Chapter 4 - 4

PENGUIN METRO READS

TILL THE LAST BREATH …

Durjoy Datta was born in Ne

you tell me earlier? Wait, I am coming over,' Varun said and disconnected

the call before Kajal could respond. He texted her to ask whether she was at

her college hostel or home. A little voice inside her wanted to ask Varun to

stay away, but it was silenced by the tears that trickled down her face. Kajal

needed her best friend. She tied her hair back loosely and ran her fingers on

her cheek where Dushyant's hand had struck fair and square. Her pale

white skin still bore the marks of his rough hand. Dushyant was a strong

guy, and he had not tried to restrain himself when he'd slapped her.

She saw Varun park his car in the parking lot of the Defence Colony

market. The car number ended with 0002, like every one of Varun's

family's cars. Varun belonged to a family with means. His father owned one

of the biggest printing presses in Delhi. Within the first year, Varun's sharp

business acumen landed them their first multinational clients and helped

them grow at a faster rate than his father had imagined. Their 200-acre plant

swelled to 600 acres, the number of workers tripled, and they had more

clients flying in from Europe and North America than any other printing

set-up in the country. Varun had transformed a lala-type family business

into a seething, angry corporate giant.

Contrary to what Kajal thought of him at first, he was not just another

rich pretty boy in an Audi A4 labelled Dad's Gift on the rear windshield. He

was ambitious and cut-throat. He worked eighteen hours a day, travelled

extensively for business and took his work very seriously. Kajal liked that

in him, but it was also the root of discord between them. The meetings, the

late-night flights, the investor presentations, the bank-loan agreements—

between all this, he never had time for Kajal. For the major part of theirrelationship, Kajal was too awestruck to notice his absolute lack of

commitment to the relationship. Kajal had always wondered what he saw in

her. They broke up when he slept with someone on a business tour to

Shillong. She didn't think the break-up was because he slept with someone

else. They had drifted apart long before that. What surprised her was her

indifference to his betrayal.

Without waking anyone, Kajal sneaked out of her place. 'How are you

doing?' Varun asked. He looked as if he had aged ten years in one. Long

hours in the office, she guessed. He had even lost some hair.

'I am good. Much better now,' she said. 'How's work?'

'Let's sit and talk?' he said and led the way to the nearest Subway outlet.

'Eating healthy these days?' she mocked.

'Doctor advised me to. He has asked me to start exercising too, but who

has the time?'

'You don't, for sure,' Kajal taunted. 'You should take care of your health.

You look like you have a couple of kids already.'

Varun shrugged. 'So, tell me, what happened?' he asked.

Kajal narrated her side of the story. She broke down a couple of times

and realized that everyone had turned towards them. He listened patiently,

ignoring all the uninvited looks from the nearby tables. Varun finished the

salad and they walked towards his car. She didn't want to cry in public. A

girl like her, pretty and docile, why did she have to cry at all?

'Will you be okay?' Varun asked as they sat in the car.

'I think so,' she said and dug her face into her palms. And wept.

'I still can't believe he hit you.'

'He was drunk,' she murmured. She didn't tell him the whole story.

'Whatever the case may be, you're in an abusive relationship, Kajal.

Before this, he used to shout at you and threaten you. Now he has hit you. If

you let him get away with this, he will keep doing it. First to you, then to

the others he dates after you. You have to realize that he is mentally unfit to

be in a relationship. He has no sense of boundaries. Hell! He doesn't even

respect your privacy. You've got to see that. The sooner you do, the better itwill be for you. It's a good thing you broke up. You just can't be in such a

restrictive relationship.'

'I don't want to talk about it any more,' she said and tried to hold back

the tears. Varun hugged her, and told her that everything would be all right.

She wanted to believe him like she had believed him earlier, like she had

believed Dushyant.

For the next few days, Varun often dropped in after college timings to check

in on Kajal. She was doing better, but she still missed Dushyant. She felt

bad for herself that she did. Dushyant, on the other hand, tried his best to

apologize and make things better. Kajal told him she didn't want to hear a

word from him. Dushyant stopped trying after he spotted Kajal get into

Varun's car one day. He called her that night, abused her and called her a

slut. He told her that she must have cheated on him, that she was sleeping

with Varun all this time.

Kajal spent the next day crying. Varun was there to hold her hand. And to

kiss her. She kissed Varun back. She was no longer in a restrictive, abusive

relationship with a guy with an appalling lack of respect for her. She had

broken free and walked right back into her past.5

Zarah Mirza

Zarah had fifteen cases to file that day, each of them more boring than the

last. Broken arms, sprained ankles, torn ligaments, et cetera. Her boss, the

enigmatic and brilliant Dr Arman Kashyap, was not fond of filing reports

and that's why he had the most number of interns working for him at one

time. Usually interns worked in pairs, but Arman was never a big fan of

rules. No one knew what he enjoyed more, flouting them or challenging the

hospital authorities afterwards.

'If you work in pairs, you get complacent about what you do. If you work

alone, you become cautious from the word go,' Arman had said on the first

day. Zarah had not been able to forget those words. She used to check every

medicine thrice, sometimes even more, before administering it to any

patient. Even if it was just cough syrup.

'You look busy?' A fellow intern walked into the room the interns had

been assigned. Though Zarah usually worked in the opulent office of her

boss, his overbearing presence used to made her jittery. The presence of any

man made her feel jittery. She clearly remembered her first day in the

hospital, with men crawling everywhere. Patients. Doctors. Ward boys.

Their eyes like slithering snakes on her body—undressing her, violating her

and rubbing their naked, sweaty, hairy bodies against her in their heads. In

those moments, all her latent hatred for men bubbled over and she had a

severe mental breakdown. Zarah had never been in a co-ed school or

college and it was on her insistence. Staying away from men was the only

way she could banish the horrors of her past.

'I have a lot of filing to do,' she said, trying to act busy. Ever since she

had started her internship, an alarming number of interns, resident doctorsand senior doctors had showered her with attention. It fuelled her need for

sleeping pills and antidepressants.

'Your boss is an asshole,' the fellow intern said.

'He's not that bad. People are jealous because he is good … and young,'

she defended him. His searching eyes made her feel uncomfortable, like she

had been doused with a bucket full of rotting maggots.

'He is reckless and has no regard for rules. He doesn't file reports or keep

a history of the medicines he prescribes. The other doctors keep mum but I

am sure many patients have died under his watch because of his crazy

ideas,' he argued. Zarah noticed the restlessness in the intern's eyes and his

body language. Or was it lust? Maybe he was trying the primal, old

fashioned way to get her into bed. Take out the threat, the opposition, and

any other contender who's trying to bed who you want to bed first. Zarah

wanted to run away. No, I've got to fight this! Like every rape victim,

Zarah, too, had read all the books, documents, reports and guides that

helped victims move on with their lives. Funny, no book prescribed

sleeping pills, Xanax or Valium, because that's what worked for her.

'He gets the job done. He wraps up the most number of cases. If other

doctors are men, he is God. Plus, he now has me for filing his reports. He

doesn't need to do that any more,' Zarah defended him further, trying not to

look at the intern. She was agitated. She could sense him licking his lips

greedily. The maggots had entered her clothes. They were everywhere.

Small, slithering and slimy.

'The rules are made by doctors much more experienced than him.'

'Experience doesn't count for everything,' Zarah grumbled. She could

feel his hands on her thighs. The maggots reached her face. They entered

her nose, her ears. She was losing it.

'Fine, go defend him,' he said, irritably. 'Okay, anyway, junk it. Want to

go for lunch?'

'NO! I DON'T! WILL YOU LET ME WORK, PLEASE!' she yelled.

'F … Fine …' the intern spluttered and left the room. Zarah's thickly

veined eyes followed him outside the room. She wanted him dead. The

maggots were gone. She still felt filthy.Zarah had lunch with a girl intern that afternoon, like the many afternoons

before that. She liked her. She was sweet, caring and very hard-working.

She liked that. But the best part about her was she didn't talk about boys or

marriage or family.

'Hey, listen …' she said.

'Yes?' The girl looked up from her files.

'What do you know about Lou Gehrig's disease? ALS?' she asked

nervously, even though she knew.

'Fatal. Multi-organ failure. A nerve-related problem. You can't really

expect a patient to live beyond five years. Why are you asking? Do you

have a patient?'

'Yes, a girl.'

'A girl? It's not seen in anyone less than fifty years.'

'She is nineteen. First year, Maulana medical school.'

'Are you serious?' she asked, shocked. Zarah handed over the file to the

girl, who pored through it from behind her blue-rimmed spectacles.

'Yes. She is getting admitted here. It says here she experienced a lack of

sensation during an examination. I just googled her name. She was All

India Rank 3 this year.'

'That's sad,' she whimpered and handed the file back to her. It was no

secret that the patient was dying.

'I know. I hate these diseases. No underlying cause and absolutely no

fault of the patient. I wonder how she must be feeling,' Zarah said and

sighed.

'Don't get too attached to the patient. Remember what Dr Mehra taught

Be emotional about the disease, not the patient.'

'Yeah, right,' she replied and shook her head.

'I am serious.'

Zarah kept mum and they continued to eat their food in silence. She

flipped through Pihu's file to go over the basic details of the disease's

progression in her case. She spotted something very uncommon, if not

downright strange. None of the effects of ALS on the body are reversible,

but Pihu had regained some use of her hands, and her speech had becomeclearer over the last few months. How can that be? Can that be the reason

why Arman is trying to treat a person whose death sentence has already

been written? Is she the answer to the disease?

She knew that Arman was on the research panel of doctors looking for a

cure for ALS. She made a mental note to ask him. After all, he did admit to

being an external consultant to the patient. There was something definitely

amiss with this situation.

Just as she finished eating, her phone rang.

'It's someone asking for the doctor of Dushyant Roy. Dr Arman is not

available. Should I put the call through?' the voice from the other side said.

'Sure,' she said and heard the call-transfer beep. 'Hello? This is Zarah

Mirza.'

'Hi … Umm … Hello, Doctor, I am Kajal. I wanted to know about a

patient admitted in your hospital. Dushyant Roy?'

'Oh, yes. He has a liver problem. Are you a relative?' she asked.

'Is it serious?'

'He will live,' Zarah said. 'Serious, but curable. May I know who you

are?'

The line disconnected.6

Pihu Malhotra

Pihu looked around the room she had grown up in. The room on whose

walls she had always imagined she would hang her diplomas and degrees.

She looked at the photo frames with pictures of her as a toddler, the

bedsheets and the tonnes of books she had so lovingly arranged. She

wondered if she would get to read even a third of them. She was distraught.

For all the times she had craved to be in a medical school, she got only

three months. It had been nine months since then. The loss of sensation

meant she had to drop out of medical school as soon as four other hospitals

—one in Delhi, two in Bangalore and one in Mumbai—gave the same

verdict, each one with more finality than the last. Her disease had

progressed faster than anyone had anticipated. Within two months of

detection, she had trouble walking without crutches. Soon, eating had

become a problem and she couldn't chew for very long. Fifteen minutes of

activity made her breathless and tired. Her muscles were slowly losing their

strength and integrity. The paralysis slowly set in. Life for her became a

constant battle for survival—to see the next morning. To see her parents

around her, to hold their hands and recount memories till it felt like she had

lived them twice. It became a constant struggle to forget what was coming

for her. She had committed herself to her impending death sentence. She

had just a few excruciating months to live.

All this while, she made sure she sent across a mail every day to the

young doctor, who was a part of the research team looking for a cure for

ALS, in New Delhi. Sometimes, it was about the pain of being an ALS

patient. On other occasions, it was something interesting she had read in a

medicine book. His mailbox had become like a personal online blog-cum-punching-bag-cum-stress-ball for her. She knew for sure that he must have

marked her mails as spam after the third one. But she kept sending them …

Pihu Malhotra

To Dr Arman Kashyap

Hi Dr Arman,

My mom still hasn't stopped crying. She tries not to cry in front of me,

but she doesn't make it. Dad is a lot better. I got myself checked again.

Six months, they say.

Give or take a few months. I can't walk for very long.

Regards

Pihu Malhotra

Pihu Malhotra

To Dr Arman Kashyap

Hi Dr Arman,

Sorry to disturb you again. But I am crying. For the past two days, I

haven't been able to sleep. I think of all the bad things that are going to

happen to me. Why? Why me? I didn't do anything wrong to anyone.

Neither did my parents. I just … I am sorry.

Regards

Pihu Malhotra

Pihu Malhotra

To Dr Arman Kashyap

Hi Dr Arman,

I finished the book on cancer diagnosis. It's very nice. Wish I was in

the lab and could see the carcinomas myself. I envy my classmates.

They must be having so much fun. I wonder how Venugopal is doing

and whether he still misses me. And I hope he has made good friends

there. I wish I was there. I am sorry to disturb you again. I am sorry.Regards

Pihu Malhotra

Pihu Malhotra

To Dr Arman Kashyap

Hi Dr Arman,

I can't walk any more. I see a shining new wheelchair in the corner of

the room. I don't want to use it. I want to stay in bed. I am scared. I

also choked on my food once. People say I am dying. They tell me

time is running out. Why doesn't it feel so? Why does it feel that time

has slowed down? Every moment lingers like it will never pass. It feels

like death is moving away from me and I am running to get there soon.

The sooner it comes, the better. I just want to be put out of my misery.

Is a dead daughter better than a dying daughter?

I am sorry.

Regards

Pihu Malhotra

The mails never stopped. It was like a vent for her frustration and her

growing anger.

Four months after the first email, she received a mail from Dr Arman

Kashyap, GKL Hospital. She jumped at the sight of it! And had wondered

later why she had done so. Arman Kashyap was a handsome man, tall, fair

and with rimless spectacles that made him look very intelligent. But the

short-cropped hair made him look like a badass and he stuck out like a sore

thumb in the group photograph of all the doctors at GKL Hospital.

There was no formal introduction, no asking how she was or even who

she was, instead there were a set of questions he wanted her to answer. She

had answered them to the best of her ability, like she would do as a student.

Along with her answers, she attached a report on what she thought about

the various researches that had been done on ALS. She wondered if she was

being a smart-ass, but then thought she had too little time to care.To her surprise, Arman had replied almost immediately. The language of

the mail suggested he was impressed, but it was cleverly concealed. It was

late in the night and Pihu typed out a long mail. It took her four hours to

type it, one slow clumsy letter at a time. She had to take breaks because it

was hard for her to sit up straight for that long. She didn't forget to mention

that in the mail. Minutes after she had hit the send button, exhausted, she

crawled to her bed and drifted off.

The next morning, the first thing she did was to log into Gmail and

refresh it till her fingers hurt. Inbox (1). The mail contained just one line. It

was a link to a website and beneath it was a combination of letters, numbers

and special characters. She clicked on the link, which took her to a

zealously protected website, and punched in the combination in the field

that asked for a password. The website opened up like a whore's legs on a

payday and lay open a world of information on her disease. In the next few

hours, she had devoured whatever she could find on the website. What

really grabbed her attention were the clinical trials GKL Hospital was

carrying out on ALS patients. They were only moderately successful. Just

as she was reading through it, she received another mail that explained how

she was ineligible for it.

Dr Arman Kashyap

To Pihu Malhotra

I am sure you have gone through the clinical-trial reports.

Unfortunately, you're not eligible for it. Section 5. Para 6. I apologize.

Regards

Dr Arman Kashyap

Pihu looked for Section 5. Her face drooped. Since it was a disease which

only inflicted older people, clinical-trial permissions had not been granted

for anyone below the age of thirty. She had slumped in her chair and

switched off the computer. She was tired.For the next two months, she hadn't sent a single mail to the doctor in

GKL Hospital and she didn't receive any. Her condition had been

worsening steadily, her spirit and body slowly dying. She and her parents

had braced themselves for the inevitable. She was going to die. Her parents

were going to cry and lament for the rest of their lives. There was nothing

that could have changed that. She was in a wheelchair. Only liquids were

allowed, chewing food was out of the question. There were times she had

tried to eat solid food and had choked on it as the muscles in her food pipe

gave way. One day when her suffering had reached a peak, she sent a mail

to Arman, updating him about her pitiable condition. She wanted it to be a

long mail, but her body gave up within half an hour.

Pihu Malhotra

To Dr Arman Kashyap

Hi Dr Arman,

This could be my last mail. To you or to anyone. The disease has

progressed to its last stage. It took me twenty minutes to type this. I am

constantly exhausted. It's like a big boulder is crushing my lungs,

snuffing the life out of me. I need assistance for everything now. I

can't even clean myself after going to the washroom. I am sure you

know what happens. My parents are being brave. They don't cry in

front of me. I spend my hours sleeping or smiling at my relatives. They

know I am dying too. It's a strange feeling. I am scared at times.

Sometimes I think about how I am going to die. Will my lungs

collapse? Or my heart? And then I am relieved at times. It's going to

be over. I ask my father to read me my books from medical school.

Maybe I will be a doctor in some other life, if there is anything like

that. I just want to thank you for replying to my mails and showing me

your research website. It meant a lot. Thank you. I need to go now.

Best of luck.

RegardsPihu Malhotra

From what she had learnt about the disease, she knew she didn't have more

than three months to live; some doctors gave her even less. The fear in her

parents' eyes multiplied every day, their grief slowly becoming unbearable

for them. During those days, her relatives and cousins had started to drop in

to see her for the last time. Pihu, confined to her bed, would smile at them.

And cry when she would be alone. For the most part of the day, she would

sleep. Her body, whatever was left of it, was constantly tired and exhausted.

She began to get bedsores. Her mom would spend hours shifting and

rolling her on the bed to prevent the infections from the bedsores from

spreading. They only became worse. She would stay up and cough for

hours on end. Saliva drooled from her mouth but she couldn't bring a hand

up to wipe it. Day after day, she would spend all her time lying on the bed,

staring at the ceiling as her father read to her from medical books and

journals. She could only talk in mumbles; her tongue had become weak too.

She was trapped in her dying body, waiting for death to come.

Her father clicked pictures of her every day, trying to capture his

daughter for the last few times. Visiting doctors always left the home with

their heads hung low. They knew the next time they could find her dead.

A few days after she sent her last mail, a package arrived at the front

door with Pihu's name on it. Her father opened the box gingerly. The

contents were wrapped very carefully in bubble wrap. There was a spiral

bound file of papers and a box with syringes, bottles of coloured liquids and

capsules.

'What's this?' her father asked as he sifted through the contents.

She shook her head and looked at the letter that lay with everything on

the bed. Her dad read the letter, which stated in clear, simple words that

these were the medications they were trying out on the clinical-trial patients

at GKL Hospital. The handwriting was lucid, not like a doctor's.

Dear Pihu,Follow the instructions as written in the file. Keep it to yourself and

your family. Don't get doctors involved. The drugs have a reasonable

success rate at our hospital. They stall symptoms in some cases. They

reverse the effects in others. Think before you decide. Don't hold me

liable.

Regards.

Her father looked at her for an explanation and she told him about the

mails and the website. She asked her dad to read the file that had all the

details about the progress of the patients the medicines had been tried on.

They spent the whole night reading through every case, every patient and

every dosage that she had to take. Whether she should take the medication

or not was a no-brainer. She was dying. She had just three months to live,

give or take a few weeks. A 20 per cent chance of living was an infinitely

better option than to continue living like the undead for the next few

months, and then, in any case, die. She made her father learn how to use the

syringes. After a few times of puncturing his own veins, he got the hang of

From the next day, she was on the medication. For the first few times, his

fingers trembled every time he had to pierce Pihu's flesh. And then it

became easier.

Slowly, things changed. Two months later, she mailed the doctor again.

Pihu Malhotra

To Dr Arman Kashyap

Hi Dr Arman,

I am better. It is working. For the first time, I took solid food. Thank

you.

Regards

Pihu Malhotra

With the mail, she attached a report she and her father had maintain

w Delhi. He completed a degree in engineering

and business management before embarking on a writing career. His first

book, Of Course I Love You …, was published when he was twenty-one

years old and was an instant bestseller. His successive novels—Now That

You're Rich …, She Broke Up, I Didn't!, Oh Yes, I'm Single!, If It's Not

Forever …, Someone Like You—have also found prominence on various

bestseller lists, making him one of the highest-selling authors in India.

Durjoy lives in New Delhi, loves dogs and is an active CrossFitter.

For more updates, you can follow him on Facebook

(www.facebook.com/durjoydatta1) or Twitter (@durjoydatta).Also by Durjoy Datta

Hold My Hand

She Broke Up, I Didn't!

I Just Kissed Someone Else!

Of Course I Love You

Till I Find Someone Better

(With Maanvi Ahuja)

Oh Yes, I'm Single!

And So Is My Girlfriend!

(With Neeti Rustagi)

Now That You're Rich

Let's Fall in Love!

(With Maanvi Ahuja)

Someone Like You

(With Nikita Singh)

You Were My Crush

Till You Said You Love Me!

(With Orvana Ghai)

If It's Not Forever

It's Not Love

(With Nikita Singh)To everyone who reads1

Dushyant Roy

The curtains had been wide open for quite some time now, letting the sharp

rays of the sun stream in through the open window, on to the face of a

prostrate Dushyant, who lay in bed, covered in a worn-out hospital

bedsheet, very uncomfortable in his sleep but still unmoving. His eyes

flickered through the night and his fingers trembled. He was asleep and

didn't wake up. It wasn't a good night's sleep.

Finally, after tossing restlessly from side to side, he woke up and tried

opening his eyes. One of them refused to open, swollen from the huge gash

just above his left eyebrow, which had been heavily taped and bandaged. He

touched the bandage with his hands and checked for blood with his other

half-open, groggy eye. He sighed as he found none … Only then did he

venture to look around the hospital room. He was surrounded with medical

equipment, a lot of it connected to him, a small television in one corner of

the room and an empty bed on his left side. His thoughts wandered to what

had brought him there. It wasn't the first time he was in one of these beds,

but this time it seemed a little more serious than the other times. Landing up

unconscious after a series of uncontrollable vomits and brain tremors was a

way of life for him. It was his escape, his refuge. Being sober hadn't got

him anywhere, and being drunk obliterated the possibility.

He had tubes attached to needles, which dipped into his veins and

arteries, and pumped liquids from transparent pouches hanging from the

stand on his right side. He was sure his parents had no idea of his

whereabouts. He knew none of his friends would have given the hospital

authorities his parents' numbers or address. He was in no mood to see or

talk to them. Not now, not ever.The hands of the watch on his cell phone touched. It was twelve—

fourteen hours since he had been admitted. Last night, like many before,

had been a night of debauchery, porn, poker, alcohol and smoke. Six of his

friends in his cramped one-room apartment—a five-minute walk from

college—and a few bottles of alcohol, some weed, nail-polish remover and

just about everything which could get them fucked up.

The evening had started with casual banter about college professors, the

new kids who had joined the college, girls and pornography. A few cell

phone videos of girls bathing naked were transferred over Bluetooth

amongst them. A little later the bottles had been popped open. Dushyant—

who had graduated just a few months back—was mentor to these kids. He

knew the exact proportions for deathly cocktails and the people who would

have a steady supply of highly potent weed even during a nuclear holocaust.

He knew how to get out of trouble. But more than that, he knew how to get

into trouble. Like he had the night before, when he passed out only to wake

up in a hospital bed. He remembered a seizure; he remembered feeling as if

he was dying, but nothing more than that. He waited restlessly for the nurse

to come in and tell him what the hell was going on. I need to get the fuck

out of here, he thought.

On other occasions, he would just jerk off the needles that punctured his

hand and walk right out of the ward, but there were too many of them this

time and he wanted to know what was wrong, if anything. He was not

scared, just concerned if it was serious enough for his mother to start crying

and his father to start shouting at him for being irresponsible, disgraceful

and a blot on the family name. What family name? He is a bloody head

clerk at the MCD, he said to himself. He never got the flawed definitions of

honour and family name. He didn't give a fuck, and frankly, he knew they

wouldn't come this time. His head hurt and he thought he could do without

the nonsense his parents always put him through.

While he wallowed in self-pity and cursed the hospital, the door opened

and a girl—short and fair—entered the room. She had big eyes—like the

schoolgirls in Japanese cartoons—and looked like a confused kid in a candy

shop with gold coins in both her palms, not knowing what to buy. Butinstead, her palms were clasped around the handlebars of her crutches. Her

legs buckled at the knees and seemed to have no strength at all to bear the

weight of her tiny five-foot-two frame.

'Excuse me?' he said and waved at the girl, who was in a robe slightly

better than his. 'Can you call the fuc … ummm … nurse?'

'I think I can. But you know, I could have been a doctor. I am still

studying,' she said, and looked at Dushyant and smiled. Dushyant didn't

know how to react to that. He didn't remember the last time a girl had

smiled at him.

'But since you're not, can you call her? Argh.'

'Being angry won't help your case,' she said, 'but if you pull off that

needle with the blue cap out of your right hand, a little slowly, it might

help.' She walked over gingerly to the bed next to him and drew the curtain

between them. And then pulled it away.

'Excuse me?'

'Do it. There'll be no pulse. They will think you're dying and I hope, at

least then, that someone will come running to check on you,' she explained

and chuckled. 'And well, if no one does, you're in a really bad hospital.

You should get a second opinion.'

'I am not going to do that,' he retorted.

'Then …' she said and slowly limped over to his bed. She picked up his

medical chart which hung from the other end of his bed, her eyebrows

knitted, and continued, 'You have to wait till three when a nurse comes in

and draws some blood for some tests. Not a long wait, just two and half

hours!'

'Whatever,' he said, closed his eyes and put his head back on the pillow.

'Fine, bye. Hope to see you again. I might pick this room. I am here for

some tests, but they need to admit me for a little bit.'

'Yeah, right. You won't see me today. I will be out by evening,' he said

rudely.

Pihu just smiled and walked slowly towards the exit. At the gate, she

looked at the number and whispered to herself, 'Room 509.' Dushyant sawher nodding, and she disappeared into the corridor amongst other sick

people. I need to get the fuck out of here, he said to himself.

'I don't know what the fuck they are up to!' Dushyant shouted on the

phone.

It was four. The nurse had come and drawn some blood and given him

zero answers. Why am I here? When can I go? Did you tell my parents? Did

you? What the fuck is going on? She nodded to his questions unthinkingly,

and told him the doctor would see him in a little while. He swore at her. In

Hindi. He didn't think the Keralite nurse understood him. Cursing came as

second nature to him … His sentences often started and ended with abuses,

most of which had been improvised and perfected over the course of years

that had passed by.

The first time he had hurled abuse was when he was in the eighth

standard. Someone had addressed him as bhenchod and his comeback was

that he didn't have a sister. Not too clever, but ever since that day, bhenchod

became a way of life. It replaced emotions, feelings and entire situations,

depending on how it was being said by him.

'Just be back soon, man,' said the voice from the other side of the phone

and he disconnected the call. Bhenchod!

He had no visitors. He had no friends really. In the four years and the few

extra months he had spent in the college, he had made drinking buddies,

smoking buddies, getting-fucked-up-with buddies, but none who would

come to see him in the hospital. Had it been six months before, some of

them might have come. But now everyone who had graduated with him was

either working or waiting for their offer letters. He had been placed, too, but

the large IT-sweatshop company hadn't sent him a joining date yet. Stuck in

a time warp, he didn't want to go anywhere. So days before college ended,

he rented a flat just outside college and started to live like he was still

studying—in his fifth year of engineering.

Dushyant was about to doze off when a doctor—presumably in his mid

thirties—entered the room.

'Hey,' he said. 'Are you fine?''Why wouldn't I be? I am just okay. When can I fucking go now?' he

asked angrily.

'I am afraid you might have to stay here for a few days,' he said and

looked at his chart. 'We are actually glad you woke up. It had been three

days and we thought you were gone for good,' the doctor, Arman Kashyap,

said with a smirk.

'Three days? Are you fucking kidding me? You have the wrong patient,

Doctor. I came here yesterday. Is everyone here an incompetent fool? Get

me out of these things!'

'Irritation. Forgetfulness. And confusion. Well, these are common

symptoms for hepatic encephalopathy. As far as I see it, it's good news for

you, boy. You have every symptom in the book. It's easier to treat that way,'

he explained and smiled.

'Excuse me? I have what?'

'Hepatic encephalopathy,' he said. 'In other words, your liver has rotted

and is playing games with your brain cells. You have had problems with

urination for the past few days and you didn't tell anyone because you were

embarrassed about it. And three days back, you had a seizure and passed

out.'

'But I didn't. It was just—'

'I am telling you what happened, not asking you for your confirmation,'

he said, with a heady mix of arrogance and confidence. 'Now, give me your

parents' contact numbers so that we can tell them what a bad boy you have

been.'

'You don't need to,' he mumbled, confused. And the confusion was not a

symptom of the hepatic whatever he had, but what the doctor had just said.

'Hospital rules, Dushyant,' he explained. 'No matter how much I hate

dead people, I hate unpaid bills more.'

Dushyant, dazed and caught off guard, wrote down an old, out-of-service

landline number of his house and asked him, 'You're going to call them

now?'

'Not really. Not unless you have to undergo some drastic medical

procedure which requires them to be around. Or you are broke and can'tpay the bills.'

'Fine,' he said. 'How long will it take?'

'If you don't die, you should be okay in three weeks,' he said. 'But if you

go back and try to drown yourself in alcohol again, you might not get out of

here alive. I have some other patients to look into, who are not killing

themselves. I will check on you later today.'

'Will it hurt?'

'Did it hurt when you stuck needles inside yourself, Dushyant?' he asked.

'But don't worry, the best part of your disease is that just in case you die,

you will die sleeping. Hepatic encephalopathy is a very lazy disease—

somnolence and acting stupid being the main symptoms. You have already

done with being stupid, so I guess there is just one left. Go, sleep.'

Before Dushyant could say anything to that, the doctor hung his chart on

the bed and left the room. Frantically, Dushyant called his friend to confirm

if what the doctor had said was true. It was. This is seriously fucked up, he

thought.

He punched the words 'hepatic encephalopathy' into his cell phone's

Google browser and it took him a few times to get the spelling right. A few

search results popped up and he read through them hurriedly. Combing

through the labyrinth of medical words and terminologies, he knew where

his problem came from—his excessive drinking. I don't even drink a lot! He

was right, but he was into all kinds of stuff and the more he read up on the

disease the more he realized that he was at fault. A few sentences stood out

and he lay there breathing heavily and cursing everything that he had

ingested in the last five years, but still wanting some more of it at that

moment. Ideally, he would have loved a couple of large shots of vodka

mixed with a few shots, big shots, of tequila. If worst came to worst, a

cigarette. Dushyant had never been an addict, and unlike addicts who

thought they could kick the habit any time, he could actually do so. Or so he

thought.

Soon, sleep took over and he closed his eyes, wondering if he would

wake up again. What he had read circled his head for the entire time that he

slept.Those with severe encephalopathy (stages 3 and 4) are at risk of

obstructing their airway due to decreased protective reflexes such as the

gag reflex. This can lead to respiratory arrest. Intubation of the airway is

often necessary to prevent life-threatening complications (e.g., aspiration or

respiratory failure).

Are they going to cut my throat open? he thought in his sleep.

If encephalopathy develops in acute liver failure, it indicates that a liver

transplant may be required.

Where would I get that! Even in his sleep, he wanted to get hammered.

Vodka. Tequila. Whisky. Iodex. Anything.2

Arman Kashyap

Arman Kashyap had stacked up medical degrees from premier medical

colleges, but he was best known for his degree in attitude from God knows

where. He walked the hallways of GKL Hospital with a confidence not seen

in doctors three decades older and much wiser. His peers said he was

arrogant because he belonged to a family of remarkable doctors and

extraordinary businessmen. His father was the country's leading heart

surgeon, his mom, a sensitive and highly popular psychiatrist amongst rich,

bored and horny housewives, and his older sister, a paediatrician whose

average day was littered with appointments with celebrities—medicine and

excellence ran in his blood.

But the arrogance didn't stem from his impressive background. He just

knew he was that good.

And he knew he wasn't just a jerk. Had he been one, he would have

worked in the chain of hospitals his father had amassed in the last twenty

years. He would have been sitting pretty in a corner office with a few

brilliant doctors working under him, doing whatever he would have asked

them to. But he didn't choose to be that, instead he chose to work out the

grind and prove his worth every minute of every hour in a hospital where he

held no influence. He had earned every bit of the reputation that he had got

himself in the last three years. His sincere good looks—he stood at six feet,

had short hair and wore expensive rimless spectacles—and savage drive to

succeed had helped.

'So, you look like you made someone's life hell today,' Zarah said as

Arman approached her.'Hell? Guys like him make their own lives hell and come here with

diseases which I have no intentions to diagnose or treat. It's a waste of

resources,' he said and added with an evil smile, 'I was praying he wouldn't

wake up. Wouldn't that have been so much better?'

'You wished he would die?' she asked, shocked. Just a few weeks had

passed of her internship under Arman and she was still trying to come to

terms with the genius doctor's behavioural eccentricities. Arman knew he

wasn't the best boss or the most cooperative of colleagues to have. But he

believed it was other people's liability to accept him for what he was. He

was, after all, a rare genius.

'Don't you think he should die? A guy who cracks a competitive exam to

a good engineering college only to drink and smoke himself to death.

Should he live? Or should the people who die on the streets be given that

chance?'

'Well, they can't afford it,' Zarah retorted, trying to outsmart him.

'I don't care about them. But the guy on that bed doesn't deserve to live,'

he answered. 'Imagine what his parents must go through. Disgrace.'

'As if you get along with your parents.'

'How was it when you were growing up, Zarah? Did your parents tell

you what not to do? Don't meet that guy, don't stay out that late, and please

don't get less than 95 per cent in your examinations? And when did that

stop? When you got through medical school in Delhi and they had no idea

what you were studying and how much you should score? When they

couldn't make sense whether 657/1230 meant good marks or bad?'

'Well, more or less,' she responded.

'Imagine that, only three times as bad. The hospital mails them details of

every case I work on here and they keep telling me what to do. The patient

coughs up blood, my dad calls; a seizure, my mom calls; and someone slips

into a coma, my sister calls! It's a crazy house,' he explained. 'As if saving

assholes like him was not enough, I have to answer to every damn question

that my parents pose.'

'Is that why you don't work at your parents' hospital?'

'I don't work there because I think I deserve better than that.''I hope I start to understand what you mean some day, sir,' Zarah said

and flicked her hair behind her ear.

'And that's not even the worst part. The worst part is—they are never

right!'

'That'sfunny,sir.'

'You have to stop calling me "sir" first. It makes me feel, well, old,' he

said. 'Anyway, we have a new patient. Pretty standard case. The good thing

is that the girl is like you, only younger. She got admitted into medical

school last year, found something wrong with her hands and diagnosed it

herself. Impressive, isn't it?'

Looking at her face, he knew Zarah didn't know what to make of what he

said, whether he was genuinely impressed or was being sarcastic. Anyway,

he always felt something was wrong with Zarah. She was way too reserved

for the way she looked. At five feet seven, she towered above even a few

male doctors. She didn't have a shred of fat on her body, probably because

she smoked a lot. But her lips, the lightest shade of pink, didn't leave any

telltale signs of her smoking habit. Neither did her chocolate-coloured

exotic skin, which was smooth and velvety. To be honest, the first time

Arman saw her in her white doctor's coat and the three-inch heels, he

thought she wasn't from India at all. Maybe Brazil. Or Chile. Or Uruguay.

Some place not India. Usually, the prettier female doctors were outspoken;

Zarah, on the other hand, was reserved. It was intriguing. Maybe she was a

perfect case for his mother, the acclaimed psychiatrist. In her mother's

words, she was damaged.

'Can you check her up and get her forms done?' he asked her and gave

her the file. 'She is here for a few tests. We will admit her to the hospital in

a day or two.'

'Right away, Arman.' Zarah took the file from his hand and started

reading through it. 'It says in this file you were her external consultant? I

didn't know you do that.'

'It's a special case,' Arman responded with a straight face, 'and it will be

better if you keep it to yourself.'Pihu Malhotra. Age 19. Arman saw Zarah's eyes rivet on the file. She

didn't move a muscle.

'Is there a problem?' he asked.

'She has ALS? As in Lou Gehrig's disease?'

Arman could sense the shock in her voice—a definite marker of a young,

inexperienced doctor. He had expected it. When he had first heard about the

case, he had felt the same thing. Shock. Disbelief. Pity.

'Yes, why do you look shocked?'

'Isn't it something that afflicts people over the age of forty? She is just

nineteen.'

'That's what makes it interesting. Have you heard about Stephen

Hawking?'

'The super-genius scientist? The wheelchair-bound physicist who can't

talk any more?' she asked, just to be sure.

'Yes, the same guy. He was diagnosed at the age of twenty-one. Doctors

said he had three years. It has been forty years since then. His disease was

progressing slowly. Hers, on the other hand,' he pointed to the file, 'is

progressing at a faster rate. She was diagnosed one year back and she might

not make it through the next three months.'

'What do we do? There is no cure, right?'

'No, there is not. I am on the research panel trying to find one. Let's see

what happens. We will decide when the right time comes,' he said and got

back to his work. He had no intentions of indulging in a 'poor girl' type

conversation with Zarah. Clearly, Zarah was stunned and her face contorted

to signify the pity she felt for the nineteen-year-old dying girl.

Zarah had studied to be in the noble profession and save lives and get

people healthy, but she never really had the heart to overlook the pain of

sick people in the first place. It reminded her of her own angst. She felt

sorry for Pihu, and for the bastard who lay in the room with a damaged

liver.3

Pihu Malhotra

Pihu looked at the tall stacks of books lined up in front of her. Her lips

curved into an embarrassed smile. She looked around and hoped nobody

had seen it. Examinations were around the corner and everyone was

stressed out and high on caffeine. Pihu was high on anticipation. She had

finished the course. Twice.

Pihu's parents were ecstatic when she had cracked the All India Medical

Examinations and decided to go to Maulana Azad Medical College, one of

the best medical colleges in India. Pihu had smiled, shaken hands and

hugged. She knew it was just the beginning. School never offered her the

opportunity to bury herself in course books the way she had always wanted

The course was never a challenge. The entrance examinations were a

necessary evil. She knew she would sail through. When news broke out in

her hometown that her AIR (All India Rank) was third, cunning pot-bellied

owners of coaching institutes had flocked to her place, wanting her to

advertise their highly qualified staff and fully air-conditioned classrooms

with a picture of their most illustrious student—Pihu Malhotra. A few days

later, she was in the local newspapers. Her parents' dreams were fulfilled.

Hers had just taken root.

These were the first set of exams in her college.

'You don't look tense?' Venugopal asked as he underlined his book with

a fluorescent marker.

'I am okay,' she said, barely suppressing a chuckle.

She had the book Human Anatomy open in front of her. She had read it

twice. She itched to read something else. Her eyes had been on the book on

pathology lying on the side. A second-year student was sleeping on it. Shewanted to peep in, worse still, whip it away from under the senior's head,

but she didn't want to come across as a nerd.

'You have finished the course, haven't you?' Venugopal asked

suspiciously.

'Yes,' she said and blushed. 'But I still have to revise,' she added.

'But when? You spent all the time with us. When did you get the time? I

didn't see you study!'

'Promise you won't tell anyone?'

'I won't,' Venugopal asked and adjusted the spectacles on his hunched

nose. Obviously, he wouldn't. Pihu knew that. Venugopal and Pihu were

destined to be friends after the first roll call in their class of 335 students.

Their roll numbers were consecutive, since Venugopal's full name was P.

Venugopal where P stood for something unpronounceable for north Indians.

They were partners in dissection and had cut open their first corpse together

—it's the sort of thing that binds two doctors together for the rest of their

lives. Kind of what it means for two engineering students to have the first

peg of whisky together. Other than that, they were very similar. Middle

class families, dads in government service, mothers as housewives and

CBSE toppers of their own regions. In a parallel universe where north and

south Indians got along, it was a match made in heaven.

In the past three months, they had become the best of friends. They never

kept anything from each other. They didn't have to, since they led simple

lives. Simple people with simple desires. They had nothing to hide. They

had never partied, never smoked, never drank. Neither of them had stayed

out of their houses after eight. They never felt the need to.

'I had gone through a few books before I joined college,' Pihu said.

'You had? Which ones?'

'Anatomy. Physiology. General Pharmacology. A few others.'

'A few others? That's like the whole course,' Venugopal gasped.

'I always wanted to read them ever since I started preparing for medical

entrances. That's all I have ever wanted to do.'

'You're crazy. Why would you?''I have always wanted to be a doctor. Ever since the time I was a little

kid. At first, I thought I liked the candy my paediatrician gave me! But

slowly, it became an obsession. I used to fake illnesses as a kid so I could

go to the clinic and hear the doctor talk about various medicines and cures.

It's everything I have ever wanted to do. Haven't you?' Pihu purred and

batted her eyelashes shyly.

'I have always wanted a career. And being a doctor was one,' Venugopal

responded. 'But you're awesome. You will be a great doctor.'

'Thanks.' Pihu blushed. 'So will you.'

'I hope so. But why didn't you tell me before? You could have taught me.

I am struggling here.'

'I can still teach you,' she said.

Venugopal pushed the book towards her, rested his chin on his knuckles

and commanded, 'Teach.'

'I didn't want you to think I was a freak,' Pihu said softly.

'I don't need to tell you that.' Venugopal laughed.

Pihu always thought of Venugopal as a sweet, well-mannered guy. He

was from Chennai, Tamil Nadu, and barely spoke any Hindi. Pihu had spent

the first few weeks forcing him to talk in Hindi and laughing her head off.

Somewhere between the lectures on human lungs and lymph nodes, Pihu

knew she had found a friend for life. She loved the way he cursed the Delhi

food, complained about the egregious hostel canteen's sambar and how he

pronounced 'mall' as 'maal'. Their bond strengthened over countless meals

of butter chicken and shitty sambar, and arguments about which tasted

better.

Pihu stared at the books again wondering what had gone wrong. Fear

clouded her mind. A million possibilities battled each other and she cried.

She had read about 'hypochondriasis of medical students', a condition in

which medical students diagnose themselves with diseases they don't have.

It stems from the paranoia one suffers from after obsessing over different

symptoms throughout the day. But she knew for a fact that she wasn't

imagining things.She had left the examination hall thirty minutes before the scheduled

time. She knew all the answers. She had wanted to write them. The pen was

in her hand, and the answers in her head. But her hands had cramped. It

wasn't the fear of the examination; she didn't know what it felt like to be

afraid of an examination. There was something wrong with her hands. It

wasn't the first time she had felt it, but she had chosen to ignore it earlier.

She had tried moving her hand in vain. After struggling with intermittent

pain and the lack of sensation for half an hour, she had started to write. She

had written three beautiful answers when the pain and the lack of sensation

came back. She had tears in her eyes. She didn't know what was wrong

with her hand. Every page from every medical book she had read came

rushing back to her mind. Her head hurt. Tears streamed down her face.

Half an hour before the exam ended, she left the hall, tears in her eyes and

strange cramps in both her hands.

'Why haven't you been picking up your calls?' Venugopal asked, worried

and flustered.

Venugopal had been calling her for quite some time now. Pihu had

disconnected all calls till she asked him to join her in the library.

'There is something wrong with me,' she explained. 'I had not given it

too much thought earlier, but I know something is definitely wrong with

me.'

'Yes, I know. You study too much,' Venugopal suggested and smiled.

'It's not that. It's the examination.'

'What? You did well, right? Everything you taught me was perfect! It

was like you knew the questions beforehand. You are teaching me

everything from now on!' he chortled.

'I didn't write anything after the third question,' Pihu said, tears flooding

her eyes.

'Hey … Hey … Are you crying? What happened? Were you nervous?

But you knew everything, didn't you?'

'I knew everything.'

'Did you blank out?' Venugopal asked, concern writ across his face.

'NO! I knew the answers.'Shhh. The librarian asked them to be silent.

'Then what happened?'

'I couldn't write. My hand … I had no control over it,' she said and

broke down in small sobs. Venugopal looked puzzled. He took her hand in

his palms and applied pressure at a few points. He asked her if she had any

sensation in her hand. Pihu could feel the warmth in Venugopal's touch, but

she knew something was wrong. Why can't I feel it!

'Can you feel my touch?' Venugopal asked.

'I am scared,' she said. She picked up a pencil from her neatly arranged

geometry box. She tried to write her name on the piece of paper in front of

her. She couldn't control it. Venugopal watched in horror as she scribbled. It

wasn't the usual curvy, artistic font she used to write in. It was hardly

legible. It looked like she was using the wrong hand. 'I can't control my

hand.'

'Let's see a doctor?'

'I wanted to be a surgeon,' she said and put her head down on the books.

She cried.

'C'mon, Pihu. You don't know what it is. It could be something as simple

as Vitamin C deficiency. There are cases reported where Vitamin C

deficiency causes paralysis. Even if it's not that, there could be a million

other innocuous reasons! I think you're overreacting,' Venugopal assured

her.

'What if it's not an innocuous reason? What if it's something more?' she

asked, her voice breaking off in sobs.

She looked at her hand. Pale and useless. Stop being so negative! Maybe

it's not that bad. This can't happen to me. Maybe Venugopal is right. All the

possible causes for the symptom started to shadow her mind. She was

freaking out, her tears were uncontrollable. What was it? Stroke? Nerve

injury? Poliomyelitis? Botulism? Spina bifida? Multiple sclerosis?

Guillain–Barré syndrome? All of a sudden, it looked as if she could have

every disease she had read about till now. The deadlier the disease, the more

convinced she was about its possibility. Sleep evaded her that night as she

looked up every possible cause of her problem. By next morning, she had alist of eighty-nine possible causes. She scheduled herself for a plethora of

blood tests the next day.

Venugopal had a horrendous next exam. Pihu and Venugopal had spent

the night looking over all the possible causes of Pihu's loss of control of her

hand. They narrowed it down to twenty types of blood tests and visited a

pathology lab at night, rather late for them. She didn't want to trouble him,

but he had insisted. Pihu waited for him outside his examination hall the

next day with her blood test results in hand.

Her blood work was clean, eliminating eighty-eight possible causes.

'I never thought I would be the first person I would have to diagnose,' Pihu

said on the phone.

There were no tests left to be done. Blood tests ruled out pathogens and

other common diseases, breathing tests to check the lungs, MRIs to rule out

any neck injury, electromyography to check the nerves in her hand, a head

MRI to eliminate other conditions and nerve conduction studies to sum up

the rest.

'You can never be too sure,' Venugopal said from the other side of the

phone.

'I wish I didn't have to,' she whimpered and heard the rustling of pages.

'Are you still in the library?'

'No, I am not.'

'You are. Go out, Venu! The exams just got over. Go out and party with

the guys.'

'Not without you. I want you to be here,' he said.

'I don't think I am coming back,' Pihu responded.

'You can't talk like that. You haven't even seen a doctor, yet. You have to

be positive.'

'He must have read the same books that we have. I am sure of what I

have, Venu. I can't be in denial,' she lied.

'You mean to say that experience counts for nothing? See a doctor. It

could still be something else,' he argued.Pihu didn't want to pursue it any more. She knew he was going through

denial. A certain part of her was going through the same. Except for this

call, she had not stopped crying since the time she discovered what she was

afflicted with. She had cursed the unfair balance of nature. What she had

was not something she deserved. She had cried and pored over the reports

again and again, hoping there would be a mistake. She wished she was

wrong in her self-diagnosis. She could be. She was only a first-year medical

student and she wasn't supposed to diagnose it correctly in any case.

'Are you going to tell them?' he asked.

'I think I will let some doctor do it,' she said. Her eyes watered up. She

heard the flipping of papers from the other side. 'I will talk to you later. The

signal is cracking up.' She disconnected the call. I hope I am wrong about

this. She sighed. The tears returned and they never stopped during the three

hours it took for her to reach her home from the college hostel. All her

dreams washed away in an instant.

Once home, she stood in front of her parents, complaining about the strange

sensations in her right arm. Her mother started to ask her about the

examinations. Dad asked her if she was eating right. It took her an hour to

make them take the cramps and the loss of sensation in her hand seriously.

Her mom suggested stress. Dad suggested infection. 'Delhi's water is

riddled with parasites and germs. You're almost a doctor, you should know,'

he said. She insisted on seeing a doctor. Her dad smiled at the irony. Pihu

knew what he was thinking about. He had imagined her as a doctor.

Something that Pihu knew would never happen. I hope I am wrong, she

sighed.

On the way to the hospital, she tried to be her chirpy self, even though all

she wanted to do was cry. Maybe she was wrong. The doctor in the hospital

asked her a few questions and prescribed her some blood tests.

'It could be anything. Let's wait for the blood test results,' he assured the

worried parents. 'Come back tomorrow and we will find out what's wrong

with her.' He pushed the bowl of candy in front of her. Out of habit, she

stuffed a fistful of Éclairs in her pocket.Pihu knew the doctor wouldn't find anything abnormal in the tests and

would order some more tests. Back home, she fished out every research

paper and every document ever written about the disease. Looking through

various reports she found a research team in a hospital in Delhi which

specialized in stem cell research and developing experimental new drugs

for the disease. She found the email ID of one of the doctors on the team—

Arman Kashyap, supposedly a genius, and shot across an email giving him

the details of her disease. She was desperate. She didn't want to die and she

didn't deserve to.

That night, when she was done reading about her disease and had cried

enough to make herself tired, Venugopal called again. He had been texting

her constantly. Pihu knew for sure he had been doing some reading on the

disease too.

'What did he say? Did he order all the blood tests? Did he guess

anything? Any alternative causes? Differential diagnosis?' he asked, the

panic in his voice apparent.

'The reports come tomorrow. I know they will be clean. He hasn't

guessed anything yet.'

'Maybe they will find something that we didn't. We did the tests just

once. And these government pathological labs make mistakes all the time.

Where did you go? Apex Hospital?' Venugopal blabbered, hoping against

hope. This time he wasn't even convincing. He had checked and rechecked

the reports; Pihu was sure of that. They weren't incorrect.

'Let's wait for tomorrow.'

'Are you okay, Pihu?'

'Yes.'

'Are you scared?'

'Very,' Pihu said and started sobbing softly. She had promised herself

that she would be strong and not cry. She couldn't do it. She had read about

the suffering of people who had the same disease as hers, and she felt

terrible. Having read horrendous accounts of how patients lose control of

their body as it slowly rots away, she started to question the fairness of itall. Why me? Of all people! She cursed the mirror in front of her for it was

lying. She wasn't healthy. Her insides were rotting away, slowly, bit by bit.

'It's going to be okay,' he assured her.

'Nothing is going to be okay. You know that! I am dying, Venugopal …'

She cried a little more on the phone and eventually drifted off to sleep.

She didn't know if Venugopal had waited for long before he disconnected

the call. It didn't matter. She was alone in this. She had to get used to it.

Things only became worse the next morning. Her denial had given way to

acceptance, and the acceptance of her condition depressed her. With a heavy

heart, she checked all the websites she had bookmarked the day before,

searched for cures on the Internet even when she knew there weren't any,

and checked if Dr Arman Kashyap from GKL Hospital had replied to her

long, ranting mail.

A little later, they were in the car, negotiating the early-morning traffic to

the hospital. Pihu sat on the back seat, wondering if the doctor had any

inkling of what was wrong with her. She hoped he would. And she hoped it

wasn't what she thought it was. The anticipation of the pain her parents

would go through was getting unbearable.

'Good morning,' the doctor from the day before said. He was smiling.

'The blood reports came clean.'

A smile shot across her parents' faces. Pihu remained expressionless as

she looked at all the branded merchandise—pens, diaries, clocks and

notepads—from the big pharmaceutical companies. Her mom folded her

arms as if to say, I know it's because of the stress. Her father absent

mindedly played with a plastic model of the human brain.

'Are you still having some problem with your hands?'

She nodded.

'Any other problems? Difficulty in breathing? Anything?'

She nodded. Now he's getting it. Maybe. I would have made such a good

doctor. She tried not to buckle and weep. Her parents were still distracted.

She felt sorry for them. Again, she stuffed her pocket with a fistful of

Éclairs.The doctor looked at her parents and started to ask them about their

families. 'So Pihu's grandparents? They are still alive?'

They let the doctors know whatever he needed and the doctor noted

everything down on a small pad. She knew he was yet to make any sense of

But he had a hunch about what Pihu had.

'We need to do some more tests,' he said, 'to check the nerve reactions.

Nothing major.' The doctor smiled. Pihu smiled back at him. Does he

know? Why is he smiling?

'I am sure it's because of stress. She is a medical student, you know. Lots

of pressure, big books, late nights, you know? She is a brilliant student,

topped the region in her board examinations. She wants to be a surgeon.'

Her mom's chest swelled with obvious pride. The doctor nodded

approvingly.

'Do you know what's wrong with her?' her father asked, keeping down

the fake brain.

Please don't ask, Dad. I am dying. Slowly. Please don't ask.

'Let's wait for the results,' the doctor answered and whisked her away to

the testing room.

It took the doctor three hours, a battery of tests and consultations with

other doctors to come to the conclusion Pihu had reached days before. She

had noticed the expressions of shock on their faces while her doctor

discussed the case with other doctors in her presence. As they talked and

looked in her direction, with pity on their faces, she was sure they didn't

know that she already knew. Some of them even called their counterparts in

other hospitals for a second opinion.

'Did you figure it out yet?' she asked the doctor, who shifted restlessly in

his place.

'We are just getting a final confirmation from an expertdoctor in

Mumbai,' he said. She felt sorry for the doctor, too. Why should he be a

part of the gloom that was about to engulf her family?

'I know what I have, doctor,' she said, her head hung low.

'Excuse me?'

'I am a medical student. First year, Maulana Azad. I did the tests myself.''What tests?' The shock on the doctor's face snowballed into concern

and pity.

'I have ALS. I know there is no genetic history. I know there is no cure. I

know that I am slowly dying. I could be gone this year or the next. But I

will die eventually. I have read all there is to read about the disease. I know

what's going to happen. I will not be able to eat on my own, go to the

bathroom or even breathe. You will cut a pipe into my throat to help me

breathe or I might choke on my own saliva,' she explained. She hadn't

discussed her painful future with Venugopal for she didn't have the strength

It looked like it could never happen to her. As she finally described her

own death to the doctor, she came to terms with it. The news finally sank in.

In that moment, all her dreams, her aspirations, her visions of herself as a

doctor melted away and the morose faces of her parents stared back at her.

Her eyes glazed over and she resolved to not weep. There is some mistake!

This shouldn't happen to me. I have done nothing to deserve this. I am

perfectly healthy! Her heart cried out loud.

'There are treatments—'

'Riluzole, diazepam, amitriptyline. They will give me a few months

more. A few days more of breathing on my own. I have read all about it.'

She tried not to cry. The doctor didn't want to give her any false hope.

She had to be ready for what was coming next.

ALS is a cruel disease. It starts with the patient becoming clumsy. You

drop things, get tired easily, and the sensations in your limbs keep getting

dimmer till paralysis sets in. After that, you're at your helpers' mercy. You

can't eat because your tongue and your jaw muscles will be too weak to

chew the food. You can't talk fast or for too long because your mouth will

become tired after the first minute or so. You will be on crutches … before

the wheelchair comes in. Soon, even that will be a problem because you

won't have the forearm strength to roll the chair. You will be paralysed and

bedridden. There will be tubes running in and out of your body to help you

eat, breathe and defecate. Machines will keep you alive. It's a sorry way to

die.'I am sorry,' he said. 'I wish I could do something. I can give you some

books you can read about people who have fought the disease. They didn't

win, but they died happy. You can't lose to the disease.'

'I would just wish for you to tell my parents. I don't have the courage,'

she said and the tears came again. She tried to stifle her sobs the best she

could. Never had she thought her parents would outlive her. What greater

misfortune can there be for a parent?

'You're the most courageous patient I have seen in the longest time,' he

said and added with a pause, 'I have a daughter. She is seven.'

'Does she want to be a doctor too?'

'Yes. You remind me of her,' the doctor said, looked down at the reports

in his hands and closed his eyes. Pihu wondered if he was praying for them

to be wrong. She wondered how many death sentences the forty-year-old

man had given before hers. The watery eyes of the doctor told her that he

was still not used to it.

'Let's tell my parents?' Pihu said, and clutched the doctor's hand and

slipped in some Éclairs. 'Give this to your daughter from my side.'

'Sure,' he nodded and took a deep breath.

Pihu took one too. The wails of her mother and silent groans of her father

already resonated in her head and she felt dizzy. They entered the doctor's

chambers. Her parents' eyes met hers and she knew they could see the

horror. Their faces fell as if they knew what the middle-aged doctor was

about to tell them. She went and sat next to her mom and held her hand.

The doctor started to explain. The world blocked out. Her mind was blank.

The denial of her parents, their shouts, their screams, their accusations

against the incompetent doctor and the irresponsible hospital, their claims

of their daughter being perfectly healthy—nothing registered in her brain.

She had just one image seared on her retina.

She was going to die, motionless on a hospital bed with a tube cut into

her throat.4

Kajal Khurana

Kajal paced nervously in her hostel room. The news of Dushyant lying

unconscious for three days had just reached her. It wasn't the first time she

had received such a call. When they were dating, she was used to going to

the hospital, picking him up and cleaning up his shit. But the last such call

was two years back. Today, she had suppressed the impulse to drop

everything and visit him. He wouldn't want to see me, she argued. Do I

want to see him? Two years had passed since the last time they had talked.

Kajal dialled the number.

'Hello, GKL Hospital? Can I talk to the doctor of a patient admitted

there? The name is Dushyant Roy.'

'Hold on,' the voice from the other side said. The waiting sound piped

'Hello? This is Zarah Mirza.'

Two summers before this one, Kajal was a second-year student and

Dushyant was a year senior to her. It wasn't until a few friends pointed it

out that Kajal realized she was constantly being stared at by a senior. It was

none other than the swearing, belligerent, infamous, drunkard of a senior

with a penchant for getting into trouble—Dushyant Roy. Kajal hadn't

noticed his stealthy moves earlier, but slowly she started to spot him

everywhere. She hadn't made much of him earlier and thought of him as

one of the many roadside ruffians from the mechanical department. Little

did the rich daddy's girl know that he was going to change her life forever.

Forever began on the day Kajal was sitting idly in the library, looking

blankly outside the window …Kajal looked at the open grounds of Delhi Technological University and felt

disconnected. Two years had passed since she had started studying

electronics engineering and felt more disillusioned with every day that

passed. She wasn't meant for Schrödinger equations and Fourier

transforms, like many others studying with her. While many had resigned

themselves to their fate as engineers for life, Kajal still believed she would

be something more. At least she hoped. People with money can always do

that—hope, change careers, do crazy expensive things, and call themselves

travellers after buying travel packages to posh European countries and

staying in beautiful resorts. Though Kajal had never been that type; she was

just directionless.

Her latest direction was to turn to writing. She had always been a

voracious reader. From Sweet Valley High, the Hardy Boys, Enid Blyton

when she was young, to David Baldacci, Dan Brown, Nicholas Sparks

when she got older, to the heavier works of authors like Mohsin Hamid and

V.S. Naipaul, she had read it all. She picked out a corner in the library and

started to read from the page she had folded the day before. It was the latest

book by Nicholas Sparks. Like every other girl, she had spent countless

nights crying to his books, even though she steadfastly maintained that she

wasn't into romance novels and that she had never been a fan of Indian

authors and their amateurish love stories set in engineering colleges.

'Hi,' she heard a voice from behind her.

She turned around to see the guy who had been following her around

college for the last few days, standing just over her shoulder. Her first

feeling was of revulsion. His hair was tousled carelessly, his clothes looked

like he hadn't changed in days and his four-day beard just looked annoying.

He wasn't that tall; maybe 5'10" or 5'11" or even taller, she couldn't tell

because he was well-built for his frame. She imagined an Indian Vin Diesel.

Not her type; she liked leaner men. Like Edward Norton. Like Imran Khan.

Maybe a little darker.

'Yes?'

'Do you mind if I sit there?' he asked, and pointed to the seat next to

Kajal.Kajal hesitated and he took the seat before she could respond to the

question. Rude, she thought. She liked that.

'I have read that book,' he said. 'It's just like the last one. The girl dies

and everyone cries. All his books are the same book. I don't know why girls

still like him. They're so predictable.'

'I didn't need to know that,' Kajal retorted. She started reading,

mindlessly. She forgot which paragraph she was on. It didn't matter. A little

later, she said, 'Even if it's the same book, the people are different and so

are the emotions. It's an entirely new experience every time. You wouldn't

understand. I don't expect you to.'

'As a matter of fact, I do. That is why I read all of them. Well, initially I

just read one because I saw you reading it and thought we would have

something to talk about. I ended up reading all of them,' he claimed.

'You're such a girl!' she giggled.

He nodded approvingly. She wouldn't have guessed that the guy who sat

next to her shared the same taste for books as hers. She would learn later

that he didn't. Dushyant had always been more interested in books that took

him beyond the realm of the obvious. He read books people hadn't heard

about. A memoir of a serial killer. An out-of-print trilogy about a deranged

doctor. And more.

Her eyes roved around nervously as an uneasy silence hung between

them. He looked sturdy, the veins in his forearms were consistently thick

and they disappeared inside his T-shirt, which fit him snuggly. He was

undeniably muscular. He smelled very strongly of cologne, as if he had

tried to look presentable at the last moment. He could have shaved, at least!

'Dushyant,' he said and stuck his hand out.

'Kajal,' she said and left his hand hanging mid-air. He retracted it,

blushing. He didn't meet her eye. She could tell he was nervous. His legs

shook. Kajal started reading again. The same paragraph, over and over.

Dushyant sat there looking at her, and at his palms, rubbing them together,

looking here and there, shifting his feet and fidgeting with his phone.

'I have been following you,' he said, finally.

'I have been told that,' Kajal responded.'For two years …'

Two years? Creep! Or … really sweet? Dushyant had turned beetroot red.

He couldn't meet her eyes. Instead, he gazed at his own weathered palms.

He looked vulnerable, embarrassed and needy. Maybe even a little high.

Kajal let a little smile slip. Dushyant caught that and blushed a little more.

'So, tell me, what do you read?' Kajal asked. Two years?

Dushyant smiled, and his eyes lit up like the fourth of July. Quite frankly,

his choice in books scared her.

They dated for eight months. They had come a long way from the time they

had first met in the library and had talked about books, his waning

obsession with weight training, her growing dissatisfaction with her career

choice, his problems with his parents, her loving sisters, and last but not the

least, his enduring fixation with her.

Dushyant was never the perfect boyfriend. Her friends hated him with all

their heart, but not as much as her sisters. Kajal was tall—almost 5'5"—and

never had a hair out of place. One could imagine a news presenter for an

idea of what she looked like. Her clothes, understated, were always

perfectly matched. She wasn't fond of bright colours and never aimed to

stand out. She aimed to soothe. Her fair skin, the defined nose and the

confident walk meant business. She wasn't a pushover.

Dushyant was abrasive. He was quarrelsome. He was possessive. It took

Kajal one month to realize that Dushyant was beyond obsessive, almost to

the point of being schizophrenic. He drank too much, he smoked too much,

and he loved her too much. He had waited two years to tell her he loved her.

He swore he would spend a lifetime doing it. Sometimes, it was sweet. It

looked to her like he cared; on other occasions, she was scared. Not scared

that they would break up and never see each other again, but scared of what

he would do to her. Within a month, she had changed into someone she

didn't recognize any more.

At first, Kajal used to like the little tabs Dushyant kept on her. He used to

get jealous at the mention of her ex-boyfriends, fume at her for spending

more time with her friends, chide her for staying out till late, and ask her tonot to drink in his absence. Kajal found it thoughtful. Who wouldn't?

Dushyant made her feel wanted. Loved. No matter what the time of day, no

matter what he was doing, one call from her and he would go running to

her. He never let go of her hand, hugged her whenever she needed it, and

made love to her like no one else had. Kajal felt like she was enveloped in a

protective bubble wrap, something that would absorb anything with the

potential to harm her. But soon, the bubble wrap would become suffocating.

Kajal loved Dushyant with whatever she had. Their relationship wasn't

one of the two-hormone-charged-college-students type, but of two mature

people who saw themselves together for the rest of their lives. When they

lay on the open grounds of their college late in the evening, his rough, gym

scarred fingers wrapped around hers, she felt complete. As evenings turned

into nights, nights into days, and days back into evenings, their love for

each other grew.

Kajal learnt to overlook Dushyant's little flaws. Dushyant always said

Kajal had none. Kajal always smiled, even when she felt pushed to the edge

by her control-freak boyfriend.

'Do you think this will last?' Kajal said as Dushyant wrapped his hand

around hers in a movie hall.

'How can it not?' Dushyant said, and brushed her ears with his lips. He

had done that many times since the first occasion, but Kajal still felt the

chills run down her spine like the first time. Dushyant wasn't Kajal's first

boyfriend. But he was the one she would remember forever; she was sure of

that. His touch, the things he said in her ear whenever they were in the back

alley of the dark library, the lingering feeling of his hands on her bare

stomach, his loving fingers on her creamy inner thighs, the wet, gentle

touch of his tongue on her ears … she would never get over them.

'You're the best thing that has ever happened to me,' Dushyant said as

soon as an action sequence ended in the movie and there was silence. The

conviction in his voice was very unsettling; it often made her wonder what

would happen if, God forbid, they ever broke up.

'And still you can't quit drinking and smoking for me?'

'I have cut it down a lot.''You need a cigarette every hour, Dushyant,' she said. 'You will kill

yourself.'

'I am trying. It will take time. You just can't let it go overnight,'

Dushyant retorted irritably. Kajal never liked to talk about his drinking

problem. She loved him, so she had to. But she had had enough. The

steroids he took as bodybuilding supplements, the marijuana, the never

ending cigarettes … his addictions kept piling up. She didn't know where to

begin.

'If you loved me enough, you would have stopped by now.'

'I have stopped taking steroids,' he defended himself.

'That's because it's been months since you have been to the gym. I don't

like to see you destroy yourself. I hope you understand that. I have nothing

to gain out of restricting you from your addictions. It's just that I don't want

anything to happen to you.'

'Nothing is going to happen to me. Okay, fine,' he said. 'You stop talking

to Varun. I will stop smoking. That's a fair deal?'

'What? How's that even connected?'

'You're addicted to Varun. I am addicted to my cigarettes. You leave him,

I'll quit smoking. I am not comfortable with you being friends with your

ex-boyfriend and you're not comfortable with my smoking habit. It sounds

fair to me.'

'You talk to Smita too, Dushyant. I have never pointed my finger at that.'

'Fine, I will stop talking to her. I never call her anyway. But you do call

Varun. There are times you put my call on hold to pick up his. Sometimes

you talk till the dead of night or early morning. What do I make of all this?

If you need more friends, why not someone else? Why do you have to be

friends with your ex-boyfriend, of all people?' Dushyant accused.

It wasn't the first time Dushyant was being paranoid about Kajal still

being friends with Varun—her best friend for the longest time and a

boyfriend for two years.

'You're being childish. I have told you a million times that there is

nothing between us. He is just a friend and will always be,' Kajal asserted.She thought about all the times Dushyant had got drunk and harped on

about how he hated Varun with every cell in his body.

'I don't think so. Why don't you just accept that you still have feelings

for him?' He shrugged, trying to act as if he didn't care. Kajal knew he did.

It didn't take long for Dushyant to change from being nonchalant about

something to start breaking things.

'I don't. He is a friend. I've known him for fifteen years. How can I just

stop talking to him?'

'Why can't you? He dumped you. He was dating someone else while he

was still dating you. I don't understand how you can forgive him. Don't you

have a speck of self-respect? I just don't like the fact that you have forgiven

him so easily. How could he do that to you? He doesn't even respect you,'

Dushyant grumbled.

The movie ended and they exited the movie hall. Kajal felt odd as

Dushyant walked in front of her and didn't even hold the door open.

Clearly, he wasn't pleased.

'Our relationship was not working. I don't blame him,' she reasoned.

'You don't blame him? You spent days crying for him.'

'I spent days crying because he left. I felt alone and lonely. Not because I

missed him as a boyfriend but because I missed him as a friend. I had no

one to go to.'

'And now that you have me, you still miss him? How does that work?

You have a boyfriend. You shouldn't need him,' Dushyant argued as they

entered a coffee shop. All this time he walked three steps ahead of her, not

meeting her eye and behaving like they weren't together.

The waiter promptly rushed towards them and Dushyant swatted him

away rudely. The shocked waiter lingered on.

'Water,' Kajal indicated to the waiter. 'And a cappuccino for him.'

Dushyant picked up the menu and acted as if the conversation was over.

'He means nothing to me. Believe me. He is just a friend. And it doesn't

matter if I talk to him. I love you and nothing changes that.'

'Well. I am fine. Whatever. You talk to him, you sleep with him. I don't

care.''That's just unfair.'

'Whatever,' Dushyant said. 'Can we not talk about this?'

Dushyant didn't bring up the topic again that evening. The rest of the

evening, he was rude to her. They went back to his friend's flat and slept

there. Dushyant was rough with her that night. For a change, they weren't

making love, they were having sex. There were no intermittent, passionate

love-yous exchanged during the course. There were just grunts and groans.

It was almost like he wanted to hurt her physically. He didn't hug her to

sleep. Kajal hoped he would be okay the next day, but it only became

worse.

The next evening, Dushyant was drunk out of his wits again. Old Monk.

Smirnoff. Chivas Regal. Nail-polish remover. Iodex. He called Kajal and

told her, 'You love him, I love this! I will never quit drinking or smoking!'

He called her names, abused her family and Varun, and disconnected the

call. Later that night, Dushyant's friends called her to give her the address

of the hospital he was admitted to. He had passed out and was frothing at

the mouth. Kajal filled out the paperwork in the hospital the next day and

got him back to the hostel. It was the first time she'd had to bring him back

from the hospital that month. Within that month, it happened thrice. Each

subsequent time, it was worse. By now, Kajal was used to his druken

tantrums. The abuses, the name-calling, the threats—she had become used

to everything. It was the price for true love, she told herself. There wasn't a

fourth time.

A few days later, he crossed a line he shouldn't have. Her patience was

tested, and she didn't think she had the strength to carry on. She vowed she

would never go back to him.

Kajal lay with her head on the pillow, her thoughts going back to every time

Dushyant had said they would last and that he would never hurt her. She

believed in him. It was all lies.

The memories of the day they had broken up were imprinted on her

brain, and she knew she would never forget what had happened.That day, Kajal's phone had been lying unattended and he had seen

pictures and text messages that were more than a year old. He had not

reacted at first. But as the night progressed, he started to get drunk. And

angry. He hadn't talked much. Shot after shot was downed. His eyes were

bloodshot. Later that night, after an argument, he had struck Kajal on her

face while he cried and howled like an animal. Everyone, friends of both

Dushyant and Kajal, had watched helplessly as she fell and hit the chair,

reeling from the impact of his heavy hand on her face. He had locked

himself in a room. All his friends had banged on the door relentlessly,

scared that he might overdose inside. Kajal had pleaded with him to open

the door. He had let her inside. There were no words exchanged. For the

first time, Dushyant had forced himself on her. He had paid no regard to her

cries and pounded her with disdain. He had treated her worse than a whore

and violated her repeatedly. Once done, he had rolled over, drunk from the

bottle of vodka, and passed out. A crying Kajal had left the flat and gone

back home. She had texted Dushyant telling him they were over and he was

dead to her. For the next six days, he had kept calling her. With every

missed call, Kajal's temper had risen. Her decision to stay away from him

had strengthened. Tired and angry, she had told him that she had never

loved him and that she was thinking of getting back with Varun. The calls

had stopped immediately.

Again, she had no one to talk to. After fiddling with her phone for hours,

she dialled Varun's number. You have me; you don't need him, Dushyant

used to tell her. Lies. 'Hi, Varun,' Kajal said, fighting her tears.

'Hey? Long time. Where have you been? You don't pick up my calls, you

don't call me back? I dropped you about a million texts. What's the

problem?'

'Dushyant never liked you, you know that, right?'

'Yes. I never liked him either. He asked you to stop talking to me, didn't

he? That narrow-minded bastard. I don't know what you're doing with him.

Really, he is worse than the Taliban,' Varun joked.

'Yes, he asked me to stay away from you, but it's okay. No boyfriend

likes the ex-boyfriends of their girls.''But your guy is very childish. He is immature and hot-tempered. He is

not right for you,' Varun preached like he always did.

Kajal choked on her words.

'Are you there?' Varun asked. 'Are you okay?'

'Yes, we broke up a few days back.'

'Oh, you did? Why?'

'He hit me.'

'What? That bastard! How could he? What else did he d