Page 33 - Till the Last Breath . . .
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all. Why me? Of all people! She cursed the mirror in front of her for it was
lying. She wasn’t healthy. Her insides were rotting away, slowly, bit by bit.
‘It’s going to be okay,’ he assured her.
‘Nothing is going to be okay. You know that! I am dying, Venugopal …’
She cried a little more on the phone and eventually drifted off to sleep.
She didn’t know if Venugopal had waited for long before he disconnected
the call. It didn’t matter. She was alone in this. She had to get used to it.
Things only became worse the next morning. Her denial had given way to
acceptance, and the acceptance of her condition depressed her. With a heavy
heart, she checked all the websites she had bookmarked the day before,
searched for cures on the Internet even when she knew there weren’t any,
and checked if Dr Arman Kashyap from GKL Hospital had replied to her
long, ranting mail.
A little later, they were in the car, negotiating the early-morning traffic to
the hospital. Pihu sat on the back seat, wondering if the doctor had any
inkling of what was wrong with her. She hoped he would. And she hoped it
wasn’t what she thought it was. The anticipation of the pain her parents
would go through was getting unbearable.
‘Good morning,’ the doctor from the day before said. He was smiling.
‘The blood reports came clean.’
A smile shot across her parents’ faces. Pihu remained expressionless as
she looked at all the branded merchandise—pens, diaries, clocks and
notepads—from the big pharmaceutical companies. Her mom folded her
arms as if to say, I know it’s because of the stress. Her father absent-
mindedly played with a plastic model of the human brain.
‘Are you still having some problem with your hands?’
She nodded.
‘Any other problems? Difficulty in breathing? Anything?’
She nodded. Now he’s getting it. Maybe. I would have made such a good
doctor. She tried not to buckle and weep. Her parents were still distracted.
She felt sorry for them. Again, she stuffed her pocket with a fistful of
Éclairs.
