A Cry at Midnight

The following incident, worthy of a 1970’s supernatural thriller, occurred when I was a child.  I present it below as narrated to me by my mother. 

"When you were about two years old, you required corrective surgery on your feet for a tendon related problem.  We lived in New Delhi at this time, and the procedure was to be performed at the prestigious All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).  Leading up to the surgery, a plaster cast was applied to your feet for a few weeks to stretch the tendons out.  By questioning whether the plaster cast had been applied correctly, I earned the wrath of the junior doctor – let’s call him Dr. J - who performed this procedure. 

 All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi

The surgery itself was eventually scheduled for early 1969 and since the senior doctor – let’s call him Dr. S - was planning to travel in April of that year, your grandparents and I didn’t go through with the usual process of looking up the almanac for an auspicious day for the surgery.  In fact, the date set by the hospital was inauspicious per traditional reckoning, but neither your grandparents nor I raised any objections given Dr. S’s calendar constraints. 

A few days prior to the procedure, I had a vivid and disturbing dream, in which Dr. S came out of the operating theater calling out in alarm “Mrs. Krishnan, Mrs. Krishnan... where is Mrs. Krishnan...?”  A voice in the dream announced, “a vein has been cut and there is bleeding….”.  I ignored this dream, putting it down to my own nervousness.  The day before the surgery, we went to a temple to seek blessings.  As the priest walked up to us with the Aarthi or divine flame, it suddenly blew out as though by a sudden gust of wind.  I dismissed this omen also. 

         

The Fault in Our Stars

The next day, we were admitted into a general ward in AIIMS, a dormitory-like space that we shared with multiple other patients.  In the evening, who should come on his rounds but our old “friend” Dr. J.  You beamed at him, upon which he remarked “Now he's smiling at me. He doesn't know that tomorrow, I'm going to be the devil in the theater.”  I ignored even this chilling comment, putting it down to a tasteless attempt at humor. 

As evening came, you started crying for no particular reason and wouldn’t stop.  The patients around us tried to cheer you up, but to no avail. Eventually, night arrived and we both fell asleep, with you sandwiched between me and the wall against which our bed was set.  Suddenly, in the middle of the night, you woke the entire ward up with a piercing scream.  The lights came on and what should everyone see, but a copious amount of blood splattered all over the front of my white sari.  I examined you closely, but you showed no sign of pain and no trace of any injury, not even so much as a scratch.  There was simply no explanation for your scream and all this blood. 

Surgery preparations would start by 8 a.m. At 7 a.m., I met Dr. S in his office, shared the incident of previous the night to him, and said I wanted to call off the surgery.   He was very understanding and readily agreed.  We drove home and the family, grandparents included, were all relieved that the surgery had been put on hold.  Now home, you played around as though nothing had happened.   We eventually had the procedure done in Madras at a different hospital."

We pride ourselves on living in scientific and rational times, but this would have been one omen too many for most folks.  And you, dear reader, can credit this post that you are reading to a series of portents from more than a half-century ago.