The obnoxious sound of hot water gushing from the geyser into the bucket placed below it woke me up. My unpredictable doesn’t-know-when-to-sleep-doesn’t-know-when-to-rise roommate had just decided to take a bath, at 7 am on a Sunday. My sleepy eyes shifted to my bandaged leg, much dirtier but much less swollen than it had been ten days ago. The memories of the most excruciating ten days of my life flashed before my eyes. Scornful “friends”, non co-operative roommates, those walks of pain, limping my way to college, that life of dependence...
It all ends today.
Today was the day I bade adieu to those ugly stitches. The stitches that I dutifully bandaged every two days, the stitches that left me sleepless for ten nights, the stitches that made me lie to my parents about me being OK, the stitches that could have been avoided after all.
I forced myself back to sleep, but couldn’t evade the thoughts that began flowing in mechanically. I remembered looking at my foot the day after I got the stitches – it had swollen to twice its normal size, and was hurting like hell. It had gone numb from being held in the same position throughout the night, and placing it on the smooth, cold floor sent a searing pain right to the groin. As I limped my way to the lavatory for relieving myself, the thought of squatting scared me to the core. What came next was even worse. My foot began hurting even more, especially at the part where the stitches were sewn. I went to the bathroom for a bath, wrapping my right leg with a soft towel.
The bandage should not get wet.
I was limping through the rest of the day, and while my roommates didn’t give a damn about my predicament, I didn’t want them to oblige me anyway. Both my knee and ankle hurt badly, and throughout the ten days, I kept thinking that I should’ve slept early that fateful night, it’d have saved me so much pain, so much money, so much frustration. Fortunately the people in college were a little more considerate than my roommates, some of them even cursing Sangit for being inept at driving.
I felt proud of myself for not missing class or college even for a single day throughout the injury period, and while I travelled behind friends and acquaintances to class, Siddharth was the one who had to put up with the situation the most. He couldn’t sit behind me on the bike anymore, hell I couldn’t sit on my bike myself! He had to get the tiffin everyday for me, albeit I’m sure it helped him lose some kilos for sure! He had to shell out half the money for rickshaw rides to class with me. For once he looked like he was enduring more physical pain than me, because of my injury! He even lost his cool one day, but seeing my swollen, blue-black foot, he calmed down again.
Tarun was also very helpful throughout the ten days. He dropped me to my flat almost every day, even offered to take me to class, even though it was totally out of his way. Sangit, out of guilt, would take me to college every day on his bike. He was hurt too, although it was just a bruise. The exam in college I was so apprehensive about felt like a cinch. I hated my luck for being hurt, I could’ve enjoyed so much even during the exams and still scored full!
For a few days, I wore three-fourths, a T-shirt and a sleeveless pull over to college. It earned me the ire of a few professors and the Head of Department, but after learning about my helplessness, they decided to express their disapproval with their unwelcome facial expressions. I didn’t care. My foot pained and swelled every time I set it on the ground. Denigrating professors were the least of my worries now. Oh I hated the stitches! The only times I saw them and the extent of the healing was during my visits to the nearby nursing home every two days. I used to go there religiously as advised by the daunting doctor to change my dressing. I was repeatedly told not to wet the wound, and I took care of that every morning.
The nights were even worse. I was compelled to sleep in a position I generally avoided in my happier times. I couldn’t let the stitches touch the bedsheet, which still bore the stains of my blood from that catastrophic night. I tried dreaming about happy situations – my visit to Hong Kong Disneyland, my occasional visits home, my sojourn in Macau, but well, nothing did much to dismiss the agony. I longed to go home, sit on my soft bed, sip some hot coffee, watch TV...
I decided to make full utilisation of my time in bed. I picked up a few books, watched a few good movies. I read Dan Brown’s ‘The Lost Symbol’, which I loved despite the mixed reviews I’d heard about it. On the day the stitches were to be removed, I shun all my studies and decided to finish reading the book. The day passed in tension, my mind still filled with angst about how the evening would turn out. Tarun had agreed to come with me to the nursing home. I caught on some sleep in the afternoon, and woke up three hours later, with the collywobbles about what was going to happen a few minutes later.
Tarun came to pick me up at 4:30 sharp, and I readied myself mentally for the examination. We reached the nursing home in minutes. I peered in through the open door into the doctor’s room, and found the familiar bearded, bespectacled doctor flirting with a lady doctor near the door. I said nervously, “Sir, I’d got 2 stitches ten days back, today-“
“I know, I sewed them myself”, he said coolly, and walked to the room inside.
The same room where I’d been lying nervously ten days back, where I waited in apprehension for the blood-curling needle to pierce through my skin.
The lady doctor carefully opened the dressing on my foot. She studied the stitches with keen interest, and said the most horrifying four words to the bearded doctor, “You sewed them yourself?” She was impressed, her look quite antithetical to mine. I stared in horror at the doctor as he reached a small pair of tongs to my ankle. I was terrified, but couldn’t close my eyes. Tarun was texting behind me. Good he’s unfazed. The doctor carelessly plucked the two stitches one by one, and it burned a little. He even remarked that the wound had healed well, adding to my joy of finally parting with the hideous stitches.
All this while the lady doctor was looking from my foot to my face, eyeing the entire ordeal with her hazel eyes. It was then that I noticed her features, she was short, yet had a pretty face, small lips and a fair, clear complexion. I asked her why the wound was burning. She said something about the applied medicine that I don’t remember, but her rural dialect was unmistakeable. Tragedy of all girls in puna. As if sensing the threat to his love life, the bearded doctor flashed the prescription paper before my eyes, reminding me that it was time to leave.
I had to shell out Rs. 50 for the stitch removal, which I gave happily. I walked out of the hospital, the last sound I heard being that of the attractive lady doctor. I returned to my flat, beaming. My roommates seemed elated, Siddharth being the happiest.
The last ten days, albeit racking, taught me a lesson for a lifetime. I began appreciating my body even more, and even though I still had to limp a little to go everywhere I was glad the stitches were finally off. The wound now reminds me how mortal I am. It has made me realise that I’m not indestructible, as I’ve always viewed myself. I too, have an Achilles’ heel, well literally.
That night, I slept in peace, my heel finally touched the bedsheet – the first time it had touched something other than nursing hands or bandages. I felt liberated, letting the cold night air playfully tickle my feet. I smiled meekly at my foot, silently apologising for what had happened to it a few days back. But it was all over now, I thought, and all I knew was that the night is darkest before the dawn. The night was on its brink now, and one thing was certain.
The dawn awaits.
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