Memories Through Rose Tinted Glasses

The thick green curtains did not let light filter in without a struggle. The result was always a pale greenish aura hanging around the room, the shadow of its stronger brighter counterpart outside the glass windows. The cold white impersonal light was always kept switched on.

The ceiling was wooden and slanted. The part where it was lowered the most was around 2inches higher than the height of Deta when he stood straight. And since he always stood straight, I always skipped a beat when he walked around that part nonchalantly. To my 6 year old eyes, there wasn’t much of a difference.

And that is my first memory of a hospital. Or more specifically, the inside of my Deta’s chamber in the hospital.

The first time I smelt the sterilized corridors of the Operating Theatre and the stench of disease in the corridors leading upto Deta’s chamber.

 Deta had the responsibility of picking me up from prep school every single day and he religiously came late. I was always the last kid at school. My darling teachers would force feed me their Tiffin’s and aah, Frooti which I never failed to politely refuse since Ma had brought me up on a healthy dose of horror stories about the ill effects of Frooti. Tiffin I unabashedly ate. How I missed Ma then.

He would reach with a million apologies and I would regularly forgive him since I got to go to his chamber and sit on his swivel chair. I don’t remember him complaining when he sat on the hard steel chair, listening to the myriad questions of his patients while I swiveled merrily around.

But I got my share of punishments too, mind you. If I was being particularly tiresome and would insist on his paying more attention to me than to the nice pregnant lady and her husband, who were also indulging me, I was sent off to the Pharmacy.

Little did he know that Pharmacy times were gala times too. Munna Mama, the owner, had an even bigger swivel chair! And on special days, he would let me take orders from patients who came with their prescriptions which was promptly snatched from them as I tottered around feeling all important.

But on really mean days when I would whine and cry, the girl and the two boys working in the pharmacy would conspire to feed me Vicks Cough Drops behind Munna Mama’s back. I still remember the ice-cold-bitter-scary taste. My penchant for cough drops never developed you see.

Back in Deta’s chamber, I was routinely asked the same question. “Are you going to be a Doctor when you grow up?”. “Will you follow in your Father’s footsteps?”. And I routinely replied in the positive. Deta almost glowed like the moon.

Those were the days when Ma was in Jaipur to study. I could never understand properly where she went except the fact that Deta and my sister used to be my caretakers all of a sudden. Mornings meant Deta rushing from the kitchen trying not to drop the hard boiled eggs and starched rice while I sat on the dining table thinking about all the wonderful things to do in school. Yes, I always sat on top of the table. Chairs were for grownups.

I have absolutely vivid memories of complaining how loosely he used to braid my long curly hair and how Ma would do it so much better. He never really gave up though.

But the funniest one definitely has to be the time he took us to the cinemas. The Aamir Khan-Manisha Koirala starrer ‘ Akele Hum Akele Tum’ was the hot toast then. For the uninitiated, it’s a movie where they get married, have a kid, get separated and then get back together. Add a healthy dose of copious tears, manipulative parents, rags to riches story and there you have it. But for me, it was the end of the world. Midway through the movie, I decided that Ma had left us for good just like Ms. Koirala does and it’s just going to be us and Deta. I bawled my lungs out.

I remember being soothed and consoled near the entrance of the hall while he tried to figure out my sudden outburst of emotions. I clung to him like there is no day after tomorrow.

And the times he would cook chicken curry when we got a cold and fever and without Ma’s maternal supervision, how the chicken would be extra spicy and extra hot!

A decade and a half later, he still cooks that super spicy chicken when we catch a cold. Or sometimes, even when we don’t. He still hates it when I cut my long hair. He still picks me up from College whenever he’s in town. And he’s still late.

And I still look at him in awe. The first man in my life.