by Durjoy Datta
‘Because no one wants to die! That’s why! Because we worship life, because we fight for it. We keep even criminals alive. Why not him? He’s my Devrat and NOTHING has changed for me. I still look into those eyes and melt. I still feel like wrapping myself around him and hide him from the world. He’s still my puppy. He will always be.’
‘At the end of the day, it’s his body, it’s his choice.’
‘How can you say that, sir? There are more than a hundred cancer patients in your hospital and all of them would rather die than go through the pain of it. In moments of desperation, they want to die. Do you want Arun to kill himself? He’s going to die after a year anyway? But do you want him to die right now? Do you not want him to spend a year with the girl he has a crush on? Do you not? How can you support murder? What about the Hippocratic Oath? That you can’t give any patient anything that would kill them?’
‘The Hippocratic Oath also said women can’t practise medicine and doctors can cut into skin. Do we practise that?’ argues Chautala
‘I’m sorry. But what about newborns? You get children with problems that they will carry for the rest of their lives? Why don’t we give them the choice to kill themselves? We should kill them, too, shouldn’t we?’
Chautala doesn’t answer that, but Avanti waits for a reply, her eyes stuck on him.
‘I have been a part of the debate for too long,’ says Chautala. ‘And I have been on both sides. Every case is subjective, but when it comes to Devrat, I think he needs to live for you. If he doesn’t want to, I would take him to the most selfish person I have ever met.’ With this he takes Avanti in his embrace and Avanti cries with her face buried in his chest.
‘Does anyone else know yet?’ asks Chautala.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘It’s all up to you then. If you want to keep him alive, you have to convince him. Put yourself in his shoes and think for a moment. He’s powerless. He’s staring at a life confined to a bed, helpless, angry and frustrated. If there’s anyone who can do this, it’s you.’
Avanti nods. She gets up from her chair and walks to the door, zombie-like. Chautala’s arguments may have been flimsy but he does make sense. Devrat’s trapped in a body that doesn’t work, and probably never would.
‘What are you going to do?’ asks Chautala.
‘Maybe I don’t want to do anything.’
She leaves Chautala’s room and for the next month or so, she doesn’t debate Devrat’s decision, which is now known to Devrat’s parents as well.
Devrat has told them about it. He still can’t talk very well for there’s a hole cut in his throat so that he can breathe. He takes quite some time to string together a sentence and he gets tired mid-way through the sentence. His voice is nothing like it used to be (his vocal chords are partly paralysed)—now it sounds like someone who’s already dead. More than the quality of his voice, it’s the defeat in it, which bothers Avanti.
She only sits by his side, loving him, and trying to understand how ‘trapped’ he is, and how ‘difficult’ it is for him to live a life with no prospects, no quality, and no dignity and with nothing to look forward to in the future. She has seen Devrat cry incessantly, his eyes straining against his skull, his thumb moving about vigorously, as if he’s trying to break out his body, as if his soul is trying to break out. He cries like a newborn, his voice failing him, so he just shouts and keeps shouting. There’s no quietening him. He just opens his mouth wide and cries out loud, drooling at the edges of his mouth, and Avanti wipes it clean.
Devrat now doesn’t use words, he just wails. But his body speaks more than words can say. It kills her to see him jerk his head on his pillow trying to move, trying to talk, but instead he just ends up crying and making illegible noises.
Avanti has started to feel sorry for him. There are times that she falls asleep and wakes up to find Devrat crying, and when she asks him about how long he has been awake, he answers that he has been up for a few hours and Avanti feels like killing herself instead.
Thirty-One
It’s been a month and Devrat has spent countless nights typing out an explanation to everyone on why he wants to die.
When he had first expressed his desire to die, Avanti had thrown a fit, but over the next few days she had seen the point Devrat was trying to make. All she has asked from Devrat is a long letter that she can send to everyone justifying his decision to end his life; something that she can read years later and not feel guilty about her decision. And he has been writing it for the past month, taking out whatever time he can. Everyone he knows and a lot of people he doesn’t know have come to meet him. Though all of them have been instructed not to talk about Devrat’s decision to kill himself, some of them do broach the topic and Avanti has to ask them to shut up. Today, he has finished the letter.
Devrat would have talked, but talking is a painful and tiring process right now. Hearing his own voice is the most torturous part of his illness, he says. In his own words, he sounds like a baby hyena caught in a hunter’s trap, dying. So whatever his explanation to die, he has written it down.
Avanti’s has been dreading this moment but there’s nowhere to run now. For the past two hours she’s been sitting with Chautala talking about the way forward.
‘I didn’t think you would give up so easily,’ says Chautala. ‘You waited almost a year. You could have waited longer.’
‘I could have held on for an eternity, but I have seen him cry, day in and day out, begging me to release him. What am I to do? Yes, I wanted him to live and I still do, but not like this. Not when he spends every waking moment cursing me and cursing himself, not when he spends day after day in depression, slipping down that slope further as each day passes. The least I owe him is a smiling death. It’s going to be hard for me here on. As he says today, he has no hope, I, too, will have none after today. But I have legs, and I have arms, and I think those are what he refers to as hope and those are what we live with. He’s right. I can live and he can’t. I have everything and he has nothing. He has nothing to live for. And I have a future in front of me. Because I can move my hands. Just great. I’m so lucky, aren’t I? That I have these hands and these legs and I can move around even when he’s dead.’ She’s trying hard not to cry here. ‘I need to stop being selfish and give him what he wants the most. I owe him this I think. His parents won’t have the courage to do it so I have to pull off his breathing support. I’m sorry,’ says Avanti and breaks down into tears.
‘I will miss you.’
‘You’re not getting rid of me.’
‘I hope not,’ says Chautala and hugs Avanti. He slips an injection in Avanti’s dress. It’s the injection that will put Devrat to sleep.
Avanti leaves the room and makes the long walk towards Devrat’s room. The hospital staff looks away from Avanti; some of them know what Devrat has asked for and they don’t have the emotional strength to talk to Avanti about it. Avanti reaches the room and finds Devrat still tapping away on the touchscreen writing the letter.
‘Are you done yet?’ asks Avanti.
‘Yes, almost,’ taps Devrat and it shows on the screen. ‘The rest, that part, that’s for you, I will just say it aloud. If I don’t choke that is,’ says Devrat. He coughs.
‘Can I read it?’ grumbles Avanti.
‘Why are you so grumpy always?’ asks Devrat, his broken voice now totally crushed.
‘You’re dying, Devrat. What else do you want me to be? Happy?’ asks Avanti. ‘Now show me the letter.’
Devrat swipes through the screen and reaches the document. It opens on the touchscreen. Avanti starts reading it:
Hey Avanti,
Forgive the typos and the shoddy sentences. Because of you know what.
On the eighth day.
It’s been eight days, as you have told me, that I have been awake, and every minute is excruciatingly painful. You would i
magine that not feeling anything means not having to feel a lot of pain, but it’s the other way around. I can feel every second pass by now, and every second is more painful than the last.
You have no idea the panic I felt the day I finally woke up and got to my senses. I could hear everything, I could smell everything, I could see everything but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t move, Avanti! Imagine that. I didn’t know where I was, all I saw was a ceiling staring down at me. I was crying the entire night, THE ENTIRE NIGHT, before you noticed I could move a thumb. I was trapped in this body and I will forever be. I wanted to shout and scream but I couldn’t. I tried to shout, I still try to, I try till my head starts to pain and there’s still nothing. My throat gives away and I can’t say a word. I just end up coughing. I’m just stuck. You think it’s painful for you to see me go, put yourself in my shoes and then think . . .
I’m already dead, Avanti. I saw pictures of my body. Maa showed me and she cried while she showed them to me. I’m wasted and rotting after eight months of being on this bed. Imagine what will happen after two years, and imagine what will happen after three years . . . Do you think I deserve this? Stuck behind this window from where I see everything, I feel like I’m in a jail, biding my time, waiting to drop dead some day. You think it’s easy for me to do this? I see you talking every day, I see everyone talk every day and I want to be a part of those conversations but I can’t. But the time I say ‘Hi!’, the conversation is always over. The eyes that I see are always full of pity and I’m tired of seeing them. I hear the doctors tell you and my parents how lucky you are to get me back. But why don’t they talk to me? Whether I feel I’m lucky or not! I’m not, Avanti. I would rather be dead. Regardless of what you or my parents might think, I don’t think I want to do this. I want to die. I can’t live a life of a brain without a body. I can’t live a life of helplessness and frustration. I just can’t.
On the eleventh day.
It’s eleven days now. And I still want to die. I think sometimes the doctors forget that I can listen. I hear them talk when they say that my waking up was a miracle and further progress would be a miracle, too. Do you think I deserve to live this life on miracles? You keep telling me that there’s still so much to live for. What is there to live for? Blinking and moving my thumb around? Trying to talk? I used to sing, and now saying a sentence tires me out. My voice is gone, Avanti. When I try to talk my voice sounds like someone has put a boot on my neck, and it feels that way, too. Is that a way to live? I used to sing, Avanti. That used to be the only thing I used to like, and now, I can’t even talk properly. How can someone be expected to not do the only thing he or she wants to do and live a life devoid of it?
Karishma and Sumit came today and they broke down in front of me. I know they both love me. But they love me today, what about tomorrow? I will just be an emotional liability. Do you think they will travel every month and sit beside me waiting for me to type out things that I want to say? I will be reduced to a source of guilt in their lives. They wouldn’t come to see me, but they would still feel guilty for not having made it.
Do you think my parents are happy seeing me like this? Their lives were over the day I got into that accident. Now, I’m just making their lives worse by being in this limbo. What happiness can I give them now? I’m just a drain of their wants and needs now. If I go, they can start their lives afresh. They can build a new life without me. But what about me? What do I do? What do you think I do all day? I feel like a decomposing piece of shit. Do you think you will have as much time for me, to sit beside me and talk to me as you have now, all your life? There would come a time when you would have to move on, too. Find something to do other than just staring at a touchscreen, straining your ears to listen to what I’m saying, wiping my drool, and looking after me. Don’t you think you deserve better?
On the fifteenth day.
It’s been fifteen days now, and I still want to die. Nothing has changed. I met all the patients and the relatives of patients you have made friends with and none of them can change my mind because none of them are in my place and they don’t know what I’m going through. Arun came, the little boy, and told me he wants to date you. He’s young and dying (lucky him), and hence I didn’t feel anything (funny thing because I can’t anyway), but what if Arun was a healthy twenty-three year old boy and would have wanted to date you. My insecurities earlier were with me being inadequate sexually or financially, about me being a smaller man, but now, I’m not even human. How can I expect you to be with me? It’s just unfair on you and unfair on me. Today, you don’t have a job, but tomorrow you will and you will make new friends beyond the ones you have in the hospital. You will go out with them. And I will still be here, waiting, thinking of what you must be doing with them, obsessing about the guys in your group, wallowing in self-pity and inferiority, questioning my existence. Of whatever is left of my life, I don’t want to spend it like this. I don’t think I can allow myself that.
On the twentieth day.
It’s been twenty days now, and I still want to die. I saw my mother coughing today. God forbid that I live to be as old as her, do you have any idea how I would turn out to be? Twenty-five years in this bed? Twenty-five years? I can count seconds, Avanti. Even as I write this, I can hear the second go by on the wall clock and I’m praying to make the clock go faster. Every time I close my eyes I hope that I don’t wake up the next time.
And now, it’s been twenty-eight days and I still want to die. Nothing is changing. Every day is more frustrating than the other and there’s no way this helplessness will ebb. No matter how many therapists this hospital assigns me, I don’t think I can live this life. I have nothing to live for. I can’t live like a liability, I can’t be a burdensome, irritating man for the rest of my life. I want you to say your goodbyes to the guy you know, the guy you were in love with.
Maybe I woke up to say my goodbye to you. So there’s nothing more to say now, Avanti. And I want to say my goodbyes. Pull off my breathing support . . .
The letter ends here and Avanti’s not looking at Devrat, instead she’s looking at the screen, not wanting to cry and hurl abuses at Devrat. Devrat now starts tapping and the words start to appear on the screen . . . but Devrat starts to talk.
He coughs and splutters and gets tired midway through the long monologue and it takes an hour for him to say it, but he soldiers on and still says it. Devrat says, ‘I know, Avanti, this is hard for you to take, but I want you to know that if I had a choice of being with you, I would have taken it. I really love you. I still do. And in the past one month I have tried to tell myself that maybe I will tide this through, that maybe I’m strong enough to hold on, but I’m not . . . I was happy after I saw you. But seeing you and my parents ecstatic, I knew something was wrong. And then you told me that I was sleeping not for a few days but for eight months. I couldn’t share your happiness because for me, in my head, it was just a few days. While you were celebrating and jumping around, I was just here, looking at you, trapped, weighed down by my own body shackling me to the bed. I wanted to hug you and kiss you and I knew in that moment that it would never happen.
‘You think I have not thought about the year that we spent together. I have. I remember every minute clear as day, and that those days won’t be back again, and that every day that we spend together from here would be harrowing depresses me. Avanti, I want you to know that you were the best thing to have ever happened to me. You found me. I was a little lost newborn in this world and you were this mother to me who found me perfect, no matter how flawed I was, not caring whether I had six fingers or a crooked thumb, you just took me in your arms and loved me like anything. You made me feel loved and wanted and like the luckiest boy in the world. I remember sitting at restaurants and dhabas and fast food counters with plates half-filled because we wouldn’t stop talking. And we never ran out of conversations. Every date lasted till we dropped dead of exhaustion, tired, our bodies protesting, our
minds dull, and not because I had any intentions to let you out of my sight.
Everyone has a love story to tell, everyone has a relationship to wax eloquent about, but without a doubt, I can assert that ours is better. And I remember we used to talk about how well we fit together, your exuberance and my shyness, your dancing and my two left feet, your posed-for smiles and my drunk laughter . . . I still remember how holding your hand in public places, even after a year, would still make me feel shy and mushy, how I had to ask you not to look good lest they think I got you off escort services. I want all that, Avanti. I want to be loved . . . I want to be with you. I want to be with you as much as you want to be with me . . . but I also want you to be free of me. You have spent the last few months in the hospital. Yes, I know about that. You think the other patients didn’t tell me about that? And that just makes me feel worse. That makes me want to kill myself. That I have kept you tied here. What after this? They will shift me to my parents’ house and you will be there, taking care of me 24/7 for the rest of my life. I don’t want that, Avanti. That’s not what you signed up for. That’s not I signed up for.
‘I love you. And I don’t want to die but I don’t know what to do . . . just kill me. I want to die.’
Devrat’s exhausted and tears have started to streak down his cheek again, wetting the pillow beneath his head.
‘I understand Devrat,’ says Avanti. From her bag, she takes out a small injection Chautala had given her that morning. ‘I love you, Devrat.’
‘Don’t you want to say anything?’ coughs Devrat.
‘My words would take a lifetime for you to listen.’
Devrat stops crying and starts trying to talk. ‘So you will just let me go like that?’
‘I love you, Devrat. You’re asking me to kill you. Three minutes after this injection breaks into your skin, you will be dead and I will have the dearest thing snatched away from me. What do you expect?’ grumbles Avanti. She loads up the injection just like she had been asked to by Chautala. Her fingers tremble and her heart’s beating out of her chest; it’s taking all her might to not burst into tears and beat Devrat’s chest till he reverses his decision, but she knows they are past that.
