A Crisis in 21 Scenes

Dilsher Dhillon

1)    

There are some phone calls no person should ever get.

“Hello Sir, I’m calling to verify your exact location because a large withdrawal was made from your bank account at an ATM in Bishkek just now.”

“Hey, I don’t think we should speak anymore, I’ve met someone and I need to move on. Also, please stop using my Netflix account.”

“Dilsher! It’s about your Dad -- one of the staff walked into his hotel room and found him unconscious with foam at his mouth -- he’s been taken to the nearest emergency unit in Kashipur -- you and your brother need to get on a flight to Delhi immediately and take a taxi there. Immediately.”

Especially after the last hit of an end-of-day joint.

2)     

Losing money, even if it’s a few thousand rupees, can make a bad situation truly catastrophic.

I’ve been subjected to the ClearTrip hold tone for 30 minutes after trying to reschedule my Bombay to Delhi flight for the following week to the earliest one available. For some inexplicable reason, I can only reschedule a flight if it’s with the same airline, so the earliest I can leave is at 2:30 the next afternoon. I’ve asked for a cancellation and full refund on “compassionate grounds” and am awaiting a response. I think my chances are good.

Meanwhile, my brother is on the phone getting minute-by-minute updates from the hospital administrator in Kashipur (which, we learn, is a town in Uttarakhand) whilst searching for flights on his computer. His girlfriend, his girlfriend’s sister, his girlfriend’s father and his two flatmates are gathered around him - all wearing long, solemn expressions.

The updates aren’t comforting. My father has been put on a ventilator after suffering a seizure and a stroke.

I can’t help feeling anger - towards him. My hunch is that he forgot to take his medication while he was in the hills. It was his first holiday in six years. The first departure from his daily routine since his last hospitalisation. So that’s the only explanation. He had one job to do and he didn’t do it.

 “He’s going to pull through,” my brother’s girlfriend’s father squeezes my brother’s shoulder. This is the warmest he’s ever been to my brother. Lucky him.

 Everyone else nods in agreement. “It’s all going to be fine.”

 When the call with ClearTrip hits the 40-minute mark, my ex-girlfriend (we’ve been broken up a little shy of a month) shuffles into my brother’s house. She was the first person I called after my brother. We had decided not to speak and give each other space, but the prospect of me becoming an orphan nullifies all rules of engagement. Lucky me. 

 I fall into her arms, and find myself momentarily soothed by the familiarity of her scent and the all-knowing, understanding look on her face. I lie down and put my head on her lap, and just as she strokes my hair and tells me not to worry, the ClearTrip hold music stops and the line goes dead with an abrupt and jarring ‘click’.

I sigh and close my eyes. All I want is for someone to tell me that things are going to be okay, and for that someone to know what they’re talking about.

3)     

We have two hours before we leave for the airport to board the 5:50 AM IndiGo flight to Delhi. I don’t think I can sleep but we’ve been repeatedly instructed by everyone that tomorrow is going to be a long, long day and that we will need every ounce of energy.

My brother’s girlfriend and my girlfriend (it definitely feels like we’re back together now) offer to go back to their respective homes because there’s only one available bed (my brother’s), but we can’t bear the thought of them leaving because neither of us is capable of giving the other hope at the moment.

The four of us end up sharing the same bed, splitting into two units, our backs facing each other. My anxieties for the future – both near and long-term - are on overdrive, so I’m unable to drift off. In the ensuing two hours, I consciously savour every moment of holding and being held by my ex-girlfriend, convincing myself that it would be inconsiderate to pull her back into my life again after tonight, family tragedy or not.

I should have cuddled her more while we were together.

4)    

It’s impossible to get a moment’s rest on the flight because seated behind us is the loudest baby ever. A squealing, bulletproof argument on the wisdom of vasectomies. A Grand Guignol monstrosity, with not one, but two chains buried under the thick layers of flab on his neck. 

The crying has continued unabated for the better part of an hour, and everyone in the surrounding aisles seems too defeated by the general indignities and miseries of their life to care. 

My brother takes off his eye-mask, revealing eyes blood-red with exhaustion, turns around and politely taps the mother’s seat. “Excuse me. Can you please sedate him?”

I privately laud his gumption before he quickly corrects himself, “I meant to say can you please pacify him? Like put a bib in his mouth?”

The mother hisses back in a faux-American accent that’s uncannily similar to the one NTR Jr. deployed at the Golden Globes in January this year. “Firstly, she is a girl and secondly, no I cannot. Can you please grow up and be mature?”

I am seething on my brother’s behalf. I want to open the latch on the emergency exit door and defenestrate her. And her baby.

But my brother, my twin, my other half, the person I’ve shared a womb and every formative experience of my life with . . .  simply apologises and puts his eye mask back on. Maybe he’s conserving his energy. Or maybe his response is a subtle riposte to her question.

A few seconds later, the baby’s cries turn to laughter. It’s equally grating on the ear.

5)    

We pile into a taxi outside Arrivals at IGI. The sad frustration wrought by our sleeplessness is amplified by the shame of being bested in a negotiation with the driver. We were told that it was a three hour drive to Kashipur (something none of us bothered to verify), only for the driver to say it would take at least four and a half hours.

As we leave the NCR region, I go over a checklist of family death protocols in my head, just in case. Death Certificate. Transportation of Body. Legal Stuff. Cremation. Prayer Meeting.

If there is a prayer meeting, one of us – inevitably me, because I’ve spent more time with my father, will have to sum up his life and explain what he meant to us.

I’ll give them the facts. Our father was spiritually (and also, physically) absent for most of our childhood, but came back into our lives in a big way after our mother – our sole guardian at the time – passed away. We were two boundlessly energetic, confused 15-year-olds. He was a stoic, worn-down 54-year-old. We spoke in feelings, he spoke in monosyllables. We needed reassurance, he needed anti-depressants.

 He tried his best but his best simply wasn’t good enough.

6)    

At our first stop for gas, I lumber to the bathroom. The Indian-style toilet is a landfill unto itself, so I force myself to stare straight ahead as I go.

 
There’s an informational poster on the wall in front, grading the different colours of piss and what they indicate about hydration levels, starting from transparent (which is the best) to the darkest brown possible (the worst). The latter is accompanied by a comically dire warning text. DRINK A 2 LITRE BOTTLE OF WATER RIGHT NOW AND CALL YOUR DOCTOR!

7)    

We reach the hospital in Kashipur just as the sun begins its evening descent. Our day hasn’t even begun yet.

After waiting for 10 long minutes in the dimly-lit, overcrowded reception (a panic-inducing change of pace from the swanky hospital-cum-hotels in Delhi we’ve become accustomed to), we are greeted by the hospital administrator (who, in a pleasant turn of events, is also a paediatrician) and escorted to the ICU. He has timed our father’s extubation – the point at which he will be taken off the ventilator and revived – with our arrival. He explains that upon regaining consciousness, our father will most likely have no idea of the last 24 hours and hence, a familiar sight will help reorient him to reality.

Ever the optimist, I ask the administrator if it’s a foregone conclusion that our father will regain consciousness. He replies, in a manner of repeating himself, that a familiar sight will trigger a series of subconscious neural impulses in the patient to fight for and seize consciousness. It sounds like magical thinking, but I nod in agreement.

In the ICU, we stand by our father’s bed – his body resembling an extension cord at capacity with wires upon wires protruding out. So vulnerable and fragile.

The regrets come hard and fast. Forget the “best”, did I do more than the bare minimum as his son? Did I ever look at him as more than someone whose sole purpose was to handle the logistics of my life so I could enjoy my youth and early adulthood? Did I ever give him the reassurance he never asked for, but clearly needed?

My dime-store moralism is interrupted by the administrator, who asks us to take our positions. My brother and I get into a heated argument about where to stand so the first thing our father sees is us. In front? To his right? To his left? Despite the gravity of the situation, the doctors look on in amusement. I don’t blame them. It’s always funny to see two people with the same face bicker.

I assert that since I’ve lived in Delhi with him for the last seven years, I am more ‘familiar’. I stand in front of my father, while my brother stands to the right. We privately confer over which doctor has the most pleasant countenance, but after reaching a stalemate, have all of them stand side-by-side to my father’s left.

A few minutes later, he is successfully resuscitated. He comes to and squints at me with big wide eyes. At that moment, I remember that he now wears glasses full-time.

Stifling the impulse to joke “Welcome to Heaven”, I crane my neck forward and put my hand on his leg. Then, he slowly turns to his right and registers my brother’s face. After a few moments of silence, he extends his hand to my brother. A current of jealousy runs through me as I think of The Creation of Adam.

The doctors and orderlies exchange looks of wonder. I get the sense from their body language that we’ve all just witnessed a resurrection.

8)

My brother and I are escorted to a private ward – The Deluxe Room – where our father is to be shifted. The Deluxe Room lives up to its title in some respects. It’s twice the size of a private room at a city hospital, although most of it is empty space.

I take in the view from the cobweb-addled window. There is a small garden behind the hospital – and in the centre of it is a lone palm tree. I’m no expert on dendrology, but it strikes me as odd to find a tropical tree in this small town in a mountainous state.

If it's a mirage, it’s a welcome one.

9)    

My father wastes no time in taking his second chance at life for granted. He lashes out in anger and struggles as my brother and the orderlies try to hook him up to the vital signs monitor. It is an all too familiar sight. He is scared and wants to go home.

His behaviour is infuriating. He is here of his own doing, having forgotten to take (or wilfully missed) his medication. He has upended our lives, having given us our worst scare in years, and now he’s endangering his own life (again!) and making it harder for the hospital staff to help him recuperate.

I shout at him to calm down, which makes me feel better but obviously aggravates him further.

My brother attempts to pacify our father by reiterating our love for him. My father rips his catheter out and droplets of piss fly everywhere, some landing on my face, some on my clothes and some in a small puddle next to my feet. It’s dark in colour. The darkest brown imaginable. Soon after, a nurse rushes in with an injection containing a sedative.

Once our father is fast asleep, I make a special request to the supervising nurse on the floor, Ms. Femy Wilson, to give my father 2 litres of water through the IV drip. She says it will take at least 24 hours for him to ingest 2 litres of water through a drip, so we settle at 250 ml for the time being.

10)   

The day is over.

While waiting for a taxi to take us to our guesthouse, I attempt to reply to every single inquiry from friends and acquaintances alike regarding our father’s condition. I am under no obligation to feed them the relief they only half-heartedly desire (if he’s better, that’s less reason for them to stay concerned) so I err on the side of caution.

He’s stable thankfully, but extremely weak and disoriented. I can’t say much more. Things will be clearer tomorrow. Before sending it out, I take out the “thankfully”. The heightened sympathy of others is the fuel I need to get through this.

I glance at my brother’s screen, and spy a burst of exclamation marks and smileys in his responses.

11)   

Our room at the guesthouse has twin beds. The term twin bed has always fascinated me, evoking two singles that are specifically meant to be bought as a pair. Like shoes or gloves or socks. There’s an analogy here that I can glibly relate to my own existence, but I’ve done enough sifting through my life today.

When my father eventually dies, my brother will speak at his prayer meeting and he will do an appropriate job.

12)  

 We’re in need of some hygge to put us to sleep, so a film is in order. Huddled uncomfortably on one narrow twin, we decide on a childhood favourite, Cameron Crowe’s notorious commercial and critical flop, Elizabethtown (2005). It was the film that informed all our notions of love and coping with tragedies, personal and professional. It bears mentioning that we haven’t seen it since we were 15.

Within the first half hour, I realise that not one person in the film is representative of a real human being – most notably, the protagonist who treats his father’s death as an inconvenience as he navigates a career slump.

My brother falls asleep halfway but I keep watching. True to its detachment from reality, the film ends on an overwhelming note of joy and hope as the protagonist sets out on a road trip and rediscovers himself.

Embittered, I’m unable to fall asleep. I lull myself into drowsiness by trying to identify the point at which Orlando Bloom started drifting into career oblivion, mentally working my way up his filmography in chronological order. I draw a blank after 2007.

13)   

The next morning, we meet the hospital’s (only) neurologist, Dr Balwant Singh. I can’t recall ever meeting a doctor who looks like he came to the hospital straight from a nightclub. He is wearing a tight black-t shirt and flared jeans underneath his lab coat.

I chalk it down to small town conventions. I’m told later that the hospital observes Casual Fridays.

As Dr. Balwant gives us the lowdown on our father’s complications and speculates over when he may be safely moved back to Delhi, I’m unsettled by how cheerful he seems to be. There’s a rising movement to his sentences, always ending on an upswing, and he chuckles nearly every second like it’s a nervous tic. If his clothing made him suspect, his jolliness erodes any doubt as to his credibility.

He concludes his assessment with a warm smile. “Don’t worry, the worst is over.”

I write a reminder on my phone to get a second opinion from a neurologist in Delhi.

14)  

 “It’s only shit!” My brother barks at me as I silently contemplate my unspoken responsibilities as a son and a human being.

My father has shit himself. It’s the afternoon lull and most of the floor staff are on lunch break. It’s up to me, my brother and Nurse Wilson to change my father’s diaper. I’m scared that out of all the horrible sights I’ve seen over the course of my life, the image of my father’s faeces will land at the top. What if it flashes back to haunt me at the most inopportune moments – like on the first night of my honeymoon or in the final moments of my life?

Sensing my reluctance, my father casts a look at me as my brother and Nurse Wilson wriggle him out of his pyjamas. “It’s okay, Billy,” his downcast, understanding eyes say.

I can’t tell whether this man, someone who’s weathered one heart attack, two seizures and three strokes in the last six years, not to mention a lifetime of personal and professional failures, is sorry or feeling sorry for me.

It’s only shit, I repeat to myself as I put a pair of plastic gloves on.

15)   

There’s a tea stall facing the hospital. In need of a breather, I walk over to it in the evening. The seating area is dingy and full of flies so I take a plastic chair and sit by the road. The proprietor doesn’t do black tea or coffee, so I’ve opted for Parle G. As I munch on these inflation-proof marvels, I break a self-imposed rule and open my Instagram. I pause on a story update by Roshan, a cautionary tale from childhood who dyed his hair red when he was 12 and developed a drinking habit when he was 13.

As per his story, Roshan the adult has just received his WSET Level 3 certification. After googling what that means, disappointment washes over me. I’m not one to compare myself to others or indulge my misgivings about my career, my relationship or my habit of ordering the cheapest wine on the menu any longer than I should, but now seems as good a time as any to take stock of everything.

If this were a movie, it would be a cue for a voiceover. “How the fuck did I end up here?”

But this isn’t a movie. It’s life. And I know all too well why I’m eating 5-rupee biscuits on the road while facing the second-largest hospital in the sixth-largest town in Uttarakhand.

My father did not take his medicines.

16)  

The guesthouse purports to have a gym. My brother is able to convince the staff to keep it  open past closing time for us.

The gym turns out to be a storage room consisting of one treadmill and one elliptical machine. I call dibs on the treadmill. As I run, I look at myself in the mirror directly facing us. We’re both in shape, and dare I say, athletic. On a whim, I take my shirt off. Then, I keep increasing the speed, first from 8 km/h, to 10 to 12 right up to the maximum speed of 13.7 km/h.  

We were never the sporty type as young boys, a fact we were constantly reminded of at the boarding school we grew up in, which was also our father’s alma mater. His name was on every single board.  Cricket. Football. Hockey. Athletics. PT Leader. Head Boy.

No one believed we were his sons, and I don’t think we did either. The person on those boards was a stranger. The man we knew – when he was around - never left his room.

17)   

At some point in my late twenties, I decided to become a writer full-time, after which my life became an unrelenting exercise in patience. I began waiting for the call from my agent that would make me an overnight success. Then I began waiting for at least a minor professional breakthrough that would precipitate a full-time move to Bombay. Then I began waiting for my agent to return my calls.

None of this waiting prepared me for how much waiting one does in a hospital, more so in an understaffed, ill-equipped one in a small town.

Today, my brother and I are waiting for the doctors to compile the results of the various heart and brain tests they’ve conducted on our father. Bored and restless, I decide to explore the hospital. I stumble upon a room that’s called “The Kids Zone”. I open the latch on the door and enter and find that all The Kids Zone contains is a machine that measures height and weight. Curious, I measure myself.

I have lost 1 cm and 3 kgs in the two, maybe three, years since I last checked my height and weight. Before I can ruminate on what else I’ve lost since then, a boy - who looks between the ages of 5 and 12 - walks inside the room with his father and stares at me. The father points inquisitively at the height and weight machine. I nod in response. Then, another family enters.

Twenty minutes later, the Kids Zone is full of children waiting to hear me read out their measurements. I feel like Willy Wonka.

18)

My father finally has his catheter and IV drip taken out, so Nurse Wilson asks if he wishes to go for a walk down to the garden. As he clings to his pillow, shaking his head in refusal, my brother and I gently extract him out of bed. If he can walk on his own two feet, his discharge summary will practically write itself.

Sensing our father’s hesitation, Nurse Wilson offers him a compromise. We hoist him up, then she takes his hand and guides him around the hallway outside – both of us following a few steps behind. With his confidence renewed, my father is easily convinced to go to the garden.

We put him in a wheelchair and take him down in a service elevator. My father and Nurse Wilson sit on a bench under the palm tree while I ride around on the wheelchair nearby and my brother decamps to the other end of the garden to call his girlfriend.

I overhear my father as he gently asks Nurse Wilson questions about her life - listening and nodding intently. I think he might be falling in love. It’s a fanciful notion but I indulge it. When I share my suspicion with my brother, he rolls his eyes as if to say – “You’ve only just noticed?”

19)

The end of this saga is in sight. On his nightly rounds, the hospital administrator informs us that our father will most likely be discharged the following morning. Before we can revel in the news, we get a call from the friend our father was travelling with when he had his seizure. The doomsday prophet who called me. Mister Immediately.

It turns out he has more bad news to share. He has tested positive for Covid.

We decide whether or not to tell the hospital administrator out of fear of delaying our father’s discharge by another 3-4 days. However, common sense (i.e. my brother) prevails.

When we tell the administrator, he responds with a slow, circumspect nod - like he’s gotten the missing piece of a puzzle. “It must have been a fever that triggered the seizure then.”

I gulp. The guilt tastes bitter. My father didn’t miss his medication. He simply came into contact with Covid. His first trip outside Delhi since the pandemic began and he gets Covid for the first time. What are the odds?

Pretty high, the administrator says.

Even though my father shows no symptoms, the hospital administrator and Nurse Wilson decide to administer a rapid test to be safe. Alarm bells ring in my ears. I don’t want this ordeal to last any longer.

The test shows a result, and my fears are confirmed as the administrator and Nurse Wilson talk in hushed tones. Then, the administrator discreetly slips the test in his pocket and turns to me and my brother. “No one needs to know. Let’s stick to the plan.”

20)

The next morning, another long session of waiting ensues as the claims division at my father’s health insurer takes its sweet, unrushed time to approve his final bill.

While my brother holds forth in the hospital’s TPA office trying to speed things up, I keep my father company. An email notification tells me my free Amazon Prime Trial is about to expire, so an idea strikes. I fast forward through the entire first season of my ex-girlfriend’s breakthrough show - only watching the scenes featuring her young, plucky journalist character. My father recognises her instantly (a heartening sign) and watches with rapt attention. As do I.

I’m in awe of her all over again – her line delivery and her screen presence. I resolve to get back together with her. A few minutes later, as I watch her character navigate a personal betrayal, my flight of fancy is halted. Her character wears a saddened, disappointed expression - one that has been directed at me several times in real life.

I realise that there’s nothing in it for her.

21)

My father’s discharge comes through. As Nurse Wilson reads out a list of medicines that we will have to procure for him, I begin to spiral. The real test starts now. Our father will be in our care for the next two weeks. Our care.

Before we leave, my father asks if he can take a picture with Nurse Wilson. She smiles and nods, “Of course, Mr. Dhillon”. They stand side by side, my father maintaining a shy, respectable distance. My brother readies the shot, and Nurse Wilson puts her arm around my father, and for the first time in my life, I think I see him blush.

On the drive home, I make a mental checklist of all that needs to be done in the coming week. Check-ups. Consultations. Physiotherapy. 

Sensing my anxiety, my brother – who is in the passenger seat - plays an instrumental song on the taxi’s Bluetooth System. I recognise it from the Elizabethtown soundtrack. Passing By by Ulrich Schnauss.

The gentle melody has its intended effect, not on me, but on my father. He asks if he can put his head in my lap. I make room for him and he lies down. As he looks up at me, he extends his hand and gently cups my cheek with his fingers. Then, he turns to his side. I stroke his thinning, white hair as he shuts his eyes. There’s a look of peace on his face.

“Don’t worry boys, everything is going to be alright.”

 ***

About the Author 

Dilsher Dhillon is a screenwriter.  A major theme he explores in his work is the notion of trying to live a meaningful life in an inherently meaningless and indifferent world. He previously daylighted as a consultant and a financial journalist before taking the plunge (an apt descriptor if there ever was one) into a career in the creative arts. He currently divides his time between New Delhi (where he writes, mostly) and Mumbai (where he finds things to write about, mostly).