The Curse That Followed Bhovi for Eight Years

🌿 The Woman Who Died Seven Times..

By the time Bhovi arrived at Ponmanipudi General Hospital, most people had already said goodbye to her.....as was usual...

The monitor barely registered a pulse. Bhovi's blood pressure was unrecordable. Breathing came in fear-filled throbs.

The young duty doctor trembled. The nurses became active and got to work inserting the IV lines.

Bhovi's admission was not the first time....

Nor the second...or even the third..

For nearly eight years, Bhovi had been journeying between life and death like a passenger who kept boarding the wrong bus...

Rajathooram, Madras, Mumbai, even Singapore.....big hospitals....getting admitted almost dying and returning....

Everywhere the story was the same....tests, scans, specialists.....reports.....everythingnormal. No one gave the cause of her suffering.

Yet every few months, Bhovi collapsed. Breathless, confused, half-conscious, almost dead....then somehow she recovered at the last moment.

Her husband had given up on Bhovi.

Her children had stopped hoping for answers.

Even relatives had settled on an explanation...."A curse."

In villages, unexplained suffering and disease eventually finds a story...

And Bhovi had found hers' years ago.

When she was younger, a travelling Mantravadi had demanded money and jewellery.

Bhovi refused.....

The Mantravadi became furious....

Before leaving, he threw water at her, muttered something...pointing his index finger.

And declared....

"You will die slowly."

For years afterward, nothing happened. Bhovi forgot about this incident completely.

Then the first collapse came....

Then another...

Then another.....repeats...

Eventually Bhovi stopped seeing coincidence.

The curse had become real...at least for her.

That afternoon, Dr. Chari came to the ward for his rounds. The room felt heavy, medically and emotionally. The air hung in the room, dense.

Bhovi lay beneath an oxygen mask. Her eyes frightened, skin pale and clammy.

Dr Chari found her family all gathered around Bhovi silently watching....not hoping.

Dr Chari pulled a chair beside Bhovi. He touched her hand gently.

"You know me?" he asked.

She nodded weakly.

"What happened?"

Tears filled her eyes. Her face shrunken..she murmured...

"The curse."

The words emerged between shallow breaths.

"The Mantravadi."

Even now, after all these years, fear entered the room before the memory did.

"He said I would die....a slow death."

The oxygen mask fogged slightly as she hungered for air...

"And every time..."

She struggled for breath.

"...he pulls me back."

Silence....

Most people expected doctors to argue, to explain, to dismiss....

Dr.Chari smiled softly and did none of those things.

Instead he asked:

"What colour was the water?"

Bhovi blinked, not understanding...

"What?"

"The water."

"The day the Mantravadi cursed you."

Bhovi frowned, trying to remember.

"Yellow."

"Ah."

Dr. Chari nodded gravely as if he finally understood....

The family looked confused.

The nurse paused, looking at Chari...

"That explains everything."

Now everybody was staring.

Bhovi's eyes widened.

"It does?"

"Of course."

Chari leaned closer, lowered his voice, almost to a whisper..

"Did nobody tell you?"

The family exchanged nervous looks.

"Tell me what?" Bhovi whispered.

"The counter-curse."

Silence took over the ward...everyone was listening, though all pretended not to...

"The what?"

"The counter-curse."

Chari looked mildly annoyed.

"Typical."

"What?"

"Nobody informed you."

Even the nurse looked puzzled now.

Bhovi stared at him.

"There is a counter-curse?"

"Obviously."

He sat back.

"Yellow-water curses only work until they meet white-water blessings."

The ward became very quiet.

"White-water?" Bhovi whispered.

Chari nodded.

"Very rare."

Then he pointed casually toward the IV bottle hanging beside her bed.

Transparent fluid slowly dripping.

"The blessing started thirty minutes ago. This time we initiated it..."

Nobody spoke.

Not even the relatives.

"The curse should be finished by tomorrow...the counter curse will neutralise....."

Bhovi stared at the IV bottle.

Then back at Dr Chari, checking whether he was serious.

Then back at the bottle...

Something changed, small flicker...almost invisible.....Hope returned for the first time in years.

The next morning Bhovi's blood pressure improved.

The day after that, she was sitting up in bed. Her breathing difficulty forgotten...

Within a week she walked home.

The village declared it a miracle.

Bhovi called it freedom.....from "The Curse."

Months passed...Then a year....

Then two...No collapse or breathlessness.

No midnight emergencies. No ambulance rides...Nothing.

One evening Bhovi met Chari outside Appuswamy's tea stall...

She looked healthier, and lively..

"Doctor..."

"Hmm?"

"That white-water blessing."

Chari smiled.

"Working?"

She nodded happily..

"Completely. It worked...like a charm"

A long pause.

Then Bhovi asked quietly...

"Was it real?"

The tea stall became very still.

Even Appuswamy leaned slightly closer.

Chari stirred his tea thoughtfully.

Then smiled.

"Tell me something."

"What?"

"For eight years..."

"...which was stronger?"

"The curse?"

"Or your belief in it?"

Bhovi opened her mouth.

Then stopped...Because suddenly she wasn't sure.

Chari stood up finishing his tea and walked away without speaking anything...

Behind him, Bhovi sat in peace, quietly watching the evening settle over Ponmanipudi.

And she thought about yellow water....white water...curses...blessings...and stories.

Because sometimes...the thing that almost kills a person is not what happened. It is the meaning they give it.

And sometimes healing begins...when a stronger story arrives and mind accepts it 🌿

Welcome to Ponmanipudi… where nothing is as it seems.