Of Ma Cherí and Cherries

Ashok Is Endearing ... once again.

Romila reached the hospital within ten minutes, her mind still in a turmoil. She approached the enquiry desk and asked the girl on duty where the ICU was. She was asked the reason for her query.

"I ... er ...a man I knew once is admitted here, I think." She spoke hesitantly, her eyes looking this way and that.

"His name, Madam?" The girl was anything if not polite. Dressed in a corporate code of a dark blue floral sari, she smiled almost mechanically as she waited for Romila to reply.

"I ... he was brought in by the police about a few hours ago ...he is young and ..."

The woman at the desk seemed to be in a verbal hurry. She interrupted Romila and nodded. "You mean the man who was brought in by the police from an accident?"

"Yes, his name is Ashok ... where is the ICU?"

The woman pointed her to a staircase about 15 feet away. "Go up that flight - but only half-way, till the stairs wind to the right. There is an exit to the ICU floor at the turn. Go past the security and the ICU is on the right hand side. And yes, that person you were enquiring about - Mr. Ashok Mehta - " the woman kept talking as she punched various keys on the keyboard of the computer in front of her and looked at the list of the new admissions, "he is certainly inside the ICU. He is on bed ... (let me see) ...bed 1015."

Romila thanked the woman and went up the stairs. The security guard asked her to wait near the nurses' station and went to one of the on-duty doctors to ask him if she could be allowed in to meet Ashok Mehta.

Presently, he came back to Romila and said, "Madam, please wait here awhile. The doctor will be with you shortly."

Romila went off to the side where there was a bench for relatives to sit. She wondered how Ashok would be. Behind one of the nurses' stations was a small room. She could, from where she sat, see one of the nurses sitting with her legs crossed and typing gloriously on the keyboard of her desktop computer.

Her mind went back to the billboard she had read just a few hours ago. What a terrible joke! I think it just would not be possible to get time to participate there.

The doctor came up to her as she sat there, mulling over the events of the day.

"Hello, Miss ...?" began the 30-something stocky, bearded, bespectacled doctor.

"I am Romila, and I know Mr. Mehta for over 4 years ... may I see him if he is conscious and in a state where I can see him for a few minutes?"

"A few minutes? Okay. Go in. There are five beds inside. He is on the bed right in the middle of the row facing us. He is conscious, but please don't excite him as he has bled and has just been set right in the operation theatre."

Romila thanked him and went in. She spotted Ashok immediately. He was the wheatish-skinned medium-framed young bandaged patient in the middle bed, just as the doctor had said. Both his legs and one of his hands were bandaged, and there was a bandage on his head as well. His right eye was swollen, but it did not, in the slightest way, mar his clean-cut looks and his dazzling but weak smile as he recognised Romila and gestured to her to come near him.

"Roms ..." he began to say, but it sounded very gruff and low-pitched.

"Hi Ashok," Romila replied with a smile as she went up to the bed and took his limp hand in hers and gently squeezed the palm. "What happened to you? You look as though your dogs tore you from limb to limb!" Her attempt at humor made Ashok smile again, but it must have hurt him to smile, for it ended in him wincing and suppressing a cry of pain.

"Excuse me, Roms ... I am sorry but I can't even smile properly." Ashok pointed to himself in general and added, "that car banged me up really bad, isn't it?"

"How did it happen?"

Ashok winced again as he tried to reach for his right hand with the uninjured left one.

"I ... I don't think I will be able to do this, Roms. Could you please scratch my right elbow ... I am getting an awful itching sensation there," he said as he showed her the location with the turn of his eyes.

Romila was uncertain about whether to touch him, now that everything between them was over and done with. But was it, really? She reached out to scratch him on his elbow and was pleased to hear him thank her and sigh with relief as the itching sensation passed.

"I ... I have to tell you something ... Roms ... but first, tell me: are you seeing anyone or are you married or what?"

Romila looked at him quizzically.

"What ... why are you asking me this?" Her heart was suddenly accelerating, and she was unable to remain calm.

"I ... you see, Roms, about three or four month ago ... I split up with my wife ... Helga ... you know ... the German woman ... as she was also two-timing me, and have been pining for you since ..."

Romila laughed then, a laugh full of sarcasm and good humour. Serves him right to ditch me that way! "You really deserved that, you know, you moron," she said after her breathing settled down.

"To tell you that I have never stopped loving you would be an unnecessary fact, Roms ... I have always loved you. Recently, I made a living will ... it must be right in my shirt pocket ... wait, let me call the nurse to show you ..."

"I know. I was shown that by the duty police officer Mr. Baijal," said Romila. "Why? Why have you decided to leave half of all you own to me? I have been puzzling over this all the way from the police station to the hospital."

"Don't you see? I don't want to lose you again. When they asked me if I knew someone here in Mumbai ... you know my parents live almost 4 hours' travel away in Pune ... I could only think of you. In fact, for the last three or four months, all I have been doing is to think about you. I almost called you twice, but hesitated out of shame and embarrassment."

"But ... how did this accident happen?"

"I came down from Pune only yesterday night, and was going to Walkeshwar to meet up with a business associate ...I took a cab and was carrying a soft bag with a lot of cash in it to hand it over to ..."

Romila interrupted him. "Did you say cab - cash - bag?"

"Yeah, but how ... I mean what ..."

"I know about the bag ... I took the same cab today - from Walkeshwar to come to the Lamington road police station ... the cabbie and I have just handed over a medium-sized soft-lid bag with about a million rupees to Inspector Baijal!"

"What?" The expression on Ashok's face was incredulous and happy, both at the same time. He wanted to hug Romila right then, but, of course, he could not.

"Oh, Romila, you are such a darling!" He looked so happy that it seemed he would overcome all his injuries and stand up on the bed and dance. Romila, surprisingly to herself, felt much like doing the same thing where she stood. She pirouetted on her heels and jumped up with joy at the stroke of luck Ashok had just had. However, after the thrill passed through her, she composed herself and told Ashok that she was indeed happy to give him the good news that his money was safe.

"But, what happened after you got off the cab?" She asked him to tell her of the subsequent events.

"My business associate and I met up with each other near the Walkeshwar Teen Batti signal and I saw the cab racing away. Both of us got into my associate's car. It was being driven by a professional driver. I suddenly realised that I had left the bag inside the cab. I did not know what to do. The only thing I knew was a bit of the driver's face - no car registration number, and nothing else. Except that he had sped down the hill towards Chowpatty! We decided to chase it. We could not see it for almost a kilometre, and then, there it was! I recognised it by the kitsch paintings done on the rear windscreen and the names of some of the devis and devtas

Gods and Godesses

inscribed on the glass. I pointed it out to my colleague, and we began a chase to shame any movie car chase you might have seen!" He paused to ask for a glass of water, and Romila obliged.

"Go on," she said when his silence stretched out interminably.

"We were in the Grant Road area when the cab again disappeared from view when we got stuck at a traffic signal. "Damn! Damn! Damn!" I said repeatedly, as we resumed the chase - and banged into another car that was coming from the other side. I don't know if my colleague is safe or not, but I must have lost my senses, for when I woke up, I was in the hospital and bandaged the way you see me."

He paused and concluded, "And, that's my story, Roms."

Romila shook her head disbelievingly, then got up and ran her hand through Ashok's hair.

"You really are a silly fool, Ashok, you know that!"

He smiled then, and it seemed that all his pains were forgotten. He took her hand in his and kissed the back of it gently.

"You know something? I feel like treating you and myself to ..."

" ... Gulab jamuns?

Sweetened flour balls fried and dipped in a sugar syrup

", completed Romila.

"Yes ... our favourite dessert!"

"Maybe we should wait till you are out of the ICU?"

He pouted his lips and said that he wanted to have it right away. She asked one of the ward attendants to get it from the cafeteria. It was soon produced, and Romila and Ashok each had one out of the two gulab jamuns in the tray.