Chapter - 21 (Prelide To The Most Scary Secret! )

 Anushka read the last part of the diary entry in Akanksha's for the third time;

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I remembered what Jishnuda had told me the year he left for Delhi for his MBBS. After a simple dinner at our home, when I held the door for him, he whispered into my ear that he had something to share the next day. 

The next day, I could only fall asleep in the wee hours of the morning with my mind weighing up all kinds of possibilities. Would my dream finally come true? Would he finally do what my heart wanted him to? My heart kept telling me that for those who believed in dreams, life always made them come true. 

Anushka woke up a while ago. It was nearly 12 in the afternoon. University was closed for the Summer Break. Akanksha left earler with a few things required by Baba at the hospital. She would take care of Baba during the entire one hour of the Visiting Hour from 11 a. m. to 12 a. m. Ma and Anushka were staying back at home to do the household chores.

Anushka, sitting up on bed, forced the strap of the leather diary back into the button and looked out the window on the right. It was a gorgeous day. As she went in her mind over the content of Akanksha's diary entries, she found two things extremely disturbing. Number one, the last line of the penultimate paragraph :

...….he whispered into my ear that he had something to share the next day.

What did, what exactly could bro Jishnu want to share with Akku? It was clear though, thought Anushka, that he had something to share 

Number two, Akanksha had written about her dream! What did she write about it? How come Anushka, in spite of being so close to her sister, didn't know anything about Akku's dream? Oh, yes.

She found those lines so intriguing that she kind of byhearted them, without do much as making an effort! 

Would my dream finally come true? Would he finally do what my heart wanted him to? My heart kept telling me that for those who believed in dream, life always made them come true… 

Did 'he', bro Jishnu obviously, do what she wanted him to do? And what exactly did she want him to do? The thing that bothered Anushka the most was that her sister, Akanksha, normally a very frank and open person, had been so secretive about the whole affair! 

Between the sisters, Anu was the more secretive one. She had been reading Akanksha's Diary or Diaries for ages and the "siot", did never find that out! "Siot", by the way, was a term blended by Anushka to describe her elder sister. The term was made up of the first two and the last two letters of 'silly and 'goat',  

How come, Akku, never mentioned this rendezvous with bro Jishnu to her? With BRO JISHNU! She couldn't have forgotten the whole thing just like that, Anushka wondered. The sisters, despite the scenes between them often, were after all, the best of friends! 

Anu found it hard to survive through the day without being curious. She would ask her sister at the right time, once Baba was back home safe and sound. She got up from the bed then, forced the diary back in the gap in the rack over the study table, glanced down at the table clock to see that it was nearly 1 O'clock. Ma would be calling for lunch soon. She knotted her hair into a bun, having removed the band and put it between clenched teeth. She next looked for the strips of Dove shampoo. Someone told her long ago that she really smelt good whenever she used that shampoo. She looked at herself in the mirror on the wall in passing, liked what she saw and slammed the bathroom door shut behind her. 

Mrs. Sania called out to her to come down for lunch at that moment precisely as she did not want to be a minute late for visiting her husband during the Visiting Hour in the afternoon. 

Akanksha had hardly taken her seat on the round tool near her father's bed, when she saw Dr. Jishnu entering the room. There was another empty bed in the cabin on the other side. There was the end of a tube attached to the cathedral on her father's right hand. While the other end was inserted in a plastic bottle of saline on a stand. Two other tubes constantly monitored his pulserate and blood pressure. 

Akanksha looked down at her father's face. The painful expression on his face told her the stormy time he had undergone the previous night. He had his eyes closed and his right hand  on top of his left on his chest. 

"We checked it all on an hourly basis, as per your instructions, Sir," the young, good-looking nurse following Dr. Jishnu into the room, was heard telling him. 

"Good. Let me look at the chart first," Dr. Jishnu told her, picking up the sheet attached to a holder at the bottom of the bed. He spent the next few minutes looking at it with considerable attention before asking the nurse again, "Did you get the reports of the tests yet? "

"The file containing the reports, is on Dr. Sarkar's table right now. We received all the reports except one, half an hour back. Should I go get it, Sir?" She asked Dr. Jishnu. 

"No, l'll go to Dr. Sarkar's." He replied. Then taking another look at the monitors, he came over to where Akanksha was sitting, and bending down, checked Mr. Rajan's chest with the stethoscope.

"How are you feeling now, Mr. Mukherjee?" He asked her father. 

Mr. Rajan opened his eyes with a blank look at first, looked up to the doctor next before turning his head towards Akanksha's direction. The outline of what might have been a thin smile appeared briefly on the corners of his mouth. Strangely, Akanksha felt that her Baba had been aware of her presence all through. For the first time since she entered the cabin, she had tears in her eyes when she saw her father opening his mouth in response to Dr. Jishnu's question. 

Standing close to Akanksha, so close that she could smell the fragrance of his aftershave lotion, Dr. Jishnu smiled at the patient before asking,

"That's really good. Do you have any problem? Any pain, anywhere?"

Mr. Rajan, always a fighter to the core, slowly shook his head. 

"Don't worry, you'll be all right soon. I'll be close at hand, if you need me." He looked at his watch as Mr. Rajan closed his eyes. Turning to Akanksha, Dr. Jishnu next said :

"I've to go visit the patients in the other rooms during the round."

Akanksha put her hand over her father's briefly and followed Dr. Jishnu out of the cabin. 

She closed the door lightly and finally spoke to the doctor, "How is Baba?"

"He is much better but I can tell you more clearly once I've gone through the reports." He answered. 

"I hope it is nothing serious, Dr… emm, I mean, Jishnuda? I can wait if you want me to. " She almost stammered out. 

"There is no need." Then suddenly noticing how tired she looked, Dr. Jishnu adopted the tone of the doctor he was now, "You look near insomniac, Akanksha. Go get some rest at home." And he turned to her once more before entering the General Ward, 

"Have faith in me."

As he brushed past her to the room with a number of patients, Akanksha could smell that expensive aftersave again! He did not look a day older than the last time she remembered having met him outside CPS. He had performed even better at the ISC and was leaving for Delhi shortly.

He had worn the same, maddening aftershave on that day as well! She sighed and having pressed the button for the first of the two side by side, descending lifts. As she waited impatiently on the passage outside, her mind wavered back to the day when Jishnu took her out to disclose a most scary secret!