I had planned to hike up the mountain this morning and run down back with Rohan by evening. Instead, I wake up at 9. Paralyzed and in extreme pain.

When Rhea walks in fifteen minutes later, I am lying on the side of the bed, in a pool of my vomit and blood. “Give me a painkiller,” I say. “I am in period pain. I will take one and head to the top of the mountain.”

Rhea gasps and rushes to my side. She props me up and somehow drags me across the bed to make me sit against the wall. I throw up again. It’s nothing but bile this time. I am barely breathing. I send a muffled voice note to Rohan and Adishree:

“I am in excruciating pain. It has never hurt this much. Help me. Please come and help me.

Twenty minutes later, Dhruv carries me to the car. Adishree sits with me in the back. Nothing on my right side works – neither my leg, nor my hand. My shoulder feels limp. I have lost motor control. We are on our way to the hospital.

They suspect everything except for what it is. A few painkillers are injected and regular tests are done. Not a heart attack. Maybe a kidney stone? Ah, it’s on the right, it must be appendicitis.

To this day, everyone thinks it was appendicitis.

“She needs an ultrasound,” they say, and pack me off to another hospital. Shady and obscure, this place. The whole hospital looks like a ghost building, except for one corner on the first floor. There is light leaking out of one of the five massive white doors, and two women are sitting outside on a bench: one has a toddler in her arms, the other is flanked by a bald man standing quietly beside her. His face is grim. Everyone and everything is pale and sad. Ghastly.

Later, I find out that this is where unmarried women come in for their checks and illegal abortions.

“It is going to be fine,” she says. The doctor, or is it her assistant? She has big glasses and a very reassuring smile. “Does it hurt the same?” she asks. “I can’t walk properly,” I say. “My right side won’t work.” “Plenty of people have an emergency appendix operation,” she says as she applies the gel to my stomach. “Don’t you worry, you are going to be fine.”

She freezes as she looks at the screen. Sheer terror on her face. Then runs out to get the actual doctor. Fifteen seconds of staring at the screen and the doctor’s face changes too. Adishree is sitting inside with me. Puzzled. No, befuddled. We exchange glances.

“I am calling the hospital folks right away!” she screams. Then she turns to Adishree: “It is an emergency. She needs to make it to the hospital in twenty minutes, or she will die. They will be informed and prepared to receive her when you reach. Take her to Dr. DM. She needs surgery. Or she will die.”

I have never heard a doctor voice those words before. In my experience, doctors are usually reassuring. Everything will be fine, it is okay, they all say.

And off we go again. It is a bumpy ride and I can slowly feel my spirit leave my mortal self. Adishree is holding on to my body as tightly as possible. “Water?” she asks. “I cannot,” I mumble. I cannot feel anything anymore. I am not scared, neither am I in pain. If anything, I feel at peace.

“No, Vini, you cannot go to sleep.”

How we cover that much distance in that little time, I will never know. It is like God’s will is working with us. I haven’t believed in God for a long time. I do, now.

“Why is she walking? Put her on a wheelchair,” the doctor yells. “And how in the whole wild world is she still alive?” She is holding the ultrasound report Dhruv has passed on to her. “Prep her for the OT immediately.” In the chaos, it hits me - no one has told me what is happening, and I have questions. Why am I here? Why am I in pain? Why am I going to die? Am I going to die?

The door opens and I force a smile. Rohan is back. He got my voice note on his way down the mountain, sprinted home, and biked straight to the hospital.

“I am to sign papers. Your fœtus burst, rupturing the fallopian tube. It is called an ectopic pregnancy.

“Pregnant? I am pregnant?”

“Two months or more. You have been internally bleeding for days now, why didn’t you come to the hospital earlier?” asks the doctor, half in disbelief.

She is right. I have been bleeding slightly and in pain for a while now. Late period and bad cramps, I had assumed. I have endometriosis. This is common. BUT PREGNANT?

“It is beyond a laparoscopic surgery, unfortunately. I will have to cut through. Don’t worry, I will keep the incision as tiny as I can,” she continues, without waiting for me to respond.

I am pregnant? And I am having surgery?

“Will the money come in,” she asks Rohan. “Yes,” he assures her. “Please start, I promise the money will come.”

I don’t remember much after that. The boys run around figuring out logistics and money. My doc, she doesn’t wait. “I cannot wait,” she tells someone on the phone whom I presume is the nurse. “I cannot wait. She will die.”

It is a large hall with around eight beds, each surrounded by curtains. They poke random needles into me. “Are you married,” one of the nurses asks. Why does it matter? “No,” I reply. There is a murmur.

The COVID test guy is standing in the corner waiting for his turn. “Not like that,” he snaps, as I resist the stick he is poking into my nostril. It hurts. It hurts a lot. As if it is not hurting already.

I am unmarried and pregnant. As if that is the worst of my problems. I am dying. But I am unmarried, that is all they care about.

Later, I learn that they were quite mean to Rohan, Dhruv and Adishree because of this.

I am blinded for a second as we step in. The stretcher is uncomfortable. The OT is very, very bright. And overcrowded. That is way too many people for one surgery, I think to myself but really I cannot think anymore. A couple more needles and they are ready to cut me open. They hold a green cloth between my face and abdomen.

I shriek in more pain. I can feel the knife cutting through my skin. “Don’t worry, we have locally anesthetized you, you won’t feel a thing.”

I sit up in revolt and start tugging at all the pipes coming out of me. “Make me unconscious!” I scream. They have already cut me open but I won’t give up.

The attendant runs out with a piece of paper to be signed by family – Rohan.

“It’s okay, we will give you a full-body anesthesia.”

If I thought the pain earlier that morning was the worst it could get, I was wrong. I have never known pain like this before. Never.

The needle in my spine. My screams. Two people holding my hands down. Dr. DM places her palm on my forehead. “It is going to be okay,” she says for the first time. It is going to be okay.

Her eyes are kind.

I do not remember how much time has passed. I wake up in another bright room. The curtains are drawn, but all the lights are on. There is a TV in front of me. I strain my neck to look around. Multiple monitors and tubes and an oxygen tank. Three of these tubes emerge from my hand, and one from my vagina.

There is a couch far right to my bed. Rohan is crouched on it, sleeping.

I try sitting up, but I cannot move. I try again but in vain. This is frustrating. I call out to him and no sound comes out of my mouth. Am I even alive?

I have been here for four nights and four days.

On my last day, Dr. DM walks in to change my dressing. “I am sorry,” she says. “We tried to keep a minimal incision, but the bleeding had spread so much, we had no choice. It is a miracle you are alive, people don’t survive this.

I look at her properly for the first time. She is wearing a beige tunic underneath her sparkling white coat and has dainty earrings on. She is tall, both in physicality and in stature. She must be intimidating, I conclude. She looks at me gently.

She has the kindest eyes.

I like her.

I try to lift my head and bend down to look at my stitches, but I cannot. Rohan is on the other side of the bed, his palm resting on my forehead. I can raise my hand up to a foot above the bed now, for a few seconds at a time. We have been trying bit by bit, everyday.

It’s about three and a half inches, he tells me, the scar.

I have been to hell and back.

To this day, everyone thinks it was appendicitis.