Random Expressions

A Story By Deepak Jeswal
Episode Six

When I opened my eyes, the first thing I was conscious of was that my head felt heavy. It was as if I were carrying a huge load within my skull. I could make out it was daytime. At first I felt I was home and Mom had forgotten to wake me up. But as I looked at the ceiling, I found it unfamiliar the fan that hung in my room was missing. My hand itched, and I saw that there was a bandage with a plastic wire entering it an intravenous contraption, leading from a half-empty glucose bottle hung on a thin wire stand nearby.

I spanned the unfamiliar room while agonizingly trying to get up on my elbows.

“Please lie down,” an unknown but sweet voice said. Through my half-opened eyes I saw a young girl in a starched white dress. With a subtle but firm push, she forced me down to the bed.

“Where am I?” I asked, with a considerable effort. My lips were parched, and my throat felt thorny and dry.

“Escorts Hospital,” she replied in the same sweet tone. “Please don’t get up, I will just call the doctor.”

And why am I here? I wanted to ask, but she had quietly left the room.

I closed my eyes and tried to piece my shattered memory. The pain… no, it was the rain? Through the misty memory, I could see a man lying on the ground doubled up in pain. Again the pain, and the load in my brain throbbed brutally against the forehead. Pain… man… hedges… puddle… college. Yes, college. I was there last… college, scandal… Scandal in college. What scandal? Scandal! Scandal! The word pounded along with the blood throbbing through the veins at the temple. Scandal! Scandal!! It was there for several minutes, in between I think I dozed off too, scandal… yes, scandal of beating up a boy… no that boy… white T-shirt sullied in the puddle where he lay writhing in pain. Pain! Pain, again!! That boy… oh yes, Ashish… Ashish Sehgal. Lying there.For? For what, dammit. For doing some wrong… yes some wrong… that wrong… Some child! Yes, yes, it was coming back Smita’s child!

Smita!

I got up with a jerk; an excruciating pain raced through my spinal cord and my heart missed several beats.

I lay back, easing myself and thought of the events that had led to this day. Smita and her unmarried pregnancy. Did she meet the doctor she was supposed to? What day was today? What happened to Ashish? But more importantly, what had happened to me? I concentrated, and soon clarity returned. I was bashing up Ashish, and had started to walk away and then? Then, something hard had hit me. Blank.

“So Rip Van Vinkle has woken up,” said a booming voice. I looked up to see a middle aged person in a white coat, with a stethoscope around his neck. I managed a weak smile. “Good morning, Dinesh, I am Dr. Chatterjee. How are we feeling now?”

Terrible, I thought, but just lay back while he checked my pulse.

“You were hit quite badly and have been unconscious for two days. But I am sure you will pull through. You are a strong boy,” the doctor went on cheerfully, while he examined my bruised body. He left a little later, after injecting me with another doze of a tranquilizer and optimism, “I am sure when you wake up next, you will be fit enough to run a marathon!”

After he left, I lay back, swimming in a mild state of dizziness. Various images kept flitting in and out of my memory’s screen Smita and her confession: “I am pregnant.” The talk at her place, where she had been ready to even murder Ashish. My reasoning with her. The visit to the doctor and my embarrassing faux pas there. Vineeta and her low-waist jeans. The beer at Vasu’s place. Vishal’s sermon. Vineeta and Ashish holding hands together. The conversation with Prof. Arora. Smita’s rebuke. And before I knew, I was in deep sleep.

When I woke up next, the doctor’s prophecy was quite on its mark. I couldn’t have run a marathon, but at least I was able to walk towards the bathroom. More importantly, I felt refreshed and clearer in my head.

My parents were in the room. I felt ashamed to meet their tender gaze. What misery had they undergone when they found out their only son caught in a college brawl? They tried to be normal, and spoke of the aunts and uncles who had visited. I could see that my mother’s eyes were red with crying. Seeing their concern, I felt bitterness towards my own self. My mother continued to talk about mundane things, carefully and deliberately avoiding any mention of the reason of my coming here. But the more they avoided, the worse I felt. At last I broached the subject.

“We know the whole story,” said Papa, in a quiet tone. “Smita was here.” She told us all about it I wondered how much she had revealed, and how much had she concealed. I looked away from them, I could not face them, I was feeling bad. If only I had…

Bloody hell! I, I, I… It was always about ‘ I ‘ . In all this I had never thought of what impact my actions would have on my parents. When would I learn to respect other’s feelings? When will I grow up? When will I… Again that ‘I’ . That self centered, selfish and self-indulgent attitude of mine! The arrogant attitude which led to the creation of this havoc!

“Don’t worry, everything will be ok,” Mom said, placing a reassuring hand on my forehead. I felt like hugging her, but the gesture felt too small before her greatness, and I allowed the lump in my throat to dissolve into unheeded tears from my eyes.

************************************

Hospital was boring. Since I was now recovering well, my father left for his office. Mom also went home to take care of things there. The entire day I was left alone, caged in the gray square room, with nothing to do but sleep.

The room was typically like in any other hospital cold, bare and awfully unwelcoming. The bed, on which I lay recuperating, was a huge steel one, with a mechanism to raise half of it to enable the more invalid patients to sit up. Next to it, there was a small side cabinet, on top of which lay the myriad medicines which the nurse fed me at regular intervals. Inside the cabinet, I noticed a few other items, including a thermometer and some saucepans for the ill who couldn’t go to the toilet on their own. Two chairs were the only other furniture. The room had only one window, which overlooked the frontal lawn of the sprawling hospital campus.

It was late in the afternoon when the nurse announced that Ms. Chopra was there to see me. I eagerly asked her to be sent in.

Smita entered the room, with a small but beautiful bouquet in her hand. She looked beautiful in the simple lemon yellow suit, her hair tied in a neat pony tail and her lips carrying a faint trace of lipstick. As always, the bold kohl lines accentuated her bronze eyes.

She placed the bouquet on the side table, and sat on the chair next to my bed, with a soft smile on her lips. “Hope you are feeling better now?”

“Much better,” I replied honestly and more so with her fragrant presence around me. We talked a bit about routine issues; she gave me detailed news on college.

Eventually, we came to the main topic. Ashish.

“He was arrested,” she informed clinically, looking at her hands, daintily kept on her lap. I raised a questioning eyebrow - so the police was involved in it? I felt a fear in my heart. That means, they would reach me soon too. I was surprised my parents hadn’t mentioned anything about it.

“No, not for this brawl,” she replied, sensing my alarm. “The fight was hushed and wrapped up by the Principal. It never reached the cops. But Ashish was arrested on the charges of molesting a girl. I don’t have full details, but that’s what I have heard.”

“Good for him,” I said, “Now you realize what sort of person he is!” I couldn’t help adding. She looked at me sharply, and I regretted having opened my mouth, yet again. I guess I was never destined to learn any discretion in speech!

I tried to cover up my blooper, by turning back to the more pressing question, “But how did it all happen?”

“As I said, I am not sure. Vineeta hasn’t spoken to me since then. So all that I know is what Vishal told me when he last called.

“Vineeta?” I asked incredulously.

“Yeah, she seemed to be the one who got him arrested,” informed Smita. It didn’t make any sense to me at all. She sighed, “It looks like you were really right after all. He is such a villain!”

I smiled, with more than traces of smugness. My next question was pretty obvious, “Did your parents find out about this… I mean, your…your preg…?”

“No. It seems the whole world has except them. And after your…” she left it trail.

“It’s all my fault,” I mumbled disgruntedly. “It always is. Whatever good I try, always fall short…”

“No, no. Mera woh matlab nahi tha,” she tried to assure albeit very feebly.

“Did you meet the doctor?”

“Yep. She has scheduled it for this Friday, and I will be rid of this- ” she stopped, holding back her tears, biting her lip, “- this group of cells,” she completed. She got up to leave. “I have to go now.”

Before leaving, she stopped at the door, and said, “Dinesh, thank you for all that you have done for me.” I looked at her, trying to see if this was sarcastic remark or genuine gratitude. I think it was the latter. But still, her thanks made me feel bitterer. What exactly had I done? Irrevocably publicized the whole situation! But then, I argued with my self, whatever I did, I had done with the best intentions certainly, not to hurt her!

In that one moment, as she stood by the door, with a lost look in those terrified wine-like eyes, I felt another gush of emotion in my heart, and I said, “I love you.”

She didn’t respond, just held my eyes in a quiet gaze, and left without replying. For a long time, I kept looking at where she had stood, from where she had disappeared from my sight.

And from my heart? Never!

And from my life? She had never entered it not in the role that I wanted her to be in!

Will she ever?

The answer was only an overbearing silence.

To Be Continued

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This entry was posted on Sunday, March 4th, 2007 at 5:00 pm and is filed under Fiction . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.