Page 15 - Till the Last Breath . . .

her nodding, and she disappeared into the corridor amongst other sick

people. I need to get the fuck out of here, he said to himself.

‘I don’t know what the fuck they are up to!’ Dushyant shouted on the
phone.

It was four. The nurse had come and drawn some blood and given him
zero answers. Why am I here? When can I go? Did you tell my parents? Did

you? What the fuck is going on? She nodded to his questions unthinkingly,
and told him the doctor would see him in a little while. He swore at her. In

Hindi. He didn’t think the Keralite nurse understood him. Cursing came as
second nature to him … His sentences often started and ended with abuses,

most of which had been improvised and perfected over the course of years
that had passed by.
The first time he had hurled abuse was when he was in the eighth

standard. Someone had addressed him as bhenchod and his comeback was
that he didn’t have a sister. Not too clever, but ever since that day, bhenchod

became a way of life. It replaced emotions, feelings and entire situations,
depending on how it was being said by him.
‘Just be back soon, man,’ said the voice from the other side of the phone

and he disconnected the call. Bhenchod!
He had no visitors. He had no friends really. In the four years and the few

extra months he had spent in the college, he had made drinking buddies,
smoking buddies, getting-fucked-up-with buddies, but none who would

come to see him in the hospital. Had it been six months before, some of
them might have come. But now everyone who had graduated with him was

either working or waiting for their offer letters. He had been placed, too, but
the large IT-sweatshop company hadn’t sent him a joining date yet. Stuck in
a time warp, he didn’t want to go anywhere. So days before college ended,

he rented a flat just outside college and started to live like he was still
studying—in his fifth year of engineering.

Dushyant was about to doze off when a doctor—presumably in his mid-
thirties—entered the room.

‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Are you fine?’