acceptance by bhaswar mukarjee
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It was time. Prabhat looked around the table at his incomplete family. To his left sat their eldest son Suraj, his beautiful wife Nazia and two year old toddler Amaanat. To his right was their daughter Chandni and next to her sat youngest son Ishaan on the chair Prabhat usually sat on. Next to Ishaan, across Prabhat the chair was vacant. It had been lying empty for the past five months, ever since Dr Firoze at Fortis Hospital, Bangalore had made the terrible prognosis about Nisha, his wife and companion for the last thirty two years.
He had never imagined that the family would be together again so soon and in such trying circumstances. In fact Nisha and he had painstakingly planned all the wonderful things that they would do to reclaim their youth once the children were gone. They had promised themselves never to allow the customary ennui of empty nesters to get the better of them. They would roam the world together visiting places they never could, see all the movies that they had missed, visit all their relatives who they could not make time for and go for every college reunion. After all, that is where they had met and fallen in love. They would plant a tree, support children in an orphanage, work for the betterment of the community around them. By the time Ishaan had flown from the nest, their bucket list promised to keep them occupied into their next lives.
One evening as they both sat with their crystal glasses of single malt enjoying the cocoon of silence around them and added yet another “to do” item in the list, Nisha had remarked with a mischievous twinkle in her eye, ‘to accomplish all of this, you will have to spend another lifetime with me. Think you could handle that?’
Prabhat had taken her hand in his and had simply said, ‘Every time. And again.’
Then suddenly without warning, their life had fallen apart. A month after Ishaan left, Nisha had complained of breathlessness and dizziness. Prabhat had joked that it was because she was rediscovering the man in him now that she had his undivided attention. Routine blood tests revealed elevated liver enzymes which their family physician Dr Firoze had attributed to Nisha’s long use of statins to keep her cholesterol in check. When Nisha’s health continued to deteriorate and her blood sugar shot up to abnormal levels, they had got worried and done all the scans and tests before the worst was confirmed. Nisha was in the advanced stages of pancreatic cancer which had metastasized into her liver and lungs, causing pulmonary embolism and diabetes mellitus.
Prabhat remembered the passage connecting the ward where Nisha lay to Dr Firoze’s chamber where he had been summoned when the test results were done. While Nisha fretted about the unnecessary tests being done by the ‘mercenary medical system on hapless retirees and eating into their travel money’, Prabhat felt himself unable to complete the journey to the doctor’s room. He felt the sterile walls of the walkway close in upon him as a thousand possibilities and apprehensions enveloped him. The look on Dr Firoze’s face confirmed his worst fears.
‘I am sorry Prabhat,’ was all that Dr Firoze could muster for his childhood friend.
Nisha’s delicate state and the spread of the disease precluded surgery leaving chemotherapy as the only solution.
‘What are her chances Firoze?’ asked Prabhat. ‘Give me a percentage.’
‘Dammit!’ swore Prabhat. ‘She has been the healthy one in all the time that I have known her. She can outrun me, outplay me in squash, gets the better of me in mental calisthenics when we play chess or bridge! How is this even possible?’
‘Pancreatic cancer is the most insidious and the most silent of all cancers. I am sorry my friend.’ Dr. Firoze had said. ‘I will refer you to the best I know; Dr. Ambrish. Try and keep her as cheerful as you possibly can.’
In his life this was the second shock for Prabhat. Fifteen years ago, his younger brother Sumeet had slipped and fallen from the terrace of their apartment in Mumbai. Sumeet had come with a job and was staying with them. Prabhat was on tour and had come rushing back. It had been traumatic and Prabhat was feeling a strong sense of déjà vu.
Fighting back tears and his emotions, Prabhat walked back slowly to the ward managing to even brave a smile as he walked in. Nisha had dozed off. On the table next to her bed, she had scribbled on a pad, ‘Feeling tired again. Warm the vegetables in the small fridge on the first shelf. Do not touch the chicken on the second shelf- we will have that when I return tomorrow! I have also checked the level in the whiskey bottle. No stealing a drink when I am amay.
Answer:
ok wait she still not answer to my question