... is the one

I did not study medicine for the altruistic reason of helping the poor and sick. An honest and dedicated politician would do a better job at this, I naively thought.

With many of our top scorers in public examinations scrambling for limited places in medical school, it made me wonder why some of the brightest young minds in the country decide to spend the summer years of their life seeing coughs, colds and aches.

Since analytical minds are not best suited for dissecting heart, I am grateful for being spared from the answer-u-die-not-answering-u-are-committing-suicide kind of question.

“What you like about me?” The sensuous lip, the lovely hair or the flawless complexion. Perhaps the gentle-yet-confident manner she carries herself. And I have always been mesmerised by her unique blend of intelligence and innocence.

I ain’t sure what exactly draw us together, but deep inside, I know she is the one.

When we first met

I first met her when she joined the department, where I was working. The department where everyone came to work before anyone else, and only left when everyone did on most of the days.

MOs would start doing rounds even before HOs in other department left their house.

By the time the hospital buzzed into life, we would have been in the safe enclosure between four walls of clinics looking at black and white images of bones, and prescribing plenty of painkillers.

Or inside the anaesthetic gas-filled theatre, assisting surgeons drilling holes, knocking nails and turning screws.

It bothered me least as it allowed me to know her better.

Now and then

I looked at those photos again. They were taken when she first came to Bidor, which was not long ago. Barely a year, but how things have changed.

We are married. That is what the law says.

I was crazy about her. We drive each other crazy.

What draw two persons together? How do two individuals, with different traits, quirks and quiems, live together in years to come?

How do their differences in values complement each other? How do the similarities synergise?