Chapter -24 (Dr.Jishnu Acts The Saviour)
Jishnu also told Akanksha in the CIT Cafe that day that long after Meghna was gone, he blamed himself for her death. He gave up his passion for the game of Cricket altogether. He stopped seeing those friends of Meghna's.
Things got even more critical if he happened to bump into Dona Aunti on the way back home or way out.
Akanksha thought, while listening to Jishnu, after their table was cleared and the waiter, with the notepad still in his hand, came to enquire if they would like anything for dessert - that Jishnu was done with the most scary part of the secret. She was wrong.
Jishnu, having noticed Akanksha shaking her head in response to the waiters query, asked for the bill. Akanksha wanted to know if they shouldn't go Dutch over the bill. Without paying any heed to her request, Jishnu brought up then what was to stay imprinted in her mind for months and years!
He looked acroos the table into her eyes ditectly. In the dim light of the L-shaped room, he couldn't make out Akanksga's face all too clearly. He toyed with the glass in his hands for a while and said:
"You know, Akanksha, what was the most bizarre truth that got revealed in connection with Meghna's death? Let me share that with you too. Might make me feel less guilty… .
I's sitting in the Club Room with a friend a couple of days after Meghna's tragic end, when Sadhanda, a local senior, walked in. He was just back from Dona Auntie's apartment and supposed to get Meghna's photo from her parents. Sadhanda was panting while sitting down on a chair. He pulled out a large handkerchief from the side pocket of his punjabi, wiped his face with it and looked around. He then told us one of the most bizarre stories I've ever heard in my life! Sadhanda said that Dona Antie and her husband were childless for years. They consulted many doctors, tried out various medications and all, and finally came to know that, due to a deficiency in one of them, they could never have a baby. It was only then they thought of adopting a child." Jishnu stopped here and looked at his watch.
The waiter sauntered back to our table with a small petal-shaped tray with some mouth freshners and an even smaller plastic container of toothpicks. He laid the tray down on the table. There was a leather cover showing the top of a sheet of paper.
Jishnu snatched it out and after giving it a quick run-down, pulled his purse out of his back pocket. He took two five-hundred rupee notes out, forced it back into the leather cover before continuing:
"It's already 8..25, Akanksha. Sania Auntie will be worried. I'll have to tell you the rest of the story briefly."
"Don't tell me Meghna's an adopted child!"
Akanksha found herself unable not to ask Jishnu the question tag that came to the tio of her tongue, involuntarily. "Was she?"
She noticed Jishnu clutch the purse tightly in his hand and instead of putting it back in his pocket, he put his closed fist down on the table, the purse still clutched tightly in his palm upside down!
" Megan's was the seventh and last of the adopted children. As Luck would have it, all the previous six children, adopted one after another, didn't survive for long, due to one disease or the other. So, they're extra careful and protective of Meghna, whom they'd picked up from an adoption centre in South Kolkata. They're so happy when Meghna got through her Boards in flying colors from Calcutta Girls. But Death didn't even spare this amazing angel from His icy hands!"Jishnu said while taking the two hundred rupee notes back and asking the waiter to keep the change.He got up from his seat then and waited for Akanksha to do the same. But Akanksha stayed put on her chair like she was in a trance!
"Time to go home, Akanksha." Jishnu shouted.
Standing up, she pushed her chair back with a shaky hand and followed Jishnu with a whiff of his expensive aftershave waifting into her. They walked along the carpetted floor, turned left and climbed down the stairs. As Jishnu got back on his bike, he asked Akanksha for one final time before fixing his helmet around his head,
" You sure you don't want me to drop you at your place?"
Akanksha smiled coyishly and shook her head. For some reason, Jishnu's concern for her safe return home, gladdened her heart. Besides, she was too shaken at that time to make out the full implications of Jishnu's parting words. They were to keep ringing in her head for a long time to come :
"I've shared all this with you to let you know that I ain't the flirty type that you may take me for." Finding the incredulous look on her face, he hastened to add, "I learnt it from Mayank. The sole reason for sharing Meghna's story tonight is to lift a heavy weight off my chest. I couldn't share a shattered piece of my heart with anyone else. The last one year of knowing you, your sister, Anushka and your wonderful parents, eventually made me think of you" He muttered before concluding:
"You are an extremely talented girl, Akanksha. I'd ask you not to be rash and do things in a hurry. Because good things happen to those who… .? " He turned to Akanksha as she joined him in completing the saying :
"WAIT AND WATCH".
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Akanksha was back home a little after one in the afternoon. She found both her mom and sister sitting at the dining table, waiting for her. The number of covered pots on the table was lesser than it wasnormally.
" We're just talking about you, Akku. Any improvement in your Baba's condition in the hours after you'd called me last?" Mrs. Sania asked her elder daughter apprehensively.
"Baba's better now, Ma. Don't worry. You can go ahead with the lunch. I'll change first, shower and join you in ten minutes."
She shouted back to her mother as she ran up the stairs to her room.
In the shower, something the Head Nurse had told her earlier in the morning, rang in her mind:
"Your father's lucky to drop into the young Doctor's lap. (Akanksha was not surprised at the Senior Nurse not knowing Jishnu's name or surname, for the matter. He got appointed to the hospital only recently, she had learnt) Had he been taken to the ICU ten minutes later… . " she didn't finish the rest of the sentence, looked pitifully at her and carried on in the same tone :
Come to think of it, the young doctor acted like his job here depended on your father's survival!. It was he, who had perceived your father to have suffered an attack. He, who injected the needle with the right dose of the right steroid to bring your father back to life… "
The Head Nurse finally concluded by asking Akanksha to get some diapers for her father from a nearby medicine store. As Akanksha was stepping away from the Head Nurse, she heard her cry out :
"If I're you, I should be eternally grateful to the Doctor, Miss."
While running her hand through her curly hair, Akanksha heard her mom call out again from down:
"Akku, aren't you done yet? We've to head towards hospital afterwards, remember? "
Akanksha clanked down the stairs, pulled out the chair from under the table to sit beside her sister, apologizing:
"I'm so sorry for keeping you waiting. What's there for lunch, mom? I'm famished!" She said while taking the lid off the rice pot.
"Was Jishnu there during the Visiting Hours? Could you meet him? " Mrs Sania asked, anxiety writ large on her face.
"I could. Looks like Baba's gonna be all right for his timely action, Ma. In fact, that bulky nurse with the round specs told me, just as l's coming back that we should be 'eternally grateful' to him."
She looked at her mother sitting at the head of the table on her left, hesitated whether to share the news with her mom or not, decided that whatever the consequences might be, her mother needed to know at the earliest and blurted out finally :
"Baba, if know you must, Ma, suffered a series of mild stokes last night. He was directly taken to the ICU, administered some medication that worked magically before being shifted to the cabin. Jishnuda was the one who administered it before the senior doctor, Dr. Sarkar took over. So, the bottomline is, we owe Baba's second lease of life to Dr. Jishnu, Ma." She concluded.