Bye, Toshi…have fun.’
Pheru shouted, ‘Just remember, the next time…’
‘What is your problem, Pheru? Huh?’ said Adi, cutting him off angrily. ‘What is it? Why do you care what happens to me? Isn’t it enough that none of you talk to me any more? Isn’t it enough that returning to the hostel makes me feel like it’ll bite me? What do you want, huh?’
‘You did that to yourself. Nobody asked you to…’
‘I know that! I’m suffering for it…so why do you still have a problem? What the hell do you want me to do?’
Toshi intervened. ‘Guys, stop it! Listen…tomorrow I need help to take this stuff to the airport. Adi, will you come to drop me off?’
Pheru did not stop. ‘Don’t ditch your friends… You’re going to regret it!’
‘When did you become an authority on friendship, Pheru?’
‘You’ve betrayed the whole class, Adi! Think about that when this one dumps you too!’
Toshi interjected. ‘Stop it, you two! I’m leaving tomorrow and this is not the way to say goodbye… Stop it. Both of you are being selfish! Adi…will you drop me off tomorrow?’
Adi and Pheru glared at each other. Then, as Adi turned to leave, he said to Toshi, ‘Sure, I’ll see you off at the airport.’
Adi had trouble falling asleep that night. He lay in bed, staring at the empty ceiling, trying to rationalize his terrible loneliness. He wondered how so much bitterness had crept into what was so comfortable and familiar only a few weeks ago. He shuddered, imagining his impending isolation after Toshi’s departure. It pained him to think that he was the common link in all this acrimony. Renuka, Pheru, Rajeev, Harsha…each and every one of his relationships had suffered the same fate.
And then it struck him. Isha…was Isha next?
His throat felt parched as he tossed and turned in bed, finding discomfort in every position he assumed. He covered his head with his blanket, curling up into a shivering bundle of insecurity. He stayed under the sheet as long as he could, giving up when he realized that he couldn’t hide from himself. The simple truth was that he could neither define his relationship with Isha nor will it into anything meaningful.
It was in that panic-stricken moment that Adi decided he couldn’t tolerate the ambiguity of their relationship any longer. He had to ask Isha to define it for him…he just had to!
But first, he’d have to talk to Renuka.
Homeward bound for the first time in two years, Toshi’s joy knew no bounds. He smiled at everybody, shook hands with the guy who ironed his shirt, hugged the canteen manager after praising his food, all the while humming a tune under his breath.
The taxi arrived with uncharacteristic punctuality just as the breakfast crowd was gathering outside the canteen. Adi helped Toshi load his stuff into the taxi. Then, as he opened the door to get in, he noticed Rajeev and Pheru heading towards them.
Adi stiffened. He tried to back out but Toshi blocked his way, insisting on his company. After a few minutes of hushed wrangling Adi acquiesced to Toshi’s insistence with great misgiving, expecting Toshi’s clumsy effort at a last-minute reconciliation to backfire any minute.
The long ride to the airport began with tenuous tranquillity, the occupants maintaining a superficial civility in the confines of the car. Adi sat next to the driver, tensely awaiting the next round of unpleasant exchanges which, with Rajeev and Pheru together, would mean an unequal battle.
Rajeev fired the first salvo. ‘Adi, don’t you have to go to the wards today?’
‘I have taken the today off…to drop Toshi to the airport,’ replied Adi.
‘Thanks, Adi,’ said Toshi. ‘Thanks for coming to drop me off. You are a good friend.’
Pheru scoffed. Adi smiled at Toshi, appreciating his efforts to bridge the chasm with a plastic grin and forced joviality.
Then Toshi said, ‘Do you remember, Pheru, how you made me try to screw Adi on the first night you ragged us?’
All of them smiled, welcoming the sudden diversion of that night’s events two years ago. Despite the suffering of that moment, their memory of the event had mellowed so much with time that they were able to recall the torture with an absurd fondness.
‘Ask Princess Diana if she has AIDS?’ chuckled Pheru. ‘How the hell did Harsha come up with that one? That is the funniest thing I’ve ever heard during ragging.’
All of them began to laugh.
‘Hey, Rajeev, did you ever write to the Nobel Prize committee about your masturbation experiment disproving Newton’s first law?’ Toshi asked. ‘That was a great one. Where did you come up with that one, Pheru?’
Pheru smiled. ‘Like Rajeev, our physics guru from Delhi, I topped Physics in the Higher Secondary Exams of the state.’
Then, while the rest of them tried to digest the incongruity of his statement, Pheru launched into the correct interpretation of Newton’s laws to explain his ‘experiment’. As Adi listened to his elegant application of the concept of preservation of mass to explain the results, the paradox that had always bothered him came to the fore. He wondered why Pheru languished in second MBBS, unable to clear a relatively simple subject like Pharmacology.
‘Pheru, why can’t you clear Pharmac, man?’ asked Toshi, mirroring Adi’s thoughts.
Pheru sighed and said, ‘It actually involves the dean… I was in second MB when I ragged a bunch of guys in the hostel. Not too bad, but one of them was this hotshot who was the dean’s prospective son-in-law. He tried to get a statement from the others in the hostel about the incident, but nobody was willing to come forward. Since nothing materialized, he could not charge me or rusticate me. His son-in-law-to be quit medicine to study fashion designing or something. So, the dean made sure that I failed the practical exams in Pharmac that year and he has been doing so every year. Initially, I tried very hard to study and pass, but I realized that he was going to keep doing it, so I just stopped studying. Now, I just show up at the exam and have fun. I say any nonsense that comes to my head and love to see the look of horror on the faces of the examiners. The last time they asked me what antibiotic I would use for bacterial meningitis, I said Vicks Vaporub.’
Everyone burst out laughing. ‘So why do you continue?’ asked Rajeev.
‘What do you mean? Just quit medicine? I won’t do that because that is exactly what the dean wants… There are too many things riding on my becoming a doctor. Someday the dean will drop dead and then I’ll pass Pharmac and go on to th
ird MBBS… Like a boxing match, what matters is who is left standing at the end; not how many punches are thrown. And since I am younger, I think I will outlast him.’
‘Can’t they terminate you because of repeated failure?’ asked Toshi.
‘No,’ smiled Pheru. ‘There is some great rule in the university: only three attempts allowed for first MBBS, but no limits on second and third. I guess they desperately need more doctors…even bad ones.’
Adi felt a twinge of sympathy for Pheru. His involvement in the strike was clearly personal at many levels. He wondered if this knowledge prior to the strike would have made him see things differently.
As though reading Adi’s thoughts again, Toshi said, ‘I wish all this had not happened. I wish we could be friends like we were before…you know, all of us together. What great times we’ve had, huh, guys?’
None of them said anything. They pretended to be lost in thought as the taxi drove into the airport. They helped Toshi unload his luggage and arrange it on a trolley. Then Toshi turned to say his goodbyes.
He hugged Pheru and Rajeev. ‘Thanks a lot, guys,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you all in a month…maybe more.’ Then, smiling fondly, he added, ‘Guys, I think we should all make up. I hope when I return, we can all go out like we used to, eat fish vindaloo at Tony’s and ogle at the St.Xaviers girls… Huh? What do you say?’
Pheru and Rajeev nodded unconvincingly.
Toshi turned towards Adi and shook his hands. ‘Adi, I’ll never forget what you did for me during the exams,’ he said. Then, pausing for a moment, he said, ‘You…you make me feel Indian, Adi.’
Adi smiled and they hugged warmly.
Toshi walked away towards the terminal. He stopped at the entrance and turned back to wave at the three of them. Despite the distance, Adi could see the happiness on his face. Then, he turned around and disappeared into the crowded terminal.
TWENTY
That afternoon, the monsoon arrived in earnest, the first showers quenching the dry earth and quelling a nation’s anxiety. At first, high clouds blocked out the sun, bringing immediate relief from the scorching heat of the long, arid summer. Then, underneath this altitudinous cover, dark clouds rolled in stealthily, rumbling and grumbling, suddenly transforming the brightness of the afternoon into an inky dusk. Sudden gales swept in from nowhere, and dust curled into hundreds of eddies, spinning in mid-air like frenzied tops. People ran helter-skelter in preparation for the oncoming deluge, trying to locate the nearest structure that would offer some shelter. A few rounds of lightning and thunder followed, after which it started to pour with a vengeance.