Wherever You Are

By Roy Thomas

It was the old man’s seventy-fifth birthday.

A lot of preparation had been made and many relatives and friends from all over Kerala had come to celebrate the event. The old man was actually quite a celebrity in the village. ‘Doctor Appacha’, as he was affectionately called by the locals, had landed at Anchal village many moons ago when there was no medical service around and had stayed on despite many lucrative offers from other hospitals.

I was a distant relative who happened to be holidaying in Kerala when the function was happening. Since I was around I thought it would be a good opportunity to meet up with all the relatives who would be coming in from various places-many who I hadn’t met up for years.

The function was a roaring success judging from the crowd, the noise and the liquor that was flowing! Doctor Appacha sat quietly on a specially-built structure watching the revelry with a detached air. He sat alone.

He knew he was the excuse for a celebration - most people just wanted to have a good time. Occasionally his eyes wandered over to a young boy-obviously his grandson. One could literally see his eyes light up as they followed the boy running around. In between the various games that the children kept playing, the boy would look up and exchange a glance with the grandfather and it was obvious to any onlooker that the two shared a very special relationship.

Every now and then, while winning some point over the others children, the ten-year old would hold out his clenched fist in front of him-a mannerism that would invariably bring a slight smile on old man’s face.

I was beginning to get a little bored. After having caught up with all the relatives and exchanging pleasantries I realized there was nothing very much common between us. On an impulse, I decided to talk to the old man.

“Appacha,” I said, “I am your grandnephew twice removed.”

Appacha held my hand and looked at me with a bemused smile while I tried to explain to him the intricacies of our relationship.

“Appacha,” I continued, “you must have many stories to tell. Why don’t you tell me some of them-the old days must have been very interesting?”

“Do you really want to hear an old man’s tales?” he asked with an intent look on his face. I nodded. Noting my earnest and a serious look he continued, “OK I will tell you the story about Pappy….”

A distant look came to his face. He was silent for a long time- lost in thought -and for a moment I thought he had forgotten what he was about to say. Suddenly, with a slight shake of his head and a gentle smile, he continued, “Actually today is Pappy’s birthday also...

I came to Anchal village soon after graduating from medical school. Having studied in a church-sponsored medical college, I had signed a bond under which I was required to serve in a rural area for a period of two years.

Anchal was located in a remote area; cut away from civilization by a large river. To reach the local town took almost two hours by road in what would have been fifteen minutes as the crow flies. I reluctantly agreed to move here. The doctor’s house was small but comfortable. The clinic was located nearby. It was the only medical facility available for miles around. For the simple rural folk, the doctor was almost like a God. I was a bachelor then and Velu, the Man Friday, who had served all the previous doctors, welcomed me with open arms.

I settled down to life in the village and gradually began to realize that I was enjoying my stay here. Life was simple and uncomplicated. The fresh invigorating air was indeed a treat after the polluted city smog.

Eventually, after serving out my bond period I surprised the church- which was used to young Doctors impatiently waiting to complete their rural postings- by offering to remain.

They accepted with alacrity before I changed my mind! They presented me with a motorcycle which I used to visit even the more remote areas of the countryside.

Pappy was the driver of the first bus that operated to the village. He was an ex-serviceman who had learned to drive a lorry while in the army. Having been injured in the war he had been discharged. With the compensation and the money he had saved, Pappy managed to buy a second hand Tata Mercedes-Benz bus. Pappy ran his bus between Anchal and the biggest town in the district-Quilon. The bus literally changed the lifestyle of the inhabitants overnight as it had opened the village to a whole new world.

With his handlebar moustache, bright twinkling eyes and easygoing manner, Pappy was well known and a popular figure with the villagers. He had a heart of gold and often refused to accept the fare from people who he knew were in difficulties and patients who were on their way to distant referral hospitals.

Pappy was very particular about keeping to time-this could in part be ascribed to his military background. In fact, farmhands on the route the bus was plying began to figure the time of the day by the going and coming of the bus!

Pappy was a widower, having lost his wife while she was delivering their only child. He, however, refused to send the child to his in-laws or to any orphanage as many well-wishers had suggested. Instead, he chose to bring up the child himself. Reena grew up into a happy and a well-groomed woman under his tutelage and he eventually got her married to a local farmer and took great joy in seeing her happily settled.

Soon Reena was expecting her first child. And wasn’t Pappy nervous! He used to accompany his daughter for all her checkups and used to wait nervously for my reports.

I took to him the very first day we met and we soon became good friends. I discovered that we shared the same birthday and perhaps this explained the exceptional bonding that took place between us. Sometimes, when I look back, it was strange how two individuals, from two totally different and disparate backgrounds, got on so well with each other.

“Perhaps we were brothers in our last life!” Pappy would joke. I had given him the assurance that I would personally handle the delivery of his first grandchild and he was most grateful.

The day Reena developed pains I was, unfortunately, on my motorbike handling an emergency case in a remote area. Pappy tracked me to the place and rushed to me beseeching me to hurry up. I dropped the case I was attending and after advising the nurse who was assisting me on what was to be done, rushed back on my bike to Pappy’s home.

The case was complicated – a breech delivery to be precise- but we managed to save both the mother and the child. Pappy was most relieved and grateful and he told me later that he would one day repay me by helping me when I was in difficulty.

We became extremely close after this and not a day passed without Pappy dropping in at the clinic to chat with me-he often stopped the bus outside the clinic and joined me for a quick cup of tea! For me also this was a welcome break from the punishing schedule I kept. Every time he drove past the clinic he would press the horn and when I looked out he would pump his clenched fist; much in the fashion of today’s sportsmen!

Whenever I got a chance I never missed an opportunity to pull Pappy’s leg by asking him when he would repay me for saving his daughter and his grandson! He would laugh and tell me his chance would come someday!

The old man’s recollections were suddenly broken by a playful scream as the grandson came running to him chased by some of the other boys. He threw himself into his grandfather’s arms almost knocking him off the chair. Instinctively the old man’s arms engulfed the boy protectively. Not a word of reproach came from Appacha’s lips and instead they murmured a few words to each other that only the two seem to understand. The boy then gulped some water from the glass the old man was holding, laughed and ran away.

“I am so sorry,” Appacha apologized, “now where was I….oh yes…. as time went on I fell in love with Lekha, the daughter of the village panchayat president. She was pretty as a picture with a coy smile that made my heart flutter like a leaf and dimples that gave me goosebumps every time it appeared on her lovely face!

My case was put up by Pappy to my prospective father in law who gladly accepted the proposal -a doctor as a son in law was more than he ever hoped for. We soon had our first baby – a daughter who we named Poornima. She was the apple of my eye!

Twenty years after I had first come to the village Pappy passed away. He died of a massive cardiac arrest while driving his bus. Even while dying he was considerate – he managed to stop the bus by the roadside before slumping over the wheel!!

I was very upset as Pappy had been a soul mate for so many years and I grieved his loss. I missed him, but then life has to go on and my work and family kept me busy. I thought of Pappy very often. On several occasions I swore that I could hear the sound of his bus approaching and hear the familiar sound of the horn.

Time flew and Poornima grew up fast. She studied in the Trivandrum and became a doctor there. Soon after her graduation, she married one of her classmates. After two years of marriage she became pregnant and, as was customary, she decided to come back home to the village for the delivery, despite the objections of a concerned and reluctant husband,

I spent as much time with her as possible given my busy lifestyle. I still had the Enfield motorbike and had started visiting nearby villages also so I had become even busier over the last few months.

It was on one of these visits that the accident happened. I was returning home –later than usual- after another complicated delivery case. Knowing that Poornima’s labour pain would begin at any time I was trying to get home as early as possible. It was around six p.m. in the evening and it was slowly getting dark. There was also a steady drizzle –not heavy but just enough to make one’s life miserable! I must have been moving faster than usual as I was in a hurry to get past a rather lonely stretch traversing an elephant infested area. It must have been my anxiety to get past this area combined with my anxiety to reach home early that caused the accident – at one of the turns my bike skidded and I was thrown off. All I remember was my head hitting the ground before I became unconscious.

When I finally recovered consciousness I found myself on a hospital bed. I was told that I had been unconscious for one whole day but was otherwise fine! The most curious thing was the hospital staff informed me that they had heard a knock on the door late in the night on the day of my accident and had found me lying unconscious at the doorstep. They just couldn’t figure out who had brought me to the hospital. They thought they saw a person moving away and had tried calling out but all they heard was the sound of a bus leaving!!

Fortunately, Poornima’s condition did not change during that time. Three days after my accident she delivered a baby boy.

Later that day, I went to see my grandson for the first time and to my utter surprise I could have sworn that my grandson pumped his clenched fist!

I never heard the bus or the horn ever again.

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By Roy Thomas