The Diary Of My Dream

Beep…beep…beep…the voice of the monitor echoed as we were taking rounds on the post-op patients with Dr. Mittal. Seeing the tiny triangles of ECG on monitor, a thought erupted in my mind (technically, BRAIN) that if those tiny triangle cease into a flat line, you are no longer a resident of this world, no matter how many years you have spent living here, you are just gone. Just like a person living in a rented house who can be evicted by the owner at any time, they wish!

“OMG!”, I never knew I was even capable of such intellectual thoughts, who knew that even I have some neurons that function like other normal human beings.

Or may be not, since I even forgot to introduce myself, I am Devansh, an intern at a medical college. As far as how I am doing goes, remember my intellectual thought where I was talking about those tiny ECG triangles , well, if those triangles represented the ups and downs of one’s life, mine huh! …it would be going a steep slope! - a very very very steep slope!

Ok, probably most of the medical interns share the same feeling with me but I doubt whether their steepness could be anywhere near mine.

(I know it's nothing to be proud of, but that’s how we humans are, aren’t we? Always comparing who’s got more, whatever it may be happiness or hardships.)

“And now I think Mr. Devansh would like to elaborate more on Lown Ganong Levine syndrome, since he seems to know so much about the topic already,” howled Mr. Mittal (aka, HITLER)

(Believe me, when I say that he is one of those people, who always live up to their nicknames.)

I stare at him with wide eyes and mouth slightly open (but enough for a fly to go in, if it wanted.)

Okay, If he had told me even to repeat the name of the syndrome he had just said, I would have failed miserably. Elaborating on it! Ha.... what a joke!!

Before you judge me, one, I was so busy talking to you guys that I lost focus from what he was saying (ya.. it is all your fault.)

And number two, isn’t number one enough, like don’t you guys deem yourself important enough to be a source of my distraction… if not you really have a pretty low self esteem, should really work on that, Man!!

And what is it like Mr. Devansh . Couldn’t he say Dr. Devansh ? I am just three months away from being a qualified MBBS doctor.

Anyways, my blank face was proof enough for even a patient lying on bed in a half conscious state to conclude that I am a dumbass!

Throwing at me a disgusting look, Hitler turned his gaze towards Mrunal (she is the most beautiful and intelligent girl on the face of this Earth). She knew about the syndrome and as she started telling about it, my eyes just froze on her almond eyes, her long black hair, everything about her is just perfect.(As you might have noticed I am off track again)

Anyways, after she had completed, Hitler shot me another look, and that said it all. Given a chance, he would just rip my chest open, pull out my heart and eat it for dinner.

He dismissed everyone but me, and gave me an earful of reprimand, elaborating how unacceptable my behaviour in the class was and how I was a failure at the medical college. He went on and on until the clock struck 5. I could have sworn that by then blood was oozing out of my ears, maybe my brain had disintegrated.

Not left with any more strength and spirit to fool myself around for any longer, I decided to go to one of the seminar rooms…..to get some study in, because I don’t think I would be able to tolerate one more day of Hitlers’ lecture on how useless I was.

Oks..I accept maybe I am. But then I never said I wanted to be a doctor, I always wanted to be a writer- a writer like J.K Rowling or Mario Puzo.

“Writing is just a hobby not a career; how are you gonna earn enough to feed yourself?,” echoed my whole family.

I still try to write sometimes, though, especially when dealing with a tough situation and I need to vent out my feelings. But I haven't yet achieved a complete piece of writing. I don’t understand why I am never able to finish anything I start.

Huhhh….damn me!

It was 5:30 pm and I opened my bag to pull out my book. And lo! a small diary fell out along with it; it was a small brown leather diary. Quite attractive!

That’s not my diary! I never bought this one! I never kept it there!

The inquisitive me opened it up. There fell on my lap a folded piece of paper. On the inside, it read,

"May you be able to enjoy as much as I did!

- Grandpa"

I thought what he meant was 'writing' in 'it', but grandpa had not written anything in it.

Brushing aside all possible meanings this singular sentence could mean, I picked up my pen, meaning to vent out a bit on it and then started writing. After all, what harm could a five minute break do anyways?

I write a small Hi on the top left corner, and before I could continue, a Hi appears back on the page. It was as if I was holding Lord Voldy’s diary.

(Ya..ya..I gave him a nickname: show all the anger if you want to, I like it and I am keeping it!)

I was taken aback but only a bit ( I even doubted that those last few neurons of my brain too got busted).

But since I don’t think there is any living hope left for me, I write again. (I know pretty stupid of me, keep on blabbering, I am not listening to you, I am DONE)

Hey, can you talk?!

(I know very creative, Oscar worthy!!)

In return comes,”Glad you noticed. Most people run off after I 'hi' them back. But you see, I am a Good Diary!! And I even fulfil the wishes you write on me but only three. I hope you understand, nothing personal there.”

I read that same para over a dozen times before I comprehended it. (Okay, so the Diary also knows that I am a fool now, how wonderful!)

"And what do I want?…what do I want?" Actually I wanted so many things a Ferrari, a penthouse, a huge wardrobe and…...

Sound of deep rumbling rose from my stomach. (I hadn’t eaten anything after breakfast and it's nearly 9 pm now, well technically 8:10 but you remember in maths we used to round off things (NUMBERS) that’s what I did- to increase the impact!)

Suddenly it hit me what I wanted, it would be like killing one bird with two stones. Or was it two birds with one stone?

I am definitely going with the second one, sounds much more like it.

And I write,”Dear diary, I want AN APPLE."

Ummm… I can explain, you see the apple would, first, fill my poor stomach up and second, I had heard the proverb ‘an apple a day keeps the doctor away’, maybe this apple would be the one, that would be able to save me from my misery, or maybe would at least keep Hitler at bay.. maybe he would get a viral or maybe he would just forget that the mission of his life was to make mine hellish; see, makes sense. No?

When the diary finally reverted, it said something that I wouldn't have expected a diary to say.

It said,” LIKE SERIOUSLY”

(strange diary, isn’t it?)

By then I was no longer in the mood to explain it to the diary, so I keep on staring at it, 5 minutes pass… 10 minutes go away… 15, too… but nothing happened. I don’t even know why in the first place, I was even expecting for an apple to magically appear from in between pages of the diary.

(So it was all a joke after all, like my life…)

Finally having resigned, I shut the diary up, threw it away in my bag and opened up my book.

It was nearly midnight when I heard a slight knock on the door. When I turned around, I felt a fresh lease of air and my tiredness just 'went with the wind'! ….Standing in front of me was her! The love of my life !

(of course, she doesn't know that…. Duh..uh!!)

“I thought you could use a snack”, said Mrunal, as she pulled out an apple from her bag. (Okay, I know I had wished for that, but after studying for nearly 4 hours, some rewiring does happen in your brain, and yes I had forgotten about that completely. Apple is such a small thing, I even forget my own name, when I am talking to Mrunal).

I ate up the apple while talking to her. After she left on receiving an emergency call, I dozed off on that very same table.

When I woke up in the morning I was already late, I picked up my bag and rushed to the class (not exactly class but proff's’ cabin.)

Today we were with Dr. Garg (let me tell you man, she is I would say one of the best CVTS (cardio vascular and thoracic surgeon) surgeon to exist under the sun.)

She explained us the procedure on how to operate on a bullet wound in thoracic cavity. It was a pretty interesting lesson (with the number of people we see getting hit by bullets in movies, all thanks to Bollywood!, and people randomly pulling those out with their fingers, Ugg! It was actually good to know how to actually treat a bullet wound and believe me Bollywood is doing it all wrong.) Just as the lecture was about to end, I remembered about the diary lying in my bag.

Well, I did get the apple! Didn't I?

I was so over the moon that I no longer could concentrate on what Dr. Garg was saying. (Come on, how could anyone??)

The itch in my fingers just kept on growing (to again write in the diary, but obvio!!), so I tried to wait and of course, I didn’t wait. So, I excused myself to the restroom. First issue resolved, now time for the second , what should I ask for? Hmm…maybe one of the things I was thinking of before, but after listening to Dr. Garg talk so much about the surgery, a chance at CVTS surgery seemed so much more lucrative (a surgery of such sort is pretty rare to get and moreover, even after becoming a CVTS surgeon, you don’t get a chance to do a surgery until at least you are forty and it is not a future career that I expect for myself).

So I wrote,” Hey diary, thank you so much for the apple. As for my second wish, I wish to do a full blown CVTS on my own, today!”

(I added the timeline because it could fulfill the request in how many years but obviously I don’t want that now, do I?)

In the meanwhile, I get pinged on my phone that my duty today was at the ground floor, respiratory medicine ward.

I go down (I was on the second floor) and am about to enter the ward when I hear someone shout my name, it’s Ceasar, I can recognise his voice anywhere. After all he is my bestie. (But something I never understood was why someone would name their child like that, maybe they liked Caesar salad, nah..doesn’t seem like that or maybe they wanted him to be as great as Julius Caesar.I don’t know, anyway who cares, whatever his name be, he is my bestie!! And that’s more than enough for me.)

“Hey man, wanna exchange the duties today, I am posted at the OT (operation theatre)”, he said.

“And why would I like to do that, now?”, I asked.

Don’t you know Mrunal is also posted there …he was still droning on, when the excited me left him standing there in front of the respiratory ward and started hop-walking towards the lift.

On reaching it, I saw a nurse wheeling a patient into the lift. On enquiring I came to know that the patient was shot in the chest during a crossfire. Not giving a second thought, I started scrolling on my phone (Mrunal had posted a couple of new photos on Instagram, come on we are friends, so that’s not stalking.)

Suddenly the lift stopped with a jolt, must be some electricity issue, I rang the bell in the lift but no one came. 15 minutes passed, but no one came and the patient beside me had started turning haemodynamically unstable since he was stabilised just enough in the emergency to have been able to reach the OT.

By then, I too had started panicking. The lift doors were then pulled apart by a bit and peering in was a technician, he told me that it would be some time before they would be able to open the doors, since we were stuck in between two floors. Seeing the patients’ deteriorating condition I ask him to get Dr. Garg.

As soon as she came I told her that the patients’ pulse was dropping and he could soon go into a state of shock. She stared at me for a couple of seconds before she let out a long sigh and said,” Looks like you’ve got a surgery on your hands today”.

Listening to that I could literally see my soul leaving my body. But then if George O’Malley could do it, why not me?

(I know it was scripted in Grey’s Anatomy but I have to reassure myself now, don’t I?)

A meek little voice came out of me,”How, ma’am?”. I could have sworn that it was not my voice.

Ignoring me, she called in on the OT staff for the stuff that would be needed for the surgery.

After that she started throwing in scrubs, scalpel packets, i/v sets, bandages and what not, at me to use. And then she started directing me. Following the instructions exactly as she said (and praying to god simultaneously), I cut open his thoracic cavity and by the grace of Good Lord, I didn’t nick his lung or heart! I then pulled out the bullet with the help of forceps (not, fingers). After having plugged in the site of bleed with my finger as the bullet had nicked his IVC (inferior vena cava). I looked up to see ma’am and that’s when she tells me that I would have to keep my hand like that till we reached the OT.

(Believe me when I say, that it is really uncomfortable, when you cannot move your hand, which is inside of someones body cavity.)

Who knew that the lift guy would be my second wish!

That night, my euphoria couldn't even be put into words. It is such a great feeling to know that you have saved somebody's life. You can literally take away the pain and sufferings of so many and return the loved ones back to their family.

Ha…I love the diary!!!!

But now, I was down to my last wish, what should I ask for?? (Any suggestions?) What I wanted now was something that would last forever and I wouldn't regret it ever. (I regret everything, maybe not wish two).

Money? No. (Pretty dispensable)

Intelligence? Nooooo (Already got loads)

What should I ask for?

I kept on pacing around my room for half an hour that night, when suddenly I felt the bulb on my head glow up. (Of course, I couldn't see it because it was on my head).

On opening up the diary and I wrote,” Diary, make me a WIZARD!!”

What came back was not what I was expecting.

It said,”YOU REALLY ARE DUMB!”

Like really! come on, now even a diary was judging me.

WHAT THE HELL!!

Then suddenly there was a divine light. Everything was absorbed by the blinding light (white and golden rays!). I could even hear my mom screaming my name in the background. It was such a great feeling (As if I was the ‘GOD’)

Startled and drenched in water, I woke up. Wiping the water off my face (and also the sleep), I tried to open my eyes. When I was finally able to, I saw my mom standing at the end of my bed, already fully dressed for work and an empty bucket in her hands (the contents of which had already been emptied on me!).

Ooh shit, I must be pretty late!

A strong beam of sunlight was falling on my bed and my mother, making her- my beautiful mother - look scary!

When finally my senses were back to normal and I remembered everything. The disappointment of it all happening in my dream, hit me like a truck. (The divine light must have been the sunlight).

After my mother was done reprimanding me, she left. I got up and lying on my side table was the Diary!!

Ummm.. so am I really a wizard now? Or was my dream like a deja-vu and I have to start writing in the diary now?if so, shall I ask for the apple again or different stuff?

But you know the answer is no different from the story of my life and which is ‘I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO!!’