For two more weeks they waited for the patient to be admitted. They finally shifted to a one-room rented accommodation in Yusuf Sarai in the vicinity of the premier institute. It was in the sabji wali gali. There were only two places where one could hunt for accommodation: one was this lane and the other one was the mandir wala gali just across the road that leads to the Qutab Minar.

The proximity of the Institute and the cheap rent and the availability of kon liks and yenshag napi in the gali itself had made this lane quite popular back home in Manipur. This Akash could easily find out when the landlord took out his ill-maintained 2-rupee wala khata which served as his valuable record book. He then showed two addresses of Manipuris who had come to Delhi particularly AIIMS for treatment-one was from Wangkhei, the leikai next to Akash's own Bhadralok machin leikai and the other one was from Kakching.

Akash restlessly waited for the days to pass. Had it been any other occasion rather than coming with his mother for treatment he would have explored the wonderful city of Delhi. But this time neither his spirit nor his body was willing. He would lie down in the congested room and open up the anatomy and physiology books that he had brought and would imagine the cadaver being dissected in front of him and read Cunningham's dissection book.

Back home he knew that his friends would have slowly progressed through all the layers of the scalp and would now be waiting to saw the skull bone to view the corrugated white, no gray matter of the human brain.

"I will make up no matter what it takes," Akash told himself.

Jay would now and then drop in and they would venture out near the vicinity of Yusuf Sarai. They would roam in the lanes filled with buffaloes and occasionally take a short trip to the foot of Qutab Minar but come back as fast as they could, fearing if anything had happened to his mother.

On the appointed day both Akash and Jay went to AIIMS and met the doctor whom Dr Nandy had entrusted for his mother's admission. He was a tall dark man by the name of Dr. S Srivastav. They went up to the AB7 floor of the wards and hunted for the doctor. They finally met him after waiting for about an hour. The doctor finally told him that his mother could be admitted in AIIMS in AB6 the next Friday provided they have vacant beds.

"Why can't they say for sure that she would be admitted?" Akash told Jay as they went back walking to Yusuf Sarai.

There was no energy left for Akash. He stopped worrying now for refusal of admission at the last moment that AIIMS was famous and capable of. He just left everything to the good Lord above!

The next Friday as scheduled they went to AIIMS and met Dr.Srivastav and to their surprise and happiness she was asked to be admitted immediately. Akash was so happy they he jumped up in joy and ran back to Yusuf Sarai and asked his aunty and uncle to pack all the things get ready for the admission.

Akash's family who had been frequenting the hospital quite often those days could pack in record time. They had been doing that for the last so many months.

The next minute they were in the hospital. Meanwhile Jay had finished all the admission formalities and so they went up the lift to AB6 and got the bed. The bed was unlike in RMC, Akash's College and associated Hospital. They did not allow any thing to be kept near the bed. The nurses warned them and so they carried out all their usual clothes and plastic phak they had brought along.

After a few minutes, a Resident doctor came and started asking the clinical history. Akash and his mother knew what exactly they would be asking:

"When was it that you were perfectly alright?
What happened next? Was it the lump first or the vomiting of blood….so on and so forth…."

They answered so quickly and efficiently that the resident doctor looked at them in disbelief. That time Akash's mother just held his hand and told, "He is a Medical student and going to become a doctor like you."

Akash hid his tears as he thought inside, "Only if you survive this ordeal and support me, mom!"

To be continued....