“Its difficult, the condition is too critical to predict anything”. He never felt in his life that he would ever hear these words being said to him.
His father loved him very much. He too found a great satisfaction in making him happy. The contented smile in his father’s face, when he stood first to the school, was still lingering in his mind. He felt so delighted not because he achieved something, but to see his father happy…..
……..Now his father was on his way to the Operation theater.
The knee caps which started trembling from the time his father fainted, were not listening to his plea to stop. Eyes, almost moist, about to let go tears, saw the plight of his mother and sister and stopped. He needed seclusion to vent himself.
He saw a small temple inside the hospital premises. He suddenly felt the urge of going inside and sitting there for a while. Unlike his friends, who were arch devotees and some turning into one during exams, he never felt like visiting a temple. He followed his father, whose belief was “A good deed a day keeps the necessity of visiting a temple away”.
His eyes were so damp that he could not make out whose idol was it, in the temple. He still did not feel like praying. Perhaps the guilt of not being religious was biting him out. He sat at the far end, away from the crowd. He remembered his father always used to tell him during his exams, “Never get tensed in your life, you would get so busy in it that you would forget to get out of the situation”. He could never practice his father’s words till today. His episode of passing-out in the exam hall, is still being used by the teachers of his school as an example to their students to illustrate how difficult the paper would be, and how much efforts they have to put in.
This was the time, he felt. He turned towards the deity and stood in front of him for few seconds and went inside the hospital. His mother and sister were with some of his relatives. He went and sat beside them. He suddenly found a ray of hope, a hope that his father would be back. He started thinking for ways to get out of this situation. He strived hard to be optimistic. He understood that people pray to remain optimistic. He started to repent for not heeding to his father’s words earlier.
“The doctor wants to see you”, He could see his mother getting tensed, while he was on his way to the doctor’s cabin. The words from the doctors mouth, literally switched off his brain. This was worse than death. His father had slipped into coma and the chances of his revival were too feeble. He had to weep as he was finding difficult to breathe. His uncle who had accompanied him, took him out and broke the news to his mother. He dreaded about the consequences but the unexpected thing happened; his mother was happy hearing the news. He got confused and informed his mother again. He saw her thanking god.
“Now at least we can see him in front of our eyes, beta. We will take very good care of him. I know god will never fail me. I will see that your father recovers”
The ray was still shimmering somewhere………….
“Congrats dude! Secured a rank in the university ! Treat ! treat ! Treat !” He was smiling but he never felt his heart doing the same. Two years till date, his father had not opened his eyes. He wanted to show his medal to his father, he wanted to read out his rank certificate to him, if only his father was able to respond. The two years passed by in the belief that his father was understanding whatever he was being said to. He too sometime felt it, but the bloody biology he had studied made him more practical and stone-hearted. He was happy that his mother and sister were still seeing the brighter side and enjoying the time with his father. They would bathe him, feed him, talk to him, sing songs to him, read newspaper. They almost converted his father's room to their living. But he started to sense that the ray of hope was now more like a withering lamp yet strong enough to believe that his father would be fine, if not completely.
However, the day had to come. The day when his father had become too weak to even breathe, the day which everyone expected, dreaded, but prayed never to come. His father lost his battle and his mother too. She lost her hope, surrendered to the practicality which the doctors had said. He felt sad but for other reason. He felt sad and ashamed that he did not feel sad for his father’s death. Infact he felt relieved for his mother, his sister and most of all, his father. He had seen his father die every day. Perhaps he had understood the fact that they had lost him the day he had slipped into coma.
Vikram, still continues to remain optimistic in his life. He still sees a ray of hope at tough times. I remember the old vikram who was very pessimistic, would even stop preparing for the exam, if he felt he was gonna flunk .
The new Vikram has now become an idol for me. It was he who was optimistic that I would be a CA, not me. But I still feel very sorry for him, as the event that turned him into a new leaf, never saw the light of joy. A ray of hope, that never turned into a dawn…….
I am "Me, Inside-Out", the blog personified, if you cud not make out still. I am the punching bag, a stress-buster for this bugger, Sujith. He feels he thinks crazy and throws out all his thoughts in me. Sometimes they are good, sometimes they stink. But I dont crib, because he writes his heart out. I like him.....
