Besides that, for the first time in my life I was living thousand miles away from my parents, without their protective shelter.Being the yougest child I never had to shoulder any responsibilty ever. Always either there were my parents or my siblings to rescue me or support me whenever the need arose. But I never realized how carefree my life was before marriage until I got married.Before I got married, I never bothered to know what was being cooked at home or who was cooking or if the maid was absent or how my mother tackled all the household chores in the absence of the maid and such other petty common issues which are inevitably and invisibly present in our lives and the burden of which we only realize once the onus is incurred by us.If on one hand, the joy of freedom and independence was unbound;on the other hand, the insecurity of staying in Pune all alone on our own with nobody to ask for help given a critical situation was paramount. By nature, I am not good at taking initiative to strike up a conversation with a stranger and thus forming an acquaintance. Obviosuly, this was a definite problem living out of station when the number of known people were limited. One day one such incident happened that intensified the everpresent sense of insecurity in me. Deb cut his finger with a knife. It is his restless nature that prompts him to break things every now and then. That he is prone to accident is a revelation to me only after marriage.He wanted to pull a wire for the Sify connection through the kitchen window, and so he jumped on the kitchen cabinet. When dragging the wire that was dangling from the roof through the kitchen window, he completely overlooked the set of knives which were placed on the windowsill.I was cooking and before I could object or react to anything, he slipped and brushed against the window. The knives got scatterd here and there and one of them flew and threw itself directly into his palm (it just missed his vein by fraction of an inch). The knife made a deep gash in his palm and he started bleeding profusely. I have never seen such large drops of blood oozing out of anyone's hand in my life. I am scared of blood.More than that I cant see anyone bleeding and that too my own husband whom I got married to not even a fortnight before. I was left shocked and completely disoriented as about what to do or what not. I dearly yearned for my parents or my didi dada to come and help me but in vain. They were miles away from me :(
Added to our misery, it was Sunday when almost every medical centre remains closed in Pune.It was my first Sunday and the second day of my stay in Pune and I was supposed to watch 'Om Shanti Om' in the evening of that fateful day. Thanks to Deb, I was standing there completely pale, as if someone drained blood out of my face. The blood-dipped floor brought a feeling of nausea to my tongue.Perhaps I appeared the worst wife possible at that time. Instead of trying to alleviate my husband's pain and looking for any emergency first-aid treatment, I stood there perplexed.Deb acted coolly. He didn't wince in pain and kept his face unperturbed as if nothing happened.He went to a nearby drug store and the compounder applying some balm stopped the bleeding somehow. However, coming back home when Deb tried to fold his palm for eating the lunch, it started bleeding again from his wound and that was the first time I saw how bad the cut was.The knife might have gone three inches deep into his palm leaving a deep gash there. It needed immidiate stitching and the blood wont stop without the required medical attention.Bloods were everywhere....on our bed, on our pillows, on the floor and on the platter of food.We rushed together without wasting any more time (and blood ofcourse) in search of a hospital or nursing home. The nearby clinic was closed but luckily there a lady informed us of a small nursing home which she said 'might remain open'.We headed straight there. It would have been better if the rest of the story could be heard right from the horse's mouth (read the culprit's mouth) i.e Deb because waiting outside the doctor's chamber I could only hear him yelling in pain when his wound was being stitched without any anaesthetic.However, his wound got fully healed after a few days, thanks to the dose of antibiotics and I learnt two things from this incident.....1) always to keep some first aid equipments stored at home and 2) and to keep all sharp-edged appliances away from Deb.
[To be continued]
