Have you ever wondered what we have in common to the bus stands, railway stations and airports? Yes, I have and always wondered, why?
Like these places have two acts ‘arrivals and departures’….life also has this same feature in a unique fashion with the only difference is here you make the choices of arrival and departure.
Having my education done in different parts of India and stayed at various places with my family that consisted of my dad, mom and sis, I always dreaded the thought of getting close to my friends that I make.
Every time, I had made friends I had to leave them and move to a different place and town and start a fresh. I used to always envy the people who have been friends for long years together and always longed for a friend.
From my childhood did not have one single friend but various friends and they all would remember me as I do them now, I guess. Though time and tide could not remain in constant touch but the times spent together will remain etched in the minds and continue to ring the bell whenever prompted by similar incidents and happenings.
These meetings and relations had been so short lived and strange that I really cherish them looking back at them. Sometimes your friendship starts of in a quarrel, or by sharing something, or by giving a hand of help, or by calling them out by name, or most of the times it is just by a smile.
The days when the internet and World Wide Web wasn’t available there was immense happiness in making friends and there was no animosity like now. It had to be face-to-face and either you like them or not you make decisions and stick to it.
Sometimes there are people in this journey called life that you would have met these kinds of people only twice or thrice and had some wonderful conversations. But they aren’t now close by but you somehow tend to miss them, without explanation. And this strange feeling make you grow fonder of them.
Sometimes you have people with you always and you seem to be together and have breakfast, lunch, share a cup of coffee, share a joke, share a secret, share a lighter moment, share a embarrassment, share a loss and share a gain, but they seem still distant and you feel there isn’t more to this relationship and when they depart you kind of remember them for few days and then you need to rack you brain to remember them again.
Every meeting and departure of a friend brings joy to the mind and let you linger with its thought no matter what may come and go. Life goes on with giving you the two phases of life meeting and departure.
Gone are the days when such departures were painful and heart rendering. Today, external appearances are matter-less, facial contours are not measured, geographical distances are erased, familiarity is of no importance, the intimacy isn’t there, the need to see each other isn’t there and still there is so much of friendship spread across.
In spite all differences wiped out there is uncertainty that prevails in this kind of friendship but there are souls that touch even from the animosity and distance. And people like them are very few. One such friendship can never die and it lives in the minds even after the distant is maintained.
What happens when such friends depart and you can’t bridge the distance no matter what?
PS: This post is dedicated to my friends.
November 19, 2008
I remember the good old days......Fondly!!!!
Small things in life used to give me great pleasure and a sense of satisfaction in the days that are gone by. Now, I have all the affordable comforts of life but still I don’t have the time to sit back and enjoy these days….
I remember my school days with reverence to them as I have my fond memories locked in there. I still remember the days, when I used to listen to the Vividh Bharati before leaving home and setting my watch to the time that was just read out….
I used to eagerly wait for the new film songs to telecast and wait till one song to be played. Listen to few lines of it and then leave however late it would be to school. The few lines would run in my mind and I would wait another day to hear the same few lines and wait eagerly for Saturdays and Sundays to listen to them in complete. But as fate would be stronger, I would not be able to hear them and it would be a Monday, when I hear them again.
There used to long and unforgettable debates on our favorite stars at leisure periods of school or during the breaks. The discussion used to be about varied topics of these movie stars, their upcoming films and songs that made your heart churn to the melody, new posters, their costumes, the heroine make-up, and a whole lot of aspects of the movie.
The Doordarsan serials, programs on DD2,the cricket matches, the Olympics, the games in summer holidays, the trips to hometown during holidays, the unknown relative marriages, the weddings of Akka’s, Anna’s, neighbors, uncles and aunts, the glory of talking to classmates, the long walks to the school and college. All these were fun.
Now, we get all that one desires for, new movie clippings, new DVD’s, CD’S players, mp3 players, beautiful computer systems that play multi-media.
But where is the fun in waiting for the glimpse of your favorite hero, the new posters of the hero, the magazines that had loads of cine news, the cricket commentaries for the matches you can’t see, the long wait for the world cups, the glimpses of your sports star, the tennis matches, the tennis stars, the cricket matches during the final exams, the cajoling you get to do to your mother to watch them, and the final approval from dad to watch for few over’s and then back to the books, with intermittent scores or over’s…
What fun it used to be!!!! And to top it all the discussions about the bowlers and the strikes made by players on ground….with friends the next day!!! Watching the few over’s at a near-by friend’s house during breaks and the announcement of the score card during the physics and chemistry labs…asking a friend to run home and get the scores, the unnecessary leaves to watch matches, movies, and the songs that used to be played on those small and elegant tape recorders.
The happiness of noting the songs that we like on a piece of paper and getting it recorded on a TDK or Sony cassettes from a recording shop. The 90 minute cassettes and the 60 minute cassettes, calculating how many songs would accommodate in each, the blaring speaker radios on the events of the politicians, cine actors, birthdays and death anniversaries on the street corners, the fading sound of a long forgotten song travelling in the air in the mid-afternoons when you are deliberately asked to sleep to avoid the sun on summer holidays, the long runs in the backyards of the house, the scorching heat and sweat never minded.
Now, leaving the comforts of the house is a real problem. No kid wants to play in the sun, they want be in the air conditioned rooms and the sophisticated video games to play with. The fun of munching into a raw mango right from the tree branch plucked and wiped on the dress to wash off the dust and mud. The raw tamarind buds, the unripe guavas, the sapotas, the tender coconut water all from the gardens of the backyard and those competitions for the ‘Fastest Tree Climber’ title. The street corner games with marbles, tops, and try to beat the local guys in those games, it was a whole lot of fun.
The long lectures from grand mom and grand dad about playing with the local kids and the scorching sun, the unkempt promises of not playing with them the next day, the sneaking out of the house to join the gang, the small film strips lying the roads, the collection of small match boxes, the collection of stamps, the collection of one rupee coins, old rupee notes, different envelops, foreign currencies, flowers, and those small things that looked different or amused you.
Those stories and tales from grand mom and grand dad, of those days, the pre-independence days, the stories of the days when a whole gamut of kitchen groceries could be brought with just 5 rupees, the temple feasts, the stories of ghosts and spirits that tauter you in the night after everyone has slept and you cling to your grandmother and sleep tight till the broad daylight. The joyful rides in the city buses to the town to buy things that are necessary for you, easily available in the city.
The movies in the theatres that had only benches to sit and watch the screens with an L-shaped torn in the centre, the vendors selling peanuts, murrukku, the bad-tasting cola but fun to drink, the small kulfi’s, the salty ice-creams, the sonpapdi that the old man used to sell when he comes to our house lanes late in the nights ringing his bell, heard from far away lanes, waiting for him to arrive at your lane.
Surround the chimney light and ask for the better portion from the bottle, his murmuring that everything is the same and later he gives in to satisfy us. Those were priceless star-studded nights.
The clipping that always missed when you got up to wash your hands after a round of scolding from your mother after dinner or a meal, or when you mother calls you to stir something in the kitchen, or when you run to pick the clothes in the backyard when it starts drizzling, the fun in doing everything right and still watch the small clipping that appeared between breaks.
The Chitrahaar on Wednesdays, the Rangoli on Sundays, and the other regional language movies, the Fauji serial, the Buniyaad serial, the Humlog serial on weekdays used to be good and you always looked forward to watch it unlike today’s serial that are full of Saas-Bahu or Some break-up relation or someone taking the role of Sakuni and getting disorder in the family.
Those programs had a message and talked of the wealth of a family, the happiness in living together. The serials such as , Shanthi, Sukanya, teri kahani nirali, Udaan-A story of female IPS used to talk about the strength of women in a natural way. These brought out the goodness of being a female and how she can also be equal to a man. Then the legendary series of Mahabharat and the Ramayan by the two giants in the Cine field, Ramanand Sagar and BR Chopra films, were great entertainers….
The Doordarsan short films such as film on togetherness, the film on the importance of obeying the railway crossing, the importance of educating a girl child, the importance of family planning, those small and imperfect in today’s standards of film making were real good and it was fun watching them and they still etched a mark in your brain.
The books such as Amar Chitra Katha, Tinkle, Tin Tin, the cartoon shows on DD, the Tom and Jerry, the Duck Tales, the Lonely Tunes, Mickey Mouse and Goofy, The Squirrels, The Mooglie of Jungle, The Charlie Chaplin comedies, and the non-stop nonsense series.
Everything in life has a price; we gave up these small pleasures to be more comfortable and happy in life. With it came the advent of technology and more advanced features of life but none in comparison to the small and pleasurable deeds that we used to do. In vain, we lost the very essence of living it right…..in childhood.
I remember my school days with reverence to them as I have my fond memories locked in there. I still remember the days, when I used to listen to the Vividh Bharati before leaving home and setting my watch to the time that was just read out….
I used to eagerly wait for the new film songs to telecast and wait till one song to be played. Listen to few lines of it and then leave however late it would be to school. The few lines would run in my mind and I would wait another day to hear the same few lines and wait eagerly for Saturdays and Sundays to listen to them in complete. But as fate would be stronger, I would not be able to hear them and it would be a Monday, when I hear them again.
There used to long and unforgettable debates on our favorite stars at leisure periods of school or during the breaks. The discussion used to be about varied topics of these movie stars, their upcoming films and songs that made your heart churn to the melody, new posters, their costumes, the heroine make-up, and a whole lot of aspects of the movie.
The Doordarsan serials, programs on DD2,the cricket matches, the Olympics, the games in summer holidays, the trips to hometown during holidays, the unknown relative marriages, the weddings of Akka’s, Anna’s, neighbors, uncles and aunts, the glory of talking to classmates, the long walks to the school and college. All these were fun.
Now, we get all that one desires for, new movie clippings, new DVD’s, CD’S players, mp3 players, beautiful computer systems that play multi-media.
But where is the fun in waiting for the glimpse of your favorite hero, the new posters of the hero, the magazines that had loads of cine news, the cricket commentaries for the matches you can’t see, the long wait for the world cups, the glimpses of your sports star, the tennis matches, the tennis stars, the cricket matches during the final exams, the cajoling you get to do to your mother to watch them, and the final approval from dad to watch for few over’s and then back to the books, with intermittent scores or over’s…
What fun it used to be!!!! And to top it all the discussions about the bowlers and the strikes made by players on ground….with friends the next day!!! Watching the few over’s at a near-by friend’s house during breaks and the announcement of the score card during the physics and chemistry labs…asking a friend to run home and get the scores, the unnecessary leaves to watch matches, movies, and the songs that used to be played on those small and elegant tape recorders.
The happiness of noting the songs that we like on a piece of paper and getting it recorded on a TDK or Sony cassettes from a recording shop. The 90 minute cassettes and the 60 minute cassettes, calculating how many songs would accommodate in each, the blaring speaker radios on the events of the politicians, cine actors, birthdays and death anniversaries on the street corners, the fading sound of a long forgotten song travelling in the air in the mid-afternoons when you are deliberately asked to sleep to avoid the sun on summer holidays, the long runs in the backyards of the house, the scorching heat and sweat never minded.
Now, leaving the comforts of the house is a real problem. No kid wants to play in the sun, they want be in the air conditioned rooms and the sophisticated video games to play with. The fun of munching into a raw mango right from the tree branch plucked and wiped on the dress to wash off the dust and mud. The raw tamarind buds, the unripe guavas, the sapotas, the tender coconut water all from the gardens of the backyard and those competitions for the ‘Fastest Tree Climber’ title. The street corner games with marbles, tops, and try to beat the local guys in those games, it was a whole lot of fun.
The long lectures from grand mom and grand dad about playing with the local kids and the scorching sun, the unkempt promises of not playing with them the next day, the sneaking out of the house to join the gang, the small film strips lying the roads, the collection of small match boxes, the collection of stamps, the collection of one rupee coins, old rupee notes, different envelops, foreign currencies, flowers, and those small things that looked different or amused you.
Those stories and tales from grand mom and grand dad, of those days, the pre-independence days, the stories of the days when a whole gamut of kitchen groceries could be brought with just 5 rupees, the temple feasts, the stories of ghosts and spirits that tauter you in the night after everyone has slept and you cling to your grandmother and sleep tight till the broad daylight. The joyful rides in the city buses to the town to buy things that are necessary for you, easily available in the city.
The movies in the theatres that had only benches to sit and watch the screens with an L-shaped torn in the centre, the vendors selling peanuts, murrukku, the bad-tasting cola but fun to drink, the small kulfi’s, the salty ice-creams, the sonpapdi that the old man used to sell when he comes to our house lanes late in the nights ringing his bell, heard from far away lanes, waiting for him to arrive at your lane.
Surround the chimney light and ask for the better portion from the bottle, his murmuring that everything is the same and later he gives in to satisfy us. Those were priceless star-studded nights.
The clipping that always missed when you got up to wash your hands after a round of scolding from your mother after dinner or a meal, or when you mother calls you to stir something in the kitchen, or when you run to pick the clothes in the backyard when it starts drizzling, the fun in doing everything right and still watch the small clipping that appeared between breaks.
The Chitrahaar on Wednesdays, the Rangoli on Sundays, and the other regional language movies, the Fauji serial, the Buniyaad serial, the Humlog serial on weekdays used to be good and you always looked forward to watch it unlike today’s serial that are full of Saas-Bahu or Some break-up relation or someone taking the role of Sakuni and getting disorder in the family.
Those programs had a message and talked of the wealth of a family, the happiness in living together. The serials such as , Shanthi, Sukanya, teri kahani nirali, Udaan-A story of female IPS used to talk about the strength of women in a natural way. These brought out the goodness of being a female and how she can also be equal to a man. Then the legendary series of Mahabharat and the Ramayan by the two giants in the Cine field, Ramanand Sagar and BR Chopra films, were great entertainers….
The Doordarsan short films such as film on togetherness, the film on the importance of obeying the railway crossing, the importance of educating a girl child, the importance of family planning, those small and imperfect in today’s standards of film making were real good and it was fun watching them and they still etched a mark in your brain.
The books such as Amar Chitra Katha, Tinkle, Tin Tin, the cartoon shows on DD, the Tom and Jerry, the Duck Tales, the Lonely Tunes, Mickey Mouse and Goofy, The Squirrels, The Mooglie of Jungle, The Charlie Chaplin comedies, and the non-stop nonsense series.
Everything in life has a price; we gave up these small pleasures to be more comfortable and happy in life. With it came the advent of technology and more advanced features of life but none in comparison to the small and pleasurable deeds that we used to do. In vain, we lost the very essence of living it right…..in childhood.
November 18, 2008
State of Mind
I have a small mind of mine
That rakes my soul for answers
I don't know or rather feel frightful at the answer
I look into bleakness and expect it
To answer back!!!
I wonder if there was anybody at the other end
Would come to my rescuse
But I am not able to see, they helping me!!!
I sent prayers and wishes for it
When I get it I don't know
What to do with them!!!
What state of a mind is this
I live with!!!
Help is within 'You' cries my mind
Consantly and endlessly
I heed to it, I am back to square one
Looking into bleakness
And hoping someone would come by!!!!
November 17, 2008
How the choice of ‘PRAYERS’ gets intensified in times of desolate?
I am sitting here in Hyderabad and wondering when things will come on by itself and the remaining pieces of a jigsaw puzzle fall into place and relieve me of this small unknown fear in my mind come to an end.
Don’t ask me what I am undergoing as I am not in a state to explain. But this is for sure that I am not asking for things for that are not liable to me?
As far as I see, I have been looking for some solutions in this life and have headed towards the set destination in a perfect linear line. The horizon did not feel far or near, it was there as any other sources of derivation and meditation and to it reach it, it took immense mental and physical capabilities to advance to a further step every other day.
I did not demand much from life and sailed across its course and went wherever it took me and now I am desolated on an island from where the only option left out for me is to swim across and reach the civilization and be happy.
But stranded on this shores of life I am wondering why I don’t receive a ship or a loft on which I can cling to and reach the civilization and live in harmony.
Why am I not entitled for it? Why is there so much of turbulence in me and in the surrounding? Why do I hear the words of turmoil, failures, break-ups, unkempt promises and stagnation? When will the situations clear and take me home on a cruise?
Am I asking for a cruise, NO? I am only asking for a liability that can just hold me for a few yards and sail across the tide and be in my own civilization. Is it too much that I am not able to receive anything except for such enormous Hushes and Silences that echo loud and clear in my mind and dreams?
I hear distant voices of my mind that says ask ‘HIM’, he will give you if you ask him, only you got to be true to what you are asking and it will be granted?
I wonder who is this ‘HIM’ and why should I submit to him? Why is he asking me to do all that I don’t do in any normal time and why this all suddenly? People and my mind say, ‘You ask it will be granted?’
Now, what do I ask him, I say ‘Yes to calm my mind and the people and decide enough is enough I will ask him and see what will be done?’
How do I put my hands together and ask him, ‘Please, do this for me as I am in need of it?’ Ok, if that is the way it is….Let me put my hands once together and then ask him, as I used to ask my dad, for all the ice-creams he refused to buy, the dresses that he said, ‘No it won’t suit you’, for the guys who said, ‘No, to my proposal’ and my dad, said ‘He isn’t worth of you?’ and so on.
I never knew I can perfect this art of praying, but as the theory of science goes, believe and that will make a difference to whatever you have. I am reinstating my belief.
Here, is my piece of my prayer for ‘You’:
I am standing here at your doorsteps asking for my little worries of my mind to vanish and give me the sight of the civilization that I long for. This isn’t the first time I have asked you for all this, I have many a times turned to you in despair and invite you to show me the path as you have always done till date. Yet I turn to you one more time, God, you are the source and the derived path. Please help me endure this and make me come to the much awaited civilization of life. Amen!!
Don’t ask me what I am undergoing as I am not in a state to explain. But this is for sure that I am not asking for things for that are not liable to me?
As far as I see, I have been looking for some solutions in this life and have headed towards the set destination in a perfect linear line. The horizon did not feel far or near, it was there as any other sources of derivation and meditation and to it reach it, it took immense mental and physical capabilities to advance to a further step every other day.
I did not demand much from life and sailed across its course and went wherever it took me and now I am desolated on an island from where the only option left out for me is to swim across and reach the civilization and be happy.
But stranded on this shores of life I am wondering why I don’t receive a ship or a loft on which I can cling to and reach the civilization and live in harmony.
Why am I not entitled for it? Why is there so much of turbulence in me and in the surrounding? Why do I hear the words of turmoil, failures, break-ups, unkempt promises and stagnation? When will the situations clear and take me home on a cruise?
Am I asking for a cruise, NO? I am only asking for a liability that can just hold me for a few yards and sail across the tide and be in my own civilization. Is it too much that I am not able to receive anything except for such enormous Hushes and Silences that echo loud and clear in my mind and dreams?
I hear distant voices of my mind that says ask ‘HIM’, he will give you if you ask him, only you got to be true to what you are asking and it will be granted?
I wonder who is this ‘HIM’ and why should I submit to him? Why is he asking me to do all that I don’t do in any normal time and why this all suddenly? People and my mind say, ‘You ask it will be granted?’
Now, what do I ask him, I say ‘Yes to calm my mind and the people and decide enough is enough I will ask him and see what will be done?’
How do I put my hands together and ask him, ‘Please, do this for me as I am in need of it?’ Ok, if that is the way it is….Let me put my hands once together and then ask him, as I used to ask my dad, for all the ice-creams he refused to buy, the dresses that he said, ‘No it won’t suit you’, for the guys who said, ‘No, to my proposal’ and my dad, said ‘He isn’t worth of you?’ and so on.
I never knew I can perfect this art of praying, but as the theory of science goes, believe and that will make a difference to whatever you have. I am reinstating my belief.
Here, is my piece of my prayer for ‘You’:
I am standing here at your doorsteps asking for my little worries of my mind to vanish and give me the sight of the civilization that I long for. This isn’t the first time I have asked you for all this, I have many a times turned to you in despair and invite you to show me the path as you have always done till date. Yet I turn to you one more time, God, you are the source and the derived path. Please help me endure this and make me come to the much awaited civilization of life. Amen!!
October 18, 2008
A Medical Romance
Chapter Four
6th May 1991
6:00 am
Ma, it is going to rain hard, look, somebody has got up early. How come, brother you so early, Huh, going college, I guess…Well, we shall see how far this goes. Ma, don’t blame me for the changes that happen…
Krish, gives one tight look at her sister and starts to chase her as she runs away from his clutches as he tries to shackle her for whatever she blabbered now.
Both, mom and dad are watching this from their respective places with a smile on to their lips.
Rangarajan, a business man, is a contended man, with his wife Charulata and his two kids, a son and a daughter. The son is joining the medical college and the girl who is a darling of all three is in pre-degree.
Both the kids has been given all they have asked for and the things that they could vouch for. The family has been a fun-loving one and bonded together.
Rangarajan and Charulata have been married for almost 27 years now and they are happy with themselves. Ranga [will call him so], has seen a lot of ups and downs in his life and at all that times, Lata [will call her so] has been a pillar of support, running the family and educating the children.
Theirs had been a formal arranged marriage, bridal seeing, within next few days of marriage and a new life begins. Nothing was in their hands; they had everything detailed out by their parents and just followed suit. The led a happy and contended life from the time of nuptial bond and kept things to themselves in suffering and enjoyment.
His children were born, he did not know their burden, his home was suffering, he did not know the burden, his son grew up, he did not know the burden, his daughter grew up he did not know the burden. He made money and worried about his business and built an empire, now, he relaxes and enjoys the pleasures of life. He knew he missed his son and daughters growing up years. He compensates for that now, with spending as much time as he can.
Krish has a best friend in his dad and his mother is like a sister, guide and philosopher to him telling him and correcting him whenever he made mistakes. His mother’s strict and regular watch over him enables him to grow into a responsible child and make up a goal of his own. His realization, his dream, to be a human doctor, is to come true. His stepping into the life is all set to begin.
Krish is so fond of his little sister, Neha. If she wants his life he would give it to her. He cannot see anything troubling her and always guarded her like a hawk that hovers over its prey. He buys her gifts and entertains her once a week taking her to all the places she wants to go, he takes her to the movies she wants to see, he brings her the books she wants to read, he gets her the things that she wishes for and treats her life a princess and always ready for her to peck and pinch him.
This family is nice family that is closely knit and lives in harmony within and with the relations outside.
It is a great pleasure to see the brother and sister fight with each other and run around the house. The house is a beautiful little villa that is spread on an area of 4800 square feet, with ample space between and around the house, with a beautifully drawn lawns and garden that is so spectacular watch.
It has a huge gate with a big compound wall, with electrified wires. The gate opens to a pathway, both the sides of the pathway has nice different colored flowers adorning the way. The pathway leads to a plush French Connection doorway, which opens to the wide visiting hall-cum-living room, adequately decorated with ample lighting and sofas and tea tables.
The right side of the living room leads to the kitchen in one corner and the back yard on the other corner. The bedrooms, the guest room, and a balcony open on the first floor and the stairway beautifully verges into two approaches from the center of the dinning space.
Both the kid’s room is painted in the same crimson color and the master bedroom has the light cream colored walls, the guest room is painted in beige. Everything in that house had an aesthetic sense to it adding beauty to the people living in it.
This grown up lad, Krish hasn’t got up early to his school and every morning his mother has to cajole him out of bed to get him ready for his business and leave home. But, today seems a different day, not only has he got up early.
He starts his bike and goes zoom on it to college, in the French colonization city, Pondicherry. He is enrolled into JIPMER Medical College. He passes through several streets, buses, cars, lorries and reaches his destination. The entrance of the college welcomes him with flowers of different color fallen from the trees spread across the pathway.
Short Stories by Kavitha Kumaresan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License
A Medical Romance
Chapter Three
9th February 2005
1:00 pm
Reaching, the cabin of doc Krish, she is wondering whether to enter or return without making an effort.
She looks back and finds the floor empty, devoid of any human presence, her mind orders her, Now….
She wonders what she is going to talk to him. She does not know him? Oh! Kavya, how bore, please leave, before you bring more humiliation to yourself.
You were irritated about his cold stares and now, you are trying to knock at his cabin door and say what?!! “Hi, this is Kavya, whom you have been staring at in the operation room, Huh! Very funny, leave stat.
She hears a voice from inside, “Anybody, there, please do come in.”
From outside, she really wants to flee, but her polite manners ask her to stop and she gently knocks on the swing doors.
Knock…Knock… [Politely, she knocks the door, the sound hardly audible to her own ears]
“Yeah, come in.”
She pushes open the door enough for her to pass through. She has a slender body that is efficiently maintained by the frequent runs to the hospitals at inappropriate time. Her face is a chiseled artistic venture with the vital organs at their places. Her eyes are the best feature of her face; they are huge and extra brown in color. Her long braid sways to her steps.
She too had some strong grazes with her eyes, during her college days. Till some years she used to wear any normal dress for her daily office but since a year she has restrained herself from draping with saris and there is so much of beauty along with intelligence, when you look at her.
She is an efficient anesthetic and has a reputation for it some years now. She was working in the other part of the country and has recently joined Glen Hospitals, in Bengaluru city.
She walks in, finds an elaborate room with lots of book shelves filled with all possible books on surgery, medicine, diseases, their cures and symptoms. The floor is white tiled, with huge windows on the either side of the wall, filling the room with adequate flow of fresh air.
The windows open into the other sides of the block, along with a panoramic view of the garden that is sparing the vacant spaces of the hospital. There is a table with a few books, a bottle of water, a lunch box, a chair in between the shelves, like a hid out for a fiesta.
The walls are painted with the same green and white combinations, the green occupying the first half of the wall from the ground. The ceiling is white, with a good old ceiling fan with a creaking noise and a huge tube light hanging above the head, the two best inseparable companions of the ceiling.
There is a huge table at the centre of the room, with a table cloth spread on it neatly. The name plate reads, “Dr. Krishnan Rangarajan”. There are two trays on the table, one has the amenities required for a doctor and the other has some papers and files of information about patients. There is a writing pad clipped with papers, a pen on it, a folded stethoscope lying beside, a half-read book on bone surgery, and a recent best seller that is folded and placed, with a bookmark.
The table is complemented with a chair, and the chair is occupied by Dr. Krishnan Rangarajan, a man of dedication and affection in an uncommon mix.
He has compassion for his patients and sees that they are taken care well. He relates with the pain his patients suffer and tries to bring them to a comfort level and also with the relatives who stand and wait for the doctor’s verdict on whatever the state of the patient is.
His face is marked by the signs of worry and his sharp eyes that could pass through a thin sheet of ice are cloudy and they are filled with water. He face shows the growth of two day old beard and his unkempt hair, tells us his negligence about himself. He is wearing a cream colored tees and a blue jean. His posture is deep-set on the chair and he is certainly in no mood for a conversation.
He wishes that whoever was at the door should leave within few minutes of conversation. His right arm is rested on the temple of his head and the left is rested on the arm of the chair.
She enters, he sees a crimson colored sari in midst of the white coat, a slender female. He recollects seeing this color somewhere and he looks up, behold, here is Kavya the lady of his dreams, the lady who set fire in him 10 years ago. She has come back again into his life, she was lost and there was no idea where she was all these days.
That was a little promise that was made on that very day. They would not be tracing each other for any details and let the fate decide what was good for them. Here, she is did fate bring them together as she said and left him standing on a cold morning. She is back, oh god, thank you. Oh, how I missed her.
Short Stories by Kavitha Kumaresan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License
A Medical Romance
Chapter Two
9th February 2005
11:00 am
She does not notice his stares, nor does she recognize him. His face is covered with the attire of a doctor ready to operate. She asks somebody to scrub [this is process, basically covering up the body of the doctor with sheets, gloves and face masks] and the nurses in the room help her, meanwhile, she interrogates them…
“What is induced? What is the proportion of Propofol? What is the procedure you normally follow here?”
“Doc, doc…. [He is just lost] Excuse me, is he going to operate on this guy, you are sure?” The head nurse just gives a glance and turns to face Krish; she does not know what to say.
Krish comes back out of his revere and focuses on the task ahead. He gives the doc a nod, and they sedate the patient, substantially that he does not know what is to happen to him in the next few hours.
Krish slits open the wound on the guy’s leg, looks for the broken bones, fixes them up procedurally and he does it so efficiently that, Kavya does not stop to look back in admiration for his efficient hand stroke. Krish sews up the wound and the nurses and paramedics do the remaining job of bandaging the wound and setting it in a plaster.
Kavya has a little job here; she has to wear off the patient from sedation, and remove the mask, which supplied oxygen to him so far and set the patient for the post-operative ward.
He is brought to half-senses and transferred to a trolley. He is taken to post-operative ward where he will be kept under observation for a few days and then transfer him to a ward. The ward will be his home, surrounded by his close relatives and his mother, who will be by his bedside till he nurtures his leg strong and walks back home rather than the way he was brought in to the hospital two hours back.
Kavya shudders and rewinds the pair of eyes that stared at her, this doc must be something, they way he gapes at women. [Oops…she thinks aloud]
Doc, no Krish, is a very efficient person. He just solves his cases effectively. He is one of the leading surgeons we have onboard. You really need to know him to appreciate him; he is such an understanding and a charming guy.
Poor chap; he lost his dad 3 months ago and hasn’t recovered still. He seems lost in his world and you have to call his name thrice to make him respond, the nurse who overhears Kavya’s thought expresses her feeling for doctor Krish.
Kavya finds it disturbing. She feels sorry for the doc [what is his name…??!! Ah! Krish, - it does not ring bells in her mind]. She repents for what she thought in her mind. She decides to meet him and then leave.
She comes out of the dressing room and starts walking past the CT scan and X-ray rooms to the open corridors on the floor, the long corridors join the two blocks of the hospital without having to take the lift or the stairs to the other block.
She has no clue of the hospital and its ways, but she is struck by a bolt of conscious and walks past nurses, people, and ward boys walking up and down.
She is lost and wonders who to ask for help, finding a ward boy running across with frozen blood packets in hand, maybe for an open heart surgery or for a blood transfusion, anything happens in hospitals.
There are lots of people just lying in hope that their health recovers soon and they can be back with their family and friends, once again get back to work, enjoy life, play tennis, watch television and enjoy the fruits of life.
Hospital is the place where man understands the worth of life, till then he neglects it. Making life, work beyond boundaries, taking in lot of toxins, hurting it by having habits that are hazardous to life, giving up a lot of habits due to work, pressure, friends, culture and what not.
Man does not understand the adverse effects of his actions, till there is illness and that has a cause. Hmm… ways of life is strange and it has its own course even without you making any efforts to it.
She calls out to him asking for the doc, Krish’s cabin and he answers her back saying, it the last room in the corner, to take a right and then a left on the pharmacy counter, in the ground floor.
She is almost there, she takes the left and there is the pharmacy, the last room in that corridor. The huge walls around and the old building, its dampness causes a strange feeling in her, she walks through, with the tube light overhead hanging still creating a weird shadows.
She walks past several empty rooms, open doors and windows adorned with green curtains, trolleys and stretchers resting across the walls, the oxygen cylinders collected in the corner, the airflow from the empty rooms, and the swaying curtains. There is a little bit of fresh air here, the last room has swing doors, it is quite, hard to find out if someone’s inside or not.
Short Stories by Kavitha Kumaresan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License
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