i’d go into the OT for the first time ever, probably in these 29 years. and everything that’s happening is nothing less than something between a series of coincidences and ye bhi likha hua he!

it started last week. i had severe pain. i paced the width of our terrace as mogli and another friend J were sitting at each side of the divide between two terraces. i went down to my room and as i was going up again, i somehow couldn’t. the pain increased, i managed to reach to them saying, come down to the room and then went to my bed and settled there, first reclining position, then sleeping. couldn’t move. couldn’t speak. pain all around. pain inside out. pain.

i told mogli to call maa and tell her to prepare me limbu and hing ka mixture. that’s what the doc had told to take. but, even after that, it was unbearable. i called the doc. she told to take a pain killer. for the first time in so many months, i took one. and turant bahar! even the pain killers knew my pain of not resorting to them (i’m obnoxious, i know, in this regards at least).

after some time mogli and J left, ensuring that i’m resting. i slept through, on and off. the next morning, i felt like calling an ambulance to help me travel the distance between my bathroom and bed. every breath meant a spasm. and i tried to sleep again. probably would have let out involuntary silent cries too. not sure.

that day, i kept resting, later at night, i went to the room with the TV and shuffled through the lists on Netflix. opened a few shows and closed again. but somehow, i ended up clicking on The Good Doctor and continued watching it.

fast forward to 5 days post that first episode, i’m told i have to undergo a surgery to separate the organs that have been messed up by my hormonal messes. so, yes, sunday i’m getting admitted and monday would be my first surgery ever. the time i’d be in the OT other than when i was born. The Good Doctor acclimatised me to surgeries in the past week of watching it. coincidence? ya ye bhi likha tha?

or did this story start with that once upon a time there was a little girl, all dreamy, with dimples on cheek like that nursery rhyme she was told to recite every time there were guests in the house, who also happened to overhear conversations of her father saying time and again to people that she wouldn’t live long enough?

maybe, it started there.

or maybe, it was 2017? when that grown up fell down and was out for over 2 hours?

or maybe, it will start after that surgery is done?

or it’s just all a maybe?

i got a call in between. it was my masi. i got a lot of calls today as i called my mom here to stay with me. i had lost it yesterday when i was told to see an oncologist. and i had probably never felt as alone, as i felt in that moment.

but, i had a lot of calls today. my friends and close family members. my cousins. it was good to see the faces of my friends miles away. and the pain that i could see in their eyes. the pain i saw in the eyes of my ex who’s still my best friend. one of my best friends. the pain that i could see in the concerns of someone whom i have just met once so far but he was the one who got me to go for a checkup and that too soon enough. the pain and all the virtual warmth. all of it.

my maa came. i had been feeling good already since morning. maybe because i was ready to talk to people after all these days of coming in and out of sleep and hospitals.

a dear friend bunked her college and stayed with me. we talked the way we always do.

it felt normal. i felt normal despite the fever that’s delaying the surgery.

people - i don’t have much in life that i care about (not the care wala care, but don’t give a damn wala care). there’s one thing that rules everywhere in my case, that’s people. my people. and for the nth time, i felt grateful for having not just one but over a dozen whom i can call my people. 3.00 am ones or the ones who hear me cry over the other end without exchange of words that would demean what i feel and what they want to say. people who know which flavor of ice-cream would make everything go away, people who know not to put my phone down on restaurant tables and people who know that i’d have to wash my hands if at all i touch surfaces that make me wince and would ease that out in me, people who know that their faces would be the faces i want to see when the anaesthesia would go into a slumber. people who love me. people whom i love unconditionally.

people. a non-negotiable in my case. i can go without anything that life gives, but not without these bunch of people.

reminds me of another incident.

people crying for me. not because of me. for me.

my chemistry sir. the first person i felt closer to. i was a shy kid. highly introvert. he became someone i could rely on. and he cried for me because he told someone when she felt envious of my reading speed and grasping capacity as she saw me reading at her home where i stayed for a couple of days during my 12th board that when god gives you something, he takes away something too. it’s all a compensation. maybe this story starts there? of compensating for the warmth i’ve never known for 20 years or the warmth i’ve only felt this last decade?

maybe.

or it starts with this afternoon, when seeing that dear friend, who is so much like me, so much of me is in her. seeing her, her presence was warmth. the warmth that the fever couldn’t give me with all its heat.

we cross path with people, places and perspectives over our lifetime and it feels that those have not been coincidences. those things, were written.

as the little girl grew up with lots of health issues, mostly psychosomatic ones, fearing pending fees sometimes or that someone might find out what happens at home, her health became a testimony to her father’s statements. and maybe that’s why she got to believe in something that she’d made up - she’d end at 30. maybe.

it’s 4 months to 30 years now.

that little girl is still quite little on so many fronts. but, she’d a grown up woman now.

reminds me of another story.

woman, han?!

the irony of it all. ye sab jo likha hua he!

it’s over 2 years since this woman accepted her being in a feminine body out of all her childhood make-believes and strength criteria and started exploring that side of her story and a funny thing is about to happen with the very organs that make her a woman. life’s an irony.

maybe it is exactly what it sings in this song;

you can start from 2.26 here.

It's a joke, no body knows
They've got a ticket to that show

life’s that joke, no body knows. it still happens. happens too all of us. we’ve got the ticket to it, remember? with our names on it.

but, i am enjoying that show. i really am. it’s quite a run, but it goes on, i will go on. this show. of life.

kyuki…

wo bhi likha hua he!

- flaky sends the smell of the hug of your favourite person