Vaibhavi died early this morning

"Vaibhavi died early this morning." I woke up this news.

‘Good’ I am happy she died.

I had no courage to stand her eyes. I had no courage to stand her voice in my ears. I had no courage to have her smell on my hand.

My roommate didn’t say anything over my comment. She knew how I felt.

Vaibhavi Srivastava – don’t know how to describe her. I can just say that she was an average next door college going girl. Neither an angle beauty nor unattractive, she had a charm of her own. She was those stereo – type girl who are neither very ambitious nor dull, who always has an ear for your all problems. Also in turn she would actually eat your ears with her constant chatter. I won’t say she was a sweetheart among boys but a girl whom any boy can take to his mom.

Like a good girl as expected she used to help her mom out in cooking and other kitchen – house hold stuffs. But she hated cooking. She once shared with me that she didn’t like cooking but then also she used to help her mom in cooking. She used to like that time spent with mom in kitchen discussing stuffs of here and there. (Ladies talks :P)

She always had a time for everything, for everyone. In between the mobile chats, orkutting, day dreaming she used to mange time for everyone. That too, with smiles.
She was funny, charming, joyful and had a great heart.

It was a Sunday morning. Just two days back her house got painted. There were stains on floors. As her mother was busy in preparing lunch, she offered to remove those stains using kerosene. She didn’t notice neither did her mother that in that hoch poch chaotic - crowded kitchen the kerosene caught fire.

It was too late.

The news came to me in early evening. I rushed to hospital.

She was kept in a separate room – in isolation. It was good for her and others patients both. There were extensive burns and risk of infection was very high. She had received severe burns on her face, arms, upper chest and legs. Not a part was left un-burnt. The room smelt rancid.
She had two eyes, one nose, two ears and a mouth. But is it what you call as face???
Her skin colour was different in different part. Colours ranged from ugly green to bleeding red. Arms were totally charred black. The flames had played a game on her skin but couldn’t on her sweet voice as it was the same young and sweet as before.

I had to take loads of efforts to drag myself inside her room in hospital. And there she was lying with pains in eyes but smile on face. I sat beside her, wanted to ask her the history of the event but somehow I couldn’t. I just kept sitting with her. She was like any other patient I had come across or I knew. But while talking to her I could sense she was going to fight. She is going to fight the fate through all those burns, the paining pain….. She gonna fight with courage that was oozing along with blood.

I returned home after sometime as she was going for dressing change under anaesthesia. I was back near to her next morning. She was awake. I sat beside her and there she was joking about everything through the pain. Earlier she was joking about how much pocket money she wasted on buying those fairness creams …. Phew only to end like this later!! And whether she will be allowed to bunk the coming exams on this ground or not? She had a doubt whether our strict college would grant leave on this ground?!

However unlike the movies and K serials her laughter at her own, the jokes didn’t end in a sob or tears. She joked a lot, I think and while laughing in that sense she reminded me of someone I knew very well …… she reminded me of myself.

As the days passed, lesser and lesser we spoke to each other. Naah her sporting spirit was not dying down but because she had be kept at sedatives as soon as she was out of anaesthetic effect.

Yet she would always call us, chat with us over every damn topic under the sun whenever she was awake in senses. She was interested in knowing the daily college affairs; she would update us on the goings of the hospitals, had advice for a friend’s love life, a scolding for me and blah blah blah ……

Everyday she used to warn us that we should come daily to meet her and not to take liberty of avoiding her as she couldn’t be there!! She would talk of her future plans and that she would do this and that after college. She spoke of how she would become something big once she is out of here ….. and we better be nice to her or we wouldn’t get a mention in her autobiography and more worse beware of reading a bad review of ourselves in her autobiography.

Things were difficult but smooth for a week and a few days. However on 12th day suddenly Vaibhavi succumbed to septic shock. After the physical pain now it was turn of microbes to further aggravate her worse condition. She was unconscious of what happening in her surroundings. Nasogatric feeds, drugs were struggling with the war to keep her alive but all seemed to be in vain. The next 3 days were a torture. Her condition deteriorated, stabilized and deteriorated.

She was fighting the battle very hard. Every day was a fight for her… for her family….for us.
I got a chance to see her on the 3rd night; she had succumbed into septic shock.
I was determined to get a mention in her autobiography, whatever the reason it may be.
Her eyes, her voice all were shut. It seems her soul was shut. Her face looked like collage of what was once skin. The room still had the rancid smell.

She was running under high fever still she was fighting. All were helpless doing what they could do to help her in her fight – antibiotics, blood transfusions, care and prayer. Slowly everything seemed to work, or it at least seemed to. It was 4th day after she succumbed to septic shock and 16th day after that terrible black Sunday morning, I went to see her. She was sleeping. But first time in these 16 days I saw a pool of tears in her closed eyes. She was fighting with her condition with all courage she had and knowing her so well I knew, the microbes which caused septic shock are not going to win so easily.

"Vaibhavi died early this morning." I woke up this news.

From the start, she fought courageously and heroically a losing battle.

‘Good’ I am happy that she died.

She was too nice person to have to struggle with this battle for lifetime. Now dead, she was freed from the curse that had smashed all her dreams. She won’t live up to see the destruction. It would have been painful to see sympathy in people’s eyes for her. A girl like her deserved adoration and admiration and not pity while she lived.
She was free now.

I needed a freedom too. I had no courage to stand her eyes, so strong in at such a tender age hiding pains and tears of her smashed dreams and desires. I had no courage to stand her voice, a voice that made us cheerful and at the same time broke us down with lost hope. I had no courage to have her smell on my hand, which refused to leave no matter how much soap and scrub I use.

My roommate didn’t say anything over my comment. She knew how I felt.

Vaibhavi didn’t see her 23rd birthday. She tried her level best to live life to the fullest with all smiles and courage and with an image of a girl full of life who was as good as dead the first time I saw her.
She must be flying high somewhere up, waving to us with a best of luck sign, making notes for her soon to be released autobiography.

Chao ......