She remembered the exact moment when the nightmare had
begun. It had been in the garden, in that corner where the jasmine creeper
fought for space with the croton bushes.
If only she’d known why she’d tripped there for no
reason. After all, she had lived in that house for all of her 14 years. She
knew the garden like the back of her hand. Had she ever, ever tripped in her
garden before?
But then, one never knows.
When had she realized that something was really wrong?
Only a day later…when her right calf had begun to develop the rash, that
progressed to a darker shade up her leg, to her thighs, by the hour. And the
pain! Oh, the searing pain that shot through her leg had left her gasping for
breath before the break of dawn.
Dr. Sharma had been…different. She recalled the panic
in his eyes when he first looked at her leg. That look, that said ‘Oh no! Not
another one!’ before the hood descended over his eyes.
Panic was what she recognized in Ma’s eyes too, that
evening. The muted whispers in the living room that ceased when she was within
earshot, told her volumes of what she didn’t want to know.
And then, Roma had called. It was all so weird that she
she’d actually chuckled when her childhood friend had explained the ‘anomaly’, as she had
worded it. A new virus? A damned virus that only attacked youngsters,
particularly pubescent people? It was too outlandish to imagine. But then, here she was, with a leg that had
swollen to twice the size, the painfully open pores oozing awful yellowish
fluids at regular intervals…
‘Is there a cure, Babaji?’ she heard the muted sobs
emanating from the living room. Ma was inconsolable.
It was yet to sink into her consciousness, that she had
less than a week to live.
***
‘You always chided her for being too dark, too short…that
she’d never find a guy who’d agree to marry her…’, Didi’s voice broke, despite
the accusation laced within her tone.
’And now, she is dying...are you happy now?’
Her grandmother, for once said nothing. She knew that
her elder granddaughter was only venting her agony. The agony that mirrored the
guilt-ridden distress that gnawed at her own insides.
Shreya, the baby of the house, was going to die.
***
‘Ten thousand rupees’, said the Baba’s disciple with
barely concealed excitement in his voice. ‘Not a rupee more, not a rupee less,
auntyji’.
‘Let me talk to Babaji, beta…we have been visiting your
ashram from 13 years now…Babaji has known our family since ages, he was very
close to my father-in-law…’
Kamala’s desperate plea was drowned in the noise
the din. The serene ambiance of the luxuriant reception of the ashram, now
resembled the chaos of Johnson fish market on Sunday mornings. Except that the
desperate people here weren’t buying fish. They were trying to buy the magical
elixir of life for their loved ones.
Kamala removed her tiny clutch from the jute handbag
she carried and sat down on the tiny wooden stool in the corner to count the
currency. Only 7000 rupees. She would plead with Babaji to save Shreya…they
could arrange for more money later…
***
‘How can there be no
cure?’ Her father’s indignant tone barely concealed the fake bravado he tried
to portray in front of his family. ‘It’s
just a virus, for God’s sake! We have cures for everything these days…and Shreya
is so young , doctor…’
She didn’t want to hear
anymore. All she could think of was, ‘Four days left to live…four more days,
four days, four days…’
***
‘It has worked on 60% of the patients we’ve tried it
on…at this point, we can only grasp at straws and hope for the best.’ Dr.
Sharma sounded distant and exhausted.
The sting of the injection hardly registered in
Shreya’s mind. She knew that she’d already lost her leg to the gangrene. She
tuned out Ma’s constant chanting of prayers, while she applied the sacred
vermilion and ash, procured from the ashram, repeatedly over her forehead.
Would the doctor’s medicine work? Or Babaji’s
offerings?
Was it better to stay alive as a cripple for life…or
was it better to die?
She would know by the next 6 hours. She would know how
it was supposed to end for her by daybreak…or at least, her family would.
Shreya closed her eyes and slid into a dreamless sleep.
***
*** ***
