Page 223 - Till the Last Breath . . .

Arman. She threw an odd stapler and the punching machine at him, both of

which hit his head as Arman sat there unflinchingly. Finally, tired and
wanting to spend time with her daughter, she left the room on the insistence
of the father.

‘I am sorry,’ Arman said, shaking his head.
‘You did all you could do,’ the father responded. ‘Had it not been for

you, we wouldn’t have seen her walk again. We would have lost her a long
time ago. It’s all thanks to you. I am sorry for my wife. She knows it, too,

but you know how it is. She is …’ His voice trailed away as he looked
everywhere but at him. If he had worked hard at anything in his life, Arman

knew it had been easier than not breaking down in front of Pihu’s dad.
Gathering himself together, he patted the shoulder of the father whose eyes,
too, had glazed over. And then Arman watched as Pihu’s father couldn’t

keep the barrage of tears from streaming down his face. He had spent a year
controlling himself, trying to be strong as people around him showered

them with sympathy, ignoring the crushing pain inside his chest as he saw
his daughter become progressively sicker. Arman looked at him and his

own pain seemed like a needle prick. The loss of an only child is the worst
pain any one can endure. After all, what do our parents live for? With the

best years of their youth gone by, they don’t have any yearnings for comfort
or money or fame; all they want is to see us grow up as happy, healthy
human beings with all the luxuries that they couldn’t afford. To see years of

love, care and upbringing reduce to dust, burnt and buried, takes away
everything from a parent. Slowly, the sobs became softer, the shoulder

shrugs became more periodic and her father wiped his face with his
handkerchief a few times before he thanked Arman.

‘Can you tell her? I think she is happy when she is around you,’ he
requested, turned and left the room to join his wife.

The stress ball in Arman’s hand was crushed to the maximum. Darkness
enveloped him as he tried to imagine what it would be like to tell her that
she might not have long to live. He had practised the speech many times in

his head before and it never became easier. He thought he would wait for
the test results to come through. Maybe, he had just panicked. It was just