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3 August 2013, 9.00 a.m.
Letter of the day – A.
Ravi Singh wants to become an actor. The nurse with long hair, mother to two rowdy boys, is desperate to have a baby girl who might deign to listen to her once in a while and the old orderly is still grieving f
or his wife who died four years ago.These were all nameless faces I had barely registered in the two years I have been regularly visiting the hospital. Now they know a little bit of my story, just as I know a little bit of theirs.
Odd, the friends you make. Very odd.
4 August 2013, 9.00 a.m.
Letter of the day – N.
5 August 2013, 9.00 a.m.
Letter of the day – D.
Today, instead of Ravi Singh – who had taken a day off to audition for a role in a television serial – the head nurse of the nephrology ward met me at the gate to collect the box.
‘Kasturi Beta?’ she began hesitatingly.
‘Yes, Sister?’ I asked, jiggling the car keys.
‘Umm … do you … do you think you can get chocolate cake?’
‘What?’
‘I mean … vanilla gets boring after a while,’ she replied, shrugging her shoulders.
Ji, Madam, ji.
6 August 2013, 9.00 a.m.
Letter of the day – S.
Flavour of the day – Chocolate.
Number of people who came to receive the cake – eleven.
7 August 2013, 9.00 a.m.
Letter of the day – T.
Flavour of the day – Chocolate.
Number of people gathered to take the cake – fourteen.
4.00 p.m.
I was strolling aimlessly in Khan market, thinking about ways to tell Purva how much I loved him and how sorry I was, when my eyes fell on three people walking towards me. I choked on the coffee I had just taken a mouthful of and the American in front of me turned around curiously. I couldn’t care less, for, walking towards me, in deep conversation with each other were Purva, Vikram and Anju Aunty.
Someone – read: yours truly – has correctly said that the wrath of a woman scorned is nothing compared to the wrath of a mother whose child has been scorned.
These days Anju Aunty is a regular fixture in my nightmares. In one of the more violent ones, she dangles me by my throat over a steep cliff that rises above a sea of demons, hauls me up just before I die and chops me, alive and kicking, me into pieces which she later feeds to snakes.
Within seconds, I had ducked and hidden behind the only object of reasonable size I could spot – a remarkably smelly dustbin that was overflowing with choicest rubbish that Khan Market could come up with. Needless to add, the next thirty seconds, during which I tried my best to become one with the dustbin reeking of kebabs and urine, as the trio walked past me, were the longest of my life.
Once they were safely out of sight, I emerged from behind the dustbin and was taking in long, deep and much-needed breaths of fresh air when I felt a pair of eyes on me.
