The calf died. Papa fell down and inured his left shin. Multiple fractures.
It was Sweety who called me up to inform about this. And then she suggested I should go home. I did not understand why she asked me to go home. Why ask someone else, if you are worried, why not go yourself? Also, I knew she didn’t have any job so it made it easier for her to just go home whenever she felt like. I asked her where she was. She said she was in a train. Traveling to Delhi. She was in the train when mummy called her up and broke the news. Why didn’t mummy call me up? I asked her. I don’t know, she said. I told her I would call up mummy and figure out what to do. And that once she reaches Delhi, she should book a ticket to home for herself.
When I spoke to mummy, she was in my parents house in D-ghar. Papa was in a nursing-home. She said she had just returned from the nursing-home to change and all that. I asked her what exactly happened. ‘Papa has got fractures in his leg but there is nothing to worry about. There is a little swelling over the injured shin. Once that goes away, plastering can be done.’ And then she briefly touched upon the story about how it happened. The jumping calf and stuff. ‘Hmm’, I said. To which mummy advised – ‘you come when you were planning to come, there is no emergency here as such’. I said ok.
I was planning to go home sometime in November so that I could be with my parents when MRP’s parents would visit us. They were supposed to visit my parents so that the relationship between MRP and I could be formalized and stuff. Things parents do you know. But now with papa’s accident I wasn’t sure when to go.
The afternoon I joined office (after the Monday off for Bakrid, when we returned from Murud to Mumbai), I got a panicky call from mummy. ‘Please come home, we are moving your Papa to Patna and I am not sure how I am going to manage things there.’ I booked a one-way ticket and the next afternoon I reached the emergency room of the clinic in Patna where papa rested over a bed. His left leg – below the knee, looked pretty fucked up. I looked at if for some time. God, it was pretty fucked up. I wanted to post a Facebook update instantly. But that felt immoral. So I just forwarded the picture I took on my phone to Subbu, Sweety and MRP. And then looked at the leg some more. God, it was pretty fucked up.