"Game Of Love"

By Vinay Kumar Gurumath

Straddling the chair in cafeteria, at one of our favourites chit-chatting spot in the campus, looking deep into my eyes, unequally raising her eye brows she raised a question "𝑽𝒊𝒏𝒂𝒚, 𝒅𝒐 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒃𝒆𝒍𝒊𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝒊𝒏 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆?”.

Gulping my veg rolls, "𝑵𝒐𝒑𝒆", was my almost instantaneous response.

"𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒉𝒐𝒘 𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒑𝒍𝒂𝒚𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒈𝒂𝒎𝒆?" sipping her black coffee she continued without a pause "𝑾𝒉𝒐𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒇𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒔 𝒇𝒊𝒓𝒔𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒚 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒍𝒐𝒔𝒆𝒓𝒔".

Responding to my "𝑾𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒅𝒂 𝒈𝒂𝒎𝒆?” she giggled. And peering at newly formed love-birds in the campus who were sitting next to our left side, seemed like, they were celebrating their first valentine's day, she continued, "𝑪𝒂𝒏 𝒖 𝒔𝒆𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒔𝒆 𝒕𝒆𝒆𝒏𝒊𝒆-𝒄𝒖𝒕𝒊𝒆𝒔 𝒘𝒉𝒐 𝒔𝒆𝒆𝒎 𝒕𝒐 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒇𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒏 𝒊𝒏 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝒓𝒆𝒄𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒍𝒚, 𝒔𝒆𝒆𝒎 𝒕𝒐 𝒃𝒆 𝒍𝒐𝒔𝒕 𝒊𝒏 𝒆𝒂𝒄𝒉 𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓'𝒔 𝒆𝒚𝒆𝒔, 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒑𝒍𝒆𝒕𝒆𝒍𝒚 𝒖𝒏𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒃𝒆𝒅 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒐𝒃𝒍𝒊𝒗𝒊𝒐s 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒆𝒙𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒏𝒂𝒍 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒍𝒅". "𝑯𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒊𝒔 𝒂 𝒈𝒂𝒎𝒆, 𝒏𝒐𝒘 𝒔𝒆𝒆, 𝒊𝒇 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒇𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒇𝒊𝒓𝒔𝒕 𝒊𝒏 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒖 𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒃𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒍𝒐𝒔𝒆𝒓, 𝒊𝒇 𝑰 𝒇𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒇𝒊𝒓𝒔𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒖 𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒃𝒆 𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒛𝒆𝒅 𝒂𝒔 𝒘𝒊𝒏𝒏𝒆𝒓, 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕'𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒈𝒂𝒎𝒆" she detailed the game rules. In simple words, she meant, whoever falls first in love they will be awarded as loser. Looked very simple game to play. She being my 'soulmate' - a fancy word learnt from her, she often used to use that word to describe our relationship - whatever, not wanting to deny her game plan, not being serious about such games either, moreover I was sure of winning this kind of game so called game-of-love, "𝒐𝒌𝒂𝒚, 𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒔𝒆𝒆" I smirked. I could hear questioning myself," 𝒘𝒉𝒐'𝒔 𝒈𝒐𝒏𝒏𝒂 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒎𝒂𝒏? 𝒆𝒔𝒑𝒆𝒄𝒊𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒚 𝒚𝒐𝒖, 𝒂𝒏 𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒓𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒕 𝒈𝒖𝒚 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒆 𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒇𝒓𝒐𝒎 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒖 𝒓 𝒈𝒐𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒐 𝒈𝒆𝒕 𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆 𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝒃𝒖𝒔𝒚 𝒔𝒄𝒉𝒆𝒅𝒖𝒍𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒇𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒊𝒏 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒔𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒐𝒏𝒆 ?". After a pause for couple of minutes, our discussion turned on to dissecting all the politics happening in the campus, family issues, her work place dramas, who is dating whom and all kind of masala-mixed-gossips.

Albeit coming from a puritanical family background, she was a kind of party animal, bindaas character, always wearing that Monolisa-kind-subtle-smile on her face which often moulds into cute inverted rainbow shaped contagious smile, trying to live her every moments to the fullest kind of nature. Despite her incurable jolly nature she was ambitious, had her own goals to achieve, and had her own dreams to fulfil in life. She exactly knew how to keep up her life goals abreast her merry party life, she had never compromised on either. Whereas I was like always goal oriented, book wormish kind of, serious about everything, less of social, needed to hyperventilate before speaking to strangers and lone wolf in social jungle in character. In simple analogy, I could partly compare myself to "Dr Shawn Murphy" character in "The Good Doctor" web series (except for Shawn's typical autistic tantrums). I don't know what on earth made us to be in such relationship, having had hardly anything in common, not even our profession was in common.

Despite those myriad differences we had, we were always there for each other's needs and support. I wouldn't be wrong if I say we were more than best friends and bit short of true lovers. I haven't found any exact terminology to describe that kind of relationship. And by the way she was working for a small company as an executive which required her to make frequent commutes to nearby places to meet her business demands. Whenever we had spare time we used to catch up in evening hours at cafeteria carrying a bundle of topics for discussion for rest of our day to spend.

As the days passed, I got busy with my professional goals and she got lost in her business projects. Even few months had passed without our cafeteria-meets. Despite no matter how busy we had been in our own professional lives, we never had forgotten to care for each other. There were hardly any days where we hadn't exchanged at least 'good night wishes' texts. I still remember one of her text which said," Vinay, the day you don't get good night text message from me, just think of only two possibilities either my cell phone is not working or my heart is not beating anymore". In a true sense we were leading life of 'soulmates'.

It was one fine evening, 'fine' in terms of weather, breezing soothingly often mixed with drizzle in between. I could say it was a typical Wayanad (Kerala) weather which often makes one to get romantic and miss their loved ones without any obvious reasons. Such weather could make any boring guy to sigh romantically “I-wish-she-was-here-with-me-now", that's the innate beauty of Wayanad. As usual I was on my evening shift, handling emergency cases. Emergency bay was bustling, as expected, with all kind of casualties and in-between minor theatre cases to make duty hectic. To make things worse, we got alerted about mass-casualty cases that evening, which we were about to receive in any time. Over all it was one of the freakiest fucked up days I would say.

Doesn't matter how bad our day is running, we get to settle the cases as part of our job, that's what gives us a high at the end of the day. On receiving around 10-15 cases from mass casualty which we were already informed & prepared for, immediately we started triaging the cases depending on the grievousness of their injuries. Around 3-4 patients were looking really bad, literally blood bathed, moaning in pain, with multiple lacerations bruises all over their body, making them difficult to identify even by their own relatives. Out of those 3-4 cases, one patient caught my attention, around middle aged lady with shattered torn dress half soaked with blood and mud, ragged hairs, soaked wound dressings covering her half of face and remaining half almost bruised barely recognizable, abnormally placed left elbow and thighs were telling an obvious fracture dislocation stories, overall it was looking ominous.

It’s not uncommon for us to see such trauma cases. She was in severe pain and barely moving, Bay-nurse had already red flagged her after checking the blood pressure which was plummeting, immediately directed her to resuscitation room. Hardly had any time left to get further details of injury, whereupon our already-ready-trauma-team jumped into the arduous task - someone started putting iv cannula- other fellow started rushing iv fluids- some sister started connecting cables to monitor- checking rechecking her vitals- juniors opening up wound dressings to rule out ongoing bleeding if any, I started auscultating her chest, needed to check if any missed injuries to abdomen, what not, everything had to be done within no time, nothing in sequence, better all at a time and above all u have monitor-beep-alarm system reminding you each time that you are losing the time in the crucial battle of "life and death".

With all the initial resuscitation, flooding her with blood & iv fluids and all hara-kiri we could do, her vitals started picking up mildly, she started moaning and babbling something, monitor signalled us to relax a bit, it also meant we got some extra time to breath for ourselves. Sighed deeply and I handed her over to my junior Dr Shama, asked her to get relevant imaging done and follow up further and I left for next cases around who also needed my immediate attention. Mostly 5-10 minutes might have passed by, again heard bay-sister shouting at me, about the same lady, "𝑫𝒓 𝑽𝒊𝒏𝒂𝒚, 𝒔𝒉𝒆 𝒊𝒔 𝒉𝒚𝒑𝒐𝒕𝒆𝒏𝒔𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒂𝒈𝒂𝒊𝒏... 𝒑𝒖𝒍𝒔𝒆 𝒈𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒇𝒆𝒆𝒃𝒍𝒆..., 𝒊𝒕'𝒔 80/60 ". Again I rushed back to see, on seeing her this time I became froze numb dumbstruck as if some lightening has come and hit on my head from nowhere, it was the same bloody-cute face which I often used to see in cafeteria, but now laying literally bloodied with injuries. All the hubbub of casualty disappeared suddenly for me, I felt pin drop silence, I could see only that lady laying on stretcher with all blood soaked wounds cleaned up, scalp dressings opened up exposing her morphed mutilated face to recognize, how could I miss that face at first instance?. Those half opened contused eyes were staring at me, even in that pain she was trying to keep that smile for me, looked as if they were waiting for me only, to convey her final words whatever before they could close forever. I almost fainted on her, when I regained myself, her right hand was cradling my head despite she was in such an agonizing pain. When someone while going through excruciating bodily pain on their death bed, still manage to cradle and care for you, then it really means 'something' which I had failed to understand at that moment.

For a moment I forgot even the fact that I was the attending doctor there for her, only one thing I knew was my "soulmate" laying in front of me and bleeding to death, I couldn't help, kinda peak of helplessness, I couldn't stop myself crying on seeing her in that pathetic condition. All my chest thumping boastings as neurosurgeon who once had saved eerily injured patients who were almost on the verge of dying, vanished in one go. Those once rock-steady-surgical-gifted hands of mine, now, were started shaking and my confidence as surgeon plummeted to nil almost immediately. Within a fraction of seconds I morphed myself from confident-surgeon to poor-fellow-attender-who-is-crying-for-their-loved-ones outside our ICUs. Gently holding my arms she mumbled, "𝑰 𝒍𝒐𝒔𝒕, 𝒗𝒊𝒏𝒂𝒚 𝒍𝒐𝒏𝒈 𝒃𝒂𝒄𝒌 𝑰 𝒍𝒐𝒔𝒕... 𝒖 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘?”

While whole of my team was busy in trying to pull her out from her death bed again, repeating the same manoeuvres with which we had succeeded previously few minutes ago, without understanding anything what she was trying to say I tried to just console her. Hunching close to her face, holding her hand firmly, cradling her head gently I whispered, cheating my own conscience as a doctor, with all pseudo confidence "𝒖 𝒓 𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒆 𝒅𝒆𝒂𝒓, 𝒏𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒑𝒆𝒏 𝒕𝒐 𝒖, 𝑰 𝒘𝒐𝒏'𝒕 𝒍𝒆𝒕 𝒖 𝒈𝒐, 𝒖 𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒃𝒆 𝒐𝒌𝒊𝒆". It looked like she was in hurry to say, maybe she already knew that her time was ticking, limited and going to get over soon. Her quivering voice continued," 𝑰 𝒅𝒊𝒅𝒏'𝒕 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒆 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒅𝒊𝒅 𝑰 𝒍𝒐𝒔𝒆, 𝒘𝒂𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒂𝒚 𝒖 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒍𝒐𝒏𝒈 𝒃𝒂𝒄𝒌 𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝑰 𝒄𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅𝒏'𝒕... 𝒉𝒎𝒎 𝒅𝒊𝒅𝒏'𝒕 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒆 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝑰 𝒍𝒐𝒔𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒈𝒂𝒎𝒆, 𝒖 𝒓𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒎𝒃𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒈𝒂𝒎𝒆 𝒗𝒊𝒏𝒂𝒚? 𝑶𝒖𝒓 𝒈𝒂𝒎𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝒘𝒆 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒊𝒏 𝒄𝒂𝒇𝒆𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒂?". I was, speechless, looking like crying baby with brimmed tearful eyes searching for his lost mother in the middle of nowhere, my heart was pounding and felt like it was going for near arrhythmia. With all the energy she had saved for her final words to express, trying to keep her face as calm even in her last moments, she took one last deep breath and mumbled, "𝑩𝒆𝒔𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒊𝒔, 𝒖 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘 𝑰 𝒍𝒐𝒔𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒈𝒂𝒎𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒖 𝒐𝒏𝒍y, 𝑰 𝒇𝒆𝒍𝒍 𝒊𝒏 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝒇𝒊𝒓𝒔𝒕, 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒚𝒐𝒖... 𝒂𝒎 𝒊𝒏 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆 ... 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒚𝒐𝒖.. 𝑰 𝒍𝒐𝒔𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒈𝒂𝒎𝒆 𝒅𝒆𝒂𝒓, 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒘𝒐𝒏 !"... .. .. .. .. It looked like all monitors were told to eagerly wait for her to finish off her last words before going for flat lines one final time... one last continuous never ending beeping alarm indicating the harsh inevitable reality... I felt blackout... could hear... someone shouting "asystole"... "Code blue”... “start CPR"... "Push Atropine"... someone jumping and stranding on stretcher for one final attempt to pull her out ....... but I had realized the destiny by that time, just withdrawn myself, took a deep breath and mumbled to her soul "𝑰 𝒘𝒐𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒈𝒂𝒎𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝒍𝒐𝒔𝒕 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒅𝒆𝒂𝒓 "......!!!

By Vinay Kumar Gurumath