True stories - Animal Lover
Prologue: I heard this amazing story today and although it sounded totally unbelievable, the person who said it, said it with such conviction and fire in her eyes that I was almost inclined to believe her. I had to write it down, lest I forget the intrinsic details she put in, which cannot emanate from someone who is cooking up such a story. So here goes.
Final year mbbs. Our campus looked wet and green and very beautiful as usual. I will miss this greenery when I go back to north India, I thought. The campus had cute dogs, an occasional peacock and parrots. Even the ubiquitous crows were not too noisy. But what I loved most were the squirrels. They were small, beautiful and always playful and running around, never disturbing or destroying stuff. I was just in love with them, but I noticed that a lot of my hostel mates were too. One particular squirrel was always in our corridor. This one had one of its stripes extending into its head and hence somebody had named it "Ramu". Many of the girls in my corridor were too fond of him and kept feeding him stuff. He was very playful and hence quite attached to many of us.
I was on my way back to my hostel room from another boring lecture when it happened. I was walking through the decently lit hostel corridor when I noticed Ramu running around in the wall. Suddenly a loud cracking sound followed by a few sparks and the whining of the squirrel startled me. I turned back and saw the almost lifeless Ramu lying on his back, and after a few writhing movements he became still. I was shocked and ran towards him, but before I could get there another person was already on the spot. She was the quiet girl of our batch, always alone and to herself, never offering her opinion about anything. She was the last person you would expect to jump up to do any task. I never expected her to have such compassion mixed with presence of mind. She was on the squirrel like a flash, and felt for a sign of life on the squirrels chest with her thumb. Sensing none, she locked her fingers together behind the squirrels spine and began giving chest compressions to the poor little thing, using both her thumbs. A CPR to a squirrel!!! I didn't know what to say, do or think. But one look at her face, that determination on the teary eyes and you would dare not interrupt, let alone mock at her attempt. She continued for a minute or so and suddenly the ACLS God reminded her something and she suddenly removed her plastic ball point pen from here pocket, removed both it ends and the refill, to obtain a thin hollow tube. She stuck it into the mouth of the fallen angel, and blew into it. Mouth to mouth to a squirrel??? Now I've seen it all, I decided. The torso of the squirrel did rise a bit, to her credit, and she continued her ? CPR. After another couple of minutes, somebody had the guts to ask her to stop. She did stop and watched expectantly for any sign of life. Life's not like Bollywood movies, so, there was none. For a minute she sat on that floor, on her knees, above our dear Ramu, now with a pen down his throat, her tears flowing freely onto the floor. Then she slowly removed the pen, and then carried the squirrel to the hostel park. She buried the soft fluffy guy near the flag post without any word. Everybody was too stunned to react and slowly started dispersing. I however, stayed with her throughout her endeavour, but didn't have the conviction to help. After the burial, she got up and left, her eyes now red and puffy. I gave her a soft pat as she passed me and she tried to manage a weak smile.
From then on, I managed to speak with my new friend almost daily and ensured that she never stayed lonely or quite. Not when I was around. Truth be told, she was amazing company, her quite ideas and concepts of the people and the world were too good. We got along very well and became the best of friends. Even on the last day of college, when she left the hostel with her parents, I walked her to the gate and she gave me a tight hug and promised to be in touch. I tried my best not to shed any tears. I succeeded, at least till she left. I walked back to the hostel thinking of all the happy moments I spent with her, resolving that we will always be in touch. Even though my vision was blurred by the tears, I did not fail to notice the handful of freshly plucked jasmine flowers near the flagpole.
