Last Wishes

It is true, that I am dead! This blog is being directly published from Heaven! You lucky little human beings, read it, while you still can.

What all has transpired in heaven ever since I came here; I shall let you know consequently. But, right now, the matter is more serious. This is about the few wishes that are pending, and I’ll be very happy if someone on Earth can volunteer to fulfil them. Here is the list:

1.                  Tell the girl whom I had offered a seat in the bus, that she need not be so thankful. Actually, there was chewing gum stuck on the seat. Also, thank her on my behalf for giving me a clean seat after she got down.

2.                Tell the barber who cuts my hair that the comb he is searching for is broken and he should give up all hopes of getting it back. I was when he had gone away and it broke. Just didn’t get a chance to return it. From now on only balds will visit him. Hence, he does not require it any more.

3.                Tell that biker that it was me who stole his tyres. Actually, I had to go to a water park and we were required to bring our own floats. They worked fantastic.

4.               Tell that baby that his lolly-pop, I didn’t steal his lolly-pop. I actually, really didn’t steal it.

5.                Tell my doodh wala bhaiya that I did not intentionally let his ‘bhais’ run away. Actually, I wanted to be a cow-boy, but since there are no cows, I settled with his bhais. I thought that she was going to attack me, hence I let the moose go.

6.               Tell that girl whom I dated that she eats too much. That the three words I always wanted to tell her were ‘PAY THE BILL’, but she invariably misunderstood me every single time.

7.                 Tell my uncle that I did not replace his mehendi with cow-dung. He should have been careful enough to smell it, before he applied it.

8.                Tell my neighbours, I did not rob their newspapers and magazines. I just borrowed them and because they brought another copy, did not return them.

9.               Tell that hysterical aunty, that if a character in a serial dies, she does not have to fast for his Soul’s peace. He will come alive after 3 episodes max. I know this even without watching any of those crappy things, wonder how she hasn’t figured it out.

10.           Tell them to stop thinking that everyone is bitching about them. Others have more important jobs.

11.                Tell him to smoke a little more, he always leaves only one cigarette pack unsold at the pan-walla. If he buys that as well, he will get a discount.

12.            Also tell him that it is fine to take a bath once in a while.

13.            Tell that waiter who gave me Rs. 10 the other day that I have arranged to change his fortunes. Here’s the story, I was walking on the road (alone of course). Suddenly, I was drawn to this restaurant by the appetising scent of Pav Bhaji. I went in and was surprised to find an old acquaintance also there. So, I joined him. Nice fellow that he is, he paid my bill. Then he also placed a Rs. 10 note as tip. I felt very bad, that he only should tip the waiter as well as pay the bill. So, I took the Rs. 10 note and placed a Re. 1 coin there. The waiter came to me and gave me another Rs. 10 note along with my Re. 1 coin, saying that he had a big heart. Tell him that I have arranged for a cardiologist who will dine very soon in that restaurant and as his tip, will cure the problem of his big- expanding heart. Good people deserve good things!

14.           Tell her, she was always a guinea pig for my social experiments.

15.            Tell them that the nazar suraksha kavatch did not work, and I want my money back.

16.           Tell him whenever something reads ‘click here’ you do not necessarily have to click there.

17.             I told his girlfriend that he was cheating on her. Please tell him.

18.            In my locker is a vada pav that I have forgotten to eat since a year. You can have it. I anyways won’t be having it now.

19.           Tell her that I really enjoyed annoying her.

20.         Tell my In-Laws, that I will be coming back for revenge!

21.            Tell Kamal R. Khan that he was my favourite actor.

22.          Tell him I know he stole my pen.

23.          Tell him that everyone knows what sites he visits.

24.         Tell Rakhi Sawant that I haven’t seen someone as sober as her, and that she should never changeher mannerisms.

25.          Tell him that it is bad manners to finger the nose in public.

26.         Tell him that he should be happy with his marks only if he writes his own answer paper by himself.

27.           Tell my GOSUMAG team, I’ll be getting an interview from God!

28.          I never spoke truth in my entire life. Tell it to all of them who took me seriously.

29.         Make a person seat and read all my blogs at a stretch!

When all these are done (especially the last one), you can meet me by jumping off from the college terrace, and let me know. Can’t wait to meet you. See you soon.

TINA !

        Its almost been a week since the vacations have begun, and with each passing day all my study plans seem a distant reality. I was wondering, therefore, what has lead to this sudden lack of concentration. And, the answer was clear, I still hadn't moved on from the fiasco that had happened last Sunday. It was a battered ego now that was giving me sleepless nights. Also, it was the thought of Tina, that too was giving me sleepless nights. Somehow, I failed to convince myself that she wasn't existant! Now, I was only afraid that some day I may turn into “Jay J” ( a sequel to “Dev D”), and start preaching about the good effects of alcohol( if you dont know, click here to read)!

No, no, this can't happen. Revenge, they say, tastes sweet! And, I like everything that's sweet. Those of you lucky human beings, who manage to catch a glimpse of me daily, would have figured that out already from my body contours. If not, then “ I just said it”. I WANT REVENGE! This I decided on Tuesday, after I saw Pirates of the Carribean. Inspired by Jack Sparrow, I set out to gather my own crew. Cricket bats, stumps, hockey sticks, they all are available from the Gymkhana against a valid college I Card, all that I wanted now was a crew.

So, I set sail (not literally, please think intelligently) to find a few strong men and a few more beautiful women to serve as distraction! As I was walking, I realised that someone was following me (There was someone, I'm not a psycho!). I turned around, to find the biggest surprise of my life. It was something I had never imagined would happen. I was awestruck, dumbed. What was happening was unbelievable. Once again I pinched myself, it hurt, thus it was true. O My God, I thought, miracles do happen.

Even before I grew out of my thoughts, I found myself getting lost in those eyes. Those beautiful eyes, they hadn't changed a bit, though mine have narrowed down to the extent that I feel that someday they wont be visible at all! Big, bright. Playful, cheerful. Teasing and comforting! All at the same time. As I continued to get lost deeper and deeper on tose magical eyes, memories, started emerging from the even more deeper corners of my mind. Where had all of them disappeared all these years, I thought. Perhaps they were locked away in some safe vaults of my hitherto dysfunctional brain, saving them for this precious moment.

As more and more memories emerged from their hideouts, a picture developed before my eyes. I couldn't see around, what I could see, though was a world, not so long ago, where there was only happiness around. We were naive, we were just innocent little minds. NO raw emotions, no rat races, just life as it should have been! Took me back to my teens. This moment of introspection was interfered briefly when she jumped, rather pounced, on me. Oh she just hadn't changed! How easily did she forget that we were in the middle of the road. Thousands of people around us. All starring eyes. She had always been this carefree, and driven completely by emotions. That was what had lead to us meeting in the first place.We had done this before, not just once, but a thousand times perhaps, but I was 12 then and people didn't pay all that attention, but now I am 21. She, she was the least bothered. She had just not changed!

“Woo hooo, TINA. I shouted”, getting equally unaware of the surroundings! Then I was struck by an awareness. How easily had I forgotten her! That so mean on my part! Even after last Sunday while I was busy trying to search for a Tina, where none existed, it didn't even strike me about the one that existed!

Tina, I know her since I was 12. My schooling was done in a boys school ( I know what I have missed, but Boys school is an experience in itself, that you can't get anywhere else!). There was a seperate Girls' School not far away!!! :) And it was on my way home:) :). Tina was in the girls' school.

We had met, I remember, on a rainy day. School had just started. It was one of the early showers in Mumbai. I was walking back home with my new umbrella (simple joys of childhood). She caught my eye as that “little thing”, who was getting wet. I don't know why but I appproached her and took her in my umbrella. But, she had different plans. She just ran into the rains. I stood, watching her. All those directions from home- “Don't get wet, You'll fall sick, etc.etc, “ just vanished. And I too had run into the rains with her! And thats how we became friends!

This had become a daily routine after that for quite a considerable time. Everday, I would come and wait for her outside her school. We would play for hours, share our stories, run, chase, enjoy! And then, there was that big vacation, (big because that's where we lost touch). The following years were preparatory for the board exams. I got more busy with myself. Time was a rare commodity. Walk home was replaced by taxi or bus rides. And then with each passing year, Tina became a thing of the past!

In college, I made new friends (who still continue to be my friends, accounting for my eccentricities, they are God's Angels, except one, though, she is Devil reborn) and totally forgot that Tina ever existed.

Then is Medical College. What is free time? We don't know! We have been converted into bloody selfish ultra TYPE A personalities, with pitiable egos. Tina, where was she even going to feature on my lists. But, today, when we finally met, she was still the same old self! And none of these bothered her. Whether I am doing MBBS or any other damn thing, would have been immaterial for her. She still viewed me as I was 9 years ago. A lot changes in a decade, but a lot more actually doesn't!

And so began an age old game of chase, one which I had left incomplete! We played for a while, a thousand heads turned, and a double thousand eyes starring and transfixed. I between were also scattered a few smiles. And as we sat for a snack of biscuits, this too was our ritual, I noticed one more thing. She had grown older. I realised that even I had grown older. While I still viewed her what she was 9 years ago and vice versa, we were 9 years older. Yet, the joy of the meeting was as unadultrated as previously. Strange, but true! Two living beings, see each other but visualise something else. It is so easy to live in the past, rather, so desirable to be back into the past!

I was brought back to reality when two other “little things” joined us. They were Tina's “little things”. Wow! The perspective of time is so different for different beings.

Tina, who was a pup 9 years ago, had two pups today!

SHRAVAN KI COUNTRY

One of the best things about medicine as a profession, other than the nobility, money, respect and allied, is that you get to meet a lot of intersting people. And that is what makes life a little easy in the oterwise stressful environs of sickness, death and some 'sick' people.

“Patients are our teachers” is the dictim of medicine and as William Osborne has famously quoted “ To study medicine without textbooks is like charting an unknown sea, but, to study medicine without patients is like not going to the sea at all.” Indeed, patients teach us a lot about life or rather give us a lot of varied perceptions of life.

One thing that I realized after entering medicine, is that India, is a country of drunkards. There are drunkards every where, in every walk of life and every strata of society. Some drink, because they are happy. Some drink because they are sad. Some more drink, because everyone else is drinking. Some others only drink, because they are benevolent. They want to save the food and water for others, and hence decide to keep themselves on alcohol only peparations.

There was this particular Mr. Rada O. G. who was admitted with gastritis. I asked him,

“apne peena kab se shuru kiya?”

“Array dactar saab, you no English”

“I know English”

“Fir, ask in Angreji”

“Why did you start drinking?”

“My pitaji go to swargwas.”

“Accha, to aapko sadma laga tha.”

“No.NO. No sadma.”

“To fir, aapne kyon peena shuru kiya?”

“Array Dactar Saab, aapko nahi pata?” Obviously not, or why would I have asked you? But, I didn't tell him this and let him continue. “Streptococcal throat infection kaajeej rheumatic arthritis. Hamre peeeta-jee ko hua tha. Very bad condition. Very painful condition. You know. Every joint akad jaata hai. Thandi me very bad. Hum dekha hu ye sab. ”

“To, uska peene se kya sanbandh?”

“Array, you people donot know the importace of sanitisation and are kaazing microbial resistance”

“To, uska peene se kya sanbandh?”

“Array, kaise dactar ho aap, huh. Aap jaise log dacter ban nenge to is desh ka kya hoga. That is why I have to take care of this COUNTRY”

“To, uska peene se kya sambandh?”

“Thik hai, to listen and remember. Alcohol is the best sanitizer.”

“Ye muzhe bhi pata hai. Par, uska peene se kya sambandh?”

“What is your medicine. Kitna mehanga!!! God ,God. India is country of poor. I am poor, Aapko sasta dawai dena chahiye!”

“To, uska peene se kya sambandh?”

“Array baba. I drink alcohol. It kill all the sreptococcus in the throat. I not get arthritis. Understand. Ghar me saat -saat chota baccha hai hamar. Unka future ke baare me bhi to sochna padta hai!”

“To appke hisab se muh se bas marna accha hai”

“Haan bhaiya. See, alcohol before 18 years crime. OK. I talk to Aplu, Chaplu, Pappu, Gotya, Bablu, Chottu and Rani. They take alcohol from my breath to their breath. They protected”

“Accha, aur 18 saal ke baad , toh they only buy their own baatli”

“Abhi jaake ki aapne samajdari wali baat!”

“Array chacha, aap ko samaj nahi aata ki jitna paisa aap sharab me gava rahe hai, utne me aapke bachhon ki padhai ho jaaye gi. Unka bhala hoga”

“Array, this also I do for their bhala only. Today, they not get infection, tomorrow they are healthy. Tell me, health is wealth. To fir I make them wealthy,naa”

That was it coudn't take any more of this, lest he wiuld make me start drinking. I figured he was not in his senses. So I looked around to see if there was any relative whom I could ask some details. I saw a young boy of about 12, standing at the corner foot end of the bed. Poor fellow, looked so weak and fragile. All that his body had was bones and a layer of skin. From the way he was looking at us conversing, it figured out he should be one of the above mentioned. So I moved to ask him.

“ Ye tere kaun lagte hai?”

“He is my father”

“Ok. I'll ask you some questions, answer them properly.”

“Ok”

“Why did you have to bring your father here?”

“That day he came home and his stomach was paining. Neighbour uncle said take him to KEM, so we brought him here.”

“Hasn't anyone come to relieve you?”

“No, I just came from home.”

“Then do you not have enough money to wash your clothes?” I asked with serious concern, looking at the state of his clothing.

“ Why, these clothes are clean only. Baapu says, alcohol is the best cleaner. Baapu sprays alcohol in the house. It keeps the house germ-free. We donot have enough money to buy costly floor cleaners, so baapu uses the same for everything. I go to work at a shop i the evening. Then I study in the night. In the morning, I go to school. Sometimes, I donot get time to take a bath, but one should not be late to school. So, I do not change my school uniform. This is my school uniform. Baapu says it is clean.”

On the head end the BAAPU was over-hearing this conversation and smiling with pride for his off-spring. If only everyone's offsprings could be so obedient.

“Accha, tell me has your Baapu ever fallen on the

road in a drunk state?” I tried to make the conversation a bit more meaningful.

“No”.

'Thank God!' I thought.

“The shop from which Baapu buys his drinks is just behind the bus-stop. They all know him nicely. They sit him in the bus. The bus stops outside our house. So, Baapu comes directly to the house. He has never fallen on the road.” He asserted.

“ SHARAVAN KI COUNTRY,” I thought aloud.

“Array baapu, dactar saab ko bhi Shravan ki dukaan maalum hai”, went a loud message from the foot end to the head end.

“Wah! Dactar saab. Apna number dijiye. Kabhi saath me baithenge. Garib ko bhi ek mauka deejiye. Aap bhi kya yaad karenge!”

AMMA JARA MERI TARAF DEKHO......

          This incident happened during my ophthalmology end post exam.

          My patient was a 65year old widow, hailing from UP. She had presented with a complaint of watery discharge from her eyes and gradual loss of vision. Usually staying in her village, she had come to Mumbai for her treatment and was currently lodged with her son and BAHURANI. It was the same BAHURANI and her JETHANI who had accompanied her to the OPD.

          So, I began. I introduced myself. All was fine untill I told her that I was a medical STUDENT and she was the one who was my exam case. I prefer being honest from the very begging, let all doubts be cleared initially, else should my mistake make a patient believe that doctors in my set up are not competent enough and lead to complete loss of trust. Finally trust is what bonds the patient to the doctor!

          I do not like referring her as a case, so I'll refer to her hence forth as “Amma”, as that is what I was actually addressing her. So, Amma became very defensive. Her Bahurani and her Jethani were taken aback by the revelation. “Oh my God”, they thought (I am the inner voice, remember) “What disease has Amma got, that this person is examining her for an exam!!”

“Pakka dal me kuch kala hai”, grumbled one of them. And they grumbled some more, most of which I do not remember. Perhaps they had realised, that I was going to be an extended session. They tried their level best to try to get Amma away. But, it seemed that the old lady was in a mood to defy them today.

Soon, they began sending her visual instructions from the corner of their eyes. I have seen many a women do these. It’s surprising how only they can do these; and more so, decipher them as the actions remain the same in every situation but the inference changes! But, little did they know, that Amma had diminished peripheral vision, and they most probably were in a blind area for her. This gave me a lot of courage. “Divine intervention” I thought!!

          I continued asking her questions, she continued answering them, unwillingly though. For her it was more of like a deep sea and devil situation. And she chose to persist with the devil.

 Then came the turn around. I had to examine her eyes. And I said, “AMMA JARA MERI TARAF DEKHO”. Again “divine intervention” I thought. If there was a 22 year old instead of this 66 year old, my instructions may have had some completely different altercations! Phew!  Medicine is tough, but only tough people last and survive.

          May be, I was unable to communicate my instructions to her properly, or maybe she wasn't getting them correctly, or maybe sh was in a rebellious mood in general.  So each time I had to restart and I would start by saying “AMMA JARA MERI TARAF DEKHO”. After a couple of times, Amma also started enjoying this attention.

          One thing, it would have been after such long ages that someone was actually trying to attract her attention, if I may say.

           Secondly, it would also have been after ages that she was getting so much attention.

           And the topping on the cake came when I took her for a check-up. She identified with the place as the same place where she had been stranded for over an hour not more than two days ago. But, today she had royal treatment. She had skipped the queue.

           She would have looked around at the endless queue of patients and thought, how any of them barely got to talk for more than 5 min to their doctor, here she was with a doctor already since 20 minutes and ready to spend even more time with her. And to top it all it was him who was actually patiently listening to her, politely repeating the instructions again and again until she finally got it right. And for once, even the Mamas in the wards were behaving softly with her!

           I could feel it from the smile that was growing her face. The more she tried to hide it, the more widely it grew. She had just within a span of three minutes turned so co-operative

          While all this was going on, someone was not happy. No I am not referring to that batch mate of mine who had actually got a real nut of a person to crack. It was the Bahurani and her Jethani. Either, I was subconsciously overhearing their conversations, or they were consciously ensuring that it was overheard. This is one more of those special abilities of the ladies; they ensure you hear what they want to say.

          All the time they were grumbling, “ Ye kidher fas gaye”. Or, “ Kya Timepass ho raha hai”. (As if you've put your time to great use by watching those family sops.)

          Yes, I heard it!

          “Amma ko to idher laana hi nahi chahiye tha”. “Ye log kuch bhi kar rahe hai”. “Abhi tak to ghar bhi pahunch jaate”. “kal to dekha tha, aaj fir se kyu dekh rahe hain”. And they went on and on. Finally came the revelation, “Array, mera serial chut jaayega. Aur pata hai, iska repeat bhi nahi aata!”

          I think I even glimpsed at them once. Wasn't it wonderful to see those 64 teeth exposed and shining in a friendly manner! (They were 2 of them, and I actually counted them). Ladies again!

          But Amma was too happy turning a deaf year to the Bahurani and her Jethani.

          “Booo, Not your day today”, I felt like kidding them. But, the apron on my body prevented me from saying this.

          All went fine. Exam however wasn't that fine!! And when Amma was to leave, she looked up and told me,” Accha dactar ban na”. That is one gesture, I cannot forget. I am still surprised, how a patient for whom I thought I would have to present as, “CONSCIOUS, COHERENT, but UNCOOPERATIVE”, had actually said such a thing. More than anything else I could feel the warmth in those words.

All this while, the two accompanying ladies still continued to grumble. I looked on as they walked out of the OPD, two well built figures engrossed in each other and a frail figure trying to keep pace with them. Maybe, a little attention is all that people want at that stage of their life.

          May be all that is needed is for someone to tell them,

“AMMA JARA MERI TARAF DEKHO!”