The Red String Theory (Chapter 17 updated on page 59) - Page 4

Chapter Three: The hall of shame or the walk of fame?

"Dr Jain, there are more coming in,"

"How many more?" Nakusha asked, as she put on her sterile gloves.

"About eight, three minors, one elderly."

"Show the minors and elderly to the blue area, Drs May, Nam and Khan will take care of them. I have about four empty gurneys here, I can take on the rest, page Dr Wilkinson."

It had been terrible. Apart from the catastrophic loss to infrastructure, the death toll was in itself fear invoking. She knew it would be weeks, possibly even months before any accurate figure could be noted, but surely one thing was certain; the toll was increasing and dangerously fast.

Nakusha had been in Thailand for a month now; her summer placement had been extended to six months, from Cambodia, to include Laos and Thailand. She should have been flying back in the New Year, filing her application to join Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, but this natural disaster had other plans for her. Those plans would have to be put on hold. But it wasn't just that, something had changed, over the last six months or so, since Nakusha had begun her medical fellowship, things had changed.

She had lost her mother in September. They had never been close, in fact, it was a miracle if they ever met twice a year (Christmas and Easter: or rather Nakusha's only time off from work/study) but this year, the year she died, Nakusha had seen plenty of her. Once every month. Rehab is awful. But it is worse when you watch a loved one kill themselves and take you with them. She had put those memories aside. But being here, seeing families been torn apart, children being motherless with a blink of an eye, mothers clutching the lifeless bodies of their kin's and crying their hearts out, for the first time Nakusha felt something. She felt she was in the wrong place. She felt that this whole time she had been in the wrong place. She needed to be here, to be around people who needed her. Boston, neurology, the Mckenzie programme they all now seemed like some distant dream.

Losing her mother had made her question her life, she never had any siblings; she didn't share those bonds, even her friends she kept at an arm's length. Had it not been for a mix up at the student accommodation office, she probably would never have made friends with Leela. The only person who seemed to climb the walls Nakusha had built around herself to maintain distance. She didn't really know her father, apart from being a drunkard abuser who had exited the picture when Nakusha was four. Heck she didn't even remember his face. Did she look like him? She sure as hell didn't look like her mother. Her mother, had drunk herself into an early grave, everyone said it was the detoxing and depression that got her, but they hadn't been around for Nakusha's upbringing, they didn't see Sheila struggle up the stairs, they didn't see her nearly choking on her own sick, only Nakusha did.

Sheila put on a good front. To outsiders, she was merely a single mum struggling under the Tory-era to bring her child up, but nonetheless surviving. But the reality was much different. While the days Sheila spent working, the night she spent drinking. While she walked out of the door in the morning, she barely stumbled in, in the evening. And then, then there was no one to help, no one to see a young child practically raise herself while her mother lay wasted in her own pool of sick in the middle of the bathroom.

Of course Nakusha hated her childhood. Naturally she wished for something different. She wasn't embarrassed to admit that she would often go to sleep wishing that tomorrow there would be a knock on the door, a young pretty couple would stand before her and tell her there had been a mistake at the hospital. An actual mix up and that she was their child. They had come to take her away. To live in a lavish house, to be able to play in the garden, to have sleepovers. But above all to be a child. But alas it was all wishful thinking. She knew it, even at six; she knew the difference between dream and reality.

There was no magic wand; no fairy Godmothers (that lucky Cinderella) no amounts of wishing upon a star would alter her life. Only one person could do that. And that was her. She had a knack for studying, and that's when she figured out how she would escape her wormhole. SO what if she wasn't as privileged as some other children, she would earn her life. If that needed to be, so let it. Not everyone has the same destiny. Some are forced into theirs, others forge their own path. Nakusha knew which side she belonged too. She had once read Vini Vidi Vichi' on a school display board, it was Latin for "I came, I saw, I conquered" and that's when Nakusha realised that someday she may be able to say those words. Nay she would say those words

Yes her childhood was awful. Worse than most, but perhaps better than some, but either way Nakusha had made peace with it. That was her life. There was no point crying or musing over it. All she could do was to make something of herself and she did. Or so she thought.

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"Dr Jain,"

Nakusha turned around to see a lean six foot tall man crouching slowly before he fell to the ground unconscious.

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Six hours earlier

"Mr Patil, please stay on this side of the rope."

That was Dutta's third warning, he wasn't deliberately ignoring the health and safety rituals, but he could not just stand there watching. He had to help. So what he wasn't a search and rescue worker and was merely a reporter.  He knew what to do. He could help. He was volunteering.

Dutta saw the rescue worker turn away as he escorted an older man towards one of the medical camps set up in the back. This was his opportunity. Without stopping to think, Dutta, stepped over, he knew exactly where the person was trapped, he had heard the voice. They were waiting for someone to help lift the debris, but Dutta had witnessed enough damage to know time was of the essence. He began to pull rocks back. He must have been at it for a minute or so, before he realised he wasn't alone, others had too joined in with the rescue. Humanity at its best.

"Hello, can you hear me."

Dutta heard it, someone had shouted for help in Thai.

"Over here," he motioned to the men on his right; they began pulling away the rocks, when they first felt it. It was ever so quiet and the aftermath almost too soft to be felt. But the second time they felt it alright. The ground had shuddered and split, not much but enough to warn them of the oncoming earthquake. It created a hole not too big but wide enough to fit into, he could now see the trapped victim. The look of pure belief and gratitude of having been found was enough for Dutta, as he climbed down.

But Mother Nature had already warned him once, and he had paid no heed, this time when the ground shook. Dutta felt it, he really felt it. A nearby rock had broken off and missed his head by inches, instead denting his shoulder. He was sure he had dislocated it. But that didn't deter him, he was here now;

"Sir can you move?"

The man didn't understand English, Dutta could speak Thai but he was limited;

What's Thai for move anyway' he thought,

But before Dutta could press on, with his shoulder now murdering, he saw the man point towards his right foot, it was trapped. Dutta was no doctor, he could not tell if it was broken, but the purple hue his ankle was now taking pointed to one direction, a direction he'd much rather not think about.

Ok, so basic first aid, what do I do?' Dutta sought to recall the first aid training he had at school, but all he could think about was rolling him over.

"Fat load of help that is" He spoke out loud agitated;

"Come think, think." He tried his best but all that kept floating around his head was the how he and Baji had mocked their way through the training.

"Idiot Baji" Dutta said out loud, before he felt a pang in his heart;

Am I ever going to see his stupid face again?'

In that instant Dutta regretted his decision. He wasn't a search and rescue worker. Heck he wasn't even a proper volunteer. He had been there with his team, reporting on the Tsunami and its effect on Thailand, when his team had been told to move, there was news of aftermaths and the area needed to be evacuated. But for some reason, Dutta couldn't retreat, especially not when he walked among miles and miles of destruction, when all he could see when he closed his eyes were bodies lying motionless. Parents wailing into the night, children frightened, lost and confused. Dutta who was used to sitting in his office and writing his political pieces had no idea what it was like to be on the field, to actually see carnage. To witness massive turning points in history. Of course he had always dreamed of it, but dreaming and experiencing were two very different things. They may be two sides of the same coin, but nonetheless they were two sides.

The old man let out another groan, and instantly Dutta hated himself for having doubted his decision to help him. How could he be so selfish?

Perhaps it wasn't his fault, perhaps it was the privileged, Lawrenceville educated, polo playing lifestyle he had grown up in. He was rich. No scratch that, his parents were rich. Mega rich. Once Dutta had heard someone say his father excreted gold, as an eight year old, that had fascinated him, and so he investigated. As Dutta rudely came to realise the guy couldn't be more wrong. But either way Dutta was rich. His parents had made their billions on Wall Street, a destination that he was headed for-as per his parentage-while he was still in the womb.

Except Dutta didn't. He shunned away from it. His first snub came at eighteen, when he made-according to him the first decision of his life-and applied and got accepted into Yale, as opposed to Harvard, where his father, his father's father, his father's father's father...you get the message all attended. Naturally Patil senior did not take well to this news. That was the first blow to the relationship, or perhaps the second? It was one thing to have your son attend a different college, but a completely different story when you realised what he was majoring in.

The man groaned again, Dutta moved towards him:

"Don't worry we're getting out of here." He reassured the man, who he knew didn't understand a word Dutta said but nonetheless still felt peace from the presence of another.

"Ok I'm going to try and pull you out..." Dutta tried to explain to the man what he was going to do, pointing to his foot, making a pulling motion and pointing to the hole above.

"Bear with me. Let's do this." Counting to three in his head, Dutta heaved all his energy and pulled, forgetting about his own injury he collapsed in pain. But he wasn't going to stop. He tried again, then again, then again. His shoulder that throbbed had suddenly stopped. Maybe it was numb, maybe he was numb. By this point Dutta was beyond delirious. He knew he could do it, but he just needed to rest, he was feeling sleepy.

He just wanted to close his eyes and settle back, yes a small nap should do it. A quick refresher then he'll have all the energy to help the chap. But as Dutta began to close his eyes, he heard the man yell, calling him to wake.

Didn't he know how tired Dutta was? Didn't he know he just wanted a little rest? But the man did not stop, not even when the search and rescue had found them.

"Sir, can you hear me?" Someone was shaking him lightly;

"Sir, stay with me. Can you tell me your name?"

Dutta fought against the man,

Let me sleep'

"Sir, what is your name. Do not sleep. Can you hear me?"

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He doesn't really remember what happened next, but when he woke, he was on a gurney, his arm in a bandage. Someone was stood over him;

"Open up."

"Huh?" But before Dutta could say anything else, she had placed the thermometer in his mouth.

He wanted to fight back but he felt sleepy again. She spoke again, he could detect British accent;

"Sleep, you've got a tonne of morphine in your system. Don't fight it. You'll feel better."

Dutta slept and he slept for a while, before he was up and walking, his shoulder on the mend, all he wanted to do was find the old man. He wanted to see that he was ok. He had been walking around several camps, but hadn't had much luck yet. Most of his team had already packed and left. He was left; he needed the final clearance from the doctor before he could travel (visa purposes.) It was after Dutta began feeling light headed that he heard someone shouting after him. They had definitely said excuse me in Thai. Even that much Dutta knew.

Dutta pointed to himself, the small girl, who mustn't have been no more than twelve had nodded and said;

"You." She told him that her father wanted to see him.

Dutta followed the girl, she could speak some English, but it was limited, she told him that he was her angel, he'd rescued her father.

They sat and spoke for some time, and after being deliberately force fed, Dutta felt it was time to leave. He had been feeling light headed for a while now. But he thought it rude to reject the food. But now as he wandered out of the tent, his arm was aching. He needed to see a doctor. Looking around he saw a tent with a cross, he hobbled his way there.

"I need a doctor." He spoke to the woman in front of him;

"Go straight in Dr Jain is inside."

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*So, what's the verdict? I know I know I promised that Tasha would meet, and technically they have, just not completely ;) Till next time, have a great day folks*