As my eyes put up a fight to flicker open, my brain became keenly aware of my surroundings; my haggard breath; his tight hold around my waist; the thick smell of curry in the air and the sound of dramatic trumpets that marked the beginning of a movie.
"Ma look what bhaiya has got tonight?" someone shouted.
"Just share it amongst yourselves without breaking it," the response came back.
"You two clear out," his voice was stern and I realized my forehead was against his jaw, just as I wondered that I could make out his voice even in the haze that consumed me.
"Oh! shit..." this time around the same male voice sounded apologetic and hurried. "Shit! I didn't think she was unconscious."
My back was flat against a hard cushion and it hurt the small patch there, but the jolt of pain was strong enough to thrust open my eyes.
I saw his face linger over mine and as he moved, a woman replaced him in my vision. "What happened?" she asked, a coarse panic encased a shrill in her voice.
"I don't know..." he said, his breath on my cheek and I couldn't tell if he was kneeling beside me. "She just fell. I was right there and she just fell."
"Vishwa? What's going on? Who is she?" She asked looking up. I couldn't see the others around me.
"Shyama." I heard him say, even as Dhri answered, "Kushi, my sister."
"Nivedh could you get me some ice?" Though his voice sounded distant from me, he still seemed close and I tried to get up from the seat with an inane determination to orient myself.
I felt his fingers wrap around mine and my head fell back, landing about a pillow, instead of the hard cushion.
"Arnav, let me look at her," the elder woman spoke and his hand left me, as she came to sit beside me.
"I think we should shift her inside." I heard another woman speak from the other side of the couch.
Once again, I was in his arms, being shifted; the walls changed and I was placed on a soft landing. Only after I sighted the ornate posters in my view, did I discern it was an old four poster bed.
"All of you wait outside now." By now, my coherency had returned and I could tell it was his mother who had been addressing me all that while.
She settled on the edge of the bed and her hand cupped the side of my face; her forehead creasing with worry. "Should we call you a doctor Kushi? Can you see us?"
Without answering, my hand reached for my back. "What's in the back?" she asked. I was speaking but I wouldn't hear myself; my voice failing as I tried harder.
"Is something hurting you?" she asked again.
And my pulse lost its rhythm as I stirred in the bed, still trying to reach the spot behind my neck from having nearly lost my voice.
"I think something hit me." I managed after a few seconds and she breathed out.
The bed compressed from the weight of someone else sit to my right. I was made to turn around and my kurta was zipped open and I lay mute over the bed, self-conscious despite the company being only women.
"Ya, allah! how did you get this bruise?" The other woman asked, her fingers circling and pressing the vicinity of the part of my body that ached by my lower rib.
"How bad does it hurt?" I shook my head and flipped around to face the ceiling again.
"My head. It was hot; burning hot." I spoke in bits and pieces
"Vishwa, Arnav!" she called and I felt his mom drape a blanket over me.
Besides processing speech and sight, my head felt blank devoid of thoughts. I wanted to sleep and with the warmth of the blanket shrouding me, I wanted to drift without the weight of the consciousness bearing down on me.
"I think we should get her to a doctor," I heard his mom speak.
"Bua!" Now it was Vishwa in the room. "Arnav has gone to get someone. A neighbor, I believe."
I only wanted to rest then and I couldn't make myself tell him that I was feeling fine already.
"Ma," he screamed from a distance, the alarm in his voice was distinct in my ears. "I went and got Bhargav uncle from the flat downstairs. Can we come in?"
"Something struck her from behind," his mother explained and the other woman helped me sit up. I mustered meekly in protest, no! "She says it was something hot. On the head and on her back. Her back has bruised and I'm not so sure about her head."
"Let me take a look." It was a new voice in the room - I presumed it was the doctor.
"It's the malfunctioning crucible then," he sighed. "It's gone haywire and has been spitting its contents at random. The worker warmed me about it; wanted us off the street. We were about to when this happened."
"Where does it hurt?" The doctor began his examination. The other woman helped take down my braided hairdo, the kind that wrapped around my head, and the unfettered length of my hair slid down my shoulder. He felt the back of my head for bumps.
"Can you see this? Are you experiencing any double vision? How many fingers am I holding up?" I gave him all the right answers, as he lined up his questions. He directed a torch at my eyes.
"Are you sensing any pressure in your head? Nausea? Any traveling pain?" I shook my head and leaned back against the pillow resting on the headboard. My eyes closed and I eventually felt the cohesive mass of lethargy congeal. Sleep would come, I knew then.
But it was also the precise instant that I awakened with understanding that I was in his home and found him by the bedroom entry; his mother, doctor and Vishwa were there too. His interest being taken by the doctor, he didn't look my way.
"She will be fine, but we will get her to the hospital for a scan just to be sure," the doctor said.
"Can it wait until the morning?" Dhri came rushing in and a fighting alertness spurred inside me. "I just called Papa and its allover the news. The roads have been blocked and a local curfew may be enforced soon. The opposition's chairman has been shot in retaliation."
"So?" he countered.
Dhri exchanged looks with everyone in the room and looked towards me. "The chairman was a Muslim. Shot by a Hindu."
He rolled his yes and slanted himself against the wall. "Morning then," the doctor offered and left the room along with Vishwa. The killing had already set-up a spark and it was too soon to tell if it would turn out to be another riot, a smaller communal clash or nothing.
"Kushi! Nana tho matladu thava? (Do you want to talk to Papa?)" Dhri came and sat next to me. He hardly ever spoke in our mother tongue. In our case, the first language the child ever learnt had been appropriately named. Telugu was only our mother's tongue, not that of Papa's. He smiled in assurance and I thought he'd invoked his rusty telugu only to ensure the comfort I usually sought off my grandmother; to single us out amongst the others in the room, appealing to me by way of our maternal bond.
"Ammamma...Can you ring her up?" I asked without thinking.
"No! don't." I placed a hand over his stalling him. "I don't want her to worry."
"Will it be ok, if we stay here for the night, aunty?" he twisted around to ask his mother who had stepped closer. He was there too, his hand curving around one poster, his eyes glazed with a hint of relief that wouldn't come easy to him. I held his gaze until I felt compelled to look anywhere but him; Lord! My fingers twitched in memory of him holding mine not so long ago.
"Of course, it goes without saying Dhri. I'm not letting any of you out tonight," she said and turned to the woman on the other end of the bed. "Niloferbi can you get some haldi for the bruise?"
"What did I miss?" A large, but well-toned man walked in, his gait sprinting with curiosity.
"Nothing," his mother moved in an efficient pace nudging him back, "First Dev, can you get the mattress rolls from the storage for Vishwa and Dhri. Dust them and lay it out. I will get you the blankets."
Of course, the boxer brother, I remembered from our conversation.
"Haan! Arnav," his mother pulled him aside directing his eyes away from me, "you can sleep in the terrace if it's not airy enough here."
I wasn't in his house for a full hour, I thought, and here I was putting him out on the terrace already.
This will be my last update until your gracious comments can lure me out ;)
43