THE hospital corridor was stuffy and the air had an undertone of bleach. The magnolia walls were scraped in places from hundreds of trolleys that had bumped into them. The pictures on the walls, benign prints of uplifting scenes, promised a better tomorrow. Above the double doors were large blue plastic signs announcing the areas of the hospital they opened into. Rajjo always found hospitals creepy – big, sterile, labyrinthine structures where people often went to die. But she had now been here for over three months, since the fatal crash that had swallowed Harsh in its lethal jaws and spat him out half dead.

Her suite was on floor no. 5, the same floor as the ICU where Harsh lay oscillating between life and death, but not once had she gone to see him. She’d heard from Devi that Upasana was by his side, day in and day out. Devi was her eyes and ears as she shut herself in the suite, away from the prying eyes and burdensome world, and would tell her about the stream of visitors who came to see him, the doctors, the nurses and their tantrums. Nothing missed Devi and nothing was left out in her relay to Rajjo. She described the tinkle of the nurse’s laughter as she flirted with the handsome doctor, the look in Upasana’s eye as she conferred with Harsh’s parents and the defeated doctors, the colour of the pastries the ward boys ate as the patient in room number eight was discharged. In return Devi loved having Rajjo all to herself.

The hospital suite, her home for the last three months, was packed with amenities – access to a landscaped terrace, plush bathrooms, separate TVs with multiple channels, fridge, Wi-Fi facility, direct dialling, two-way nurse call system, personal safe and manymore facilities for total comfort. Rajjo did not make use of any of it. She was happy to sit by her window and welcome the sunrise and hold its hand all the way to the sunset. One beautiful afternoon, as a pale yellow butterfly hopped on a white lilly whispering a secret and the clouds came a little low to hear it, she laughed. It was a perfect day in summer. She told herself over and over again this was no time to die. The bouganvillea and the bluebells were blooming on the terrace gardens. The skies painted a beautiful tangerine. This was no place to die yet. She could smell it in the divine milky cloud that passed by. Harsh was not going to die. No matter what the doctors, the nurses or the shadows on the wall prophesied.