63. The Fight

As she lay amidst a pool of surgical equipments and beneath pale yellow sheets, Ananya tried to feel the lump that had grown to be a part of her now, but all she felt was a barren territory of skin. There and beyond. She clasped the bedsheets with her fingers after the realisation with a force that could have torn them apart. There was something sordid about those tumbled bedsheets, sprawling blankets and rough pillows. But she didn't remember the last time she slept without them. It was a tough decision, but she had to take it. Life hadn't given her many choices.


                                                                     * * *

She remembered the day when she had discovered this little softball in her body inside the bathroom.

"So you are 5 months pregnant?", the doc said that evening.
"Yes, doctor. This is our first child. I am kinda nervous and excited at the same time.", her cheerful bubbly self unable to control the anxiety within itself.
'Ah, another case of over-hyped eager-to-be-moms I have now.", teased the doctor playfully.
"Why, anything serious, doctor?", she was too quick to ask.
"Oh, no. Lets get you quickly examined first. Relax, you will be through this soon."
A momentary uneasy pause.
"It could be a case of swollen milk ducts. Allow me to get back to you in two days time, Ananya."
"You are sure it is nothing to worry about, right doc?", she asked.
"Have a carefree evening and meet me in two days, alright?", smiled Dr. Kim.

                                                                      * * *

Ananya did not have to wait for too long. At 12.15 pm the next day, her phone buzzed on the vibration mode, stirring the inactivity in her cubicle.
"Can you meet me within an hour in the clinic? Please make it ASAP", the voice on the other end of the phone said.
Sensing the urgency in the tone, Ananya could gauge the gravity of the news concealed. She cancelled her appointments for the day and rushed to the clinic. She glanced at one of the mirrors in the hallway and studied herself. "It couldnt be", she cajoled herself.

                                                                      * * *

"I am afraid I have some bad news, Ananya." She felt a looming shadow of fear surround herself as she heard the medico's words. A cloud hitherto unseen was now hovering over the moon.
"Unfortunately, unlike what I thought, you are diagnosed with breast cancer as per the lab reports." The ground beneath her feet had started to split. She tried gaining back her composure. Despicable tears rejoicing their conquest had welled up in her eyes and strayed upon her cheeks. They came unbidden, the bitter salt touching her lips. She feared the next few words that would come out of the oncologist's mouth.
"We will have to rush you through a series of clinical procedures. Biopsy, chemotherapy, radiation surgery....you can plan it out with your husband as to which one you want to go ahead with first, and let me know by tomorrow morning, better still, if by this evening." So this was it. Like a magician's set of cards, life had laid out the minimal options she had, for cure, or maybe, for survival. She had to pick one. After that another. It was a dismal and shattering finish to her morning.

                                                                    * * *

The next few months brought bigger losses than what she had conjured up in her mental realm. The initial diagnosis now almost seemed innocuous. The chemo sessions had been hard on her, with a conspicuously receding hairline and weight gain due to steroids and fertility medicines. Life had been kind to her though, or so she thought, once her baby girl came into this world. With a cherubic smile that took all of Ananya's gloom along with it, it brought a new joy into her world. Maybe all was not lost. The unflinching support of her husband and the hope that her daughter brought, had made her crack out of her souless, desolate shell. Unhaunted, with no whispers from the past.

The day that lay ahead before her, long no doubt, and fraught with a certain stillness, a dear lull she had not known before. But like they said, men and women emerge finer and stronger after suffering, and that to advance in this or any world, we must endure ordeal by fire. She had won the fight after all.

~ If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all. And so today I still have a dream. ~



- Martin Luther King Jr.

44. Broken

Sitting across the verandah of her palatial condominium, she was lost in thoughts of her own when a silent tear found its way on to her skirt, only to get lost in the ocean of thick fabric. It was raining quite heavily outside. A headache that had been smoldering for the past half an hour finally matured and hit her hard on the middle of her forehead. An early darkness was slipping down. Her eyes settled on the pillar across in a flat, unblinking way, while the state of her mind was quite the opposite. It had been a nomad since she had grown to know about it in vivid detail. She knew she had to act like lightning, else she would sink into spaceless chasms beyond the control of her mind. It amused her how the climate was perfectly analogous with what was happening in her life. It had been pouring off late. She could only wish it were good things. This was the perfect time to treat herself with a strong cuppa coffee. Or maybe, masala chai. She headed to the kitchen leaving behind a trail of thoughts directed elsewhere. An oversized white mug emblazoned with red letters : ‘What would I ever do without you’, glared at her. She smiled. She drained the lukewarm tea.


Another little stream of drops trickled from her eye onto the basin. She realized she had been smiling to herself all this while. Feeling silly, she gave herself a tap on her head, as if talking to her thoughts. The mention of masala chai always sent her into a surrealistic world of nostalgia. Those days. Those days when they used to sneak out of hostel at midnight just to catch one cuppa ‘garam masala chai’ at Venu’s. Many-a-times, it was only the two of them at the shop at that time, otherwise usually accompanied by truck drivers on the highway. It was times like these they longed for. When they used to dance on the lonely highway, and tickle and chase each other till they rolled down in laughter. Ah, young love, sweet love. She almost had to shake herself out of her reverie each time she followed this trail of thoughts to nowhere.


It had become routine now. Coming home to a silent apartment, the silence of which, she thought, would drive her mad someday or the other. She would climb into the shower and let ice cold water course its way through her shoulders, wishing it would wash away the loneliness of the present and the doubts of the future. She would bite her lips, as she thought of all his sacrifices and all her selfish choices and of all those times when she had been wrong. Completely wrong.


She often tried to hug herself, wanting to fill him in the space between her arms. She gave up. The pain had boiled up inside her, and she feared it would keep simmering and would eventually burst out of her tubes if she didn’t find a vent. She longed for that feeling of completeness. The perfect gift that he had given her. She couldn’t have asked for anything more. He was God’s answer to her prayers. But now, there was no telling what the future held.


There was no shortage of space in the two-storied home they had built together. The Ganesha on the door was meant to ward off evil. They were on a high dosage of happiness. They would need it. The purport of it stared at her as a living irony right on her face. The house, their house, they called it ‘Swapna’ - their dream. They had yearned for it as much as they had longed for each other. There was so much to plan, so much to do. They had painted it in a theme of crimson. The study was an antique in itself, with all manner of memorabilia tacked haphazardly onto the softboards – the pictures - those of frequent group hugs, of the gang’s day at the beach, of the shadow dances they did with their hands, of the long walks they took hand in hand, of the day they decided to tie the knot and of the day they did. The lampshade was his choice. She knew it didn’t fit into the theme of the house in any way. But he had wanted it there. Just right there. She realized now how perfect it was. How differences blend and make the scheme of things perfect. The shelf held all the junk he was so fond of collecting. The things she had gifted him, volumes of letters that she had written to him and everything that he deemed precious and was ‘of her’.


So this is how it felt to lose a part of you. So this is how it felt when death crumbles your world down. And her tears started to flow all over again. It was time to declutter, not only the shelf, but also her mind.

40. Fiction 55 - Geometry

Colossal perpendiculars and parallels, chords and tangents, altitudes and medians, did iterative rounds inside my head, actualising a whirlpool; one that was soon going to eat me up. I had to get this one right, a meek voice from within amidst the intermittent explosion said. I was defenseless; I cried, "IS JUNGLE SE MUJHE BACHAO!!"