The Kabir Singh Story

new day-Kabir

"i'm sorry, what did you say" he heard Priyanka say, voicing his own astonishment. 

Mrs. Grover, or Jaya, as she had asked me to call her laughed at their shared shock. 

"The baby in your arm is named Rajan Pri, and Dr. Singh" she smiling at me sweetly "the baby in your hands is named Kabir".

Not one to stop talking Priyanka continued voicing her confusion. "I still don't understand! You're naming your children after us! But why? Surely, you had names picked out beforehand. Something with meaning for you and your husband!"

Jaya shrugged "a few, but nothing permanent, but I knew what their names were going to be the moment I held them in your apartment Pri". She then turned to face him her smile replaced by a hesitant shyness "That is unless you have a problem with it bhaiya".

Priyanka whipped her hand so fast between Jaya and himself upon hearing the new mother call him brother affectionately, she could have given herself whiplash. To an outsider it would have been hilarious, he was sure it was why the nurse was chuckling in the corner. 

"I was gone for 45 minutes. 45 minutes and somehow I managed to miss everything!" Priyanka exclaimed to no one making Jaya laugh tiredly, showing us her exhaustion. 

Kabir looked over at Priyanka and saw that she had seen it too. "I have no problems with it Jaya, but you should go to bed" as the nurse timely put her bed down into a resting position. "We will see the twins of to bed and we'll be here if you need anything".

She was clearly exhausted and fell asleep before we had even left the room. As though on autopilot, he followed Priyanka and the nurses as they took the babies to the supervision room and watched them through the window. 

"so, what happened while I was gone" Priyanka asked curiously peering at him from his side. 

He rolled his eyes, not wanting to have any sort of personal conversation with her. In the ambulance, Jaya had freaked out more so from the anxiety of being alone than anything else. He helped her calm down telling her about the time his younger brother went to the hospital when he fell out of tree we were climbing and when she started calling me bhaiya I didn't think to stop her. That is until Priyanka had an episode of whiplash in response to it. 

She realized he wasn't going to say much and so she turned back to the window where their namesakes had just been put down for rest. 

"I've never had a namesake before, have you?" she asked and continued without letting him answer probably because she knew he wouldn't "although technically, my twin is named after my whole family. You get one all to yourself"

She was teasing him but the feelings inside him  were more than I could handle. 

So much had happened today. 

So much had happened in the past 30 minutes and for the first time in a year he had a feeling of contentedness within him. Of course the yattering beside him was annoying, but even that couldn't damper his peace. He was starting to understand why people become gynecologists, it was messy but if the reward felt like this everytime, he could get high off of it.

Then bursting his content little bubble he heard someone call him from behind "Kabir?"

He turned around and instantly regretted it, coming face to face with Dr.Amrita Shergil, alumnus of St.Michael's Medical School and more importantly batchmate and friend of Dr. Preeti Mehta. 

The last time he had seen her was at Pree's wedding when he had caused such a huge commotion that the police had to be called. She looked at him shocked, probably having trouble recognizing the person he had become. He knew his face, that was previously always clean shaven now sported a thick beard and that his hair was unkempt. But the rest of him still looked somewhat the same, though he had stopped socializing or going to the gym, his friend Umar still dragged him to a boxing gym once a week after work. A true friend, Umar had done a lot of research setting up the weekly excursion and though it had taken a lot of convincing to get him there, the release of pent up anger had him going back every week, sometimes multiple times.