Read Online Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry - Free Book Online Page B

on a gurney to his bed in the male ward.
    Later in the day, the doctor came to see him again.
    “How are you feeling, Professor Vakeel?” he asked, taking his pulse as he spoke.
    “My wrist is fine. The problem is in my ankle.”
    Dr. Tarapore smiled with pleasure, the vintage Vakeel sarcasm was undiminished even in pain. And that was a good sign. The doctor, who was in his early forties, had been Nariman Vakeel’s student long before the latter became his patient. Compulsory English courses that science students were force-fed during their first two years at college had brought them together.
    But seeing Professor Vakeel in the stark hospital surroundings last night had left him unsettled. Running through his mind this morning was a welter of feelings – nostalgia, sorrow, regret for lost time, lost opportunities – and he was unable to understand the pathology of these human phenomena.
    Also running relentlessly through the successful doctor’s mind were lines from “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” And the confused man of medicine gave vent to the poem that Nariman used to teach the science students: “ ‘It is an ancient Mariner, / And he stoppeth one of three. / By thy long grey beard and glittering eye, / Now wherefore stopp’st thou me?’ ”
    Nariman frowned. He noticed for the first time that Tarapore’s longish hair was unusual for a doctor – on an advertising executive it would have been normal, he felt.
    The wardboy went past, distracting them with the rattling trolley that he pushed among the beds. He was a young man who did his work in a dynamic manner. The washed urinals were placed under the beds with a forcefulness that declared his urge to establish order. His counterpart in the female ward was not called wardgirl or wardmaid, but ayah. Ayah, looking after children, thought Nariman. That’s what the old and the sick were in this place.
    Dr. Tarapore finished taking the pulse and made a note in his chart before continuing the poem, “ ‘He holds him with his skinny hand—’ ”
    “Excuse me, Doctor. Why are you reciting Coleridge? Your prognosis about my fracture would be infinitely more welcome.”
    Dr. Tarapore grinned like a schoolboy. “For some reason I was thinking of your class, sir, in college. I loved your lectures, I still remember the ‘Ancient Mariner,’ and ‘Christabel.’ And all the stories of E. M. Forster that we studied from The Celestial Omnibus.”
    “Stop bluffing. I have Parkinson’s, not Alzheimer’s, I remember those classes too: the room packed with a hundred and fifty science rowdies, hooting and whistling, wallowing in their puerile antics to impress the ten girls in the class.”
    Dr. Tarapore blushed. “That was the university’s fault – not counting English marks for the final average, only attendance. The fellows didn’t care. But I promise you, sir, I never took part in that hooliganism.”
    Nariman raised one eyebrow, and his ex-student modified the disavowal: “Maybe I whistled once or twice. Without enthusiasm.”
    He was silent after his confession, feeling he was gushing. He went on with his work, putting the stethoscope to his ears, making notes in Nariman’s file, taking the blood pressure. But what he really wanted from his old professor were some words of wisdom about life.
    He tried again. “Sir, the Ancient Mariner’ has brought back the happiest years of my life, my years in college.” He paused, added, “My youth,” and immediately regretted it.
    Doctor has a sensitive conscience, thought Nariman. Over a quarter-century and still feeling guilty for misbehaving in class. Or was this chit-chat part of his bedside manner?
    He decided to abjure his cynicism. “What year were you in my class?”
    “In First Year Science – in 1969.”
    “So you are in your forties now.”
    Dr. Tarapore nodded.
    “And you dare speak about youth as though you’d lost it?”
    “Actually, sir,” said Dr. Tarapore, “I do feel old when