I Too Had a Love Story

  ‘So we are now supposed to search four donors whose blood groups are A+ and are willing to give us blood in the next twenty-four hours?’ I asked Dad. I knew that, in her entire family, only her Dad was A+ and everyone else was O+, even me.

  ‘No, for replacement, donors can be of any blood group. The only condition is that an equivalent number of units needs to be donated. And we already have arranged the donors,’ Deepu clarified.

  ‘Who are they?’ I asked

  ‘Two of Susant’s close friends, the admin from CSC and me.’

  ‘Even I can be a donor. We can ask one of Susant’s friends to stay back,’ I said.

  ‘Everybody is here by now and we should judiciously use persons from our family to donate blood. There can be worst-case scenarios any moment, where we might not find others to donate blood on time. Remember, if you donate blood now, you can’t for the next three months.’ He had a point. I just wished that the worst-case scenarios would not arrive.

  ‘I will go with Susant’s friends to the blood bank and after that I will leave for home. Need to have some food before donating blood,’ he said and went off.

  My cellphone rang, then. I looked at my watch while taking the cell from my pocket. It was 11 and I knew this was mom’s call. She would ring me twice everyday to get an update about our discussions with the doctors.

  ‘Sat Sri Akal, Mumma,’ I said, moving out of the crowded hall.

  ‘Sat Sri Akal, beta. How are you?’

  ‘I am fine. How is your backache? Any relief?’

  ‘It’s the same as before. It becomes troublesome at times, but I am fine. Any update on Khushi’s condition?’

  I told her about the doctor’s decision to operate on Khushi today and the blood replenishment thing. She expressed concern about the operation and I tried to comfort her, saying it was because Khushi was better today that the doctors could take this decision. As usual, she also asked me about Khushi’s mother and rest of the family. Before hanging up, she consoled me, as always, saying that God is great and would take care of her.

  ‘Yeah, I know she will be fine. You take care and I will call you again in the evening.’ With that, I hung up and moved back to the attendant-hall to locate Dad and Jiju.

  ‘They are going to start the operation at 1.30,’ Dad told me.

  ‘Do we need to do anything else for the operation, apart from the donors and the jaw-plate replacement?’ I asked.

  ‘I asked but, according to the doctors, we don’t need to do anything else at our end.’

  The operation began on time, that afternoon. I was told that it was going to take at least three hours. We all were now sitting in a different waiting-hall on the 1st floor of the building. In front was a door with ‘OT’ written on it and a red bulb above it which was switched on.

  The anxiety and the chill were back in me and I think it was the same with all of us. We were scarcely talking. Stranded between fear and hope, pacing up and down the waiting-hall. Time stood still. Minutes passed like hours, hours like days. And all along, there were our fears and hopes, battling with each other, winning and losing at different moments.

  I stood at the window, watching the traffic outside and the weather which was changing drastically. All of a sudden it was getting dark. Black clouds hovered in the skies of Faridabad. It was going to rain heavily. I was still looking through the window when my phone rang. It was Happy. I picked up his call.

  ‘Hey! Happy veer.’

  ‘Hey! How is my brother doing and how is my bhabhi now?’

  ‘They are operating on the fractures in her thighs and jaw. It’s going to take two more hours.’

  ‘But when I last called, you said the doctors were not going to operate on her so soon?’

  ‘Yes, but this morning they said that she was in a better condition to be operated now.’

  ‘That means she is improving.’

  ‘I hope so. I just want to see her well yaar,’ I said in a low voice.

  ‘Oh, come on, buddy. She is going to be absolutely fine. See, she has shown some improvement, that’s why the doctors have gone ahead with the operation. It’s just a matter of time and we will be dancing together to the beats of bhangra at your engagement … What say?’ He tried to console me and make me feel better.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I just need her so badly … every damn thought is shaking me inside and … You know how madly I love her. I feel so lonely in this crowd just because I am not able to talk to her.’

  ‘I know dear. But take this as a challenge, as a test, and I am sure you will come out of it with flying colours. Just think of the good time which is going to come after this hard time, when she will open her eyes and talk to you.’

  I wished every single letter of what he said would come true, no matter what. I was about to ask him something when, all of a sudden, I started losing his voice. I could see water splashing on the window, a few inches from my nose. In no time, it had started raining heavily and all I could say was, ‘I can’t hear you … It’s raining heavily,’ before the phone got disconnected.

  I looked out of the window to see people rushing into the hospital or their vehicles. Seeing that rain, all of a sudden I had this unbearable urge to hear her voice. She used to enjoy the rains while talking to me and, maybe because of that, I too had developed a romantic tendency to talk to her when it rained. It was a long time since I had last heard her voice and I badly wanted to hear my beloved voice again.

  I ran outside in that heavy rain. I searched for a cyber café and satisfied my urge by listening to the voice messages she left for me while I was abroad.

  I was completely drenched from outside.

  And from inside.

  One evening, just like any weekday evening, I am playing snooker with my friends at my office’s health club.

  Khushi is giving me missed calls, wanting me to call her. The balance in her cellphone is low. But I am not calling her back. I am busy playing my game. In a couple of months there is a Snooker tournament in Infosys, Bhubaneswar, and I am practicing hard for it.

  My phone rings for the third time. I disconnect.

  She calls again. I am pissed off and pick up the call.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Why aren’t you picking up the phone?’

  ‘I am practicing snooker. You know that I am busy playing at this time.’

  ‘You don’t have time for me? Not even five minutes?’

  ‘Khushi, please! Can we talk later? They all are waiting for my shot.’

  ‘Ok, bye.’

  I keep my cellphone far away from the snooker table and resume playing. An hour later, after winning the rack of the last game, I go back to pick my phone.

  There is a message in it. From her.

  U might be happy 2 win d tournament,

  bt someday u might b sad, wen u might

  wish 2 tlk 2 me bt I might not b able 2 do so.

  Nothing changed. Even after four days, things remained the same—her unconsciousness, the doctors’ inability to say anything definite, our fears, our prayers and our tears.

  Time and again, we were asking the doctors if we needed to take any second opinion on her treatment. If we could get her treated somewhere else before it was too late. But they were non-committal.

  With each passing day, her battle with death was getting more difficult. Constantly being on the ventilator, she got pneumonia, her lungs were lacking blood. She started bleeding somewhere inside her intestine. She had already been given ten units of blood but her falling blood pressure didn’t gain any sustenance.

  The threat of the worst changed me. All of a sudden, I started believing in all kinds of superstitions and myths. Had anyone told me—‘Pick up a few pebbles from the road and eat them. It will save her.’—I would have done that too. I was so desperate to make her well that I was ready to do anything. Anything. Without a second thought.

  The mental burden I was carrying—we all were carrying—was just too much. Waiting, hoping for s
ome good news, which we did not get. Instead, the bad news, the new miseries kept piling on. I could even feel my helplessness and frustration leading to a mental breakdown. And it was hard to stay positive and not lose my cool and patience.

  Later that evening, the doctors permitted us to take a second opinion for her treatment. Which meant that they felt they could not do more. Her condition was deteriorating.

  We all made up our mind. Apollo Hospital was our last medical hope.

  Moving a patient who was so serious was going to be the toughest part of her treatment. Taking her out from the atmosphere of a protected ICU into the open air full of bacteria and viruses, then her transit from Faridabad to Delhi in an ambulance, running amid the busiest traffic—all this involved so much risk. Even the thought of it gave me jitters. A single mistake could lead to disaster. But we had no other alternative.

  The next day, we all were geared up for the big task. I remember well, it was Mahavir Jayanti and, in my heart, I had this feeling that we all were going to do well on that auspicious day.

  But fate kept threatening us time and again. We were about to take her out of the hospital when her dad was asked to do something. We were given a set of documents to be signed and the last one was a disclaimer which read:

  ‘The patient’s condition is serious and this entire transition is being done on the wish of patient’s family. In case of any further damage which may/may not lead to the death of the patient, the hospital will not be held responsible.’

  Her father signed that paper and we came out after making the entire payment.

  In the next half an hour, we were on the road. Every single minute involved extreme caution. Throughout, I kept saying God’s name in my heart. It was the first time I had been in an ambulance. Being in an ambulance is so different from being on the road, watching an ambulance. I never knew it was so frightening. The siren kept torturing me. Everything was going fine, still, every now and then, I kept asking the doctor with us. And, every time, his response was positive.

  Passing those forty-five minutes of restlessness, we finally reached Apollo. They immediately took her to the ICU and we were asked to complete the formalities. It took us almost an hour after which we were allowed to see her just once. I was the last person to leave the ICU. I stood there in front of a new doctor who was going to handle her case. He was the senior-most person amid all those people in white aprons and his team got busy studying the MRI and X-Rays. I wanted to talk to him. But when he appeared in front of me, waiting for me to say something, I just could not.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked, placing his hand on my shoulder.

  ‘A …’

  ‘Yes?’

  I looked down, trying to speak.

  ‘Son! What happened?’ He raised my chin.

  ‘Can you save her for me?’ was all I could say before tears ran down my face.

  ‘That’s what we always try to do here. Don’t worry, things will get better. You take care of yourself. We will take care of her.’

  Somebody called him and he got busy again, studying her reports.

  I came out of the ICU. The toughest job of the day was over. She was successfully admitted in her new hospital. There was a feeling of victory and a new ray of hope within our hearts.

  Later that night, talking to her mom, Dad said, ‘She is now in safer hands.’

  That was the first night since her accident when I slept a little better.

  ‘But you said she was going to be all right!’

  ‘See, gentlemen, don’t lose your calm. We can’t promise you the moon. We are trying our best.’

  The next evening, I was talking to the doctors. They were saying that her condition was deteriorating because of the fall in her platelet count. Suddenly, things appeared very different from what we had planned, what we had hoped and expected.

  Later, in the middle of the night, an alarm-bell rang when the doctors told us, ‘Her body needs blood.’

  ‘Blood? Again?’ I asked.

  ‘This time, we need platelets to be injected into her body. Their level has fallen way below the expected.’

  ‘We can get that from the blood bank, right?’ her dad asked.

  ‘These cells don’t last for more than four to six hours. So they can’t be stored in a blood bank. We need people who can donate plasma cells to her.’

  ‘So can I donate those cells?’ I asked. ‘Only a person whose blood group matches hers and whose cell-match test is positive can donate.’

  ‘How much time do we have?’

  ‘We need to do this as soon as possible,’ they replied and returned to work, in haste.

  The situation was really bad. Apart from her dad, no one else in her entire family had the A+ blood group. And worse, he was prohibited from donating blood because of his old age. In the middle of that tough night, Deepu, Dad and I were facing another challenge.

  Deepu was trying to get in touch with all possible contacts. We also gave a call to the HR folks in her office to see if there was any possibility to get a blood-match from her co-workers. I dialed Pushkar’s number to tell him about the need of the moment.

  Half an hour later, we got to hear something positive. Some guy from his office, whose blood group matched with hers, was ready. But our bad luck didn’t let up. He had consumed liquor that evening in a party. There was alcohol in his blood and the test report said, ‘Negative.’

  An hour later, Deepu managed to get some good news. Someone in their neighborhood had agreed to help. As soon as that person appeared, he was taken to the lab for the initial tests. In a while, we learnt that his blood matched the requirements and he went to donate his platelets. Back in the waiting-room, we felt a little relaxed knowing that we were able to meet the immediate needs.

  After his blood donation, I was talking to the person who was no less than God’s own messenger.

  ‘I don’t know you and I don’t know how to thank you,’ I said.

  ‘If not me, then someone else,’ he replied, sipping fruit juice served by the hospital staff.

  We arranged a cab to drop him back home.

  ‘She is a nice person. I know her. Don’t worry; she will be fine soon,’ he said as he sat in the cab and shook hands with me. I didn’t know what to say to that person. Words were not enough for the help he had given us.

  At around three in the morning, Deepu’s cousin brother reached the hospital. It was his turn to stay back and we all left for home to take some rest.

  But the fear that something worse would come up again still persisted deep inside me.

  Her condition showed a little improvement in the next ten hours. The plasma count in her blood was better than before. But she was not in a stage where the doctors could say that she was out of danger. They could not be sure of a positive development, but they gave us hope.

  Back in my hometown, my family was worried about me. It was a week since I had left them. First, my Mumma was concerned about Khushi, and then for me. She was worried about all that must be going on in my mind amid all this. She knew I was not doing well. Mumma wanted to be with me at this time. She could make out that I needed her. She too wanted to be with me. My father said she had not been feeling well for the last two days. She wanted to see Khushi, the girl she had been talking to for months.

  When I called her up, she asked me if I could come back to her and then, both of us could return to Faridabad. I had no idea what I should do, though I wanted her to be with me.

  Then, something else came to my attention, as I was living with her family. The people visiting her home were making me self-conscious. When her family was questioned about my identity. When they were asked, ‘So he is staying with you? Since a week?’ Such questions made me apprehensive. Was I making their life uncomfortable? People at times talk shit, I knew that. I was not bothered about myself, but I didn’t want to be the source of trouble and gossip about their family.

  In next twenty-four hours, a few more units of blood platelets were giv
en to her. We managed to get the support of everyone in her office. Their HR asked for donations through mails from the employees.

  Soon things seemed to be getting better. Our endless efforts were showing results. Her blood platelet count was returning to normal.

  Later that evening, Khushi’s dad told me that my mom had called him up. He said that my family needed me.

  ‘Your mom was so worried. She wants to see you and she wishes to be here. If you wish, you can go back and bring her with you.’

  ‘I understand her situation. But I don’t want to leave Khushi in this condition.’

  ‘We all are here to take care of her. Let’s think wisely and handle things well. I will leave the decision to you.’

  ‘I will talk to the doctors and then make my decision.’

  I went to the doctor’s chamber. There was a lady doctor whom I had sometimes seen diagnosing Khushi. She was part of the team handling her case.

  ‘Ma’am, can I talk to you for a while?’

  ‘Yes.’ And before I could walk up to her desk, she asked, ‘You are from the family of the patient on bed number 305, right?’

  ‘Uh … Yes, Ma’am.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Ma’am, due to certain reasons my family wants me back for a short time. My mom needs me and I have to bring her here along with me. As I’m not mentally prepared to do this, I want your suggestion.’ I was silent for a moment, then added, ‘You understand what I mean?’

  ‘I do,’ she said and asked me, ‘May I know your relation to the patient?’

  ‘She is my fiancée.’

  ‘Oh, I thought you were family.’

  ‘By now, I am a member of her family,’ I said very clearly.

  She looked at me for a while and then looked at my hands.