AMARANTHINE

Act II (v) : Remember Me?

"I am remembering you with each breath I inhale, while I try to forget you with each breath I exhale."

~r.z.~ 

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When Shaurya was wheeled into the private room, his first thought was that someone must have died and he was attending their funeral. Every surface was filled with vases of flowers and large bouquets hung from the roof, as he could not smell anything, he presumed it to be a result of the grogginess, till the nurse informed him that all the arrangements were of artificial silk as real flowers were not allowed. Shaurya smiled, the arrangements were definitely not by the women of his family, which meant it could be organised by only one person and he so wanted to see her.

He was made to settle in before the family members were allowed to troop inside, all of whom milled around him as they tried to make out how well he was. Shaurya felt a joy in his heart seeing his family around him and though he seemed a trifled surprised at some faces, still continued to seek for her. He saw Aabha, gave her a brief smile and turning back to his mother inquired, "Mom, Where is Nisha?"

There was stunned silence as none knew what to make out of Shaurya's question, and it turned to shock when he repeated his question. When Aabha heard Nisha's name, she staggered, uncaring of the fact that her nails were digging into Ishaani's skin, unable to make any sense of what Shaurya had asked and felt absolutely numb. Before anyone could recover and say a word, she stumbled out of the room, unconcerned of what anyone would think; she knew that she just had to leave before she collapsed.

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It was a little later, that a thoughtful Dr Bhattacharya faced them. He looked at the faces of those sitting before him, Vardhan and Pratap, Shaurya's uncle and father respectively, both sat with an air of worry that was palpable, despite their impassive faces; Reyansh, who was visibility agitated and Aabha, who seemed too stunned to react. He felt sympathy for the brave young woman who would now be grappling with the fact that the man she loved and who loved her, no longer appeared to remember her. She was, undoubtedly, the biggest victim of the surgery.

Clearing his throat, he said, "We would have to run some more tests, but what seems to have happened is that he appears to have forgotten some part of his life, the period and extent of which we would be able to determine after running the requisite tests.

Now as to your next question, as how that is possible, I am not sure myself, I am hazarding a guess here and it would be confirmed by additional tests. The brain is a very complicated organ, it could be that during the clipping surgery, a small artery that leads to the hippocampus, that part of the brain where memories are stored, could have been frayed or damaged. As a result of such damage, there are two scenarios; the part where the memories are stored itself has been damaged in which situation he might never recover those memories, but if only the nerves which assist in the retrieval have been damaged, the brain could self-heal to pick an alternate pathway for such retrieval. Only time can tell, though, in the immediate scenario, it would be preferable if we do not present him with conflicting truths but gently ease him into the facts."

Aabha was too stupefied to even think straight, the only thing that seemed to echo in her mind was the expectation in Shaurya's question, "Where is Nisha?" 

She remembered how they had discussed all the options and the doctor had convinced them there was no possibility of a memory loss, where Shaurya would wake up forgetting them all; she could recall Dr Bhattacharya's exact words, 'the aneurysm is in the frontal lobe and this part of the brain is involved in motor function, problem-solving, spontaneity, memory, language, initiation, judgement, impulse control, social behaviour and sexual activity. The memory function is limited to integrating the longer non-tasking based memories stored across the brain. The part of the brain responsible for a person's memory is the limbic system, set deep inside medial temporal lobe and there is no way the proposed surgery would affect that area.'