Foggy and blurred vision. Inexorable pain in opening the eyelids. Heavy head. Heavy breathing. It took her a millennium to open her eyes. All she could see was lots of people in lab-coats and a sleeping husband beside her hand. Wearing an oxygen mask and lots of fancy medical instruments, she felt extremely tired. Though she wanted to, but could not utter a single syllable. The doctor spoke, as if he could read her mind,"You met with an accident and now are in the hospital. Don't worry you are absolutely fine."
She desperately wanted to speak, so she jerked her neck in order to show that she had questions in her mind. The jerk consumed nearly half of her energy. The doctor said,"Nobody else got hurt. You need to take rest now." And saying this, he left.
Her husband woke up after a while. She signaled him to go to eat something. When he was away, she was engulfed in her own thoughts, she didn't even realize when she fell asleep.
"aagh.." a shrill voice screamed. The voice was overpowered by the collision of the scooter and the SUV. In the middle of a jam-packed road where cars and buses and scooters and cycles and elephants and horses and, oh how can I forget- the cows were trying to make way to reach their destination as quickly as possible, nobody stopped to notice a scooter turning upside down and a woman shrieking in agony. The voice of the unbearable horn deafened humanity, the sight of a scooter upside down over a woman blinded hospitality, the hurridness of people to reach their destinations robbed the senses of people. But, there was a man amongst all that pandemonium who wasn't blinded, or deafened or fooled. He jotted down the address written on the name plate of the SUV and held the bleeding woman in his arms and sat on the rickshaw to make way to the hospital.
After getting her admitted in the emergency ward, he checked the contact list of that lady in her mobile, called up her husband and informed him of what had happened. A crippled voice was heard in the other end of the phone. That man consoled the husband in the best possible way he could and waited there, outside the emergency room, just like a flower which waits for the spring to blossom.
"Yes, yes. Of course. No problem at all. Don't worry, I'll be there on time, I promise. Bye." She disconnected the phone. It was her best friend's wedding, obviously she couldn't miss it. Her friend had called her up just to ensure that she would be present, because she had missed her engagement a week before.
She got ready for her friend's marriage wearing a proper South Indian saree with heavy gold jewelry- bangles, earrings, necklaces, amulets and what not. She thought of exercising her scooter a bit. She took the scooter keys and started her scooter and set off to the marriage venue.
Three long days seemed like three millenniums to the fretful husband who was dying to meet his hospitalized wife. Though a stranger had been calling him continuously for three days, updating him about his wife's condition and consoling him, he couldn't sleep. After waiting long hours in the queue miserably and not getting a ticket for three exhausting days, he finally got the ticket to reach Delhi. As the plane landed on the Indira Gandhi International Airport of New Delhi, he felt his tummy twisting in agony, he didn't swallow a single morsel of food since three days.
Through the stranger, he got to know that his wife was in an irrevocable coma and that she had really deep injuries in her brain that would restrict her motor controlling skills. When he reached the hospital, he found her wife sleeping peacefully as if none of these earthly things mattered to her anymore.
This time when she woke up, she found her husband watching her face with an inexplicable tenderness. She had no oxygen mask on her nose and mouth. She also had the energy to talk. She asked,"How long have I been sleeping?" "One and a half days."He said.
Even after a tremendous search by the Delhi Police for the anonymous kindred soul who had helped that lady, he was nowhere to be found. The day that lady's husband had landed on the Indira Gandhi International Airport, the man just vanished. The consoling phone calls to the husband had stopped once he had reached the hospital. The police after rigorous searching declared that there never existed a man with the name he had registered to the hospital authorities. The police traced the SUV that had hit the lady, but they could never trace that kindred soul.
Various mysteries are compressed in this "real life incident". First, why and how did that kindred soul disappear? Second, why did he not even touch a single one of those precious gold ornaments? Third, why did he stay at the hospital for those three days till the husband came? Fourth, the doctors had said that the lady won't survive for more than three days because of the severe injuries she encountered, and now she is alive and very happily leading her life, how? Fifth, was it really a human who had rescued her life or was it a spirit, phantom or whatever you wish to call it? This question popped up in both mine and her husband's mind because of the description given by the hospital authorities. If it was a human being, then where did he go? and why did he help this lady without any damn thing in return? and also, why is not the police being able to trace this man? He is literally, nowhere to be found, no records of that man exists. With such unanswerable questions lingering in my mind, I put a full stop to this eerie and bizarre experience.
