My car screeched to a halt outside the hospital. Going through the metal detector, security scanning, I rushed blindly to my left, bumping into people. The lady at the reception desk looked at me calmly when I asked her which floor my wife was on. She'd probably been at this job for too long since she tackled the hurried enquiries made by people surrounding her like a pack of wolves, undeterred.
Just then i heard Vinayak's voice calling out my name. I rushed to where I could see him waving his hand frantically.
"How is she?" I asked. Words swayed up and down over my heavy breathing, riding the waves of despair.
"She's fine for now. That's what the doctors said." Squeezing into the elevator with other tired looking people, with me beside him, he continued, "They won't know how much fine till she completely comes out of the unconscious state."
The elevator excreted people at couple of floors before stopping on the 4th floor and with a bing, the doors slid open. I rushed out with Vinayak hurrying along.
Mom and Rama got up from their seat when they saw me. They had been waiting outside the ICU. Mom came forth and hugged me while Vinayak went by Rama's side and put his arms around her shoulders.
"I shouldn't have left her alone. I thought..I thought she would be studying for her exams. So I went to the market without her. I came home and found her lying on the floor, the wooden stool with one crooked leg by her side," mom said, sniffing away her tears.
"Amma its not your fault. It would have happened anyway even if all of us would have been at home with her," I said, trying to soothe her.
Feet shuffled in and out of the ICU ward, none of the doctors saying a word. Rama and mom sat huddled together, getting up with expectant faces every time the doctors came out of the ward.
Time was forced ahead by us counting each and every second. Every face that came out of the ward had a similar story to tell, Can't say anything now. Couple of hours later, a nurse came upto us and asked who the husband was. I came forward and she escorted me to an office situated on the 5th floor.
She rapped her knuckles over the office door and she pushed her neck around the door addressing the person on the other side. If the situation wasn't grave and if Sujatha had been around to see this, she would have joked the nurse looked like a dinosaur in Jurassic Park pushing its neck around the door in the kitchen scene where the children are trapped.
Getting permission to enter, she nodded at the door and turning on her heels, hurried along her duties, leaving me standing at the door. Not knowing what was coming next made me anxious. I twisted the knob with a sweaty palm and entered the office. A woman in her late forties sat hunched over a desk, glasses perched over her nose, eyes intent on reading the papers before her, as if trying to extract the words written in invisible ink.
I cleared my throat and she looked up. Her wrinkled eyes held the proof of having seen more than her share of casualties. She smiled, plucked the glasses off her eyes and motioned me towards a chair facing her. Reluctantly, I moved to take my seat.