𝐌𝐘 𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐑, 𝐅𝐄𝐔𝐃𝐀𝐋 𝐋𝐎𝐑𝐃

CHAPTER ➊➋ • Doctor Khan : Part 2

August 20, 1947
Anglican Church Missionary Hospital
Lahore Province

4:15 A.M.

The morning woke up with the baggage of the past yesterdays. Hefty melancholy fogged his heart's chambers. The heavens poured out in a distant land as the chilliness of the morning revealed him a new pandora box of her. His lips trembled, his hands were cold. As the leaves tickled down the dew with silent drizzle ; a tear drop tickled down his dry cheeks, immersing into his dense beard. He was silent. He had been silent since his own pronouncement. He wished he could take his words back. As the elders say..Words have the power to rip off your heart, they should be uttered wisely...used compassionately - today he understood what they meant. Today he was a wise man too.

"IT COULD BE A POSSIBLE CHILD BIRTH SCAR." He was apprehensive while giving his conclusion. He gulped trying to summon his own deduction. Khan Murtasim was sure of his examination and that traumatised him. And somewhere down the line he felt....cheated may be.. Was she really married. And she carried another man's seed. If someone asked him, at that very moment he wished the world to end ; a probable apocalypse or just let her die. Not knowing about her was painful but knowing about her was agonising. And he chose the torturous one. To save her and let her torture him throughout. The truth was painfully obvious.

"This could be any normal operation too. And besides that, isn't she your wife, Doctor Khan? How you aren't sure.." Nurse Thomas reasoned with him. He seemed a lot disconnected.

"It's a pelvis cut scar. But again, this could be anything else." He tried to console his alpha, who was preparing for disruption. "And, we are here to treat her, I would appreciate if you keep it professional. Baar baar meri biwi ke bareme mat bolo." He looked visibly frustrated. That night was hard on him. Only Nandani could pacify the raging volcano in him. Only she could carress his wounded ego. She was his...she never agreed.. he never cared... But she was his...
(Don't keep on talking about my wife)

"Hot water.. clean cotton clothes.. sanitised operating articles... Arrange them all.." Khan Murtasim ordered while removing Nandani's dirty clothes. She had drifted into unconsciousness again. Her life depended on his faith on her, which was slowly shattering with every passing moment.

The compounder brought the arranged articles on a tray. Sister Martha brought the hot water tub with clean cotton napkins. Along with the necessary items she casually carried along her a white lab coat ie; doctor's coat. The one he hadn't worn since 1940. The coat that symbolised his dreams, his aspirations, his desire of a peaceful sober life away from the chaos of feudalism and upper class hassled life with the woman of his dreams. His wife. His Nandani.

"Ye lijiye khan...garam paani aur aapka coat." Sister Martha placed the coat on the left edge of the hospital bed near Nandani 's leg. She further started arranging the sanitised articles. Sardar Khan had already prescribed a minute blood compression , bacteria cleansing and synthetic natural suture above the ligament of the open wound. There was no bullet stuck in the wound. But the residue needed immediate cleansing to stop future infections.
(Take this Khan. Hot water and your coat)

"Coat nahi chahiye... This treatment is a personal endeavour." He simply said it. Without any hesitation or further explanation. He was doing it after years. It would be his last time too.

Medicine Practice was a distant faded dream of his , which he used to visit on those solitary cold nights when he felt the want, the need to be cocooned in someone's warmth. When he craved the need to belong to someone. A life to which he could simply comeback un bothered. *It is either the Sardar title or a simple middle class dream. You can't sail in both boats. You have to give up one. Today your people need you Murtasim Khan. Our last Sardar... Mushtajab Khan has been murdered. Conspiracy and enmity took him from us. You need to take his place. Give up and come back my son. I need my son.* Dilawar Khan 's final phone to London in 1940, echoed in his mind. Numbing his all other senses. Now, he He needed to get it done. He had to visit his old life and come back before the urge to go back engulfs him. He needed to treat her now...