Baarishein

4

Mishti looked around, confused by her surroundings. "Where am I?" she asked, unsure if she was speaking to herself or someone else. It seemed like a hospital room but as she adjusted to the bright light a deep voice answered her rhetorical question, as she wasn't even aware she wasn't alone.

A deep voice answered her question. "At the hospital, as a patient, I must add," Ritwik replied. His tone was harsher than he had intended.

He couldn't understand why he kept reacting this way when it wasn't his true intention. For a long time, he had planned to be cruel to Mishti if they ever met again. But those vengeful thoughts had faded long ago. Still, he found it difficult to be gentle or kind to her, and it troubled him.

"How is Vijay uncle? You called me and asked me to come back to his room. What happened?" Mishti asked, quickly regaining her awareness of the day's events. She had been so overwhelmed by Vijaypath's condition that talking to Ritwik hadn't seemed like something she couldn't handle, even just a couple of hours ago.

"He's fine, as much as he can be anyway," Ritwik replied. It still touched his heart to see how much Mishti cared about his father.

"Then why did you call?" she asked, relieved but also starting to feel the weight of Ritwik's presence in the room.

Ritwik raised one of his eyebrows. "Don't you want to know about your medical condition first?"

"I know about my medical condition just fine," Mishti answered cryptically, enough to make Ritwik feel uncomfortable.

"Isn't it the first time you've fainted lately?" he pressed.

Mishti only shook her head negatively.

"Are you sick?" his voice nearly cracked, but he somehow managed to look unaffected by the revelation.

"Not exactly." Mishti explained, "The doctors don't know why I keep fainting. They think it's related to the stress I'm under, but a lot of people are stressed nowadays and I don't see them fainting every other week."

She was surprised by how easily she could have this conversation with him. She didn't know what surprised her the most - her own ability to talk about it, or Ritwik's apparent interest, even if it seemed superficial.

"Are you fainting every other week?" Ritwik asked.

"Basically, yes," she nodded, trying to read him but unable to. His stoic face didn't match the questions he kept asking, and she sensed he wasn't finished yet.

"Since when?"

"A month or so," she shrugged.

Ritwik's next question held a genuine surprise. "And how can you be this calm about it?" This was the first emotion Mishti could read on his face.

"I'm going to move back to India in a couple of months, or maybe even earlier," Mishti said. "The doctors back in Saarbrücken started running tests, but they've ruled out the most dangerous possibilities, like tumors and heart conditions. I'll worry about it when I'm back - some of the best neurologists are here anyway."

With a hint of trepidation, she approached the subject, wondering if it was even wise to bring it up. But it felt easier to casually inform Ritwik, even though her unknown physical condition and plans to move back to Mumbai were not simple things to mention.

"Tumors? They suspected you had cancer?" Ritwik asked, his concern evident. He was grateful for the poker face he'd cultivated, not wanting Mishti to see how much her condition was scaring him.

"Among a few other things, yes. But my scans are all clean," she explained.

"You haven't mentioned anything to Papa, have you?" Ritwik asked.