He lay still on her chest.  There was absolute silence in the room, except for some rumbling from the air conditioner and the various machines attached to her body.  But these sounds were not enough to disturb him and stop him from listening to the rhythm of her heart.  He heard it loud and clear, just as he had heard her voice the first time he met her......

A 4th year medical student Harvinder Singh was part of a team which was sent to the village of Muthupati in the outskirts of Madurai as a part of his curicullum where the students had to visit villages in groups and put up a medical camp.  On reaching Muthupati, Harvinder had quickly become an attraction to the villagers because of his Pagdi.  People would look at him and straight away look at his head.  They found it very funny to think that a man would have that long hair inside that Pagdi.  On a particular Sunday when he was washing his hair outside his tent, he saw her for the first time.  Clad in a typical Pattu Pavadai and flowers in her head, loaded with jewellery she kept laughing very loudly at Harvinder.  He looked up from the bucket of water he had his head in, to see the most beautiful woman he had seen.  

Her laughter was still ringing in his ears just as clear as he could hear her heart beats.  The nurse walked in, took the writing pad and scribbled something.  The presence of the nurse in the room did not seem to disturb him.  He was still there looking up from his bucket into the sparkling eyes of this girl who just kept laughing loudly.  She started teasing him by showing her own long hair, as though she was competing with him.  Harvinder was not new to these kinds of comments about his Sardarji hair.  As she teased him the child like smile of hers made him want to just run and hug her.  He tied his hair in a towel and started running behind her to scare her.  She surely tried to escape him and started running towards somewhere.  She had just gone a few steps when her foot got entangled in the creepers growing nearby  and she fell down.  He immediately pounced on her and looked into her eyes.  But her eyes were closed, he tried to wake her up, she would not speak.  Thats when his hands touched blood on her head.  He panicked and did not know whom to call.  

The doctors just walked in, and stood next to her bed.  Harvinder looked at them.  Its time Harvinder, said one of them.  He saw his family was around him too with the hopes that this time he wont back out from his decision.  In the last 3 months that she was in hospital it had been decided several times to remove her from the life saving machines.  But Harvinder always backed out at the last minute.  She had gone into coma after her fall and never recovered after that.  Harvinder was in a state of shock since then.  Whenever anyone tried to talk to him he would just look at them blankly.  He refused to hear her name from anyone else but her.  He was hoping she would open her eyes and speak to him.  After all the only voice he had heard was that of her laughter.  But this time it was different since her family had got orders from the court and Harvinder had to be moved away from her.  He looked at everyone around once again and lay on her chest and tried to listen to the beats again.  You have to let go Harvinder, said his mom.  He slowly rose from the chair and walked to the doctors and asked, Can I pull the plugs please?  Sorry we cannot allow that, said the doctor.  He looked at her and then asked his mother, What is her name?  Panchamma, said his mom.  He went back to her bed bent down and whispered in her ears, I love you my dear, my lovely Panchamma.

Dr. Harvinder Singh practices in a hospital in Florida.  He is 47 now and not married.  If you ask him why he is single he says I am in a relationship and just smiles at you :) :)

All images are courtesy Google.