The week before

It was the third week of February. Vinokur had, after a lot of 'pushing', had booked the flight tickets. I wanted him to come by the 15th of February. A lot of technical problems prevented us from carrying out that plan. He had booked business class seat on a good international airline. It would start late in the night on 20th of February and would reach Mumbai on the 21st late in the night.

At my end, things were hectic. I got the paper work for the new apartment done. I wanted the apartment to be ready by 14th. The landlod, who's affectionally known as Mr. Flintstone, behaved as if he was my friend Most of the evening time on that week went as usual with my band 'Noise Market'. We were preparing for a national level competition on the 23rd of the month.

The practice was okay with a few problems finding slots at the jam room where we used to practice. S. got affected by this a lot as he was the only person without his instrument at Rob's apartment where we practiced. The dream was big, almost bloated I felt at times. This was so true when I happened to watch one of the music videos of the competing bands. The song was called 'Sarhadein' by Nitesh Pirez Band the video of which you could watch here.

About 5 days before the journey, Vinokur set out for a walk to the supermarket. On his way back, he was pushing a small trolley of stuff that he had bought, he fell. He tried to get up but he couldn't. Thankfully, a pedestrian helped him up and offered to help him home. Vinokur noticed that he was shuffling in his gait. Short, small steps almost as if he's about lose his balance and fall.

Right after reaching back home, he gave me a call. He was still finding it difficult to walk. He thought that it was something as serious as a stroke. I asked him to relax and waited until his sister came over. I made her check his actual status and do some neurological examination. Everything was normal excepting his tendency to shuffle and fall.

I and he were both grave about what this could mean for the trip etc. After a while of questioning, I came to know that Vinokur had started taking a new medication whose mentioned side effects include gait disturbances, dyskinesia etc. He was also finding it difficult to type on a computer.

I asked him to stop that drug right then. I also requested him to be taken to an ER and have a check up. As usual, he refused. I was disheartened. But at the same time, I was sure that once he is here with me, I'm going to be able to take care of him and make him undergo the tests etc.

In a couple of days, Vinokur felt much better and the shuffling seemed to be going away, only persisting at times when he walked. We (me, him and his sister) decided that he should be making his trip to India and be with me. The 'cure' was too tempting!

He, was very anxious about thetrip. He wanted to sleep through it. He wanted to be knocked out during the flight so that he could wake up in my arms. That meant a lot of blue pills (for a 15 hour flight). I adviced him to not take more than his routine dose asking him to call me using Satellite phone if he felt weird.

On the day of the flight, he was feeling much better. The fears of him having to go inside the plane in a wheelchair seemed unfounded. I watched him go out of his apartment with his sister and her friend who was backing up. I was happy! In under a day, the love of my life, the man of my dreams, my dear Vinokur was going to be here!