Olive Chaudhuri

~THIRTY TWO~ Mr. and Mrs. Shah had been sitting at the waiting area of Dr. Gandhi's modest clinic when the young and handsome doctor had rushed out of his cabin with a flushed face. His towering frame of about her own Son's height had already been halfway out of the door when Mrs. Shah had watched him yell out quick instructions to his professional assistant. "What was that?" her husband mumbled from next to her, while she got up on her feet, handed all her X rays and blood test reports to her husband and walked up to the receptionist with a stern voice. "We were told to come at 10:30 AM miss. I have an appointment." The receptionist smiled apologetically, and gave explanations so vague, Mrs. Shah had to control the urge to ask her to shut up. She knew better than to shoot the messenger. So unprofessional! And to think all her friends had been gushing about this Doctor and his exemplar command over his cases! "Now what?" Mr. Shah asked ...

~THIRTY ONE~ Kanan absently watched the middle-aged man drawl about his supposed insomnia. With his hair balding from the front, cheeks flushed to a deep red with beads of sweat trickling down his forehead despite the AC, and his smoking-induced purple lips, the man looked s trikingly  and most  uncomfortably  a lot like his own Father. Kanan noted thoughtfully, this man was the perfect description of just how he never wished to look in his mid-forties, or however old the man was. He craned his neck up and pulled the patient's file towards him to check. Forty-six years old. Bingo! He could tell the man was full of shit. It was all the Internet's doing really, to give more information than needed to the masses. Therefore,  one  tiny problem in regular life and people would have already googled up the supposed symptoms. By the end of their 'research', a huge chunk of them were convinced that they were dying of a certain disease that started with the lett...

~THIRTY~ The first time her phone rang with Rishi's name on the screen, she could only stare at it blankly for the whole of the forty two seconds that it rang for. What does he want NOW? Hasn't he wreaked enough havoc in my life already? She had never felt  any  emotion this intense before. It was vile and venomous and very, very taxing mentally and brought her thinking about the way Vedant had questioned her on the same the previous night. "Meera I've been hanging out with the guy for a while now and I think it's safe to say he really means no harm. He misses you, you know."  He'd started, when their open discussions had started to flow. She had stared at him agape, surprised at how much he noticed as he'd continued,  "Okay, I get that he kicked you out of his room MOST unceremoniously in front of his friends that day. But that hardly justifies your anger for him Meera. There's something more to it, isn't it?" When Meera ha...

~TWENTY NINE~ "I'm going home." Even when she uttered those words she knew she wasn't actually going to be able to leave Vedant at their dinner date all by himself. He'd planned this for  months  if not years, and she didn't have it in her to sabotage it like that. So this is what being in love is like. He had practically whiplashed at her, and yet, she was feeling the need to put his feelings before herself. Vedant on the other hand, instantly regretted his words. He admitted it had felt good for the first few seconds, but the momentary satisfaction had more than dissipated the exact moment he'd seen the warm tears glistening, ready to spill from Meera's eyes. The chocolate coloured, doe shaped eyes he had vowed would never see tears, not because of him at least. But he'd hurt her, just for some stupid questions he was desperate for her to answer. As the silent seconds passed, he felt the cloud from his thoughts disappear at her sudd...