Manikantan

The duty room bustled with activity. It was the time for “rounds.”
 Small groups of people, freshly bathed, perfumed and wearing crisply starched, and ironed uniforms , busied themselves .
Someone, gloved-handed, labelled blood specimens diligently in a corner. A worried looking nurse hastily noted down changes in treatments of half a dozen patients, as told slowly and thoughtfully by the short, stocky and fair onco-physician, his juniors and interns, reverentially recording each biblical utterance , in their own note-pads.
With gold-rimmed sparkling glasses perched on her nose, a matron watched the proceedings , hands on hips, an uncertain smile hovering on her thin ,pink, lip glossed lips, while pretending to be busy with a register.
No one noticed the sudden appearance of a young , dark , mustachioed man at the doorstep. Clad in a blood stained lungi, and a torn vest, both his arms held something heavy behind his back.
Wide -eyes bright with excitement, he grinned, revealing bloodied gums and teeth , and screamed , in chaste malayalam, “Who wants to be hammered ?” Swinging a heavy hammer and bringing it down with a ear-splitting crash on the nearest table , loaded with files. Files, papers , splinters and dust flew in all directions.
Someone screamed , and then the deafening silence, as dust settled.
The matron moved swiftly forward. 
"Manikantan, mon (Manikantan , my son )."She tried to grab his arm , as group of doctors and rushing ward -boys gathered around them.
Nimbly, he sprang backwards, screaming"Don't mon me !!I am not your mon!!"
He again swung the hammer forward. Swiftly, a bunch of ward -boys moved in and divested him of his weapon, catching it in mid-air.
He gurgled and spat a huge blob of congealed blood mixed with saliva, which landed on matron's pristine white tunic, trickling down, dolefully.
Muttering insults, he was led down the corridor, as he struggled futilely, against his stronger captors.

"Amazing! What came over Mani?"
Everyone talked in whispers as debris were cleared in large sweeps by the dark, scary and stout Kanta bai. "Usko bhoot chad gaya hoyenga , maloom "(he is bewitched), she shook her large, curly haired head with utmost certainty.
Manikantan was the ideal patient. Filling in registers, stitching masks ( for chemo , autoimmune diseases, transplant patients), and helping the staff in numerous other jobs, thereby , rightly earning the epithet of "mon" from the" monster" matron herself.
He would hold hot discussions over the supremacy of Mohanlal versus Mammootty, with malayali girls , and was the first one to rush to the duty room to inform of the tragic demise of Princess Diana.
Only last week he was diagnosed as ALL(Acute Lymphocytic  Leukemia).

And today , he started bleeding, just like that. Spitting blood from the mouth, blowing clots from the nose, and wiping them on his already blood stained lungi.
Then , he went berserk, with the hammer from the garden stores.

"Intra cerebral bleed ."The onco physician gloomily admitted . He was shifted to ICU, and put on DIL(Dangerously Ill List)
The morning duties had his clothes changed into white pyjamas, which swiftly turned crimson in patches.His face bore a wild terrified look.
Despite blood, plasma and mannitol  being transfused round the clock,  by evening Mani had slipped into deep , unarousable coma.
At seven next morning, while the sun rose on a bright and cheerful day, Sapper Manikantan,22,unmarried, of 32 Grenadiers, only son of his parents , Army no, 57321Y , "Mani " to sweepers and "Mon " to matron, had been mercifully claimed by death , as one of its own.

Ironically, Manikantan meant "a boy with a bell around his neck". Meant to signify Lord Ayappa, the indestructible, the invincible.