"The designs are much better here, and I feel so out of place when I attend any cultural event in the States. You have no idea how dazzling everyone looks," Bhuvana answered, seeming a little peeved.

"I didn't picture you as a 'jewelry-girl'," Raghav remarked.

"Society driven personal choices - not my of my own prefereces," Bhuvana clarified. "You have no idea how long it has been since I actually shopped for stuff like this. I am the only odd one out in all the social gatherings in NY. Everyone is so in tune with all the latest trends of Indian fashion. I barely get anyone to bring me stuff from India when they are coming over. All the folks I know abroad place special shopping orders in India and get it over when someone's visiting them from here. I don't have any visitors and consequently, nothing good to wear for social occasions."

"I can understand that," Eshwar sighed. "I attended three weddings when I was in Spain, one of them an Indian one, and I realized we need to have proper places to shop abroad for such occasions, or at least have someone visiting us from India so we can get them to bring things over."

"Okay, I get you point," Raghav said in acceptance.

"Why don't you take your mother's jewelry?" Eshwar quipped to Bhuvana. "Now that the old witch - your step-mother is dead, can't you just get your mom's things?"

"You really think it is that easy when her father won't let her anywhere near that neighbourhood?" Raghav filled in before Bhuvana could say it. She simply nodded in agreement.

They were about to get out of the car when Raghav's phone rang.

"It's Subodh," Raghav muttered as he saw the name flash on his phone screen. "He hasn't called in ages."

"Subodh?" Bhuvana asked. "Your cousin? The veterinary surgeon?"

"Yeah," Raghav nodded as he took the call.

"You still remember him?" Eshwar asked Bhuvana in a low whisper as Raghav spoke over the phone.

"Yeah. He treated your brother for his diarrhoea during your sister's wedding, didn't he?" Bhuvana recalled. "I was surprised by his knowledge. He's a genius."

Eshwar nodded in agreement.

"Oh god, when?" Raghav was asking in a worried tone over the call. "That's not good. Are you okay now? Which hospital? I will come over. When's the visitation hour?"

Eshwar and Bhuvana exchanged glances of concern as Raghav finished his call.

"Is he alright? Did anything happen?" Eshwar questioned as soon as Raghav put his phone down.

"He's down with a bad case of pneumonia. He called me because he is bored in the hospital and wants me to come over with some books."

"Always the oddball," Bhuvana smiled. "Wouldn't his wife or kids get him that?"

"His wife cannot go book-shopping now, she is not in the best of health either. And his two kids are living in the USA too." Raghav sighed.

"No wonder he is bored," Eshwar remarked. "When will you go over?"

"Visitation is at five in the evening. It's almost two now. I will go over to look for the books in an hour and drive to the hospital," Raghav planned.

"We could come with you," Bhuvana offered.

"Nah, you have to travel back to NY soon. It' better if you stay away from hospitals for now, just in case you don't catch any virus or infection," Eshwar reasoned.

"True," Raghav seconded.

Hospitals weren't new to him, yet Raghav could never shake off the odd feeling he got on entering them. He had never been sick enough to frequent a hospital and the occasional cold and fever he contracted during yearly seasons of viral infection spreads always seemed to subside with the most basic medicines he took.

Thankfully for him, none of his immediate family had ever been hospitalized either. To Raghav, it was a bragging right that his family came with really good genes.

As he made his way to the ICU, fully sanitized and wearing protective gear, a couple of books in his hands, he ended up walking behind a couple of medical interns who were making rounds in the ward as part of their daily training routine.

"Is he a doctor?" one of the interns, a short, bespectacled lad was asking in half curiosity and half bemusement.

"A veterinary surgeon apparently, currently working as a Surgery Professor at the state university," the other intern, a considerably taller girl who looked like she needed proper sleep, answered knowingly.

"How would a veterinary doctor know so many things about human medical sciences?"

"Maybe we are not much different from animals, just more complicated and valuable," the girl drawled.

The interns shifted their topic of discussion to a complex case they were working on and Raghav walked through the ICU, looking for his friend.

He found Subodh reclining on a bed closed off with curtains on two sides, with the upper half of the hospital bed pulled up so he can sit comfortably in a reclining position. Subodh had a couple of needles stuck to his left hand, one of them connected to what appeared to be an IV bag, the chemicals dripping down slowly. He was sitting up with a book opened and was seriously reading.

"There you are," Raghav greeted, coming to stand in front of Subodh's bed.

Subodh looked up and then broke into a smile on seeing his cousin.

"About time. I am getting bored." Subodh closed his book and set it aside as Raghav pulled a chair and sat down close to Subodh.

"How are you?" Raghav was genuinely concerned. Subodh looked pale and his face was gaunt, eyes baggy and overall a little aged than usual.

"As good as I can be. I thought I had everything under control but the viral infections in the city got to me stronger this time. I am getting better now." Subodh grinned, making his cousin smile in return.

They filled each other in on the details of recent happenings in their lives, both feeling good about the death of Bhuvana's step-mother without any guilt.

"What are you doing to the interns here? I saw a couple of them mumbling about you," Raghav asked, changing the subject of discussion.

"Not the interns but the resident doctor they are working with - I gave him a lecture on diabetes diagnosis," Subodh answered as a matter of fact.

Raghav rolled his eyes. "You are on a medical leave. Take a break. Just because you are a professor doesn't mean you have to give a lecture discourse everyday."

"No, I didn't give a lecture just for the sake of it," Subodh refuted sitting up higher in agitation. "The resident doctor diagnosed me with diabetes and tried to give me a high dose insulin shot, while I am really not diabetic."

"They did a wrong diagnosis?" Raghav pondered. "They would have diagnosed it based on you sugar levels, right? How can that go wrong?"

Subodh sighed. "I have been on a string of high dose antibiotics and steroids, which have been spiking my glucose levels at statistical intervals based on when the medicationss were administered. The resident doctor timed my glucose levels test wrong and thought I was diabetic. I had to explain the whole science behind it and stop them from giving me the insulin shots. Do you have any idea how the shots would have messed up my body and insulin levels?"

Raghav listened to it with interest. "Saving yourself in style."

"I have to. You need to have some medical knowledge in situations like this. Or have someone with you who has that knowledge. Else situations like this can sometime go out of hands. Do you how many people get treated based on wrong diagnosis and end up with greater sufferings?"

"Well, you are doctor. A veterinary one maybe, but you know stuff. Not everyone has the same privilege," Raghav stated, leaning back.

Subodh blinked, gazing at Raghav wistfully and clarified, "Privilege you say? If I had the privilege, I would have been a cardio thoracic surgeon."

Raghav tilted his head, remembering Subodh's past as Subodh continued in a soft voice, "You have no idea the range of animal species I have treated as a surgeon, the kind of complicated cases I handled with no prior info available, the amount of R&D I have done. I am proud of the research I have done and am still doing, and of the papers I published in the field of veterinary surgery, and the ones I plan on publishing going forward too. But sometimes I just end up having a regretful feeling in the back of my mind that I have not pursued my real dream and passion."

"How long will you keep feeling that way? Your profession doesn't seem so inferior to me that you would have to be so regretful," Raghav tried to uplift Subodh's mood.

"I don't feel inferior, buddy," Subodh answered. "I feel so tied up." He gazed at Raghav briefly before remarking honestly, "Whenever I look at you I feel so envious. I wish I had the freedom you have."

"What do you mean?"

"You don't have any serious responsibilities and can do anything you want without many misgivings or repercussions."

"You have a lovely family who are worried about you," Raghav protested, pointing at the bedside table where a couple of emptied out food boxes were stacked neatly, obviously cleaned after a meal and set there to be picked up by Subodh's wife on her next visit. "Should I tell you how empty it feels at times when you are sick and there's no one who would fuss around till you get well?" Raghav asked with a deadpan face.

Subodh opened his mouth to say something in his defense but realized he didn't have any counter statement. "Ok, yeah, that would be sad too. But, you see, I and my wife have only each other at this point. All those efforts and hard work we did for our kids paid off in a way that doesn't actually help us when we are old and sick. Kids are abroad - they call once or twice a day and ask about our well being. That's all."

He sighed before continuing, "It's not much different from your life. Except, I know my kids will come around if anything serious happens to me. I am sure your nephews or nieces would come for you too."

"One of my nephews would," Raghav conceeded. "If his mother allows him."

"She will. After a point they will send across their kids to you hoping you will pass down all your assets to them as inheritance. Everyone turns calculating after a while." Subodh gave Raghav a knowing look.

Raghav smiled. Deep down he had known that all along too.