The Truncation

Chapter 1

                   Jeyanth was a teenager who had just graduated from high school and was living in Kota city of Rajasthan, a state in the north western part of India. It is a hub for coaching for Engineering and Medical Entrance examinations, attracting hundreds of thousand students every year. Students from all over India came to study in Kota and prepare particularly for the IIT-JEE and AIPMT. He was hoping to crack JEE this year. Kota was his hometown, but he had rented a small apartment to stay while he attended the coaching classes. Like every other bachelor apartment his room was a disarray of clothes, books and wrappers.

              Suddenly it dawned on him that it was his birthday today. He grabbed at his mobile phone to look at the list of messages and calls that he had missed. There were ten messages. The first one was from Pia.

               He read and smiled at the message. He had first met her while travelling in a train. Till then he had believed that his mother was the most beautiful woman on earth. Then over the years they had fallen in love with each other. She too lived in Kota with her uncle. She had lost her parents when she was young.

               Reading the other messages he walked sluggishly towards the bathroom, cursing himself for not setting the alarm. He looked at his reflection in the mirror. There has not been any drastic change in his appearance in the past few years except of course he had grown a bit taller. He ran his fingers along his unkempt hair.

               Then he spent the next ten minutes in the shower. While he was dressing the bell to his apartment rang. Hastily shrugging into his T-shirt he ran to get the door. Without caring to look through the lens he opened the door.

               A figure filled the doorway, a figure of a man with a stout frame and a protruding belly. The man was wearing a coat over his shirt and had an old pair of slacks on. One hand clutched a briefcase and the other was flung up to the newsboy cap perched on his head. The darkness in the corridor veiled his face; but Jeyanth could still recognize the man. It was Dr.Chandra Paul who lived two blocks away. He usually dressed up like a mad scientist and acted like one.

              “What’s up doc?” asked a clearly surprised Jeyanth. “Did you walk two blocks with that coat on? Then you must’ve been in a hurry to meet me. Come in.” he stepped aside to make room for the scientist to enter.

                “Yes I’m running behind schedule” he said closing the door behind him. “Happy birthday Jeyanth” he said extending an untidily packed gift towards him.

                 “Wow, thank you. That’s very nice of you; but did you come all the way just to wish me?” he asked gingerly. He cleared the heap of clothes lying on the sofa making space for the scientist to sit.

                  “Well, Jeyanth I need you at the lab immediately” said the scientist pursing his lips.

                  “Not today doc; you know today is my birthday”, Jeyanth groaned dropping the clothes in a basket that stood by the wall. “I have planned to spend the day with my friends and coming with you would just rob away all the fun.” He looked like a man who had not heard any good news for a while.

                   The scientist shook his head disapprovingly. “This morning I got a call from the Kota blood bank society. A girl met with an accident today and lost a lot of blood. Her condition is critical, and to make matters worse the blood group she needs is same as yours. You know the value of your blood and regrettably the blood bank is out of stock of the Bombay blood group.”

                   Jeyanth looked clearly baffled. He knew that the Bombay blood group which he possessed was very rare among humans. This very rare phenotype is generally present in about four per million of the human population. In fact he had actually met only one other fellow human with the same blood type.

                     It was Pia.  

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