What a coward.
‘Mum … you … you go,’ I stammered.
Mum smiled benignly, as if she was doing me a favour.
‘I know you want to go, Koochie,’ she insisted.
For the first time since she had taken to calling me Koochie, I let it pass without comment or fight. I was about to walk towards the grey-blue doors of the ICU when Mum put a hand on my shoulder.
‘Koochie?’ she said.
‘Yes, Mum…’ I turned around, my heart and head both feeling heavy and tired from stress and exhaustion. Maybe Mum was going to tell me that I had been a rock? She too, I must say, had been remarkably brave.
‘Dad has a little bit of a Prem Chopra thing going on,’ she said, patting her head.
‘What? What do you mean by that?’ I asked, confused.
Then it dawned on me; they had shaved Dad’s head for the operation. My eyes were wet but a weak giggle escaped me nevertheless.
A Prem Chopra thing going on! I smiled a weak smile at Mum who returned it.
‘We will be okay, Koochie,’ she said, patting my shoulders.
‘Yes, Mum, we will be,’ I said, putting on the plastic bag sort-of-thing that the guard outside the Neurosurgery ICU passed on to me to put on my shoes.
‘This way, please,’ said Dr Kulkarni. ‘Dr Advani is with him, don’t worry.’ Dr Advani is Dad’s friend from medical school who happens to be on deputation at this hospital. This fact alone had made all the difference to us.
I nodded, already feeling my hands go numb. The doors of the ICU opened and with them opened a whole new world. I took in my surroundings, not really believing what my eyes were seeing. There were about ten beds in the ICU, each of them occupied. As my eyes travelled from one bed to the next, I sucked in my breath. Nine very ill people lay in beds, in full view of the nurses and doctors. I almost saw a man with an open brain and instinctively withdrew my eyes before I really registered any details. Another man seemed to be repeatedly having fits. One by one, my eyes scanned each bed, a shudder passing through me each time, along with a whiff of relief that the very sick person was not Dad. I was, with all my heart, dreading the moment I would spot Dad.
Which I soon did. I was surprised that I was not surprised. Or upset. He seemed to be sleeping peacefully, albeit with a heavily-bandaged head.
‘Dad,’ I said, softly, when I walked up to him. Advani Uncle nodded and mouthed, ‘He is absolutely fine,’ at me.
Dad’s eyes fluttered open a few seconds later. I bent low but Advani Uncle gently pushed me away.
‘Did you meet him?’ were the first words Dad uttered after coming out of the surgery.
Did you meet him?
It took me a moment to understand that he was asking about Rajeev. All of that already seemed like it had happened a million years ago, in a different, faraway world.
‘Uh … no ... no, I did not,’ I said, bending closer to him.
‘Do you want to meet him?’ he asked, closing his eyes now.
I paused.
‘No,’ I said quietly.
Dad said nothing; his eyes remained closed but a slow, gentle smile gradually spread across his face. I smiled too.
Life, you know, is funny. Funny in its own way. We were in the Neurosurgery ICU, Dad had just had surgery and we were both smiling. We were smiling because, as Dad had hoped, I had not crossed the Rubicon.
4.30 a.m.
This has been the longest night in my life.
It’s weird, you know, how life comes full circle. You don’t know when or how it happens but one day, you find yourself worrying about your parents, taking care of them and trying your best to do whatever you can for their comfort.
You have known all along that no one will ever really love you the way your parents do and then, one day, you realize that no one will ever love your parents as much as you do.
6.00 a.m.
With the relatives gone, there were a hundred things to be sorted: Mum’s clothes, food, toothbrush, soap, Dad’s medicines, who would stay with Dad for the night and once he was out of the OT … the list was tiringly endless and my brain was already exhausted. Mum and I were sitting outside the ICU when a doctor came to us with some documents. I looked away in disgust. Another set of papers that spoke about worst-case situations that I did not even want to think about.
‘Please sign these,’ he said, looking first at Mum and then at me.
I groaned silently. I looked at Mum and she shook her head; she was not going to sign anything that discounted the hospital of responsibility should anything happen to Dad. As the doctor looked expectantly at me, all the weight of the last couple of hours fell on me like a brick and tears began to sting my eyes. Angrily, I willed them to dry up.
This was so not the time for a meltdown.
It was then that an odd yearning seared through me. Very few single children will admit it, but almost all of us deeply feel the void of not having a brother or a sister to fight, play or share our lives and parents with. I felt this so strongly in that moment that another wave of tears was ready to burst forth. What would I not give to have a sibling to share this with? Maybe he/she would be the stronger one and would happily sign documents without batting an eyelid since the mere sight of the papers was reducing me to tears.
‘I wish I were not the only child!’ I said ruefully, a little too loudly in the silent room.
There was a pause before three sombre voices responded. ‘You’re not.’
I knew who the voices belonged to even before I saw them. A weird, inexplicable wave of relief was already spreading itself through my being as I turned around and saw Pitajee, Anu and Purva crowding at the door. Without another word, and without even looking at me, Purva stepped forward and took the pen from my hands.
‘Papers, Doc?’ he said, looking at the doctor and not even glancing in my direction.
Pitajee, who has always had such an easy camaraderie with Mum that sometimes even I have been jealous, stood on my right, his arm around her. Anu, with an arm around my waist, was on my left and Purva, with the pen in his hands, was in front of me.
With Dad in the Neurosurgery ICU, it was possibly the darkest hour of my life. But as with each dark hour that life had, of late, thrown at me, my closest friends had rallied around, ready to offer a steadying hand, should I falter.
A couple of weeks ago, I had called off my wedding to Purva without even giving him a proper reason. Six hours ago, I had travelled across Delhi to meet Rajeev.
6.08 a.m.
‘I’m sorry,’ said the doctor, looking seriously at Mum and then at me. ‘Only immediate family members can sign these papers.’
Purva’s pen was about to touch paper when, on hearing the words of the doctor and very familiar with hospital protocol, he paused.
For a few seconds, nothing happened. And then Mum spoke. ‘Purva will sign the papers, Doctor,’ she said in a low voice that trembled just a little bit. ‘He is family.’
I looked at Mum, her eyes were now red and wet. Anu sniffed away a tear and I hugged her sideways. Purva, his face grave and serious, bent low to sign the document. I have always loved the pretty, neat cursive of Purva’s hand and almost mechanically peeped over to see him write.
Purva had signed and typed his full name in capital letters. Just below that, he was asked to fill in his relationship with the patient.
I saw Purva’s pen not hesitate for even an instant as he printed three letters.
SON.
Sometimes you want him to scream at you. Sometimes you need him to be red-faced with sheer anger. Sometimes you want him to tell you that he hates you.
Instead. Three simple letters. Written with earnestness. The next instant, I had shot out of the room, my face wet with tears that had been threatening to spill over since I’d first heard of Dad’s surgery. Guilt choked me breathless and shame made me blind. I ran down the corridor that was teeming with patients, doctors and nurses, brushing aside people who came in my way, tears cloud
ing my vision. I ran the fastest my tired legs could carry me and stopped only when I had come out of the hospital.
I sat down on the stairs, my face in my hands, and cried bitterly. The tears that seemed to begin from somewhere deep inside me, where it hurt so much that the pain was unbearable, would not stop.
23
23 May 2013, 10.00 a.m.
Dad was now well settled in the private room. Family, friends and relatives had all been calling up as news of Dad’s dramatic surgery spread far and wide. With Dad out of the ICU and danger, Mum was only too happy to relate the whole sequence of events to anyone willing to listen. There were, of course, some modifications. For instance, the time between the MRI scan and the surgery was reduced from four hours (the real number) to forty-five minutes (the more dramatic number), from two doctors wheeling Dad into the OT, the number theatrically shot up to eleven doctors and – lo and behold – fourteen nurses. If the latest version was to be believed, it would seem that the entire hospital had been in an uproar and Mum was just about managing to keep everything in control.
I found myself shaking my head but smiling nevertheless.
6.00 p.m.
‘Subdural hematoma?’ asked the nurse, looking at Dad’s chart and readying him for another antibiotic injection. Purva, who seemed to know every doctor in the world, had made sure that Dad was getting five-star treatment from everyone, ranging from the head of the department to the nurse.
Dad nodded his head, which at least looked considerably lighter, now that the helmet-like bandage had been taken off.
‘Today is Monday?’ she asked, most casually.
‘No, I think it’s Tuesday,’ Dad corrected her.
‘So you are a doctor too?’
‘Yes,’ said Dad, rolling up his sleeves, ready for the injection.
‘Your specialty, Doctor Sa’ab?’
‘Ortho,’ he said.
I rolled my eyes. This covert way of checking if Dad’s memory was working fine was ridiculous. Of course, as soon as Dad had come into his private room, I had asked him what two-plus-two was. He had smiled and rattled off the multiplication table of thirty-seven, which had Mum really worried for a second; after all, seventy-four was not the sum of two and two.
‘Your name, Doctor Sa’ab,’ she asked again.
Dad looked at her and, with a straight face, said, ‘Pintu.’
Pitajee laughed for two minutes without stopping. Seeing him in splits, Mum joined in, as did Anu. Even I managed a small smile. The nurse on the other hand, scuttled out as soon as she could.
8.00 p.m.
I was sitting on the floor outside Dad’s room, taking a moment to myself. I rested my head against the wall as sounds of laughter from the room reached me. Purva, Mum, Anu and Pitajee were inside, entertaining Dad. Eleven times since Dad’s surgery, various doctors have tousled my hair and told me that subdural hematoma is an uncomplicated surgery. I am, of course, ready to kill anyone who repeats that to me. It is my dad. Even if subdural hematoma needed the simplest surgery known to man, it happened to my dad and, because of that simple fact, it is, for me, a big deal.
I was thinking these angry, dark thoughts when someone touched my hand gently, startling me out of my reverie.
Pitajee. He joined me on the floor and held my tightly-clamped fist. I smiled weakly at him, eyes tearing up for no reason. Slowly, finger by finger, Pitajee unfurled my fist. It was then that I realized that I had had my hands balled up in a fist pretty much ever since I had got that call from Mum. It is something I do whenever I am stressed.
‘Relax now, Kas. We are all here and will see this through,’ he said, putting a hand on my head. Snuggling close to him for comfort, I rested my head on his shoulder and we sat like that, watching people walk by.
‘Pitajee,’ I said, staring at the wall in front of me.
‘Hmm?’
‘I messed up.’
He said nothing.
‘I made a terrible mistake.’
Still nothing.
‘I love Purva.’
‘What about that scum-eating, cheating bastard?’ Pitajee asked finally.
I grinned. ‘I would not know.’
A satisfied sigh from Pitajee.
‘I won’t bug you with questions, Kas, but I do have a comment,’ he paused and then continued when I looked at him quizzically. ‘You are the biggest idiot on this planet, Kas.’
‘Yes,’ I said, nodding my head in agreement. There was no denying that now.
‘You need to be worried, Kas,’ he drawled.
‘Why?’ I asked, sitting straighter.
‘Purva’s Mum is keen for her son to be married as soon as possible. She mentioned something about planting a pretty girl in front of him so that he can get over the crazy girl who returned the engagement ring. And,’ he continued, mimicking my sing-song voice, ‘in case you did not realize it, you, my dear, are the crazy one.’
I slumped back against the wall. I had certainly not seen this coming. ‘And Purva?’ I asked.
‘He is trying his best to get over you, I think,’ said Pitajee, the sadness in his voice unmistakable. ‘You are so stupid, Kas,’ he added, as an afterthought.
I could not agree more, Pitajee.
9.00 p.m.
‘Anu?’ I said, looking at the tired face of my friend, the daughter of two IAS officers, who had spent the last three nights sleeping on the hospital floor.
‘Yes, Kasturi?’ she said, smiling. Pitajee, who had maintained a respectable distance from Anu throughout, looked up too. The three of us were in the hospital cafeteria eating paranthas and aloo-tamatar-ki-sabzi. It was odd how this horrible hospital food had become a source of joy and distraction for us.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said quietly.
‘Why?’ she asked, looking surprised.
‘It’s not easy to see a parent unwell,’ I said in a low voice.
Anu said nothing. Pitajee looked on, his eyes taking in the scene with much interest.
‘I could not understand why you would agree to marrying Saumen just for the sake of your dad, but,’ I continued looking down, ‘I do now…’
‘Come here, Kas,’ said Anu, smiling and pulling me into a hug. ‘This will be over soon. Uncle will be discharged in two or three days and things will go back to normal.’
‘I am sorry Anu, I would do the same … anything for Dad,’ I said, shaking my head.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Pitajee place a hand on Anu’s other shoulder. Anu turned around to stare at Pitajee. From where I was, I could only see Pitajee’s face and, after a long time, I saw him smile. It was a smile that reached his eyes, a smile that spelt truce. And just like that, I knew, that as tragic as Anu’s impending nuptials were, she and Pitajee would remain friends.
For the time being, that was enough for me.
11.00 p.m.
‘Kasturi.’
I stopped short, the voice enough to make the hair on my hand stand up. I had just stepped out of Dad’s room to get some medicines and before I could say anything, Purva continued.
‘Kasturi, that I turned up unannounced like this must be deeply uncomfortable for you, I know. I want to make it clear that I am, in no way, trying to fix things between us. They remain the way you wanted them to be.’
No, you idiot! No!
‘Your dad is a lot like my dad,’ he said, slowly and with difficulty, his eyes avoiding my gaze. Even when we were together, Purva hardly ever spoke about his father and I had learnt not to ask questions. I knew, even after all these years, that the wound was still raw – a place in his heart had died along with his father. The pain, I knew, was still too fresh and immense. I had not understood it then, and cannot claim to even now, but I know a little better how it feels to see a parent in pain.
Purva continued. ‘When I met you and your family, I was immediately drawn to how … how complete you guys were together. You fought with each other, rudely cancelled calls and slammed doors in each other’s faces but … you
were complete … complete in a way my family will never be. In Uncle, I saw Dad … they are a lot like each other, you know…’ he said, with a faraway look on his face. ‘It was tough losing mine. If it’s okay with you, I would like to be around till yours is absolutely okay. I will leave immediately afterwards,’ he concluded, and then looked expectantly at me, half afraid that I would disagree.
In Uncle, I saw Dad.
What else had I taken from him when I returned my engagement ring? The lump in my throat made it difficult for me to speak immediately. I had to tell him, tell him that I was sorry, that I had made a mistake, that…
‘Purva ... yes, please stay … umm … I … about the engagement … I…’
‘Don’t worry about that. I have moved on. What’s not meant to happen won’t and should not,’ he said, shrugging his shoulders carelessly.
With that, he left.
24
26 May 2013, 2.00 p.m.
I am petrified. Tomorrow, the doctors will conduct another MRI scan on Dad to make sure that there has not been any further bleeding. The scan is critical because if there is bleeding, that means the surgery was unsuccessful and the entire process will be repeated. Although this is the worst case scenario, my blood runs cold at the mere thought.
6.00 p.m.
I am sitting on the couch next to him, staring at him sleeping. He is refusing to eat anything that I do not feed him with my hands. And here I go again! Why don’t these stupid tears stop?
8.00 p.m.
I picked up Dad’s previous MRI scan and gulped. The little shrivelled up thing in the top left corner of the cranial cavity was his brain. The darkness all around it was blood from the injury that he had sustained a month back while working in the shed. I will never forget this sight. Please God, please, please, let there be no more bleeding.
9.00 p.m.
An extract from ‘Pearls of Wisdom’:
Your brain is more powerful than you can possibly imagine. It is capable of taking you places. The highest of highs and the lowest of lows. It can make you see things – the most joyful scenes and the most miserable ones. It can, more importantly, also help you see the positive in a miserable situation. It can help you fight off the negativity. It can help you stay sane.
Can This Be Love? Page 11