Chapter 6

I changed into my nightclothes, poured myself some red wine from the rack of wine in the kitchen, stepped back into the living room, and stood by the window.

Today, these lilac walls sting my eyes. I switched off the lights until there was only the moonlight blanketing the ambience around me.

Isolated and completely on my own, it is just my thoughts and me.

Until this moment, the words of Dr. Desai were more of a few sentences I had heard rather than listened to.

I have been under a state of shock. All the things he said and explained to me, treatments, medicines, the transplant, I have been unable to register anything at all.

"I am afraid the medicines you have been on are not helping your heart as we expected them to. I am going to keep you on these diuretics as before, and up your doses. Look! You should not panic. I need you to take extreme caution of certain things like do not exert yourself in any manner and try to stay happy. It is a sneaky condition. I wish we had detected it earlier so we could have controlled this damage from the start.

I am afraid we won't have much time before your heart completely gives out. I am pushing you up in our transplant list. But you need to understand that a donor's heart is extremely difficult to obtain. But we do have backup options in case things worsen like installing an LVAD through surgery, which even though would risk damaging your walls, it would also buy us more time.

You have to understand this Arya that in all this, the most important thing we need from you is your confidence. We need you to be a stronger fighter than ever. As your doctor, I would also suggest you start doing things you love, things that make you happy, things that do not stress your heart in any way." He explained dearly.

My knuckles dug into each other, tighter and firmer with each statement of his. If I went any deeper than this, then my nails would pierce through my pale white skin.

His words were hitting me like a shovel now as if I was being time traveled back into his cabin.

In my head, I heard him speak these insinuating words to me over and over.

I was infuriated. At this phase of my life, death was certainly the least of my priorities.

I am a 29-year-old girl, trying to carve a niche' in a field I hold so dearly to my dying heart. I love my life beyond everything else.

I want so much of it. I want so much to LIVE.

But now with each stage, Krishna is messing up with my plans and I am moving closer into the arms of death.

I am furious with destiny, fate, and his plan for me.

"Why are you doing this to me? Why me? What did I ever do to you or anyone that you are punishing me this cruelly? Answer me. Answer me, Kanha," I interrogated the mythical stars above and I questioned the shrine of Lord Krishna set in our temple of white marble my mum had established in our house near the living room. He is my only family left here and now, he is failing me too.

I know that no matter how much I yell, there are no answers to my questions.

I am destined to suffer in pain just like everyone else.

My fists clenched the wine glass until its flimsy thin frame gave in to the pressure of my agony and shattered into thin pieces.

With a bleeding hand, I fell upon the ground and gave way to a dreary night ahead.

Hours later, I woke up upon the cold hard floor, curled up.

My body felt twice as heavier almost as if I was already buried and sinking into the ground.

I stretched my limbs to rise and reached for my cell phone dumped upon the ottoman.

"Hey, listen! Something urgent has come up. Tania (my pregnant sister-in-law) is not keeping well. So, I guess I'd better pay them a visit for a week or so, help them out a little. Rohit would handle my work in my absence and you are already here. So, I guess I could take this break. I owe you one for this, babe. Next time, you can take a month off and I shall be at your service. For any emergencies, call my international cell. Love you. Kisses." I reached the answering machine and left a message for Kiara.

*********************

After this phone call, I switched off my phone because I know Kiara was not going to ease back after hearing this disoriented tone of mine.

For the next two days, I did nothing. I slept...I sobbed...I ate a tub of Belgium Chocolate Ice cream, then I slept some more....then I sobbed again before snoozing yet another time. I did not open my door to anyone, not my guard or my maid, or even when Kiara stopped by.

"Just go away. Please, leave me alone. I am fine." I muttered angrily to each one of them.

"Okay. You take your time. I will come by tomorrow. Arya, I am not going to let you do this alone. You need us. You need your family." Kiara spoke softly from the other side of the door.

By the third day, I was stable enough to wash my face, take a shower.

After my head cleared up a little, I decided to look back at the various frames of life I got to exist in, records of my work, my moments of pride, the things I admire, the people I care about, and all those memories I have preserved so far and fought for all my life.

I took out some of my scrap files. These are my life's reflection in black and white, all my worst and my most glorious moments penned down in bits and pieces. I sat upon the carpet of my room with my life's records surrounding me.

I began to flip through my timeline-- the unforgettable pictures with me, my parents, Vansh'B and some of my friends; memories from the first day of my college, when I cried and clung to my dad as he left me at my dorm to pursue my creative dream, my first crush and my boyfriend from college who loved me unconditionally, i.e. until he found out about my condition, a potential reason to scare him away.

I never blamed him for leaving me. I knew that life around me was not going to be a blissful ferry ride for anyone.

While touching and tracing all these memories beneath my fingertips, at the end of the book, I came by this beautiful quote by Leonardo Di Vinci,

"As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death."

When I had first discovered this quote, I was a seventeen-year-old teenager, paving my way through life, trying to make it to a great fine art college.

At that time, 'Death' was merely a term that was listed in the dictionary of Oxford, sooner introduced into our family when my parents passed away.

Even though it marked the most tumultuous and the most painful time of my life, I was still miles away from actually making a spirited acquaintance with this term.

I had no idea what it felt like when one stood so close to it. I could not even understand why people were so afraid of dying.

And yet, his words had made an impression on me like a highly progressive artwork. The day I made it to the London College of Art was the very first time, I had re-written his words at the back of my journal.

For some reason, I never felt the urge to tear the page down or to blot it in ink.

Now, these very words were crafting an even stronger impression upon me like a giant stream reaching its curve to conflate with a waterfall, roaring strongly with each motion it took towards the bend.

I was roaring too. I wanted to experience as much life as I possibly could before I fell and diminished into the fall before the fall encapsulated my identity forever.

With this sweep, I realized that I just desecrated two days of the small time-span I had left in moping around when I should be frittering away living some of my fantasies.

What are my fantasies though?......What do I want at this point?

I needed something, a written record perhaps, that would fill me up and prepare me for my 'demise' with some ease.

And this is the moment when I sat down to create 'THE LIST'.

This 'LIST' is a written compilation of all those desires, those wishes I ever so severely wanted to fulfill, but could never find the time or the opportunity to do so.

What is it that I want from life? I know that I have treasured my life despite its shortcomings. Yet I also feel incomplete.

I scribbled and scribed, wrote and rewrote until I could finally shortlist the top five.

1) Sky diving trip: I always wanted to float in the air and feel the wind on me while I was still alive.

2) Climb Everest: I wanted to leave an impression at the world's highest peak.

3) Make my parents proud: Trying at it

4) Experience true love just once even if it is only for a moment.

5) Now, this is the one wish which makes me feel whole in every way that even if I could not get any of the above wishes come true then fulfilling this one alone is going to be more than enough for me to rest in peace.

I want to touch and study the one rare piece of artwork done by one of the greatest artists that have ever walked the earth, Alessandro Mancini. This piece is known as 'The Milenni', an astute representation of a man idolizing the perfection of a female's beauty who is the love of his life, as she carries his gift inside her womb

This work was done by the great artist during his formative years. It is a memoir of his youth, and never put up for sale, only for an exhibition once.

Now, this work hangs at the Mancini mansion somewhere in Washington D.C. I want to touch this work, I want to feel it against my fingertips, I desire to study it, I desire to study the man who created this masterpiece. I want to share a cup of coffee with the greatest muse of my life, I want to just once penetrate the layer of the greatest mind ever born.

I want "The Milenni" at my galleria. Ok, this was a long shot. But hey! A girl can dream!

With my condition, the top three wishes were trash. The fourth one was something I cannot even consider. I have been one of those people who are most unfortunate in love. I have been cheated upon, left isolated the moment he got to know about my illness. And, I certainly am not willing to find anyone now. I am emotionally spent that way.

The fifth wish, ah! my precious! I know that it is an impossible one. Without any leads or contact, this is going to be unimaginably difficult.

But that does not mean I am not even going to try. I want to make it happen somehow.

In my heart, I must!