Broken wings

The Chennai city looked tireless and energetic that day like every day. No one can see a peaceful, calm, composed and traffic-free Chennai as long as section 144 is being implemented. Chennai was such a city. No…no… Chennai is and always.

Even though Chennai looks busy in the day, it is also busy in the night. But not much traffic can be seen as in the day. A little peace could be expected at night.

But, on that day, when it was twelve in midnight, there was no peace in one apartment, in one particular flat, that too in one particular heart.

While moving inside that flat, a slow and steady sound, to be clear, a weeping sound could be heard from the master bedroom. Inside the master bedroom was a girl sitting in the chair near the bedside table, her hair tied in a messy bun.

Yes! She was the one weeping. But why? She leaned towards the table, her head almost hitting the table forming a semi-circle. She seemed to be too involved in something.

When zoomed in, she was sincerely writing a letter. But why is she crying while writing that? There can be only two reasons. One, she might be planning to abscond from the flat with someone else. Two, she might be writing a letter that was nothing but an end. Yes! A suicide letter!

The girl was writing a suicide letter. On the table was a bottle full of sleeping pills. Her letter was not something that looks like an essay to read. It was neat and simple, exactly to the point.

Dear Mom and Dad,

I am fed up with my life and so I want to end it now. Forgive me for my cowardly act.

With love,

Seathal.

Once done, she ran her eyes through the letter. As this was the first time she was writing a suicide letter, she satisfied herself with very few words. Whether a person can write a suicide letter more than once? Only the ones who tried can answer it.

She, at last, read her last words (if she succeeds in her suicidal mission) for the nth time. Then she folded it and tugged the letter under the night lamp.

The next second, her eyes were fixed in the bottle containing pills. She grabbed the bottle and dropped a handful of pills into her palm. Her hands shook. She bought the pills near her mouth but took it away the next minute.

The chase and catch game continued for long. But every action started has to end in some way or the other. She finally popped up some pills and laid in the bed peacefully.

When she closed her eyelids, some unknown fear caught her heart. When she opened her eyelids, she was in hell.

The Government hospital in Chennai was busy as usual. So many outpatients filled the lounge and crowded around the reception despite the shout of the receptionist.

No matter how hard she tried to calm down the people, she failed every time she tried. The card of the GH was their possession to get registered to see the doctor.

So, not one, not two, but everyone was extending the card to the receptionist with not even a hint of how much pressure they were putting on her.

“Please come one by one,” she yelled standing behind the table. Having lost all the energy to manage the crowd, she finally gave up and bought the cards randomly resulting in more noise and chaos.

More than the receptionist there was another girl, named Ramya, whose condition was more pathetic than the hell. She was sitting in a chair with a table in front of her which had a sphygmomanometer (BP gauge) and a pulse rate monitor.

She had to check BP and pulse for the entire crowd and write them in a slip that was to be given to the doctor. A slight mistake by her side would have a drastic effect. She was shivering on seeing the crowd at the reception because; the crowd was going to surround her any time soon.

So, when the outpatients waiting hall was overloaded with such misery, there was yet another piteous state in the hospital for yet another person.

Maya was in a hurry. Along with a tray full of glucose bottles (doctors call it Dextrose normal saline, DNS in short), she hurried into the lift and pressed the button for the second floor. As soon as she emerged out of the lift, she swiftly turned right and ran towards the general ward.

After passing through a couple of patients, she reached the bed. A man, to be fit rightly at mid-twenties was lying flat in the bed motionless. He had a big bandage on his head and there were some scratches and bruises on his faces.

To his left hand was a needle pierced through his nerves from which a tube from the bottle hanging above his head was connected. Little by little the drop from the DNS was giving energy to the man’s body.

So, one thing that was for sure is, the man was not dead. He was alive but unconscious.

The drops were at the end when Maya stormed into the room, placed the tray and quickly locked the knob that stopped the drops from the bottle. She plucked it out and took another full bottle of DNS and inserted the tube to his palm needle.

It was by that time, his hands shook. Maya’s eyes parted in surprise at the sight of it. She stood still observing him more and more from his head to toe. After a while, his toes trembled a little giving some hope to Maya and many others who were nursing him for the past few days.

Maya stiffened herself again and analyzed his face for more than a few minutes. The man’s eyes remained closed, but his eyeballs seemed to move a little inside his shuttered eyes. Maya was lit up all of a sudden and she rushed down to inform the doctor about the man’s state.

The doctor came running with as much excitement as Maya. They were finally ready to taste the fruit of their twenty days effort.

The doctor examined the man for a while and he too didn’t miss to notice the sensations in the patient’s hands and toe. Then, without thinking twice, he slightly tapped on his shoulders.

There was no response. “Excuse me, can you hear me?” He continued to tap his shoulders, this time a little harder.

The man’s body responded positively to the doctor’s voice. His breathing intensified and he shook his body uncomfortably. The doctor again asked the same question a little louder.

The man hummed slowly. Few seconds passed and there was a deadly silence in the room. The man showed the symptoms that he was going to get up anytime soon.

He slowly parted his eyelashes, again shut it and opened very slowly, blinking the lashes then and there. What he first saw was a blurred face in front of him. His eyes, being void of light for the past few days, the natural light seemed to offend his eyes.

He again closed his eyes tightly. “You are perfectly alright. Open your eyes,” said the doctor.

The man again tried and this time, he fully opened his silvery eyes and flickered it till his vision was clear without haze. In front of him was the doctor standing with his face vaguely bent towards the man.

The doctor grinned at him from ear to ear. The man too reciprocated the smile and tried to get up. Maya and the other nurse helped him to sit straight in the bed placing a pillow at the back for his support.

The man looked at himself weirdly. The needle in his hand, the trips on his left, the smell of the hospital and the enormous pain in his head were making him feel disgusted.

He touched his head with his right hand and what he felt was a bundle of cotton clothes. He shivered after sensing it.

“What happened to me? Why am I here?” he shouted looking at the doctor.

The doctor was initially shocked at his reply but then composed himself and said, “Nothing. You are alright now,”

“Why is my head paining like hell?” he sounded again. This time, tears got stuck in his eyes.

The doctor took a short breath, placed his hands soothingly on the man’s shoulder and said, “Relax, please. We treated you for the past twenty days and you recovered now,”

The man knitted his brows with confusion. The doctor continued.

“I am Varun,” the doctor said and extended his hands towards the man.

He too put out his hand for a shake and started, “I am… I am…” The man was muddled.

“You are Rishi,” said the doctor.