The ticking of the clock was the only sound that echoed
through the corridors. Every minute seemed to be very long. Anandita’s parents
and her sister were sitting outside the operation theatre on one side while
Tanya and Sameer sat on the other. Everyone was worried. There was an eerie
silence only their heavy breathing was heard other than the ticking of the clock.
They feared for Anandita’s life.
The colour of the bulb outside the operation theatre changed
from red to green and a doctor emerged out of the theatre. Anandita’s dad ran
to the doctor to know how his daughter was doing.
The doctor quietly asked him to follow her to her cabin. She
then handed him a glass of water that was lying on her table. After Anandita’s father
calmed down a little, the doctor spoke in a firm and calm voice, “You have
nothing to worry about. Though the bones of her right hand and left ankle will
take time to heal, Your daughter is out of danger. She needs complete rest.” “Thank
you doctor…..,” Anandita’s father said with
tears in his eyes. “Dr. Shibani Awasthi,” she completed.
While Anandita’s father ran outside to give the good news to his
family members and consequently to Sameer and Tanya, Dr. Awasthi sat at her
table and pondered on what had just happened. As she pushed back her glasses,
she thought about how the girl that she operated on was somehow special to her.
She had never felt any kind of emotional connection towards any of her patients
in thirty years of her service as a doctor. But this time it was different. She
didn’t know how but there was a certain pull that she had towards the girl was lying
there unconscious. For the first time, in so many years, her hands shivered as
she picked the surgeon’s knife to operate on the girl. She was still swearing
at the thought of it and was glad that it was over.
After a few minutes passed by, she opened the drawer on her right,
picked the photo which was kept facing downwards, looked at it and smiled. For
her, it seemed like it happened only yesterday. She was brought back out of her
reverie as she heard footsteps outside her cabin. She quickly placed the photo back
into the drawer and closed it with a loud thud. She then went on to straighten
her navy-blue coloured cotton saree and her doctor’s coat. She put her hands into
both her pockets and felt something in her right pocket. Pulling out a tattered
piece of paper, she remembered how the nurse said that she had found the paper in
Anandita’s clothes while changing her
into the green coloured hospital gown.
Just as she was about to start reading it, the ward boy, Raju,
knocked at her door and said that she was being summoned by Dr. Arun Vaidhyanathan
for her opinion on a case relating to another patient. She went to her table
and carefully placed the tattered paper in the side pocket of her hand bag so
as not to lose it. She, then followed Raju, out to meet Dr. Arun.
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