The Braveheart

Balwinder was in agony.He had not slept in last two days. He had been sitting all day through. Whenever he even tried to lie down , a severe fit of cough would drain all his energies. The cancer had spread to his lungs.

Just 9 months back, he was like any other child his age. He was pitted to be the next "mohalla" champion of cricket in the small village of Punjab he lived in. A small sleepy village where people believed in toiling hard in the day  and sleeping peacefully at night. It is the kind of place where faith often overshadowes the reality. Their belief in their God and his men has been the food for their soul, something they had not dared to  challenge in ages and for generations.

So when he got himself hurt while taking the near impossible catch that day, playing for his school , he became the hero and the bump below the knee on his left leg got completely ignored by everyone, including himself. It would have gone unnoticed still, if it had not started growing in size and made itself too obvious to be missed. So like everyone else in the village , he too was taken ,to be surrendered, in the care of the holy "Baba ji" who had special powers to cure anything and everything under the sun.

Baba ji blessed the champion and deemed him to be the next big thing in the cricketing world. The "aashirwad" for the man himself was so overwhelming that the  now cricket ball sized swelling retreated to the background again . However ,Babaji had made a special "pudia" with his own hands, mixing the rare jadi buttis for the village hero. According to him , it was the " bad blood " getting accumulated there. His medicines would cause all of it to get down to the knee , get collected there in the swelling and ultimately burst out relieving the boy of all the "bad blood " after which the healing process would take over.

Babji was right, after all, he was the God's man .The swelling  kept increasing in size. The fact that it also started causing some pain and difficulty in walking, was just a minor hitch. Balwinder was no longer able to play cricket now, but that did not deter his spirits, by lords and babaji's grace, he was one day going to make it big on the field.

However, the wait was getting longer and longer. It had been 5 months now and the swelling kept increasing in size.Everyone was amazed by the amount of  "bad blood"  his small 9 year old body was carrying, such that the swelling was still growing everyday. He started loosing weight and the growth was now protruding  out with a foul  smell.  Walking , leave aside playing cricket, became a huge task . It was then ,that he was again taken to the babaji, who said it was all because of not taking proper care of the child that the superadded infection had overtaken. Nevertheless,  he still had a cure for it , which will however  take its own time , as always. But how could even babaji see such a sweet little child in so much of pain ? So he advised him, though reluctantly,  to be taken to a doctor whose antibiotics may work faster.

It was then that Balwinder was brought to the hospital for the first time. The lesion already looked like an infected football oozing blood with a smell so strong that even the flies could not resist. On careful examination,  the doctors could even  find a few maggots in it . They were astonished to see how the child was bearing such pain without even flinching an eyelid. That, probably, is the power of faith and believe.

He was started on supportive care with antibiotics and wound dressing. Everyone's worst fear came true when the biopsy revealed an Ewing's sarcoma. Surprisingly his lesion was still confined to the leg alone and had not spread outside, as all were suspecting. The best chances of cure, according to the doctors , in this scenario, was to curb the evil in the bud. He was advised amputation. That implied the end of his dream of playing cricket, or for that matter ,anything on the field. But the surgeon was not even thinking in those terms, he said his priority was to save the life.

But Balwinder's belief in self and his God was much more stronger than they suspected. He boldly refused to go under the knife. They tried to explain all the pros and cons of  still having the disease intact in his body and urged the parents to think rationally before deciding anything but he had made up his mind. He was sure of a miracle to happen ,by the sheer  power of his conviction. And there was no way anyone could take that belief out of him.

He was so started on palliative radiation therapy. His faith remained unshaken. He seemed not an ordinary child. Besides being a cricketing prodigy, he was a bundle of courage.  No one ever saw him crying with pain or sulking over  his condition. When ever he wanted a shot of pain killers , he would first ask his parents out of the room. He didn't want anybody to witness him in his weaker moments. The sweet smile on his face never vanished, not even during the most difficult times. He was always busy making plans for his return .He once told a doctor his only wish was to see the God of cricket playing live sometime, if possible.

When he completed his radiation treatment, the only achievement  was reduction in  the burden of his disease, but it was still there and beyond cure.The swelling had considerable reduced in size and the infection was better. He was then started on  chemotherapy  but even that could not break him down. He was still his cheerful self. He would vomit and paint; vomit and read; vomit and sing ; and vomit and dream. And he never forgot his daily prayers. His faith was his strength.

But then two days back ,he had landed again in the emergency. He had completed the third cycle of his chemotherapy just a week back. His CTscan showed multiple lesions in both his lungs as the culprit. The dreaded was here. His chances of cure were , now, nil.

Still there wasn't a pinch of fear on his face, even if it was there, he had disguised it well. After all courage is not the absence of fear, it is rather an act of mastering it. And Balwinder had a lion's heart. He wasn't going to give up easily. He had a dream and he wanted to live it. He was the source of strength for his family. He wiped the tears of his parents and younger brother but not a single one fell from his own eyes. The pain he was bearing ,was visible in every inch of his body but his face was radiating hope and belief, always. The inevitable had not even for once crossed his mind yet.

And then , a similar patient landed in the ICU ,just cross his bed. A boy of  the same age , probably a year or two younger, with his right hand amputated, gasping for his breath, just like him. All of a sudden there was a chaos in the ICU. The parents stood a few steps away from his bed while the doctors and nurses were inserting tubes into him and injecting various injections. Everyone was running around, to and fro from his bed to the nursing station. Senior doctor was called. The whole team was around his bed side. They had pulled up the curtains. Only the parents remained outside. The father stood there, trying to hold the mother who kept stooping down while chanting some prayers  .Both of them with their hands folded, eyes closed and tears running down.A nurse soon came and took them out too. That was the last Balwinder saw of them.

About 45 mins later things had settled down. Nurses and duty doctor  were back at their station. The senior doctor had left. The new patient had been put on ventilator.

He then called for a nurse. She smiled at him but it was not returned. 

" Sister what happened to that boy? What does he have? Is it Ewing's sarcoma , just like me ?"  he asked. She nodded without saying a word.

This time he smiled. "I am hungry...haven't eaten anything since yesterday..can u get me a glass of milk ?"

By the next day morning , both the boys had left.

Balwinder was a brave boy, probably just not enough to bear the sight of seeing himself in that other boy.