67 on the List
written by: Suman Mondal
One afternoon, I booked a cab in Kolkata. It was Wednesday, or perhaps Saturday—I don’t know. I can’t remember such small details of my life. It was a partly sunny day. The cab arrived near the house where I had been staying for weeks. I took the front seat, struggling to fasten my seatbelt. I was nervous, and the driver was disappointed, thinking I had come from a rural area. I took a deep breath, and the cab took me to my destination.
I reached the hospital at around 6 p.m. The sky was red-pink, a reflection of what waited for me in quiet serendipity. My heart throbbed, my eyes welled up with tears, my legs trembled, and I entered the hospital. The entrance of the building was made of mirrors, filled with desperate people. Some were sitting on the floor, one hand on the head, the other on the lap. Others were crying in silence.
I was waiting for an appointment with Dr. P. Das. Then the compounder called me and asked me to wait for a few more hours. I calmly asked, “I was number 67 on the list.” But he replied, “Our doctor visits patients overnight. You have to wait. Everyone is waiting. We are sorry.”
I sat in a chair with many other patients. I thought about my teenage years, when life was simple, marked by youthfulness. After waiting for two hours, an elderly woman came and sat beside me. She had sindur on her forehead, but her face was tinged with despair. She asked, “What is wrong with you? Your legs are trembling.”
“I’m not well,” I replied, trying to avoid further conversation.
“What exactly happened to you?” she asked, serious this time.
“Actually… my health is not good. It’s a chronic illness,” I replied, unwilling to share my feelings with a stranger.
At that moment, a young girl came, coughing and breathing heavily. She took the seat beside the woman, opened her bag, and started scrolling through YouTube Shorts. I glanced at her but turned my eyes away. The elderly woman asked, “Are you doing well?”
She replied, “Yes, ma.”
“You should be careful now. The room is very cold,” she said.
I understood she was her daughter. She was around eighteen. This time, I broke my silence and asked, “What is wrong with your daughter?”
“She’s not well. She needs to undergo a kidney transplant,” she replied, her eyes filled with tears.
“Who is donating to her?” I asked.
“I’m…” she answered.
“I’m so sorry to hear that,” I said, my heart beating faster.
Then we had a brief conversation. She told me her daughter was very talented and always scored high in her class. She was very cheerful until she had abdominal pain in Class 10, and the doctor asked for an ultrasonography of the KUB (Kidney, Ureter, Bladder).
A few weeks later, upon more serious tests, it was found that her blood pressure had risen to 190/130, and she was diagnosed with end-stage kidney failure. She needed dialysis three times a week. For the last few years, she had been battling severe depression, hallucinations, and fragility.
She couldn’t lift her body because of pain. I listened to her mother and wiped my cheeks with my shirt. Her mother showed her daughter’s photo on her smartphone. She was quite healthy and very beautiful. But I couldn’t distinguish her past photos from her present condition. She had completely changed; her body had become thinner, her eyes darkened with murky spots. I was deeply saddened to see her in front of my eyes. Her fair past was my teenage memory.
I took another deep breath. I told them I had been suffering from depression for the past few months.
“What medicines are you taking?” her daughter asked, finally speaking her first words.
“It’s Etizolam 0.5 and Fronxit 10 mg. My kidneys don’t work properly, too,” I replied.
“I hallucinated yesterday. I was seeing myself coming towards me,” she replied.
“I’m very sorry to hear that,” I said again.
“Actually, the medicines are not very good. They caused me hallucinations,” she replied.
“Yes,” I replied.
“How old are you? Who is with you in your family?” she asked.
“Twenty. My mom,” I replied.
“It’s okay. Now, I’ve been suffering. I have to battle,” she said, smiling, hiding her pain behind her smile.
“I don’t know if I should live. I’m mentally very weak. Very, very weak,” I told her, tears rolling down my cheeks, which I wiped.
“Don’t worry. Please. If something bad happens to you, who’ll take care of your mom? If something bad happens to your mom, who’ll take care of you?” she answered, healing my essence.
The statement gave me a profound realisation about her. I wanted to sob in her lap, in her past, in her present. I needed someone to embrace at the moment, but I resisted my longings.
Her father came to me, gave a friendly slap on my shoulder, and said, “Nothing will happen. N-o-t-h-i-n-g.”
She rose and went with her father. Her mother told me she had been requesting doctors for the kidney transplant at the earliest. But she had developed an infection in her chest, and the transplantation wasn’t possible at that moment. But the doctor would soon do that. She showed me the prescription, where her name was written: XXXXX.
She moved away and didn’t look back at me. Her mother touched my cheeks and bade goodbye. All of them went away. I remained, hopeless, hopeful. I didn’t know her at all. It was only a half-hour conversation. My mind sought what it longed for, but my conscience forbade me.
One year has passed. I don’t know if she’s alive. I don’t know if she remembers me. I can’t forget her ever again as long as I keep breathing. I remember the conversation, crying on my water-soaked pillow in quiet happiness. She may be enjoying the youthful days I lost, or she may be waiting for me in a frozen, inky cold.
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