'Hospital Ceilings Are Boring. Drive Safely' - a board fitted to one of the roadside lamp-posts in Mumbai reads. And I guess except for doctors, nurses and other hospital staff, all of us would agree that hospitals are places one should do everything in his or her power to avoid. And yet, this book by Durjoy Datta uses it as a backdrop for the story of two patients - both terminally ill.
Enter the cast. Pihu Malhotra always wanted to be a doctor and she secured an admission in one of the prestigious medical colleges of the country. But then she started feeling sick and believe it or not, diagnosed herself to be suffering from ALS - a progressively debilitating disease. Her roommate in room No. 509 of GKL Hospital is Dushyant Roy, a quintessential bad boy, in fact as bad as they make them, who has abused his body with every man-made poison to such an extent that he is practically days away from death. Pihu is a chatterbox whereas Dushyant would give his right arm to be left alone. Kajal Khurana has the dubious distinction of being Dushyant's ex-girlfriend. Dushyant has mis-treated her in the past and yet, she loves him and is forever torn between him and her current beau Varun. Dr. Arman Kashyap is the dream-come-true for any Indian girl of marriageable age and her mother - tall, dark, handsome, talented and single! And then there is Dr. Zarah Mirza, a doctor who has had to live through a traumatic experience when she was in her teens, estranging her from her parents and planting in her a feeling of deep dislike of men.
Okay, so now this cast falls head over heels in love with each other in classic Hindi movie style. Arman falls for Pihu and she for him. Zarah is smitten with Dushyant and he is still in love with Kajal. Kajal cannot make up her mind between Dushyant and Varun. Oh boy!
Just when you are almost convinced that the doctors and patients will start gyrating to the tune of the latest item number and that you have made a mistake by bringing home this novel that was meant to be read by teenagers only (if you already don't fall in that age bracket!), Pihu and Dushyant's health takes a turn for the worse. Anyone who has seen 'Anand' starring Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh Bachchan can guess the plot from here on. Not much of a surprise there.
And that's precisely why I felt that the novel is a mere rehash of the movie and its message of hope, delivered with a storyline and dialogues that will appeal to the college-going generation. Of course, one can argue that there is nothing wrong about it, given especially that most of them are likely to give a miss to the yesteryear's movie. Ultimately, it is the message that is important. Fair enough!
Having said that I cannot help but feel that the author could have done better as far as the other aspects of story-telling go. e.g. it is inconceivable that in a hospital any visitor can come and go at any odd hour. Normally, visitor hours are strictly observed. It is equally unbelievable that a doctor can whisk his or her patient off to the terrace for a private late-night dinner or a drive across the city without either the patient's parents or staff knowing about it. The author has got the three ladies' names mixed up on a couple of pages (167, 199 and 207 in case you are interested!). Plus there have been some instances where wrong words have been used. e.g. 'Zarah overlooked the administration of the medicine'. From the context, one can figure out that the author probably meant 'oversaw'. I did not Google the author but he looks to be very young if his photo inside the back cover of the novel isn't an old one. His mistakes can be 'overlooked' to a certain extent, given his young age, but the same cannot be said for those who were responsible for 'overseeing' that they did not creep into the final product.
Though I didn't like the novel much, I loved what Pihu says about her forever smiling face:
My memories of them will be gone as I leave; their memories will stay with them forever. Don't we all smile for the pictures we click even on the worst picnics? That's all I want to do. I want to smile for their last picture of me.
Wish we all could remember these lines as we go about our daily life with heightened stress levels, increased blood pressure and a forever dour expression. :-(
P.S. The "the" in the novel's title is spelt in lowercase. I have no idea why.
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