Life for me was too good to be true. I had the perfect surroundings… the perfect parents, the perfect grand parents, the perfect home…. And I thought it would go on like this forever.
Koka’s health started deteriorating. I don’t know what ailments he had. But I noticed that he had lost his energy. He would not read voraciously as he used to, he would not get frenzied easily. Most of the time he would sit in the jaali kamra or the verandah. His friends still kept coming. But the chess board was nowhere to be seen. The bridge games were not played. Every time I asked, Maa and Aita would pacify me by saying he is “sick”. Now how sick was sick I failed to decipher at that time.
Koka didn’t like the idea of hospitals and hence there were doctors and nurses round the clock monitoring him. Maa suddenly coined this idea that the doctors who came on their shift wise visits were not only meant for Koka. Those doctors came to check on me too. So there was one doctor who’d make me have bitter syrups if I did not eat my food, then there was this other doctor who’d tell me he’d apply a syringe on me if I did not do my homework. And there was this other doctor too who would be after me to use the syringe as well make me have bitter syrups if I did not behave! These docs! They were no better than Maa & Aita I thought!
Things were getting monotonous and I was a trifle bored.There were so many people coming and going. They took all of Koka’s time. I missed snuggling close to him. I noticed that now he would be in his bed only. He did not come to the jaali kamra nor lounged in the verandah. Deep inside me I wished things would become nice and pleasant again.
It was 10th of August. I was getting ready for school. Soon Maa came in and I was shocked to see that she wasn’t ready as yet! Before I could start repeating the line which she tells me when I laze, she asked me to change my uniform. She also said I need not go to school. This left me bewildered. Maa telling me to wear something else than my uniform and also not to go to school! Such things rarely Maa said.
But how was I to know that I would never see Koka again?
And many things changed forever….
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