The Integral

She removed her chappals at the door and walked in straight to the kitchen as soon as he opened the door.

He came back and sat on the chair, with a thought in his brain that had started even before he had opened the door. He was staring at the door. Was he looking at the door? Or the grill? Or beyond? I vividly remember the scene in one of my favourite movies ‘Patch Adams’ where Robin Williams sticks out his hand in front of a patient’s face, with his four fingers well apart from each other.

He asks the patient – “How many do you see?”,
“Four”, says the patient.

Patch repeats “How many do you see?"… “Look closely, look through the fingers, beyond the fingers. Tell me how many do you see?”.

The old patient looks at the fingers again… and then with a stutter, says “Eight…”.
“Eight is a good answer”, says Patch.

If we look at an object trying to maintain the two images created in our two eyes distinct from each other, they try to create a parallax. That was happening with him. There were around eight bars in the grill on his door, but he was seeing about sixteen of them. He looked up at the clock once again and called out to her,

“बाई, जरा सेंक दे दो” (Please get me the heat bag)

He referred to the hot water bag that she would refill every evening with hot water and give him to place it along his back. Within minutes she came out with the red hot water bag and stood in front of him. He looked up at her. She was tall, and huge. Even on standing erect, he could only come as high as her neck. Holding the table firmly with his two hands, he advanced a bit so that she could keep the heat bag along his back. She placed the bag between the chair’s back rest and a pillow, which she kept along his back. His skin was frail and thin. He could not take the heat directly from the bag. That would hurt. The heat bag however, gave him relief. Enough to last till he went to bed.

After the heat bag, he would become a bit more active. Physically, and mentally. He opened up his diary kept in the drawer. And started flipping pages, trying to read hard, and find something in it.

Please note: This story is part 1.3 in continuation of Melody of Life