The night

A roller-coaster ride of three young medical students on a night at a public hospital, in which some uncomfortable truths are exposed...

 

Deep and dark thy mysteries lie

Reveal thyself, O night!

Evil takes thine shape

O hail thine might!

 

“Sir, I want to attend the emergency night tonight,” an eager Shyam told his Unit head of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the City hospital, Dr. Trivedi. Dr Trivedi agreed. “But not more than three of you should be present there!” he warned. He was right. When there are three or four women undergoing delivering almost at the same time, the last thing an overworked resident doctor wished was a pesky undergrad who just wanted to get a ‘hang’ of the things. Worse, they couldn’t even run chores like the nurses, or give the oxytocin injections to accelerate labour.

 

The three students going for the night were decided, mostly voluntarily. Few people were at ease with the idea of spending a whole night alone in a municipal hospital, with sick patients and sicker people all around. No girl volunteered. Shyam was disappointed. He wanted Rinku, the girl he fancied for a year, to come, so that they could spend some time together, but she flatly refused. “No Shyam, please understand. My parents will not allow me out of the house whole night, especially in a place like this,” she said.

“But I am there, Sachin is there and so is Rohan! What do you have to fear?” Shyam argued.

“That’s the second problem! Me with a boy whole night? Impossible!”

“But there are three of us, not me alone…”

Shyam’s sentence was cut midway with a sharp glare from Rinku, which meant she hadn’t taken his joke kindly.

Shyam, Sachin and Rohan were the three ‘brave hearts’ who were going that night to the hospital.

 

“Hello sir! Here we are!” the trio announced to the chief resident in the labor room. Unfortunately, he wasn’t in a very cheerful mood. There were three ladies in advanced state of labor and nobody to help him except three bumbling medical students. Tough to be happy in the circumstances!

“So, you all are 3^rd semester students, right?” he asked wearily. The trio nodded their heads vigorously.

“Then go to the Trauma center and stay there for an hour. I don’t want anyone messing around here! Now go!”

It was not a request. It was an order, and they had no option but to obey it.

“What the hell man! We come all the way upto here, and that b*****d throws us out of the labor room in a jiffy!” Rohan complained loudly, as two patients sleeping on the floor gave him annoying looks.

“Let’s try the Trauma center yaar. It might be fun, and who knows we might even learn something!”, a hopelessly optimistic and focused Sachin said.

They reached the Trauma center soon. Unlike the labor room, it was deserted. No patients, not even any doctors!

 

Barely had the greenhorn medicos begun to grasp the situation, that they heard a piercing shriek “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Help me doctor!!”

Shyam had barely turned around that a shaking hand grasped his shoulder. Shyam stood rooted to the spot, his eyes fixed and his reflexes lost. Sachin and Rohan held the man, who, by now, was thrashing his limbs.

“Shyam, you idiot! Go and get the doctor!” Rohan screamed. It shook Shyam out of his reverie and he ran outside to get a ‘real’ doctor.

“What do you mean by ‘get a doctor’? Who the hell are you guys?” the man cried aloud.

“Sir, we are medical students in the first year of our clinical education.” Sachin spoke softly, as prescribed in the textbook of clinical medicine. Unfortunately the writer of the book hadn’t met many aggressive patients. The man just slapped Sachin and continued crying in agony. Shyam soon entered the room with a sleepy surgical resident who was giving the trio a dirty look.

“What is your problem?” he asked tersely to the shrieking man.

“My organ! My vital organ!”, was all that the man could utter.

The resident gave a careful look and smilingly told the confused medical students, “Guys, that’s why its very important to wear an underwear. And even if you don’t, never wear a zipped pant! Now stop laughing and help me hold this idiot’s pant. We will apply local anesthetic and cut the skin away from the zip.”

It lasted for twenty minutes, at the end of which the erstwhile crying man left the room with a smile on his face and dried tears in his eyes. The resident and the students were laughing till tears came out of their eyes.

“Guys, its time. Let’s go and harass that a*s of a resident again!” Rohan announced. Shyam and Sachin hurriedly bid the surgery resident goodbye and rushed towards the labor room. As they entered it, all their senses were assailed at the same time. Loud cries, nauseating smell and gross sight of half delivered babies with their heads poking out and rest of body coming out slowly. It was enough to make anyone faint, but the ‘brave hearts’ were made up of sterner stuff. None of them as much as blinked on the face of such a sight, smell and sound.

 

It was over soon. In one and half hours to be precise. The experience, coupled with the incident at the Trauma center had exhausted them. It was time for a break.

“She’s pregnant, you know. Coming here for an abortion,” an elderly matron whispered to the attending nurse. Shyam turned back sharply. While trying to remain inconspicuous, he tried to hear every word. The matron replied to an inaudible query from the nurse, “Yes, ofcourse it is illegal. She is a medical student in our college, just can’t let anyone know. She even has not informed her parents.”

“What about the money?”

“It will be paid to us from her pocket money, EMI style.”

Shyam further strained his ears. The night was getting more and more interesting. First that fool with his zip stuck at all the wrong places, and now this illegal abortion.

“But madam, who will perform the abortion? We know how much that chief resident is a stickler for rules.”

“Don’t worry Kamla, I have arranged for it. A very famous gynecologist is performing it. I have also put the condition that she must not pursue the identity of the girl.” Kamla now seemed relieved. The matron had cleared her concerns. Shyam could not believe what he was hearing. “A famous gynecologist,” he muttered, “Who it might be? Most certainly not from the hospital. It would be too easy to trace otherwise.” He was sure he wouldn’t be allowed to assist the operation. But, there had to be some way to know the identity of the patient and the doctor. A kind of morbid curiosity had overtaken his instincts of survival, which clearly spelt that one had to stay clear of all illegal activities of the hospital. He decided to ask Sachin and Rohan.

“Are you freaking mad? You will not only get us into deep s**t, but you might as well succeed in getting us thrown out of the college!” Rohan screamed, “You know these guys have more connections than a telecom tower. Just one hint of our knowing their identity and they will ensure we lose our own identities! Do you understand?”

Shyam had no answer to this. Yes, it was true that the attending gynecologist would be powerful enough to screw up their lives and their careers forever. But he had an intuition that somehow this incident was going to affect his life in more ways than one. And he was determined to find out how.

“Just get lost man! I am with Rohan. You are proposing to make a mess of our careers, and I will not mess mine,” an unusually aggressive Sachin thundered.

“Okay then, you guys go to sleep. I will not rest until I’ve found out who is being operated upon by whom.” Rohan and Sachin had no option but to accede to Shyam’s demand. They wished him luck and went to catch some sleep on the cots of the medicine ward.

 

Shyam had done his homework well. The mobile camera was fit with just the right zooming and angle to capture the surgeon and the patient. He would have to wait for the surgery to get over before he could see the whole video. The outcome was a good enough stimulus for Shyam to wait for one hour.

 

“It is time,” Shyam muttered to himself, as he saw the matron and the nurse, Kamla, walking stealthily to the operation theatre. Soon enough, a lady, fully scrubbed for the operation, entered. A quick nod was exchanged between the three, and Kamla brought in the girl whose abortion was to be done. The last glimpse of the proceedings that Shyam had was of the girl’s face being covered with a cloth. The matron closed the door of the operation theatre after that. Shyam waited outside. His each heartbeat thudded like a hammer on hot iron. Each beat flushed his face, each beat shook his limbs. Time seemed to crawl, just like the fine bead of sweat crawling on his forehead.

Shyam never noticed his eyelids droop.

 

A golden stream of light fell on Shyam’s face the next day. He found himself lying near the operation theatre. He cursed himself for falling asleep. The last thing he wanted was to get his mobile caught. It would mean the end of his budding medical career, the end of his dreams, only for a wild instinct. He rushed inside to search for his mobile. To his relief, it was present, and had fully recorded the whole procedure. He decided to view it at his comfort at his home.

“Hey you! Stop right there!” came a voice from behind. Shyam turned around to see a police officer with a mike.

“Sir, what did I do?”

“There has been a terrorist threat. All the doctors, students and nurses are being searched.” Shyam had never known such fear. He was trembling from head to toe, as he was being whisked away by two hefty policemen.

“Trust me uncle,” he pleaded, “I am not a terrorist. I am just a medical student doing his night duty last night.” His pleas went unheard. A full body search was conducted and his mobile was confiscated. Shyam pleaded to the police to return his mobile, but to no avail. He ran outside to argue with the head officer, but nobody was present. Another loud voice grabbed Shyam’s attention, “This is Anjali Malhotra reporting live from the City hospital. Rumor has it that a bomb has been planted in this hospital. Needless to say, the patients are terrified, but many are not in a state to move. We hope and pray that the rumor is nothing more than that.”

It was a glimmer of hope for a desperate Shyam. He ran to the news reporter and told her how police had confiscated his mobile without his permission. For Anjali, it was like a starved urchin getting a full banquet,

“Here is the first victim already! No, not of the bomb blast, but of the high handedness of the police! Do we lack mobile thieves in the city that the police have decided to join the club as well?” The police officer heard it and came towards Anjali and Shyam. “Hey you, is that your mobile?” he asked Shyam.

“Yes sir, its mine. And I need it badly!”

“Bloody idiot! Why can’t you come to me than going to these news hungry presswallahs? Here take your damn phone. Its got nothing but a 2 hour video of a surgery.”

“What else you could expect in the mobile of a sincere medical student, sir?” Shyam said sheepishly, muttering thanks to the officer. Anjali called Shyam as he was leaving, “Hey you, I am smarter than you think. I know there is something worth of being a Breaking News in your mobile, and I will not let you go without having a look at it.” Shyam looked pleadingly at the police officer who looked at him as if saying “Take that!” Before Shyam could even turn around, his mobile was snatched and was in Anjali’s hands.

Shyam could only wait desperately outside the news van as his mobile video was downloaded into the computer, and was subsequently deleted, apparently to prevent its leakage, as it was ‘sensitive material’. He was told that it would be aired the next day at 7 PM. “Damn! Another 24 hours!” he muttered to himself.

 

Shyam couldn’t wait for the next day to come. Deep down, he felt he had betrayed a stranger. His cursed his instincts for leading him into this situation. The clock’s bell rang seven times to indicate the time of the video to appear on the TV. The quality was good, and the faces of the matron and the nurse were clearly visible. Then came the moment Shyam had been waiting for since last two days- the revelation of surgeon’s face. It seemed familiar to Shyam- golden spectacles, round, hazel eyes, angular face… Shyam couldn’t place it, no matter how much familiar it seemed. Shyam’s eyes fell on the girl who was being operated. She had curly hair, with a single white hair falling over her forehead. Suddenly, Shyam stood up from his chair. A series of conversations ran in his minds- Shyam going to the reading hall, Rinku looking worried, Rinku telling Shyam how she had seen her first strand of white hair falling over her forehead. Rinku! She was pregnant! Then he remembered how one of her friends had asked Shyam to take care of Rinku, as she was “not in a good company.” She had meant Rinku’s friendship with the guy who had failed last year. Maybe she knew all about what was happening…

 

But who was the surgeon? Suddenly, Shyam’s phone rang. It was Ashwini, Rinku’s friend who had warned Shyam about Rinku.

“Hey Shyam, you know Rinku’s mother has been arrested.”

“Why?”

“Watch the news! Her video performing an illegal abortion is all over the television!”

Shyam just stood there. Unable to articulate a word, unable to move his limbs. Shocked. Stunned.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reviews

[deeps]

I loved this, i reall did.
I think what made it stand out to me is how you opened this up.
I loved the begining. This is amazing. Love the detail and imagery.