The Signpost (Concluding part)

Moonlight skimmed the room, the wind was strumming on the twigs of the Neem tree outside. Now, the silver was gone and replaced by a dim yellow hue. The bulb shone above Naam’s forehead who was now cringing in pain.
“No, he won’t be going school today. He is unwell,” Jasveer was telling the autorickshaw driver. Naam was in pain throughout night. Towards morning he had started sneezing, badly. He was to go to the doctor today.
Preet was dressed up in a pair of blue trousers and a white shirt. Slowly he took Naam in his arms and helped his brother on to the front seat of his bicycle. They exchanged glances, Naam holding a kerchief to his left nostril that was flowing. The right was indifferent, and numb.
A black limousine was parked on the bade pitch. A man in his forties with a receding hairline, dressed in ash coloured suit was standing near the signboard talking to a moustached fellow in a crisp white shirt with a golden tie. Another man, aged and balancing himself on the open rear door of the big beast was telling something which had little or no effect on the two men as they continued their conversation without bothering to look at him.
The doctor’s task had turned out to be easier. He dismissed Naam after a quick look at his tongue and an uninterested check up of his eyes. “One tablet with meal three times a day, half a tablet in noon and night and two spoons of the tonic after every meal,” the white coated, white bearded man told Naam in a dismissive baritone. Preet wanted it to be over. A momentary feeling of nausea had gripped him at the thought of giving so many medicines to his little brother.
The doctor went on. “I have prescribed a few tests. Get me the test reports; no need to bring him again.”
“Is it severe doctor saaheb?” Preet’s eyebrows arched deeper into his nose.
“The tests would tell,” the doctor reassured smilingly, the medicines would comfort him.”
Preet awed the doctor. He had seen the guy repeat the same smile to every one of his patients who went before him. Why couldn’t he do that, he wondered. On his way back home he did try once to smile, but the next moment his mother with all her concerns written on her face was looking at him. The smile deserted him.

*****

Naam’s condition had deteriorated over the last week. When the government doctor told “pneumonia”, they had not understood its implications. Jasveer had not slept the previous night. Naam’s coughing wouldn’t stop. Together they would cry and let dissolve their individual pain. Preet lay in his mother’s room. He could not sleep either. His mother’s words, “we have just enough to last another week” scathed him. He was feeling hot in the December chill. Preet removed the blanket and lay on his side.

*****

He did not know when he had fallen asleep but his mother was crying, when he was woken up. “Naam is not able to breathe. We have to rush him to the hospital.”
He was already downstairs unlocking his cycle. It was 2 am.
The Sawai Man Singh hospital was eleven kilometres. Preet was furiously pedalling away to Himmat uncle’s house.
Naam was put under observation, in the ICU. Himmat uncle was holding Jasveer consoling her. Preet returned to the ward after completing the formalities at the counter.
“You come with us Preet, Jasveer would stay back,” the burly Sardar spoke with conviction. He turned towards his mother who was now sitting outside the ICU. “You will be alright wouldn’t you,” Preet tried to affirm. Jasveer nodded and gave a feeble smile.
It was 4 when Preet reached home. Preet did not go to the school. He calculated the days of leave, wrote a letter and handed it over to Maan to be delivered at his school. The winter vacations were to start the next week.
For three days, Naam was kept in the ICU. On the fourth, he was shifted to the general ward. Both Naam and his mother were present at his side. He was still coughing, the intervals had stretched, his left nose was flowing, though much of his fluid had dried up owing to antibiotics but he could breathe.
“Another week,” the young doctor Bansal told the family. Preet and his mother would change shifts and stay with Naam, Preet taking his seat by the bedside every evening, diligently. Naam had returned to his usual self, talking to his brother and friends who would come to see him surprising the doctors with his swift recuperation.
It was his last day at the hospital. Preet was beside him. “Did we defeat the sector 3 team Preet pra,” a visibly jubilant Naam asked him.
“Yes, Maan hit a half century and we won on the second last ball.”
“Who hit the winning run?” Naam quipped with excitement.
“I finished it…”
“With a four.” Naam concluded the commentary.
They reached home in Himmat uncle’s car.
The two dispensing pumps installed on the ground went unnoticed. Naam was too busy humming the victory song…hum honge kamyab

*****

The winter vacations were on. Naam was keeping well. With his mother drooling over him and his brother’s attention only for him he had started to enjoy every moment of their affection. A nagging thought of not getting fully well tugged at his heart against the scheme of the daily discourse, which would also include spankings from mother and going school. The only “discomforting thing” to this otherwise far-fetched merry thought was the heavy woollens that he was forced to wear. They itched more than they kept one warm.
Preet was not at home. He knew, bhaiyya was playing cricket! Mother had told him. Naam thought of getting out of bed but dismissed the idea when heaviness in his head drowned his will. Doesn’t matter, Naam thought to himself, bhai would tell him in the evening.
Evening came. Preet was late today.
“Bhai…, we won?” The awaited moment had come.
Preet entered his room. So, Naam had heard his footsteps. He went to Naam who was now seated upright on his bed, covered with a blanket till the neck.
“How did you know?”
“I know. No one can defeat you.”
“Really, and what makes you think so?”
“I pray to God in the morning when you are on the ground, playing cricket.”
“That’s good. Now, did you have your dinner?” Preet tried to change subject.
“No,” his mother answered for Naam, “here, get the mattress out from under the bed so that you both can have food.”
It was a good meal for Naam who had not been able to eat well since the last two weeks. The match with Jagatpura team was fixed for Sunday next. “Two more weeks to go,” Naam thought within himself. It didn’t take him long to swim the dreams to the abode of angels where he was realising his wishes locked in his heart.
“Naam has improved,” his mother relaxed herself besides Preet who was watching the television.
He went near the Crown product and plugged the voice.
“Yeh, he told me he had walked to the balcony,” Preet said. 
“I did not know that.”
Jasveer became silent. Then they came, slowly, stealthily, their momentum increasing in intensity with passing moments.
“I am sorry Preet beta (son). I am really sorry,” Jasveer spoke with her head down cursing herself, not bothering to wipe away her tears.
The television started speaking again as Preet returned and held his mother in his arms. “You needn’t be sorry,” Preet was sobbing too.
“Your father did not have much after his visit to India, otherwise he would have sent. He has written to tell you that he would get you a new cycle and...”
Jasveer went to her room. Preet stared into the television for some time. He turned it off trying to regain his consciousness. He switched off the light. Inside, Naam was fast asleep. He slipped beside him under the blanket.

*****

Preet was not at home as usual. Naam walked over to the next room. The dizziness that throbbed in his head when he exerted himself was gone. He stopped at the door of the living room where he thought he had seen his brother’s bat. Immediately he flung the door ajar. The bat was not there. Preet pra must have taken it to the ground. “What joy?” he squealed.
He would be talking to ma, to let him accompany Preet pra to the ground. Only three more days left of the vacations. Naam looked at the calendar. The year coming to an end, the school reopens.
At the dinner table he spoke.
“I will go with Preet pra to the ground.”
“No, you will not,” a stern Jasveer said.
“I am alright now. And, I get bored sitting at home ma.”
“Naam you are not going out anywhere,” Jasveer would not relent.
“Alright then, can I go to the school when it reopens?”
“Would you be,” Preet said tearing a morsel of chapati in his plate.
“Yes, bhai, I can. And, my coughing has gone too,” Naam said his hand on his mother’s, pleading.
“We shall see,” she said.
Naam was fit to go to school, the doctor had said after looking at the latest reports.
January 2 came. The schools had re-opened. Naam was already ready. It was eight. The autorickshaw would be arriving at 8:20.
“Look Naam, here I have packed the khichdi. The achaar is in this small box,” Jasveer said to Naam. He was arranging his bag. Handing the tiffin over to him she said lifting his chin, “do not eat anything outside.” He nodded inattentively.
The auto came, a little late as usual.
He climbed into the auto amidst greetings by his school friends. The autowallah turned the vehicle around and speeded it up. Naam was happy. More than going to school he was glad to be out of the house. The auto drove into the new petrol station. Naam looked for boys playing cricket but there were none. Vehicles had lined up in front of the pumps. They were in a queue.
He looked around anxiously. Then he saw the pitch. Its belly had been ripped apart and the mud taken out right from its centre. “It must have been a lot,” Naam thought for he could not see its bottom.
He pulled himself back. He swam back to Preet and his friends filling up a pit dug up by stray dogs. That was last year. The auto started to move out of the petrol station. Naam hated the huge signpost in front of him. The auto swivelled around to make a sharp turn. He leaned a little forward, then some more. Under the signpost, bending over his knees, Preet was filling in air in the tyres of a car. He did not see Naam. The auto moved ahead. The petrol station was left behind. Naam was still looking back.


*****