Nobody Thought I Would Survive (2)

Before I started losing track of time:

Coming to office was a mistake today – I realized within half an hour of reaching office on Tuesday, August 29. I was not being able to keep my head straight. My eyes were watering.

Colleagues, who had turned friends, were worried. Good old Joseph, always a well-meaning friend, went out, in the absence of a peon, and brought paracetamols for me.

I tried to complete work as fast as possible. My team did their best to assure me that even if I left early they would manage.

The sky was clouded since morning. Around 1:30- 2:00 pm, it darkened.
I received a call on my intercom. It was Amrita, our manager. She enquired about the month-end figures. After I had given her a detailed status, she asked me to leave for home.
“Thank you for coming in for work, my dear. Go home. Take rest. I would need a fit Paromeeta tomorrow.” – were her exact words.

Joseph had something to do with this, I realized, as I saw him open the swing-door of the back-office.
“Its going to rain, Paro! Pack up fast. I will call a cab for you. Don’t go by bus today!” – he himself was packing up my desk into my drawers. Good old Joseph!

By the time the elevator took Joseph and me down to the ground floor of Delta House, it was raining fiercely. Standing in the passage that faced the elevators, we could not see a thing on the road outside. We knew the signs. If rain like this continued for ten minutes, Dalhousie would again be flooded.
I did not have strength to worry. I let my body drop on the stool left empty by the caretaker of the building.

The roads, as we had anticipated, were waterlogged in minutes and the water level was touching the steps at the main entrance of Delta House. Rain had subsided a bit, though.

Joseph took my umbrella and went for a cab. Within minutes he returned with one. I descended the submerged steps, my shoes and trousers getting soaked yet again. When I boarded the cab, I realized I was shivering.
“Take care, Paro.” – Joseph said.
These were words my colleagues kept texting me throughout the next one month.


I didn’t feel like having dinner, that night. My mother made mashed potatoes seasoned with fried cumin. I loved to have this when I fell sick.
Dino had come down for dinner that night. (I get confused when I need to introduce Dino. He is a dear and dependable brother, a childhood friend and my brother’s brother-in-law.)
They had chicken with rotis.

I gulped a few spoonfuls of the potato mash and went to sleep. I woke up in the middle of the night. My stomach was troubling me a bit. I went to the toilet. I felt a bit relieved and returned to sleep.

My alarm beeped. Time to get up and get ready for office – it is the 30th today – my mind told me.
As I tried to sit up, I could not. My body felt as heavy as a rock. My throat had something stuck inside it, which refused to come out. The feeling was miserable – something I was not able to describe to anybody, even later on.

I don’t think I can make it today. I am so sorry. – I texted Amrita.
Take Care. Try to be fit by tomorrow. – she replied.

Ma, something is stuck inside my throat! – were my first words when my mother came upstairs from her bedroom.
Have some tea. Acidity makes us feel like that sometimes. – she said.

She made me a cup of black tea, which I kept sipping for the next hour. She had given me a couple of Marie biscuits, which I did not feel like touching.
My mobile phone kept ringing – colleagues, team members, clients!

Around 12 noon, Ma literally coaxed me into having the biscuits. I threw up within minutes.

I did not eat anything throughout the day. My sister-in-law returned from work and made me a glass of “lebur shorbot” (homemade lemon juice).
If you ask me what is the most delicious thing I have had in my entire life, I would say it was the lemon juice that she made me that day- Maybe, because, I kept craving for a drop of water in the days to come.