The Shade

The boy was aimlessly starring at the leaves which were giggling and whispering amidst the naughty currents of wind. He slightly shifted his head so as to dodge the sunlight from falling directly into his eyes. Small grasses which were still hiding their moisture crushed beneath him as he lay there under the comfort of the shade the cashew nut tree was providing.
The school has closed for the summer vacation and after the exams these much awaited holidays were a blissful period. He and his younger brother always had much fun with their various engagements. Away from the books, they would parade over the long boundary wall around their home during the shady evenings. They would trek through the slippery slopes under the shades of ‘kattadi’ trees and collect its hard and spiky seeds. They would fight ferociously among themselves as great warriors with the ‘stick’ sword and delude of the grandiosity they would have if were born in an earlier time. Every summer vacation has something new to adore and ponder with.
The boy always liked the trees, especially the cashew nut tree as it was easy to climb upon. He would sit on its branches for hours and day dream in epic proportions. That day he had decided to lay beneath the shades of the tree. Sun was at its offensive but he was safe and comfortable under the care of his ‘friend’. His brother had preferred the comfortable bed inside the house for the afternoon nap. As always the boy took his break into the calmness and solitude of the trees outside, afternoon sleep never being his thing.
Between those detached moments he heard the digging sound nearby. Anandettan, the worker has started his afternoon round of work. He was digging small pits to plant the coconut seedlings in the extreme corner of the plot. Boy curiously rose and hopped through the shades of the trees to the digging site. Away from the shades now the sun was taking its revenge on the boy. He loosened his buttons and hung the collar of his little shirt over his head.
Anandettan was digging the second pit now. His black muscular body was drenched in sweat. The boy squatted near the margin of the pit and watched the powerful iron digger hitting hard over the reddish soil. He watched how the clumps of mud were loosened from its base with each stroke and how it scattered into small pieces. Anandettan watched the boy with a smile and queried-- " You didn't go to sleep...?"
The boy nodded in negation. Sun was still trying to reach the tender face of the boy which he had cleverly hid under his loosened shirt.
" Why don't you bring me a cup of water dear...... its quite hot out here. Isn’t it?"
Boy ran and came back in a hurry with the cup of water as he didn't want to miss any of the action.
" Anandetta... why are you digging these pits...?" He asked as he took his position again close to the margins of the pit.
" Dear one... We will plant those coconut plantings we have here... they will grow and give you good 'elaneeru'( tender coconut)".
The action was continuing with mud and rock crumbling into small bits, power stroke and gracious touch alternating to shape the perfectly square pit. Sweat was flowing from the burned and tired forehead of the worker. But his calloused hands were powerfully striking the ground with the heavy weapon persistently without any signs of tiredness.
" Go inside the house , son..... Its very hot out here. Sun will burn your beautiful face..." -said the worker with utmost love.
" Are you not feeling the heat...Anandetta..???" The boy retorted as he further covered his head with the collar of his shirt.
" No my dear... This sun can do no harm to me..."
The boy frowned in disbelief.
" I have a boy like you at home and the joy he will have every evening when I go to him with a pair of toffee shades me from this wretched sun..." Worker uttered, smile still cornering his lips.

The boy couldn't quite understand the tenderness in the words of the worker, but was anyway happy as he remembered the chocolate that his father had promised to bring him that day evening.
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Nuances

Despair:
I rushed through the long corridor of the hospital, arousing from initial lethargy, sleep still trickling in my eyes.
"Bed no. 32 is serious Sir." -was the call of the ward boy who woke me up in the duty room. ‘Serious’ in this odd hour of night, only few hours to dawn was evidently pointer of something.
Entering the ward room many of the patients and their attendants were asleep while the neighbourhood of bed no. 32 was alert and waiting for the doctor to come.
Wife of the patient looked at me anxiously between her spurts of prayers. I couldn’t read the emotions in her eyes, and didn't want to. I looked at the motionless body. It lay cold with a blatant story to tell. I heard the silence of the death deeply buried in his chest, felt the emptiness of the pulse in his arms and neck, starred at the absence of shine in his open eyes.
I uttered the official declaration of the obvious truth to the attendants, cold and raw as the night it was. The staccato prayer of the lady broke away. She knew already the fact I suppose, but was harbouring the hope of a miracle. She threw herself to my feet and screamed --
"Don't tell that Sir, Do something,..... We have two little kids..."
Chills ran into my spine as I freed myself from her hold and went on to do the official works now bestowed upon me. The cry of despair rose as the women's voice scattered behind.
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Love:
I could have recognised his swollen face anywhere. There he lies in the middle of other patients, deeply disoriented. I looked around for his brother. Yes, he was right there holding the arm of his younger one smiling at me bleakly.
"We have come again Sir..." he said. I acknowledged him with a desperate smile.
Only a week before he was discharged from our ward after a long two months hospitalisation— Liver failure with encephalopathy. Alcohol has eaten up his liver leaving him in the land of uncertainty slowly and steadily leading him in the day of doom. But never did the fact of the untreatability made his brother lose hope. Love that streamed between the two was contagious and sometimes made me believe of the impossible. The stability attained finally didn’t last long.
Back he is, in this ward, thoroughly disoriented, swollen and bleeding. The effect of the initial medication had improved him a bit when I went to examine him. He was crying firmly holding his brother’s hand , the only face he couldn’t forget even in his disoriented self.
" You will be alright my dear." His brother reassured him. " Look who has come... Did you recognize?.... Its our lambu (tall) doctor....... Did you recognize?"
The blank eyes searched for me .He gazed at me for a while and shook his head.
" Save me !" He pleaded with umpteen sadness.
"You are doing well. You are going to be alright." I proclaimed with utmost empathy.
He gripped his brother’s hand more firmly who was consoling him with the non ending love they had. As I moved to the next patient I realised once again that love was contagious.
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Negligence:
She was old and crippled.
With an uncared fracture of hip and severe bed sore all over the body, the only word that suited to describe her—neglected. " Women and old"—the perfect recipe for negligence as she was.
And now they wanted to take her away.
"Then why the hell did you bring her here?........."
An unusual voice of rage broke from me in between the emotionless working of Emergency department.
The attendants, thoroughly humble, uttered the difficulties they have to face if they get her admitted there.
Soon the environment came back to normal. The practicality came into picture. Empathy dissolved into the routine. But long after they had left, the abominable smell of her bedsore remained in the emergency room as if leaving back the trail of truth behind.
Nuances of life continue – negligence being one of them.
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