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‘Hi,’ he said. A half smile.
His eyes look so tired.
‘I…’ he mumbled, ‘I … wanted to say … er, thank you … for the birthday party in the hospital … and everything you did.’
‘It’s okay,’ she said, smiling.
He looked at his feet and then continued to walk beside her.
‘I … um … because of my work, my attention is usually divided, so it’s Mummy who takes care of Mansha’s needs, really,’ he said, shrugging.
Koyal looked at him thoughtfully.
You think you are failing Mansha, don’t you?
‘No matter how many times divided, a parent’s love is always whole,’ said Koyal.
For a brief moment, their eyes met and then they both smiled.
‘Do you mind if I ask you something?’ Koyal said, slowing down.
‘Go on,’ his eyes said to her.
‘Why don’t you celebrate Mansha’s birthday?’
They walked in silence, and after the longest pause, Atharv spoke.
‘It’s difficult to even pretend to be happy on that day,’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Nili died a few hours after giving birth to Mansha … so…’
Damn. Mansha’s birthday was Nili’s death anniversary.
‘She was diagnosed with cancer when she was twenty weeks pregnant. A vile, no-cure brain cancer,’ he said in an emotionless voice. ‘She survived for thirty-two weeks and died soon after they operated on her to take Mansha out.’
Koyal felt goosebumps tingle through her body.
Poor, poor Mansha. To be born on the day your mother died – what would that do to as delicate a heart as Mansha’s, she wondered.
‘Mansha doesn’t know, of course,’ Atharv hastened to add. ‘And to be honest, I don’t know how to ever tell her this.’
He paused and seemed to think for a bit.
‘Nili’s death was so random, it … it didn’t make sense. She was young and healthy one moment and gone the next. I…’ and now Koyal knew Atharv was simply thinking out loud, ‘I … struggled to find an answer to “why us?” for the longest time. I desperately wanted to find a reason, a purpose behind it all, something that would somehow make it bearable. But I couldn’t. It was just random. Nili’s death didn’t mean anything, there was no greater purpose hidden behind it that would make it easier for me to deal with it … nothing.’
He paused and then continued. ‘Which is why I knew I had to create something, something bigger and more meaningful that would help me deal with her death and, to be honest, survive the date each year … and I decided to use the one skill I have. Surgery. Each year I operate on her death anniversary, picking up a case that is tough, and try my hardest to save that life. That … that helps me, you know, because now somehow Nili’s life has not gone in vain. Something good can come out of it each year … I can finally do something to make up for that time when I could only sit and watch…’
Koyal tried hard not to focus on the lump that had formed in her throat. But then a part of her was glad.
Because the Atharv she had been best friends with would do something like this. He may have treated her badly, but the core – or some part of him – was the way she knew him to be. The Atharv she had known and loved existed.
‘The tragedy of life is not death, Atharv,’ said Koyal. ‘It is the dying that we do when we are alive.’
Atharv nodded, looked at Koyal and ventured a smile. A precious, tired but gorgeous smile that brightened up the corridor.
It was then that Koyal’s mind went back to the day while still married to Amit, when she’d read that letter from a friend telling her about Atharv’s soon to be born baby.
