“No.”
His eyes left hers, went to the wall behind her, then fell shut. He tried to turn his head away but she pressed her mouth into his hair. It smelled of smoke and antiseptics.
“No.” She reasserted into his hair, unable to stop tears from falling.
He did not respond.
“You will live again.” She said. “You will live again.”
He did not wake up.
“You will live again, Samar.” Amaal thundered. She would not leave him until he did.
IV: The Rebirth
43. Ashutosh shashank shekhar chandramoli chindambara…
Ashutosh shashank shekhar chandramoli chindambara… Koti koti pranam shambhu koti naman digambara
Mummy was singing. His body was blazing.
Nirvikar omkar avinashi tu hi devadhidev… Jagat-sarjak pralay-karta shivam satyam sundara
Her arms held him. He couldn’t see anything, but hear everything.
Nirankar swarup kaleshwar mahajogishwara… Dayanidhi daneshwara jaya jatadhara bhayankara
He cried. She patted him. He pushed his head into her shoulder. She held it and rocked him.
Shool pani trishul dhari, aughadi baaghambari… Jaya mahesh trilokachaya vishwanath vishambhara
Samar tore his eyes open.
Hospital. Surgeries. OT. Scrubs. Anaesthesia. Escharotomy. Debridement. Autografting.
He was on this side of it.
He stared at the bottle of serum dripping into the line. He didn’t even know where the IV went into his body. Everything south of his neck was covered under glass and sheet. He could not feel where it went either. Everything blazed, a thousand needles, tearing his skin from the inside out, even after the painkiller he had seen the nurse inject into the IV an hour ago.
No amount of painkillers could end this agony, or even pause it. A fever had set in late last night after a donor grafting operation, and they had all scrambled without trying to worry him. Did they even know he was a doctor? He understood infections in a body with explosion burns. His were mixed degree TBSA, third and second primary. From the conversations he had pieced together, all of his back, arms and calves were gone. That was 40-45% of his skin surface area. The 72 hours of dehydration death possibility had passed. Daily graft surgeries had started. Now infection had fallen. If he could not even die withthis, then surely something more evil than him was protecting him.
The door clicked open, then shut. He glanced up, waiting for whoever was in to show their face. He was reduced to the plight of a reptile. On his stomach, head in one position, the world flaming inside and outside, unable to even crawl away.
“Samar.” She came in bringing that godforsaken dimple, visible even behind her mask. He could not even turn his head, the back of his neck bandaged after the latest surgery. Samar began to close his eyes but their eyes had already met.
“Don’t come here every day.” He said.
She paused.
“Go.” He pushed.
And instead of turning and storming away, she stormed towards him. Her fingers buried into his hair and she clamped them there. That wasn’t even pain. That was… good. Her face bent down to his and he saw how that dimple was nothing but varnish. Her eyes were red. The forehead not hidden by her cap was rumpled. She was not sleeping. How would she? He had been here for so many days he couldn’t count, and she was always here at regular intervals, during the visiting hours, he assumed. What she did in between, he didn’t know. But it didn’t look like she ate or slept in the interim.
“Are you awake enough to listen to me?” She asked, breaking his assessment.
He did not say anything, just stared.
“You can give me your stares, you can talk rudely, you can say anything you want right now and it’s going to be to your detriment. Because I will not react today, but I am going to write it all down and give it back to you one day when you are back on your feet and are so hard-pressed for me that I will have the upper hand. So, think before talking to me like that again.”
