SOAK NO MORE

SOAK NO MORE

            It was the last day of high school and thus I completed ten years of wearing the uniform made of white shirt and grey trousers. I was among the class of sixty which was celebrating the occasion with the game of ink. Everyone had a permanent marker pen and used the weapon to scribble parting messages in each other’s shirt and attempted as many as one could! At last, when the ideas ran out, all hell broke loose and ink began to be sprinkled from every direction until the shirts were soaked in black and blue! The same shirt is still with me and I read some endearing remarks like, “you are my dearest friend”, some curious ones like, “you are very gentle and bovine!” and some messages of general awareness like, “enjoy safe sex!” besides miscellaneous others and funny cartoons and symbols! That piece of memento that I carry remains a storehouse of memories and the white fabric could have soaked no more!

            I graduate in the white coat profession and become a scalpel-wielding surgery post-graduate trainee. The white coat is another remarkable piece of clothing! Over time, it soaks blood, pus, urine, phlegm and serum. A lot of these stains are washed away whereas hints of others remain. I still remember two occasions when I was drenched, once with blood from the spurting vessels from an amputated limb, and the other time with pus while introducing a drainage tube into the chest of a patient with pyopneumothorax! One white coat still bears faint yellow remains of the blood stains and as for the other one; I can’t stop imagining that I get the revolting smell of pus! I could not have asked for the white coat to have soaked anymore!

            Yesterday, it was raining heavily in Delhi and all potholes were filled with filthy water. I was the pedestrian and a speeding car spelled disaster. I could soak no more of the begrimed water!   I am now washing those clothes I kept soaked overnight in detergent water!