Closure

I woke up to the news that Surekha died in the early hours of the morning. "Good" I said. "I'm glad she's dead." I couldn't stand to see her eyes, to have her smell on my fingers, her voice in my ears. My friend didn't say anything to my comment. He knew how I felt about her.

Surekha Chavan was your average college going girl. Funny and a charmer, she was decidedly good looking. To her credit,she never used those looks to twist any young man's heart. She was the stereotype do-gooder, the girl who always had a ear for your problems and in turn, would run your ears ragged with her incessant chatter. She was the batch sweetheart,, the girl whom you could take home to Mom.

It is, I have found, often not your actions that decide your fate, unlike what self help books try to convince you. Often, fate has it's own plan and tries to fool you into thinking that you have a role to play in creating your path. It watches you with glee as you plan and dream and hope, knowing fully well of the impending storm that is about to catch you unawares.

Surekha was a dayscholar, living with her parents. In between mobile chats and air- guitaring to an imaginary crowd in her room, she also helped out with the cooking and housework. She hated cooking, she told me once, but enjoyed the time she spent with her mom and the maid in the kitchen and the banter.
It was a week before her exams. As usual, when given the choice between a truckload of books and gossiping in the kitchen, Surekha chose the latter. In between the chopping of the vegetables, the making of the curry and the preparation of the chapatis, her mom noticed an annoying army of red ants roaming all over the kitchen. Surekha offered to disperse them the old fashioned way, using a bit of kerosene to cloud their senses. She had no idea when the kerosene caught fire in that crowded kitchen or when the kerosene had spilled onto her dress... not till it was too late.

The woman I met in the hospital was in a separate room, isolated from the rest of the patients. It was for her own good. The burns were extensive and infections travelled easily across an open ward. Surekha received severe burns to her face, upper chest, both arms and thighs. The room was rancid, the smell of burnt flesh distinctive even a week after the accident. She had two eyes, a nose and a mouth, but was that the same as having a face ? Her skin sat in layers over her face and body, differing in tones and colours from ghostly white to an infected green to bleeding red to the charred black.. a badly done army fatigue uniform. The voice, unaffected by the flames, was young and sweet, and so out of place in that dreary room.
We talked as I took her history and later on, as she underwent her dressings under anaesthesia. She was unlike any other patient I knew or had come across. Talking to her, you could sense she was gonna fight fate.. through the burnt skins, along with blood, courage oozed. She was a born comic too, joking about everything through the pain, whether it be about how much money she wasted on fairness creams only for it to end up like this ( Unlike in the movies, her laughter here at her own condition did not end in a sob or tears ) to how she doubted even this would be considered adequate grounds for her to get sick leave in her strict college and would just be seen as an excuse to bunk exams. She joked a lot, I guess. She reminded me in that sense of someone I knew very well.... she reminded me of myself.

In the days to come and as dressings continued, we spoke less. It wasn't by choice. She had to be kept sedated as the pain started once the anaesthesia ended. Still, when she was awake, she'd call us over for a chat on everything from state affairs to doc-sister affairs, giving me valuable advice on my love life while I will never use. She spoke of how she'd go on to be something big once she got out of here.. a pilot or a kung fu champ, so we'd better be nice to her or we wouldn't get a mention in her autobiography.. or worse,end up reading a bad review of ourselves in her book.

On her 8th day in the hospital, the 14th day after the red ants had crossed the path of her mother, Surekha went into septicemic shock. Her fragile body, ravaged once earlier by flames, now was under the onslaught of microbes unseen. She was no longer conscious of her surroundings as fluids and drugs waged war to keep her alive. The next two days were a torture, watching for signs of improvement as she alternately deteriorated and stabilized. She was fighting the battle hard... She was determined to become the pilot with killer Jackie Chan moves. We were determined to get a mention in her autobiography, even if we had to pay for her medicines to do it.
I saw her on the second night after she went into shock.It's hard to say whether she looked better or worse. The windows to her soul, her eyes and her voice both were closed. Her face remained a collage of what was once skin. The room still had the same stormy stench that drained the colour of many unaccustomed faces. A fever was raging within her, a battle being played out within her body at a level beyond our eyes. We were doing all we could to aid her in her fight, antibiotics and blood transfusions aiding her immunity. That day, as she slept, I saw the one thing in her sleep that I had not seen in all the days I'd known her and through all the pain of the operations and beyond. I saw tears pooled in her closed eyes. She was fighting her condition with all she had. Knowing her, the microbes were not gonna win easily, I knew.

I woke up the next morning to the news that Surekha died in the early hours of the morning. She fought valiantly, a losing battle from the start.
"Good" I said. "I'm glad she's dead." The thought of her struggling through the repeated infections, her brave face as she underwent the painful skin debridements, the future ahead... she was too nice a person to have to struggle with this for a lifetime. Pilots and planes be damned, a girl like her deserved adoration, not people's pity and scorn while she lived. In death, she was freed from the curse that had destroyed all her dreams.
I needed to be free too. I couldn't stand to see her eyes, strong beyond her years, hiding a lifetime of dreams squashed. I couldn't have the smell of her on my fingers after the operation, which refused to leave no matter how much I scrubbed my hands. I needed not to hear that voice any more, a voice that made us feel lighter at heart with it's cheerfulness but broke us down all the same.
My friend didn't say anything to my acid comment. He knew how I felt about her. He felt the same way too.. as did many of us.

Surekha never saw her 20th birthday. She lived her life to the fullest, I'd like to believe. I'd like to think she met God upstairs and God had the balls to look ashamed at what he'd done. I'd like to think he's given her his private jet to play with. I'd like to think that unknown to us all, she's flying it around up there and waving to us all, making notes of us for that soon to be released autobiography.

People tell me I've grown dark circles under my eyes recently. I have. They tell me it looks like I've not been getting any sleep these days. I've not. Part of it is work. But part of it is an image that hasn't left me still.. of a beautiful girl without a face crying in her sleep.. an image that I can't get out of my head no matter how much I try to. An image of a girl full of life who was as good as dead the first time I saw her. A girl we all tried to steal back from death's grip... and failed.

Increasingly, I find myself amidst crowds these days, trying to bask in the glory of their young love under the excuse of going out for a walk... trying to find happiness amidst ruins. Increasingly,I find myself returning back to my room numb and empty. I find it gets harder and harder to laugh, to find solace in the midst of others suffering.
To find closure for this heartache.