The man easily plucked his forearm out of Suresh’s grip and his fist smashed into the doctor’s face with such force that it sent him sprawling to the ground. Suresh remembered the shock of the blow and nothing more. When he woke up, there was strong light shining down on him, the whole of his head ached. But his lips hurt the most. Somebody, probably Dr Ravikumar, was looking over him. The back of his scalp also throbbed with pain. As he stirred and moved around, they gave him another dose of analgesics and he drifted back to sleep. Next time he woke up, he found himself in one of the private rooms.
He touched his lips, he felt the stitches. His head still ached, but much less. The evening sun slanted in through the window, posting a large patch of light on the wall, within which the shadows of leaves did a lazy jig. Soon, a nurse came, helped him sit up. He had a little tea from the flask and a sandwich, both of which Malathi, Dr Ravikumar’s wife, had left on the table. When the nurse was gone, he searched behind his head and found a large bump the size of a big lemon. He stood to his feet gingerly and moved to the toilet. No major problems, he told himself. Later that evening, Dr Ravikumar came along, pulled up a chair and sat down. They smiled at each other; the senior doctor squeezed his shoulder and chuckled. “That was quite an adventure you had, Suresh. I thought we might have to take you down, but you woke up. Still ideally, I would say you need a CT. Would you like to go to Madurai to get one?” “No way!” Suresh mumbled through swollen lips. “I will be alright. Who was that lady?” “That was Usha, one of our staff.” “Yes,” replied Suresh. “I thought I had seen her somewhere.”
The guy was her husband, a policeman. He carried you on his shoulder a little way up the road before others brought the stretcher. We did not hear the whole story until much later; by that time, the offender had left the campus with his wife and child.” After some silence, Dr Ravikumar asked, “Should we lodge a complaint?” “No,” replied Suresh, “I don’t think anything will come of it, and besides, I am not hurt badly or anything.” “Anyway, you saved that girl a thorough thrashing.” “Did you wear goggles and take the necessary precautions when you sutured me?” asked Dr Suresh after a while. “And I hope the blood-contaminated stuff was properly dealt with.” “Don’t worry; everything has been taken care of,” Dr Ravikumar reassured him. In time, Suresh asked how the outpatient clinic was faring and then about a patient. “You get some rest,” said Dr Ravikumar, getting up. “I will send you your dinner.” After dinner, he lay down in the darkness and thought about his life; he thought about his mother and remembered the first time he had told her about his changed status.
How it would never be the same for him. About a few days before this, she had heard that Sunithi’s father had gone and taken her home. She had not thought much about this. Then she heard that she was not coming back and the engagement had been annulled. All this had upset his mother, but she had not asked for the reasons, knowing that in telling, he may have to go over pain again. After all, he seemed alright and there would be other girls. But when he told her about what had happened to him, she did not understand at first. Throughout the next twenty-four hours, she asked him many questions. Suresh knew she was constantly thinking about it, searching for ways to somehow find that it was not as bad as it looked. Finally, she was silent. It was as though all these props and hopes had one by one been taken from her, and her spirit lay lifeless within her. The next day, Suresh saw her many times as he passed a window or a door, sitting in the shadows and weeping silently. If he entered, she would get up abruptly and leave the room without looking at him; as she passed by, he saw the stricken face and the two wet lines coursing down on either side of her face.
At other times, she beckoned to him, grabbed his hands, cupped it to her lips and sobbed inconsolably until the backs of his hands were drenched with her tears. He had gone back to his work and study after about a week, but whenever he rang her, he could sense the sadness in her voice. He would not tell his parents about the encounter he had had today. It would only upset them and besides, what good would it do? His lips hurt a little, but soon the analgesic and sedative that Dr Ravikumar had prescribed went to work and he drifted off to sleep. Later in the night, his mind woke within him and he dreamt that he was running on a railway platform only to find his train well on its way out of the station. With a sinking heart, he watched the large yellow X on the rear end of the last compartment pass by quickly and recede into the distance. Suresh slept through past the dawn and woke up to the glare of a morning sun already well upon its way. A breakfast of toast and omelette was waiting for him on the table. He sat on the edge of the bed for a while before he walked to the bathroom. He stooped a little and looked into the mirror over the sink. His upper lip was swollen quite a bit and the skin had turned red and shiny, it was almost purple around where the stitches held the wound together.
He decided he could not go to the hospital looking like this. What would his patients say? Moreover, the back of his head was still quite sore. He gingerly felt the bump and noted that although it was tender to touch, it had not grown any further. After a few days’ rest, his mirror told him that he was looking well enough to return to the hospital. None of the staff asked him anything, which did not surprise him because he knew that all of them would probably have heard of the matter. His patients were waiting for him and there were more of them than usual because he had been on leave. A few of the more curious among them had questions, which Suresh brushed aside with a summary statement about a ‘small accident’. It was the third day after his return. Suresh examined a patient and was now bent over a prescription. He noticed a figure in white slip in and stand beside the patient. Probably a staff nurse from the ward wanting some clarification, he thought, as he finished writing. He looked up and there she stood nervously, and for comfort, her hands clung to each other tightly. For a second or two, he had no clue as to who she was, but then it all came back. The dark and flawless skin. The magical symmetry of that face with high cheekbones and pinched nose. The long eyelashes that now flitted up and down. “Doctor,” she stuttered, “Doctor, I am sorry about what happened. Thank you for helping me.” By this time, her lips were trembling and her eyelids fluttered in an effort to hold back the tears. She turned and hurried out of the room before he had a chance to say anything. Indeed, even if he had the chance, he would have had nothing to say.
The weeks rolled into months. Once in a while, Usha would pass him in the corridor or they would meet in the wards. The initial shy smile had evolved into one that conveyed a tinge of affection and he always reciprocated with a polite one of his own. On many a morning, his mirror showed him the faint scar on his lip and he would remember how it came to be there.
The rainy season had come and gone, bestowing new life all around. The hills were clothed with a rich blanket of green and if you cared to go closer, you would notice the wildflowers, and if you held one in your hand, you would see that each one was a masterpiece. It was a Thursday morning and patients were few. Suresh’s face brightened as the nurse called out for the next patient— Babu. Babu came into the room with a swing in his gait and a smile on his face so different from the first time Suresh had seen him. Suresh marvelled at the resilience of youth that had allowed the lad to bounce back so readily. As he sat down, Suresh clapped him on his back and asked, “How are you, Babu?” “All right,” he replied, returning the doctor’s smile. Behind him, the boy’s father stood with stooped shoulders; his face still wore some of the pain that they were going through. Suresh had first seen Babu one night about two weeks ago. The teenager had been brought with severe pain in his right ear and loss of hearing on that side. On examination, the ear was red and bruised in places, but there was more to it than that. The boy’s face was drained of colour and he was trembling with fear. “Bring me the otoscope,” Suresh told the nurse on duty.
Babu winced as the doctor gently held his ear with one hand and introduced the scope into the ear canal with the other. He could see the eardrum now. Its usual delicate pearly white appearance was gone. The membrane was dull, red and inflamed, a ‘C’ shaped tear ran through its centre. Suresh could well imagine the force of the blow that would have caused such havoc. Suresh immediately put the boy to bed, ordered an IV antibiotic and a powerful painkiller. Then he turned his attention to the paperwork. He could not get a word out of the boy. His father was standing penitently in a corner, watching with folded hands. Suresh beckoned him to join him at the consultation table. “What happened? Did you hit him?” asked the doctor. “I am his father,” said the man. “I know; did you hit him?” persisted the doctor. “No,” replied the man who, by then, was trembling ever so lightly. “Then who did? And I don’t want any falling down story. The truth: understand?” Then the man began to narrate a piteous story, reaching to wipe away his tears from time to time. Babu and his father lived in a tiny village in the midst of the Palani hill reserve forests. The jungle surrounded them, except for a wide swathe of land that belonged to the villagers and few others who lived most of their time in the plains.
The dirt road that served this hamlet ran through this strip of land before making a large circle that brought it round to the main road. The few buses that came their way stopped on this road and the villagers had to walk the rest of the way. The village was less than half a kilometre from the main road, as the crow flies, but if we were to take the dirt road, we would have to walk a little more than 2 kilometres. Herein lay the difficulty, that led father and son into a trap that would change their lives. They were not alone in what they did. Many of the villagers took the same shortcut. It was a small overgrown path that was barely visible in places. It cut across the forest straight from the nearest point on the main road to the edge of their hamlet. On that fateful day, father and son had gone down to the Oddanchatram market and bought themselves a new spade, machete and an assorted bag of household goods. They got down on the main road and took the shortcut up through the woods. On the path, they found many dry broken branches that they innocently gathered. They were almost three-fourth of the way to the village when down the path came three forest guards with a ranger coming up behind them. Babu and his father froze as the men came up to them. The bundle of sticks fell from their hands. The guards surrounded them, their eyes boring into them menacingly. “Illegal logging!” said one of them who had a thick moustache that spread out like a sickle on either side of his face. “And trespassing on forest land,” he added, grinning at his friends. “He has even got the machete in his hands. Come along with us now and no tricks.” They went up the path with two guards behind them and one in front. The ranger had already gone ahead of them and was waiting for them in his jeep. The guards brought their captives up to the jeep and ordered them the climb in. Babu’s father dropped the bags he was carrying and fell at their feet, only to be kicked in the side of his chest by one of the guards. Babu came to his father’s rescue, falling down to his knees and spreading out his hand protectively over the older man who was now clutching his side and grimacing with pain.
In the next instance, Babu was hauled up by his arm and he found himself looking in the livid face of the guard with the large moustache. Babu could not recall much beyond that because the man had hit him across his ear with such force that he momentarily lost consciousness. When he came to, he found himself lying on the floor of the jeep as it bumped along to the range station. His father, who was squatting nearby, had the boy’s head cradled in his hands. He looked to the side and saw just inches from his face the boots of the guard closest to them. Babu felt so terrified that he found it hard to breathe. Thus, they bumped along to the range station many miles away. Here, they were thrown into an enclosure about 6 feet by 6 feet in size. It had tin sheets for walls and a small window high up with bamboo cross bars. There they stayed till all the paperwork was getting ready. At a rough desk, they were asked their names and address, made to sign (and thumbprint for the older man) on dotted lines, and then back they went to their cell. Evening came, and if you had the chance to look in on them, you would have seen father and son clutched in each other’s arms, weeping silently. And where their mingled tears fell, little clods formed in the mud. Meanwhile, their family had heard of what had happened to them. They had run to the panchayat chief in Pachalur. He accompanied a group of relatives to the range office. After some parleying and exchange of small money, the ranger allowed them to go but they would not withdraw the FIR (First Information Report).
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