A Magnificent Lie

Anand pondered in silence.

He sat brooding on the wooden bench. His eyes remained unfocused, his breath a little higher than usual. He tapped his foot nervously. The lady seated on the opposite bench gave him disapproving looks. For a second, he wondered what was making her upset and was on the point of asking her aloud, when he realised the source of her discomfort.

The lady was getting irritated by the constant movement of his leg. Every now and then, she stared at him further, hoping that he would get her point.

‘To hell with her,’ he thought. He had a grave situation to deal with.

He had rushed from work to the BSES hospital in Andheri west. The time taken to drive from  his office in Mindspace, Malad to Andheri took around 30 minutes. All that time, his heart was beating furiously. He was on edge. He couldn’t recollect how he whizzed past the people on the street, who were striding along the pathway, enjoying the early morning sunlight and the benefit of a strike declared by a political party.

The moment he step foot in the hospital corridor, his sister and aunt circled with weepy faces, tears still rolling from their cheeks. His face turned white when he registered their sad, anxious expressions that were clearly etched on their faces. He prayed for a miracle. However, their eyes confirmed the inevitable. Perhaps, he was too late...

He sat on the wooden bench outside the room where they had taken him in. He tapped his foot in nervousness. ‘It is nothing like that,’ he kept telling himself. In his heart, he hoped that nothing transpired in the time taken for him to reach there.

The silence of the hospital ward pierced his ears. Nothing seemed significant now. He sat there, thinking, assessing. He felt his heart becoming heavier and heavier. The foreboding feeling increased. He was forcing to block out the negative thoughts from drowning him in. He needed to stay there, at that moment, at that place. He couldn’t let his mind weaken him now. From the corner of his eye, he saw his siblings sitting on either side of their aunt. They were holding hands. While his brother’s face was unfathomable, both the women had tears streaming down their faces.

‘It is not over yet,’ he thought.

He wanted to calm them down, but didn’t know what to say.

How could he when he himself was caught in a storm?!

Just then, the door opened and the male nurse beckoned him in. The man’s expression was grave.

Dread filled his heart. His legs felt heavily. He could actually feel the air rising and falling in his lungs with great rapidity.

There was a paper sheet that separated the bed from the doctor’s room. From the small space in the end, he saw his motionless leg.

“Please sit down,” said the doctor sombrely. The male nurse and the assistant were standing behind him, their faces passive.

“What is it, doctor?” asked Anand, his voice quavering and fearful.

Anand eyes fell on the ECG report in front of the doctor. He had attended Biology’s classes in his HSC and knew what a flat line meant.

His heart shattered to a million pieces and he had to hold on to the chair to prevent him from falling. The torrent of fear and the imminent possibility that had gripped his mind since the phone call, pierced him all over.

Yet, he held on to the doctor’s word. He hoped the doctor would prove him otherwise.

However, the next words from the doctor made the ground vanish from under his feet.

“I’ m sorry,” said the doctor, looking him straight in the eye, “Your father is dead.”

                                                                                                    To be continued