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Pardon for poor english..

Right now as I am writing, I am actually waiting for my ma and pa to clear all the formalities and the paper work to be done so that I can get out of the hospital. It’s been a week since I was admitted here, after almost two dozen times being punctured for injections and blood checkups and eight bottles of glucose I am finally declared fit!

A week earlier I had fever which didn’t come down even after taking Paracetamol tablets five times a day and as college was important and mom got the news that I am sick she came to Delhi and took me to Sir Ganga Ram Hospital. Doctor suspected me of Dengue and suggested that I should be given a dose of glucose, so here I was, lying on a bed in emergency ward with dengue patients all around me, mosquitoes buzzing in my ears, smell of medicines everywhere, doctors and nurses looking after patients and for the background score a kid screaming louder than our netas during elections. The amazing thing about the kid was- for almost one hour he kept screaming- injection mat lagaao... please mat lagaao, for that time he had my full sympathy but even after getting injected his tone was the same. Anyways, after four hours in emergency ward with canula in my right wrist, the reports came, I didn’t have dengue, but even after seeing my reports my doctor insisted me to get admitted. After another sixty minutes of struggle my mom finally was able to get me a room in hospital.

Though I stopped thinking myself as a kid a long ago but somehow my room was in the middle of paediatric ward. The room was white, white and white, white everywhere except for the floor which was grey. The room was divided in two parts, which meant I wasn’t alone in that room but I wasn’t able to figure out with whom I was sharing the room until the third day. Apart from a fellow and his attendants on the other side of the curtain, a typical hospital bed with white bed linen, black blanket and side table and a seat accompanied me.

While being in hospital I felt like I was the worst case ever, I had no fever since I was shifted to room and still my fat moustached doctor wasn’t able to think beyond dengue. The medicines ruined my taste buds, everything I ate gave no taste and my body was stinking like anything. All I was thinking about was the leave. I hated the place and the environment, those big syringes with big pointed needles, I felt like hating myself and the place. At that moment of time, had god granted me a wish I would have asked him either to kill my doctor or make me so fit that I never have to visit hospital again.

By the third day I was totally exhausted. And by that time the female attendant of my fellow patient and my mother started sharing smiles, later in the evening they had a chat. So now, as a true woman my mother was supposed to gossip around, and when she saw no one to gossip with, I was the victim. But this time it was more than gossip, the issue was serious, my fellow roomy was a 56 year old man, who is a father of three girls, and is in bed for last seven years. The first two years he spent in his home and for last five years he is in the same room, living with the help of life supporting machines. He had some neurological problem because of which body below his neck got paralysed. He breathes through artificial lungs and was fed through a pipe which was attached to the food pipe- a reason which made him mute. He a had full time attendant who looked after the schedule of medicines and had the duty of sanitary cleaning, his wife worked in the same hospital in administration so she used to be with him as soon as she used to get the brake.

The last day is giving a tough time, first insurance papers didn’t get cleared properly and my ma was fighting the authority like Rani Lakshmi Bai. Then bills were not proper. It’s six in the evening and ma is still trying to get the bills cleared. In the morning I was playing music on my cell, an old song- mausam hai aashiqana from pakeezah. As the song ended the fellow attendant came and said- uncleji, gana dobara sunana chahte hain. I played it again. In the noon his daughters and some relatives came to meet him, as they left he started crying, maybe he wanted them to stay a little bit more, maybe he was crying on his own condition. Whatever be the reason, a 56 year old guy cried. I thought maybe some old music may work, so I played music again.

My mom might have told his wife about me getting leave, and as the news reached his ears he started crying again. I got lost into the thought, in last five years don’t know how many patients came on the bed next to him and got a leave before him; a man cries in pain, when he feels defeated, when he wants something and can’t get to it. In his case all three were the reasons. It became tough for me too, as my mom and dad were trying to sort out the bill problem at the counter; my fellow’s attendant wanted to go to loo and asked if I can sit in his place for a while. A spine chilling wave ran through my body on hearing this, I am not that strong-hearted, I wasn’t ready to face the guy but I stood up, took four steps and pushed the curtain side and faced the old man. In last seven days this was the first and maybe the last time I was looking at his face. A thin man with short grey hairs, shaved face which I can remember was shaved a day before, big eyes, pipes all along his bed, one of his hand was out of blanket, his fingers all blue in colour, a day earlier I heard her wife telling my mom that doctors were planning to amputate two of his fingers which were badly damaged by gangrene, probably due to bed sores. I was still shivering; I tried to calm down myself and walked to the chair which was next to his bed. I sat on the chair, I gained courage enough to look into his eyes, I lifted my head and he was looking straight into my eyes, the pain was there in his eyes, a tear drop rolled out of his eyes and fell on the bed. I don’t know what I was feeling by then, as I am writing I still can feel that. I wanted to console him, but I lost all my words, I felt like I lost my voice, we kept looking at each other. The attendant came and shook me, I realised my eyes were wet. I walked to the other side of the curtain.

As I am jotting all this down, as my parents are fighting the hospital administration over faulty bills, as I am waiting to get out, I am still thinking about him and many others who are still waiting to get a leave....