A SAD PATIENT.

Doctor !! Doctor !! "Please don't give me an injection".
It was a loud wail which resonated and reverberated in my consulting room every month when the young boy named Nimesh used to come for his monthly androgen shots. My able bodied ward boys along with myself used to hold him and the nurse would jab him on his plump buttocks. The cries would shatter our window panes. After the jab, he would still cry for a couple of minutes outside the room. The crowd of outdoor patients would sympathise with the poor boy, some offering him chocolates.
Nimesh weighed over a ton despite only being 17 years old. His ears were shaped like a wrestler and slightly deformed since birth but not too evident. His acoustic acuity was hampered since birth, hence his conversations were very loud. His cries too, were amplified. He was a mentally retarded child as a result of hypoxic birth injury. He went to a special school and did pretty well out there. although his body was like that of an adult, his mind was like the one of a small baby. He had a huge head with crew cut hair with big bead like eyes. But, He was a cute boy. Consistently he had removed various hearing aids from his ears, pleading ear ache and tinnitus. He was a fidgety kid who played around with whatever object he could lay hands on. My torch and the stethoscope were also not spared by him.
He used to be accompanied all the time by an ageing frail lady whom he used to call Ammi. I was perplexed by the tremendous age gap between the two and one day I asked Ammi about it all.
Ammi told me that she was the maternal granny of Nimesh. His parents had left him with her when he was just a year old. They had simply given up on him and deserted him as they did not want an abnormal baby. They moved out of town, had a healthy child, a couple of years later. Soon, his mother too stopped enquiring about Nimesh. Such depravity was unbelievable and shocking. I silently muttered the choicest abuses for such parents. Their act was shameful and unpardonable. The poor Ammi had no choice but to rear Nimesh as her own son. Life moved on monthly pension.
It was a sad tale.
I look at his sad face.
He does not know the whereabouts about his evil parents.
One day, I asked him about them.
He laughed out loudly without a care in the world, ignoring the uncomfortable question. He believed Ammi to be his sole parent.
Ammi would go one day, Who would take care of him?
God alone knows.
I cried silently and prayed for him.
I hope, it works.
I ring the call bell and usher in the next patient.