Someone Like You (24 page)

‘Maybe he lied. Maybe you taught him that too.’

‘Don’t be so unreasonable—’ Karthik tries to say something but I cut him off mid-sentence furiously.

‘Shut the hell up. I don’t want to hear another word from you. Go away … just leave. And never come back. I don’t want to see your face again. Go drive a cool bike and get a cool hairstyle and work out in the gym and woo girls or whatever it is you do. Just stay the hell away from me and my friends. Do you understand?’ I shout out, losing all my calm and patience.

He nods, lighting up a cigarette.

‘And another thing—if something happens to Tanmay, please just know that it’s
you
who killed him,’ I say and leave.

‘Ratul is out of danger,’ mandar tells me as soon as I get back in.

‘Ratul?’ I ask.

‘The other guy in the accident with Tanmay. He is all right now. He has two broken bones in his thigh, and a fracture in his ribs, but the doctors say that he is going to be okay. The fracture in the rib had punctured his lung and was causing internal bleeding or something … but he is out of danger now.’

‘Where is he?’

Mandar motions to a ward, to my right. I see Pia and Tanmay’s mother huddled around the ward’s door, peeping in. I walk up to them.

‘See? He is okay,’ Aunty says happily. ‘My Tanmay will be all right too … once the operation is done …’

I smile a painful constricted smile and nod. What I don’t tell her is that the damage her son’s body has endured is five times in comparison to Ratul’s. I don’t want to wipe out her smile. It suits her. I notice that Pia is holding Aunty’s hand tightly, as she stares inside Ratul’s ward. I am glad that she has been with her all this while, when I was busy losing all hope and crying my heart out.

‘The operation? is it still …?’ I ask Pia.

‘Yes,’ she nods. ‘It’s still going on. It’s been three hours.’

I nod silently and the mood changes back to sombre. We sit outside the neurosurgical ward, and fix our eyes on the small red light above its doors. With every minute that passes, we get more and more nervous. I shift in my seat uncomfortably. I want the wait to be over soon … and Tanmay to be okay. If we go by what I read about TBI on the internet and what I said to Karthik, I realize that the chances are not in our favour, but I have to think positive. In my heart, I feel—I
know
—that he is going to be okay. But even if he comes out of this alive …

Grotesque images of a paralysed Tanmay flash through my head. The best-case scenario right now is—the operation will be successful and Tanmay will recover over a period of a few months. I shudder to think how he would feel when he gets to know that he won’t be able to play in the football league’s final match. He would be heartbroken. But never mind. There will be another tournament next year. I am sure he will steal the show again.

Uncle comes back and sits next to Aunty. They begin to talk softly amongst themselves. It is nice to see that they are not crying any more. Things are already looking up. But still, whenever that image of Tanmay in the stretcher comes into my head …

‘Do you think he will be okay?’ Pia asks softly. She looks very haggard, and I suppose I look the same. ‘I certainly hope so.’

‘But what do you think? What does your heart say?’

‘That he will be up and about in a few weeks,’ I smile at the picture that thought creates in my head. Pia smiles too. I look at her carefully … and say the first thing that comes to my head. ‘You love him, don’t you?’

‘What? Love? No! What are you talking about?’ I can tell that she is taken by surprise. I can also tell that she is very
much in love with Tanmay. There is no way that she doesn’t realize it, she is just not willing to acknowledge it to herself or anyone else.

‘You do.’

‘I don’t. He’s a very good friend … and I really like him … but I don’t … I have a boyfriend … I love Vishal …’ Pia keeps whispering disconnected half-sentences for a while.

I wonder when she will realize that she does not love Vishal. Her delusion is almost annoying. She belongs with Tanmay. They are perfect together, almost custom-made. They will be the cutest couple on the planet. I hope she realizes that soon. But that should be the least of my worries right now. I know she will one day finally realize that she loves Tanmay … but right now, I just pray that Tanmay will be okay.

Just as I look up, I see a group of doctors and paramedical staff leave the ward where Tanmay’s operation had been going on. We get up with a jerk and rush towards them. But strangely, they do not even look at us. They just make their way hurriedly towards the elevator. Before we can understand what is happening, they have already left the floor. I turn back towards Tanmay’s ward and see Dr Ahuja come out of it, his cell phone stuck to his ear, as he shoots directions to someone on it.

‘… right now. No! 10 ml. And not intramuscular, administer it intravenously. I’ll be there in a minute,’ he says and hangs up to find us surrounding him.

‘Doctor! Is he okay? Can we see him?’ Aunty asks, looking up at him with eyes full of hope and fear. Mostly fear.

‘Is the operation over? Was it … was it successful?’ Uncle asks.

Dr Ahuja looks at the five pairs of eyes looking up at him, and says, ‘Yes, the operation is over. You can see him now … There is a nurse inside to guide you with that. Now if you’ll
excuse me, I have to be somewhere … there’s an emergency. I’ll meet you later, as soon as I am done with that. Sorry.’

He walks off before we even get a chance to ask anything else. But we hardly care! He said that we can see him. What can that mean? That Tanmay is out of danger! And probably conscious too. We charge into the neurosurgical ward. The nurse is startled to see us at first but we explain that we have the doctor’s permission and she relents, though she keeps murmuring something about it not being a place where visitors are allowed to enter. We hardly care about that either.

We put on those ridiculous white coats, masks and caps and sanitize our hands before pulling aside the curtains and going in. The moment I look at him … I feel the breath being knocked out of my body. It is like somebody punched me hard in my gut.

It doesn’t seem like Tanmay is any better than he was the last time I saw him. If anything, his head is even more swollen and of a colour so deeply red that it looks almost black. All kinds of equipment beep and blink tiny red lights all around the ward. That is the only sound we can hear. Everything else is absolutely still.

Especially Tanmay.

I can see the medical ventilator, but I can’t see his chest rise and fall—he doesn’t seem to be breathing. If not for the ECG device, I would have thought …

I cannot take my eyes off him. He lies here, in front of me, in complete tranquillity. It scares me no end. What did the doctor mean? I suddenly want to rush to Dr Ahuja and ask him what is going on with Tanmay. To think of it now, we must have completely misinterpreted the meaning of what he had said. He had not said that Tanmay is out of danger.

‘Yes, the operation is over.’
He never said that the operation was successful.

‘You can see him now.’
He never said that Tanmay was conscious.

‘Sorry.’
What else could that word mean when a doctor says it after coming out of an operation theatre?

But Tanmay is not dead. He is very much alive. Artificially supported by every imaginable medical device, yes, but alive nonetheless. Then why are there no doctors around? Maybe … maybe the doctors operating on Tanmay, including Dr Ahuja, realized that he cannot be saved. Maybe that’s why they left the ward, to handle another emergency, saving someone else’s life … someone who has a better chance at survival.

My breathing accelerates, as the gravity of the situation strikes me in full measure.
He is going to die.
There is no other explanation. No false hope. No fooling myself and others with a fake positive attitude and forced optimism. I cannot breathe any more. I choke on my tears. My heartbeat elevates to such a level that I feel like it is going to explode out of my chest. My knees give in and I fall to the floor.

I look at Uncle and Aunty. They are both looking at Tanmay with pale faces. It is clear that reality has dawned upon them too. Pia looks like a zombie. She slips down on the floor next to me and digs her head into my shoulder. I have no words to console her.

I will never forget Aunty’s wails. She keeps repeating the same sentence over and over again. ‘No. Not my son. Not my Tanmay. This cannot happen. This
cannot
happen.’ I don’t have the strength to even go close to her and … I just have no idea what to say to her.

But Uncle still doesn’t give up hope. ‘He is still alive. There still might be some hope. He still might open his eyes …’ he keeps saying. It kills me to see him so hopeless, still so hopeful. Maybe he has no other option. Maybe Tanmay is his only option.

Fifteen minutes later, Tanmay’s heart stops beating.

The next few days pass by in a daze. I don’t eat, think or even breathe sometimes. I see everything, but comprehend nothing. I see people coming and going. I see Tanmay’s parents crying, wailing, and saying things that make everyone cry. Every time a new relative walks in, a fresh lot of tears make their way into their eyes. I hear only the constant crying. But there is nothing anyone can do to lessen their misery.

There are times when I sit and feel that Tanmay is standing right behind me, and will tap my shoulder any second. It feels like I have just talked to him about his matches. Like he is still around, but he is not. It’s hard to accept that he is not. Every time I wake up after a troubled sleep, with senseless, confusing dreams, I feel like all of it has never happened. But then I see Pia, lying in her bed, her pillow soaked with tears … and I realize that the nightmares have actually happened.

The one thing I remember distinctly is the moment when Tanmay’s uncle and aunt arrived, along with their son, Tanmay’s cousin. The boy, about three years younger to us, was a spitting image of Tanmay. The exact same features, the cute smile, the stupid hair … even the same nerdy glasses. When he spoke, his voice sounded like Tanmay’s too. I could not bear to look at him for more than a few seconds. It was
way too painful. Aunty held him close to her and cried her heart out … he was probably the closest to her after her own son. Her own
dead
son.

Seeing Aunty cry was probably the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life. No mother should have to face this. Losing a child is the worst thing that can ever happen to a woman. If I am this distraught by the death of a friend whom I met only recently, I cannot even begin to imagine what his parents must be going through. The first few hours after Tanmay passed away were the hardest. Even though I was in no condition to, I had to try and console his parents. I had no words that could help … I doubted
anything
could have helped. So I just held Aunty and cried softly, as her body dissolved into convulsions and her wails echoed in my head—loud and very painful.

After the autopsy, we were allowed to see him. His relatives arranged for a big vehicle to take him back to their home town safely. When I saw his …
body,
I broke down worse than ever. I felt a strong jolt. It was like an electric current shot through my body. It felt like I was floating, away from everything around me, in some other world, where it’s just me and … him—
his body
. How did all of this happen? One day, I see him as the best footballer on the college field, and a couple of days later, I see whatever is left of his dead body wrapped in white cloth, covering everything but his disfigured face? The cute face, now without the specs, with tiny cotton balls stuffed up his nose. I have never cried harder. And they say God exists.

Soon after, Tanmay’s parents took his body back to their home town for the funeral. As soon as they left, there was an emptiness all around us. They left a void behind them … a void that will never be filled. Even though it had been just twenty-four hours since the accident, it already felt like a
very long time. Those twenty-four hours … they were very long and very exhausting. It felt like we had been waiting and praying for Tanmay to get well soon for ages.

And once he …
left
, and his parents took his body away, everything began to seem like a bad dream. I could not believe that at the same time a few days ago, I was on my way back to the hostel from Tanmay’s football match. The match he had heroically won. The match Pia had been panicking to be there for. The cheers of
‘TANMAY! TANMAY! TANMAY! TANMAY!’
were still in my head. Just that it is never going to happen for real again.

Now, it has been a week since he … passed away. It feels weird, the term
passed away
. I still cannot believe what has happened. It feels like we are just sleeping and will wake up to everything being normal once again. But I know that it is never going to happen. Over the last few days, I have realized what has happened, and it has finally settled in—
he is never coming back
.

I spent my entire week either sitting in a corner of my room, wrapping my arms around my knees and pulling them close to me as an armour, or lying down on my back in my bed, staring absently at the ceiling. There has been a constant nagging pain at the back of my head. I haven’t slept for more than a couple of hours continuously. Pia has slept even less. Seeing her cry is very painful. She just sits with me, in our room—dark room, actually, with the curtains drawn and the lights off—and keeps crying.

I have not seen her with dry eyes even for a single second; they are constantly filled with tears. She has been staring at his pictures all week. And that is probably the worst thing someone can do. The photographs bring back memories too vividly. Every crinkle of his nose, the specs that rest on his nose a little crookedly, the shy smile … everything with double the impact. But she never listens to me when I ask
her to stop doing this to herself. Her mourning is painful just to see. Tanmay’s death has affected her way worse than I had first thought.

No matter how much she denies it, I can see that she loved Tanmay. In the past week, I have seen her talk to Vishal on the phone just once. She said she needed time to get over this and deal with the pain. But that’s not what people in love do. They do not take breaks and lock themselves in alone to deal with their pain. They share it. More than ever, they want to be together to be able to face it. Pia trying to shut him out shows what she has been fighting for a long time—she does not love Vishal. He probably is not even someone who deserves to be loved, anyway. But she never says anything bad about him.

Not knowing what to do, fed up of the darkness, I pick up my phone, and call Simran. She has been calling me every couple of hours, to check up on me. But I rarely take her calls. I had not been in the frame of mind to talk.

‘Hello?’ she answers the phone.

‘Hi Simran,’ I say.

‘How are you, Niharika? Is Pia okay?’

‘I am okay,’ I say and look at Pia, who is lying on her bed with her face dug deep into her pillow. Her body shakes and I realize that she is crying. She is not fine at all. ‘Pia is fine too.’

‘Listen—just come home. Come to Jaipur for a few days. I’ll come too. We will spend some time together and it will take your mind off … everything that has happened. You need a break. A change of scenery will do you good.’

‘I can’t leave her here alone. She needs me.’

‘So bring her too. I’m sure Pia would want to visit. We all can have fun. I have heard so much about her from you. I am looking forward to seeing her. You both can take some time off and relax,’ Simran says in a desperate attempt to
cheer me up. It doesn’t help. The thought of
having fun
and
relaxing
seems almost funny, given the present situation.

‘We have exams in a few days. We cannot just leave …’

There is a short pause, after which she says, ‘Do you want me to come there for some time? I can come and stay with you, you know? Just to take care that … you are doing well. Mom worries about you … I am not supposed to tell you this, but she cries on the phone every day. First the news of Tanmay passing away, now your condition …’

‘I know, Simran. But trust me—I will be okay. You cannot expect such a thing to become all right overnight. Give me some time.’

‘Let me come there and help you through this? I know it needs time, but let me be with you in that time. We will handle this together,’ she says. I can hear her pleading tone, but I don’t want to bother her or Mom with this.

‘I am fine! I can take care of myself. I do not need anyone.’

‘You do. Look at yourself. Do you even eat? Take a shower? Step out of your room? You are
not
taking care of yourself. You need someone to be there to take care of you. And I don’t mind doing that. I prefer being with you and seeing you cry, as opposed to being here and wondering how you are doing.’

‘I need to be alone,’ I say.

‘Don’t be so selfish. We are all worried—’

‘I am
not
being selfish! Is it too much to want to be left alone for some time? You have no idea what I am going through. And trust me—no one and nothing can make it go away. It’s
you
who is being selfish. You can’t understand what it is that I am facing and just want to be here as if it is going to help.’

‘Niharika, we just care about you. We worry about—’ she tries to say something, but I don’t let her.

‘Stop it, Simran. You are worried about me just by knowing what has happened.
I
am the one who has seen it happen. It has happened
to
me. It was
my
friend who died. So just … please. Leave me alone. Let me be.’

I hang up before she can say anything else. I breathe heavily. I know that it was unfair of me to vent my frustration on her like that, but I could not help it. There is a storm raging inside me. What happened to Tanmay was not what he deserved. It was not his fault. It was just bloody wrong.

Karthik. He is the one whose fault it is. I sometimes feel like picking up an axe and bashing him up and showing the cocky bastard what pain is. I want to make him pay for his mistakes. But just blaming everything on Karthik doesn’t help either. Even though it is he who began all this, he could not have foreseen such a major accident. I sometimes wonder what he must be going through, knowing that he was—to a major extent—responsible for someone’s death. Does he sleep at nights? Can he, ever?

I did see him somewhere in the background a few days ago, when I was making my way back to my hostel from the mess. I don’t know if it was him, neither did I turn around to find out. If I did, the urge to kill him would have overtaken me. Though I know I cannot actually kill another person, but I would at least have tried. And a scene in public was the last thing I wanted. Otherwise, I would have been happy to kill him. He doesn’t deserve to live. Every breath of his is a curse, a curse that my friend had to pay for. I wish he didn’t exist. I wish only the worst for him. I wish
he
had died.