A Fairy Tale

The moon was full but not complete..... a little left in the corner as if a painter has almost completed his art but trying to figure out where to give his last stroke. So the night was bright. Almost a full moon.... and most of the stars hid in the moon light and the rest went far away in the horizon in anger or jealousy.

We were on top of a mountain were the cold breeze was dancing in a soft tune of it's own.... It whispered in my ears songs that i had listened in my solitude in her thought. It was cold and windy..... the moon reflected in the river as sparkles of stardust.

There were a lot of lights in far off places were they were working on a bridge construction. It felt like a Isak Asimov Si-Fi novel, Star wars movie or a fairy tale castle on the other side of the river.....

And there She was.......uff, what do i say. Her face was brighter than the moon, hairs dancing with the wind if perfect rhythm, her eyes sparkling like two stars which had fallen from the sky tonight. She walked curling her hands inside her jacket like a baby totally unaware of the world being mesmerised around herself.

The moon realised why she was incomplete...... Tonight a piece of her was walking in the land with me. The wind was drunk and kept on dancing around her. The chill was the thrill the wind was having flirting with her. The castle was were a princess was missing and the lights were all around to search their princess.

I was speechless..... and mesmerised. Falling in love million times over.

Breast cancer or Guilt ?

I was told by sir that a new patient was admitted in the paying cabin and it meant that i have to look after that patient. I went to the room and knocked.... the door opened and a young tall man welcomed me with hopeful eyes and introduced me to his wife who was the patient. She was a young lady with pale look and puffy face. I asked her about her problem and on detailed examination came to know that she is a post operative case of Breast cancer. She was operated 4 years ago and after that she had taken two cycles of chemotherapy and and radiotherapy. Now she was having respiratory difficulty. A CT Scan was done and it showed that the cancer had spread to her lungs. The left lung is full of fluid and collapsed. The right lung is working but it also has been infiltrated by cancer cells. In X-ray they call it "Cannon Balls". Ironic, as they really are cannon balls waiting to explode in the lungs......

After few tests and days it was clear that she was in her last stage and nothing much could be done from our part. One day I tried to drain out some fluid but after 300-400 ml she had more distress. So we decided that Oxygen inhalation and some minimum medications including some pain killers would do....

Her name is Mrs Mona Saikia. She is 34 years only. 34 .

She is fair. She must have been very attractive in her teens... any one can tell. She still is. Even with all these chemotherapy drugs and radiotherapy she still holds a glowing face.

One evening I got a call that she is having respiratory distress and ran to see her. I gave her some medications and then called the husband outside to explain him the situation.

I started politely " by this time you must know that there nothing much that can be done and her days in the world are numbered ...... I mean...."

" You mean that she will not be cured ?"

" No.... didn't you know ?"

"No sir..... I had no idea that she is going to die..... is this disease recent or was it before my marriage ? "

"How long have you been married ?"

" 3 years "

" and when did she had her operation ?"

" 4 years...... " his eyes were moist, voice trembling and softened... " actually sir, i must have been tricked into the marriage. She never told me that she had this disease..... I feel bad for her but i also feel that i have been cheated......"

I was shocked and sad for this man but ashamed of this awkward situation i said that i had another patient to see..... I left as soon as possible. Then I avoided the patient and her husband for next few days until one day sir told me to go see her.... her elder sister had come. She is a trained nurse working in a Civil hospital. Apparently she is the one who has been paying for all the expenses of treatment. So she has the say in the major decisions. So when I talked with her she told "We have done a lot for her in the past 4 years and even though i know she would live for few years only but we never stoped trying. In fact we gave her the best treatment money can buy in this place but who can undo the fate.... She had a life, she got married that also a love marriage...... bla bla bla ( wait. what ? she had a love marriage ? but the husband said that he was tricked in to marriage....) we asked the surgeon that will she be cured and the surgeon said that she may get 10 years of life after the operation... we removed the breast, we even implanted an artificial breast but that became bad and we had to remove that also..... we gave the costliest drugs in chemotherapy and also gave radiotherapy...... but who can undo fate ?"

" Have you ever considered taking her back to home and let her live the rest of her life along with her near and dear ones......" I tried to convince her elder sister to her away as she had no hope and an unnecessary burden on us. Extra duty to visit the paying cabin.

" She doesn't want to go back..... She wants to die here......" she started crying and again I had to run away. Those eyes were wet but also looking down.... she did not look at me for once.....I saw guilt or penance, love or duty, anger or frustration....... I still wonder ....

I grew more unemotional.... I visited her each day... Just asked her about the medications, respiratory distress, what did she eat and did she pass stool. I also jokes once a while that she looked good. I kept the stethoscope in her chest and said the right lung seems Ok. What i meant was that the left one is gone and the right one is about to.....

Today after the normal visit the husband came up to me and said that can i provide some medicines from the hospital as he is having some financial problems. I just casually asked him " What do you do ? "

"Nothing sir, for the last 3 years i have been attending my wife. I have been in and out of hospitals and doing all that has to be done, for HER."

"Didn't you know that she had a breast cancer and as i have come to know you had a love marriage..."

" Yes sir it was a love marriage.... I came from Majuli to work in Sivsagarh. That was where I met her.... we came close and I started having some feelings for her. She told me that she had a disease in her left breast but she got operated for that. It was fine now..... then she used to call me and tell me to her away. She kept on telling me repetitively to take her with me and one day I eloped with her. I cant blame anyone sir. My parents had great expectations from me as i was the eldest son and had problem with this marriage as i am 'Kalita' and she is 'Ahum'. My parents never accepted this inter cast marriage but i didn't listen to them. I eloped with her. I thought that she had a disease and it will be cured within few months, at least that's what she told me. Neither she or her elder sister ever told me that what she had was CANCER. She will not live long..... What right did she have to destroy my life .....sir ? I feel bad and Cheated... sir. I cant blame anyone but how could she do this to me, me ..... who left the whole world for her..... how could she do this to me ? how could she cheat me like this ?

I saw her next time and asked how is she feeling. She said she is having respiratory distress. the air seemed thick and didn't go in...... Was it the Cancer or Guilt ?

Her elder sister wants to give her a life..... at the cost of what ? .............The best medicines money can buy and the best lie guilt can buy ?

Her husband wants an answer to why he has been cheated ? ..... The best excuse to defend his act of elope against the will of his parents or the best penance for love he lost to fate

She wants to live and die in the paying cabin..... Is she dying of breast cancer or guilt of loving the love of her life ?

She cant breath...... or she doesn't want to? Neither she asked nor planed for this fate. She is just living it.... ever breath at a time with the weight of a lifetime of hope and guilt.

New Year

Dim red light.... Bollywood songs in a plasma TV..... wavy interiors.... spotted lights in the celling.... smoky environment..... an ideal Bar. Exactly what I wanted..... let me rewind first. today is 9th day of a new year and i have no resolutions and no directions to look ahead ( or backwards ). People celebrated the new year like a new beginning ( though every day is the first day of the rest of your life ) but I have celebrated it like a drinking festival. It started on 25th December ( the song LAST CHRISTMAS I GAVE YOU MY HEART, THE VERY NEXT DAY YOU GAVE IT AWAY and bla bla bal...(yes BAL) is very symbolic and dear to my heart and I do make it a point to be in touch with my emotional core that day ) and has been continuous since then in the name of various occasions. Some day it was with my roommate taking a break from the hectic life of the boredom and some day it was just free wine/whisky/beer/vodka in someones room( a price you pay to listen to the nonsense that people want to let out of their trapped soul). some day it was a picnic and some day it was a party. Some parties were birthday types, some were given by companies ( Pharmaceutical companies give us parties so that we write their products.... we write the products thinking of the good times we had). And of course we had the New Year party on 31st.

But today was different. I have been having some trouble in the last few days..... I had a fight with a senior in my department when i was drunk ( the point was logical but i was drunk and hence condemned) . I regretted and talked with him the next day...... God knows if he understood or not. Next I had a fight with another good friend of mine. She hated me, cried and our friendship almost came to an end. I think we recovered but something in it died. And then yesterday i scolded a junior who was once my student very badly..... reason ? I am still tiring to figure it out....

So I realised that i have been drinking too much and this is the time to check. That's when I met Tony ( Tanoy Bose ) who has been a part of my drunk fest who said "Lets go to a bar". YES was the answer and next thing I know is I am with him in this beautiful bar H2O. Tanoy is a RKM student like me ( Ramkrishna Mission Vidyalaya....he was in Purulia and I was in Narendrapur). We both had a very disciplined schooling and a very rigorous training that makes us a little different from the crowd. We both are Scorpios and hence very competitive in nature. We both are Bengali and hence very shroud. We both are doctors and hence very patient. We are posted in MU VII and hence frustrated.... Only thing is that he is going to marry his girlfriend on 23th of this month and my girlfriend is going to marry her boyfriend very soon. One of my another friend whom i met in Delhi is going to marry on 17th feb....

We entered the bar expecting to drink beer and talk stuff..... just adda. Once inside we ordered two strong beer and plunged in the lounge. Suddenly he took out a smoke ( he is a chimney by the way.... i think his lungs are like mosquito nets.... arteries atherosclerosed like Indian roads in rainy season ) when I remembered that they have HOOKAHS here. " hey Tony, would you like to have a Hookah ? " " Why Not ?, lets try..." so came the Blackberry flavoured Hookah, Strong beer, department, life, girlfriends, to be wives, could be wives, others wives, smoke, beer piss, more beer and more hookah..... resolutions took a back seat and various experiments of taking hookah became the interesting thing to do.... fast breaths, slow inhales, half inhales, deep inhales...... the dim red light became sparkling and wavy and the girls in the plasma TV became bar girls..... then suddenly came a video with topless girls and we had meiosis. Pupils dilated and so did the eye lids... I grabbed the hookah pipe from Tony's hand and took a deep breath, pulled it and accidentally the long pipe of hookah pushed the beer Jar in the floor..... crash.... it fell. We did it again.... We have now become experienced in breaking Glasses in Bars. I was saying Sorry but my eyes were still glued to the plasma TV topless girls..... we waited for that song to finish, checked out the next song ( if it has some more masal or not ?) and then gracefully paid the bill ( we also shamefully tried to pay for the broken glass but they refused .... i paid extra tip to the waiter and a 10 buck to the darwan ). we came back to the hostel and played Table Tennis. I watched a little porn and went to sleep.

New years come and go...... Resolutions are shit until u r in deep shit. Men will be men.... philosophy is good in books and even better with beer/whisky/vodka/rum..... rest of the life is in the moment... life is worth all of it.