Page 146 - FATE & DESTINY

FATE & DESTINY

“Thank you, Lama,” I said. “If you ever come to Thimphu, visit us. We stay at Babesa, Sky Bakery building.”
He nodded. “Safe journey,” he said.
The narrow road filled with potholes, interminably shrouded in mists. It was a great hurdle to overcome.
“Wipe the darn vapors off the windshield, Karma,” I said. “What’s the reading on the oxygen cylinder?”
He switched on his mobile torch and read the regulator meter. “70 psi,” he said.
“Oh, no!” I said. “We’re running out of time.”
“How far is the hospital from here?” he asked.
“Maybe thirty miles.”
“You should drive fast.”
No matter how fast I drove, we seemed to be at the same place. The car jerked along the kaput road. Back tires
screeched and skidded at the bends, but we wouldn’t arrive. At 10:00 pm, we zoomed through the Chamkhar town,
but the labyrinthine above the town dithered me.
“Which one would take us to the hospital?” I said, sighing.
“Um, take that road,” said Karma. “Hurry.”
We passed by a car parked beside the road and trolled along the untarred road. I screeched to a halt. “It’s a dead-
end!” I reversed it and stopped beside the car. I could see the shadows of a man and woman in the car. “Hello?
Anybody there?”
The man rolled down his glass and craned his head out.
“Can you show us the road to the hospital, please?”
The man turned the ignition on. “Follow me.”
I drove after him down the road in the wafting dust. He stopped in front of a Bhutanese traditional building and
rolled down the window glass. “This is the hospital.”
“Thank you, sir.”
I rushed upstairs to inform the on-duty doctor. A young nurse was warming herself by the room heater.
“Excuse me, nurse,” I said. “I got a patient, please. A COPD patient.”
“Bring him,” she said.
“Can I take a wheelchair?”
“Ask the ward boy in the next room.”
The ward boy was busy fixing the regulator on the oxygen cylinder.
“Can I use that wheelchair, please?” I asked.
“Please take it,” he said.
Karma and I wheeled up Dad along the steep ramp. “Here, nurse. Very serious.”
Straightaway, she took Dad to the bed and clipped his fingertip with the Pulse Oximeter. “Brought from where?”
“Mongar Referral Hospital,” I said. “We are taking him to Thimphu.”
“The heart rate is high,” she said. “There is a cardiologist at Mongar hospital, why did you bring him?”
“I am sorry. I didn’t expect this would happen.”
“Tell me if the problem persists.”
“We would.”
But the nerve on Dad’s neck thrust.
“Look at the nerve on his neck,” I said. “It’s thumping a lot. I don’t think he would survive the night. We must
be prepared.”
Karma shook his head. “Should I call the nurse?”
But Dad opened his eyes. “Go to sleep. I am fine,” he said.
Karma curled up on the bed beside the door. I stood at the foot of Dad’s bed, apprehensive of his abnormal
heart thumps.
Dad opened his eyes and said, “Go to sleep, Ata. I am fine.”
So, I sat on the stool and watched him, rubbing my arms. At 3:30 am, I tiptoed to Karma’s bed and nudged on
his shoulder.
“Ssh! Listen to me,” I whispered. “I think we have a problem. Road-widening work would be in full swing from
here. Roadblocks would delay us, what should we do?”
“Dangpa Losar is celebrated for three days,” he said as confidence lingered in his eyes. “They should take a
break. So, I don’t think there’d be roadblocks.”
I rubbed my arms. “Let’s pray for it.”
At dawn, I woke Karma. “We would better hurry. Go ask the ward boy to supplant the oxygen cylinder.”
The ward boy came with a cylinder and attached the regulator on it. “Don’t forget to supplant the cylinder at
Trongsa hospital,” he said.
“Thank you,” I said, taking a deep breath. ‘I hope the road is clear.”

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