Family Short Story – Deep Love And A Dark Secret
Photo credit: NinoAndonis from morguefile.com
Thanking people is always fun, and something that I like to do.I’m no poet, I will Admit that first,
So forgive me if the rhymes go askew.
I am Rahul. Am a Doctor . I was born and brought up here in Mumbai. Sometimes I feel I don’t belong here. Is it possible for a man to truly change? Or do character and habit from the immovable boundaries of our lives? Well yes.This is what life taught me.
My life took a very drastic change. The day I learned about my Mother was the day when I last saw her.That night changed my life completely.
In the course of my life I’ve been selfish and stubborn and as ignorant as a goldfish, and it pains me to realize this about myself. It all started 5 years ago……
My life was hell. My dad loved his wife a lot. All his life he tried to keep her happy but something was missing. His wife, my mother was never satisfied. My mother was a very ambitious woman and irony of the life was that my dad was the biggest hurdle between her and her dreams. So she decided to chase her dreams, achieve her goals with the man she always loved and left my dad. My dad was not able to move on. He tried to be both my mother and father. He loved me a lot. But it always used to hurt seeing him cry at nights missing my mom. MY dad used to always say “Sometimes in life you have to wait, wait for the person you loved truly,wait for that person to come back to you”.
I hated my mother. Every single day I used to pray wherever she is let her rot in hell. I hated her more than anything. But as they say things change. We are in the end puppets of time. Time brings in new twists and our life changes completely.
It was a big day for me and my dad. I completed my MBBS from a reputed college of Mumbai and now all set to do my internship in Kalgan, a place few kilometers away from Mumbai. Dad came to drop me at the station. The train was about to leave when he said look son whatever you do in your life, never cheat and never hurt. Sometimes situations will be like you will have to pull somebody down inorder to go ahead. But my son don’t ever do it. Instead hold the hand of that person and finish the journey together.
I Reached Kalgan the very next day. It is a very beautiful place. I reached the hostel where I was supposed to live for next six months, met my roomies, got fresh and left for the hospital.
I was fifteen minutes late. The senior doctor of that hospital was very annoyed. The peon told me she is a very strict lady. She hates people who do not respect time and I should go meet her and apologize ASAP. I went to her cabin. She wasn’t there. It was a very well maintained cabin. There was a photo frame on the table of that cabin. It’s a bad habit to check other people’s stuff but out of curiosity I went ahead and checked that photo frame. I turned it and I was shocked. It was my dad’s photo and the name plate on the table read Dr. Maya Danish Popat. I was shocked.
Maya was the lady my dad truly loved,the lady I hated the most,the lady who left my father when he needed her, the lady who left me when I needed her. I got super angry and was about to leave when she came in.There was a complete silence in the room.To my surprise that lady recognized me. Holding my hand she said I was waiting for you my son. Before she could say anything further I don’t what happened but she collapsed. The nurse came in and asked me if I cud help to lift her up and put her on the wheel chair. We took her to the ICU where the doctor in charge saw her condition and said the time has come. All her body organs have failed. Her immunity is zero and the disease is now about to take the toll of her life. What disease I screamed. What happened to her I asked.
AIDS, the Doctor said
………..There was a complete silence…………
22 years ago she had come to my clinic in Mumbai the doctor said. At that time she was pregnant and as a routine check-up she did some tests. That time I discovered she is an HIV positive.
She went into a trauma. It took her almost a week to accept the fact that she has an active virus in her body that is considered to be a taboo in the society. 22 years down the lane my son AIDS was something very new and the people were not so aware about it. HIV positive and AIDS were considered to be the same. It was your luck that few Doctors had found out a cure to prevent the child from the virus even if the mother is HIV positive.
Your mom knew the society won’t ever accept this. She knew if they learn about this the people will boycott you and your father and so she decided to leave you . She love you and your father a lot my child. But she had to leave you guys for your own good. She decided to fight this battle on her own. Just last year she was diagnosed with AIDS. During the therapies she always used to say just once she want to see you. Before dying she wanted to tell you how much she loved you and your father . She wanted to say that your father’s right, I loved him a lot but I cant get back to him for his own good.
Our discussion was interrupted as a nurse came in and said we lost DR. Maya. At that very moment I was stunned. I had no words to say. I didn’t know how to react. I broke down and stared crying. All I could remember is my dad’s words “Sometimes in life you have to wait, wait for the person you loved truly, wait for that person to come back to you”
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