The unbid farewell !

Ambrish... a very smart, intelligent,chirpy boy.. We were classmates from 1st to 3rd ... I still remember his warm smile. No one in this world could even have a pinch of hatred on him for he was such a sweet boy ... He had always been the teachers pet ... He topped the class all the time and he was brilliant in extra-curricular too....

I sometimes used to feel jealous for I always missed the first rank... Though i liked him a lot, i secretly used to pray at the end of each academic year that he should be put in a different section....

I loved his family... a beautiful and a proud mother, a soft spoken and a sweetest dad,him, a cute younger brother....It was a picture perfect happy family.... one of those fairy tale families.......

The summer holidays got over and we were looking for our classrooms.. Much to my happiness Ambrish was not in the same section..

I reached for his section during the break...I knew the moment I entered his classroom,Ambrish was on leave... I couldn' find him in the first bench .

Two days passed by and yet no hints... I was told by his family friends daughter that he was sick and he is not yet back from Ooty... I wished he gets back all healthy and happy soon.....

My mother met his mother on the market place after few days and she told her not so good things that happened during that summer holidays .... he had a fall from the toy train in Ooty and he was admitted in hospital for couple of days .After a couple of days, he complained about his heavy legs and he fell twice when trying to walk around...

They rushed to hospital again and ran a series of tests and finally left his parents a heart breaking diagnosis.. that he had Sickle Celled Anemia*....

He was bed ridden for so many days.... and he was taken to hospitals in the nearby city for treatments... and he had a nervous problem due to which he had difficulty in walking, slurred speech..

I couldn't believe it was the same Ambrish to whom i waved a bye at the end of our annual exams.. to whom i mocked... dont come for ur results... u will be the topper anyway..... And i feel guilty for saying... for he never came to school after that.......

He had the radiating smile when we went to his house,.He looked taller for a tweleve year old. He handed me a big choclate bar with a even brighter smile. I could see the marks of surgery on his bony legs... neverthless he was smiling through out.... I could see lots of maths books and activity books lying beside him and there on the notebook was written a two digit multiplication problem... something like 12*30 = ? [dont remember the exact numbers].

Each time Ambrish gave us a big smile, i knew where he got it from.... from his mother who was sitting next to him ... holding his hands compassionately.

When asked him, if he comes back to school whose section would he join...it was afroz this time... when asked about what he said during previous visits [ he had said nithya once / sowmya the next time / divya the next time .....] he would give us a sheepish grin :)....each time he told one of us .... so that he hurt none ... what a gem of a soul.....

Our visits to his house grew less frequent as we entered college ... and then his father got transfered to a nearby township, it grew still less frequent .... Fours of college, we would have hardly met him four times...

I lost touch with almost the world when i joined work.....

One morning, my mother called me when i was busy debugging some pathetic code i had written....
there was a shiver in her voice... i almost froze for a minute when she said me "Ambrish has has...".. she left the sentence unfinished .. i sank down and i was sweating profusely.. i couldn cry.. i was shocked... i was speechless.... then I and my friends left office to our hometown ....

There lay ambrish... without the smile, without the radiating looks....there laid Ambrish in coffin... he looked thinner.... his eye socket was deep... he was pale... i wanted to hold his hand for one last time....i wanted to say him he had been the most greatest soul i would ever meet....

I see his mother collapsing... was panicked to see the cold stare on his brothers eye.. he hadn' shed a drop of tear... we wanted him to cry out... but he didn' ... he was staring at ambrish... he kept saying anna..annaa..anna... for god knows how many times... he swayed the flies... he wiped his face still saying anna... anna....his inconsolable father....

It was once a happy family that i loved spending time with... without Ambrish... without him it wouldn even be a family....




Sickle Celled Anemia*
For those who dont have time to know about sickle celled anemia..here are some facts about it.

1.It is genetic
2. The shape of the RBC looks a sickle [ the shape of cresent instead of the disc shape] The sickle shape arises out of the abnormal hemoglobin counts- which was too low in his case.Because of the sickle shape , the movement inside the blood vessels is not easy and tends to form lumps and block the blood vessels . Also the sickle cells dies faster than the normal shaped cells [sickle cells die in 10-20 days for sickle cell while normal cells die in 4 months] and the bone marrow does produce cells fast enough to replace the dying ones.
3.It results in severe pains in the bone joints,severe chest and abdominal pain and it could get worse due to the vulnerability of infections.
4.There has still not been a cure.These are medicines to lessen the pains .
5.May have to undergo lot of blood transfusions.
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