Page 21 - Till the Last Breath . . .

‘Hell? Guys like him make their own lives hell and come here with

diseases which I have no intentions to diagnose or treat. It’s a waste of
resources,’ he said and added with an evil smile, ‘I was praying he wouldn’t
wake up. Wouldn’t that have been so much better?’

‘You wished he would die?’ she asked, shocked. Just a few weeks had
passed of her internship under Arman and she was still trying to come to

terms with the genius doctor’s behavioural eccentricities. Arman knew he
wasn’t the best boss or the most cooperative of colleagues to have. But he

believed it was other people’s liability to accept him for what he was. He
was, after all, a rare genius.

‘Don’t you think he should die? A guy who cracks a competitive exam to
a good engineering college only to drink and smoke himself to death.
Should he live? Or should the people who die on the streets be given that

chance?’
‘Well, they can’t afford it,’ Zarah retorted, trying to outsmart him.

‘I don’t care about them. But the guy on that bed doesn’t deserve to live,’
he answered. ‘Imagine what his parents must go through. Disgrace.’

‘As if you get along with your parents.’
‘How was it when you were growing up, Zarah? Did your parents tell

you what not to do? Don’t meet that guy, don’t stay out that late, and please
don’t get less than 95 per cent in your examinations? And when did that
stop? When you got through medical school in Delhi and they had no idea

what you were studying and how much you should score? When they
couldn’t make sense whether 657/1230 meant good marks or bad?’

‘Well, more or less,’ she responded.
‘Imagine that, only three times as bad. The hospital mails them details of

every case I work on here and they keep telling me what to do. The patient
coughs up blood, my dad calls; a seizure, my mom calls; and someone slips

into a coma, my sister calls! It’s a crazy house,’ he explained. ‘As if saving
assholes like him was not enough, I have to answer to every damn question
that my parents pose.’

‘Is that why you don’t work at your parents’ hospital?’
‘I don’t work there because I think I deserve better than that.’