THE ONE-HANDED RICKSHAW-PULLER

THE ONE-HANDED RICKSHAW-PULLER

Shani Ram lost his left hand in an accident a few years ago but instead of taking up another occupation he still continues as a rickshaw-puller. He wears a piece of linen in a manner that customers don’t notice his handicap in the first look.

            The previous night, I saw him in his usual corner smoking a bidi with some style. When I asked him to take me to the hospital where I work, he accosted me with a greeting and queried, “Son, do you go there every day? Perhaps you don’t recognize me but I have taken you to that place three times!”

I wondered how I could forget that skinny and bald old man whose spine was greatly curved and the malar bones so very prominent above the hollowed out cheeks besides the sunken eyes and the strikingly protruding nose, with his characteristic raspy voice, the strength of which matched his bodily tenacity that delivered the painfully slow pace to his vehicle on which I had the experience of a ride not once but thrice, like he mentioned, without ever being able to shake off the feeling of an eerily pleasurable deathly ambience all throughout! Above all, he was a case of below-elbow amputation and thus an inspiring example of overcoming a handicap. So it would be insulting to my memory if I did not remember him when he could keep in mind a commonplace man with a black bag like so many others among his customers!

Enriching his ghostly appearance is his unexpected mild manners. Though he always asks for only forty bucks, I am used to giving him ten extra, which is however only his due because it is equal to what others demand for that distance!

THE MOUSE STORY

STORIES OF MR. BHARAT DURGIA, ORTHOPAEDICIAN

THE MOUSE STORY

            Mr. Bharat Durgia is a dear friend. He is an orthopaedician with a tagline that reads, “I will bend my bones to mend your bones!” He is thus very good.

            In his undergraduate days, he was still learning Assamese when he went with his ward mates to Panitola for doing a survey, which was a part of Social Medicine. He is a heavy man with a pair of heavy lens and so was a much important team member who assumed a central role. His undying smart enthusiasm generated spirited keenness in the rest of the group members and admiration-driven giggles in the few lady medicos who accompanied him. He was mindful of the reactions and every moment tried to be better and do something bigger and worthier.

On the day of which this incident is about, he started exceedingly well reading out questions from the proforma in the native language and getting the right answers from a peasant. It was smooth sailing till he was stymied by one little limitation. He had to ask whether there were rodents in the house and he did not know what a mouse was called in Assamese. The rustic interviewee did not recognize any of the english ‘mouse’, the hindi ‘chuha’, the cleverly described ‘little animal that cats eat’, the elaborately explained ‘animal that runs about here and there in every nook and corner eating grains’, the vaguely characterized, ‘four-legged little one which may be white or black’, any addition of confusing adjectives like ‘smelly’, ‘restless’ or ‘naughty’ or the overly hopeful example of  the television hero ‘Jerry’ and he was thus sweating from trying too much!

He was simply failing and he would have relinquished the job to the Assamese team mates who were there with him. But the latter had loved it from the beginning in enjoyable silence! At last, rather quite despairingly, he could only pray for God’s help and just then, he saw Lord Ganesha’s picture in the calendar hanging from one of the walls. Lord Ganesha was mounted on a mouse just as always! At that point, Mr. Bharat’s index finger could not be restrained from the repetitive jerky gestures at that little animal underneath Lord Ganesha till the illiterate villager exclaimed, ‘Oh, nigoni! Well they are plenty!’ Much excited happiness followed that triumph which he savours even to this day!

           

            

DELHI DIARY 10: THE KISS OF A TOOTHLESS FAIRY

DELHI DIARY 10: THE KISS OF A TOOTHLESS FAIRY

            She did not have any of her front teeth and all her hair was gray. The sallow and wizened lady in her 60s threw an agonizing look at me clasping the right side of the upper part of her abdomen with both hands. I already guessed my diagnosis from where I stood. Laying my hand on her abdomen gave me reasons to think that I was only right. With carefully chosen words and after knitting my eyebrows as is wont for me to enact a credible performance, I declared my suspected diagnosis to her attendant who was however much more certain of the same because of an ultrasound report that he possessed. He produced it like a trump card! He was not very amiable and was rather the ‘too-much-knowing-for-little-good’ kind of person who had too many whys and that many ways to irk other people. I sported a confident smile to baffle his desire to get pugnaciously vociferous. Two hours later the same man had a happily grateful face and sounded a subdued chuckle when he saw his smiling mother rub her palm on my face and plant a kiss on my cheek! She indeed appeared like a small human form with magical powers we call a fairy because her son seemed so much more bearable to talk to after that!

             

MOHD. SHEEN AND HIS DURBAR

MOHD. SHEEN AND HIS DURBAR

Mohd. Sheen is the emperor of the Chat Durbar.  This is an exclusive virtual court wherein his subjects discuss with him various matters in great detail. The entry portal is facebook. The access is unlimited and he is available at any hour.

He is a kind ruler of hearts! His humour is never-ending. That is his chief attraction and the strength of attendance of his Durbar has thus increased over time. The baseline count is five and the peak is yet unknown but may be more than fifty, which proves that he has a very patient and orderly mind.

The highlight is that out of all the connectivity numbers, females have a ninety nine per cent share. And his keenness is thus explicable. Methi and Namkeen are two regulars.

Methi is all sweet talk. She finds everything fabulous. She types in various smileys at a certain significant rate per second. Mohd. Sheen has likened her to ‘Misty Doi’! It is his favorite dessert. The content of chat is very sugary bordering on frivolity. The emperor is often lost in day-dreams soon after but with a smile fixed on his face.

Namkeen, on the other hand, delivers brilliant sarcasm every other sentence with the design that Mohd. Sheen will be none the wiser and thus she enjoys herself and stays connected. Little does she realize that the emperor is much smarter to let that happen at all times to engage her as often as she does!

While he is fond of the honeyed tete-a-tete with Methi, he likes the ribbing chitchat with Namkeen even better! His current indecision regarding his preference is only eyewash!

THE LOVE AND HATE STORY

THE LOVE AND HATE STORY

It did hurt not calling her but his pride could not take a fall,

It had been hours of falling apart since she cried on that call!

Hard to argue with someone who only sulks on being hurt,

The quarrel was fought in silence after a brief noisy start.

It may seem trivial for the rest of us, who do not know,

That a day spent without a call could lead to such a row!

The sun went down without an answer to a hundred rings,

Till with a frown and anger he yanked at his guitar’s strings.

His hours became lonelier evermore yearning for her voice,

Lost in darkness he sang even more but much of that was noise.

He did not hear when she called back till one hundredth time,

At midnight he was tired with grief and stopped at that chime;

Soon after he saw his phone and stared with much indecision,

It was hard to hate so much the one he loved without reason!

While his fingers dallied over that call he wanted not to make,

The call came through; his phone lit up and it began to shake.

With a heart so sore he could not hear another hurtful word,

She caused the gloom in his cheerless face, yet she struck a chord!

And for minutes he spoke not a word and that made her cry,

He hung up the phone and he never responded to any of her ‘why’!

Sleepless hours slowly went by teamed up with smoke and spirits,

His red eyes reflected fond memories but he lamented the demerits.

He did not think about the consequence of his brooding disposition,

For far away Juliet thought of ways to cope with the silent admonition!

The resentful despair in the ungodly hours made her cut her wrist,

That ceaseless stream of blood drained her life and loosened up her fist!

Thus juvenile love claimed a teenage breath with so much more to live,

Coz love and hate was an intense game too much irrational and addictive!

THE SHORT STORY OF AN UNPLEASANT PAUPER

THE SHORT STORY OF AN UNPLEASANT PAUPER

It was a heavyweight cow that whipped its tail across the face of Hari Om that resulted in the variegated patterned bruise that disfigured his slovenly spooky countenance. The admixed imprint of red, blue and black colours remained while the specks of holy cow shit had been washed off. He was hurt skin deep and a neck injury was also very much likely. Earlier that day he had stepped in horse shit while stealing mangoes from a roadside cart and he could opine that the stink was not as bad as dog poop! It proved that despite being an alcoholic and an all-time dreamy cannabis-smoker, he knew his senses well because meat contains more sulfur and hence the carnivore produces more smelly crap! The stench of the sewage water in the roadside drains was what he had suffered for many long nights till the following bright mornings when his blood alcohol level was cleared by his less-than-a-kilogram liver. In his other mornings dawning underneath a banyan tree, after he had survived hours of toxic carbon dioxide levels, the whitish paste-like bird excreta was the unrelenting shower that never failed to wake him up!

He disappeared before his newest bruise could heal thus ending an unpleasant story after readers make guesses whether he died due to any of cervical injury, liver failure, cannabis or carbon dioxide poisoning, tetanus or ill-effects of possible coprophagia! 

HOW TO DO A CHOLECYSTECTOMY?

HOW TO DO A CHOLECYSTECTOMY?

I have written more operation notes of cholecystectomies than stories about other stuff thus breeding displeasure within myself at not being able to be more illustrative in an intriguing manner instead of the repetitive express jottings in the patient files. I think it is the bane of not being the premier rather than a subordinate. The following is an attempt to win a point!

The patient had a calculus in her gallbladder even though the sexagenarian declared emphatically that she “had never consumed a stone in her life!” The pathological presence of the villainous stone inside her body continued to befuddle her even in the face of the most lucid explanations delivered repeatedly at the top of my voice to defeat the demon of presbycusis! It was an example of condescending to one’s grandson’s nonsensical babbling with the flashing of an endearing smile because she did exactly that after calling me one! The same grin in her plump face while she lay supine on the operating table, however, surrendered to the propofol infusion that swiftly whisked her into unconsciousness. The endotracheal tube totally killed it!

The brown colour of the drying betadine paint on her skin was a display of antisepsis. The drapes hid every part of the old lady other than her oversize belly. There was never a quiver when the scalpel ran parallel and below her right rib cage incising six centimeters of skin because an injection named Atracurium had paralyzed her. The insensate wound bled but only a little like the gradually collecting droplets outside a chilled glass. A diathermy probe searchingly burned the more prominently oozing vessels. Two inches depth of yellow fat was separated to reveal a glistening aponeurosis like the skin of a fish. That was incised and a piece of red meat otherwise called Rectus Abdominis showed up to be divided by using the diathermy probe again. A little amount of smoke vitiated the OT air but was soon sucked in by the vacuum suction in my hands. Another layer of muscles which happened to be the anatomist’s posterior rectus sheath was then similarly disunited. A thin flaccid sheet of tissue called peritoneum was lifted with a pair of forceps and one rent made and extended to finally open the Pandora’s box! It was as yellow within as outside! There lay spread out across the whole cavity a carpet of sunshine gold which was so thick as to weigh several kilograms of spongy fat and that’s what's otherwise called the omentum underneath which the bowels seek shelter.

Three mops were placed to push the stomach and intestines away from the swollen pear-shaped organ called gallbladder. Two metallic instruments each shaped like a large question mark bearing the name of Deaver’s retractor were used to widely hold apart the wound so that the premier surgeon could fight the crucial battle at the Triangle of Calot.

The gallbladder, henceforth to be called GB, is like a fruit that hangs from its stem called the common bile duct and it should be removed taking care to never injure the latter because if one does that, the whole person turns yellower every passing day to thus wither away!

The short-statured and elderly skilled surgeon, who stood the most erect with a stool to add to his height while his two assistants stooped, tied the duct of the GB and the artery, that supplied blood to it, with silk sutures and snipped gingerly at the ends of those structures. The GB was thus released from its stem but it could not be so easily plucked off. It needed more pluck to gently tease it away from under the liver to which it remained adherent. Many times during this maneuvre it may bleed more than desired and thus be uncomfortable for the surgeon and breath-catching for the on-lookers. But on the concerned occasion, the old lady was spared any blood loss. It was a virtuoso performance and the surgeon whistled a tune!

He held up the GB high in the air and eyed it with a sneer before dropping it into a tray shaped liked a bean. It was one of the thousands he had removed in his lifetime. He was a sexagenarian!

I took his scalpel and cut open the GB and there lay within it the large, oval shaped whitish stone stained with bits of green.

The abdomen was then sutured air-tight so that when the old lady woke up next morning with an ache in the wound she saw a large white bandage plastered onto it rather than nauseatingly undulating intestines!

ONE UNPOPULAR SONG OF INDIA

ONE UNPOPULAR SONG OF INDIA

Everybody knows but the knowledge languishes in the brain’s attic,

Even as news grows about anguishes of the Nation being undemocratic!

The most brazen is that Kasab still avoids the Hangman’s noose,

Though it is four years now since the day he was let loose!

And killed 166 people in a matter of hours, thus waging a war,

But the country spends 20 crores to keep him safe behind the bar!

It appears like the delay in his death will be more prolonged,

His antecedent Afzal Guru has made it 8 years since he wronged!

As public outcries rise and die down there is little concern,

It’s been ages since promises were made to the Martyrs’ urn.

Rather time has been well used to fill the coffers in Swiss banks,

Thanks to tax-payers’ money and scams of Coal, Games and Tanks!

It is a never-ending list where breaking news is about world records,

Mind-boggling numbers which at times spill out of political discords!

But to eat away the major chunk it requires being on the throne,

For which votes of infiltrators are bought whereas nationals bemoan;

Because it is easy to divide them based on religion, caste and region,

When goons, thugs, convicts and criminals are part of the political legion!

And thus there are many interesting stories for movies and television,

Likewise, people have paid bucks for the stories immortalizing the Don;

Who bombed Mumbai more than a decade before Kasab invaded the Nation,

And still lives like a free bird never been caught and taught a lesson!

Coz everybody knows but the knowledge languishes in the brain’s attic,

Even as news grows about anguishes of the Nation being undemocratic!

THE FAKE

THE FAKE

He too did not wear a mask but he was the fake,

He was false in every task while he was awake!

Of his archetype if you ask there lay the mistake,

In whose glory he did bask and a living make!

He did replace one Maximus, quite an exemplar,

While the latter dubiously vanished when still popular;

And in his place there had to rise this common burglar,

It little mattered he was Dantalion, he looked very similar!

Sneak thief became the head honcho of the Underworld,

Nobody knew among the henchmen, whether young or old!

Though he never fired a bullet or a bomb he hurled,

Fear never blocked his gullet, only his moustache he twirled!

He was clever with words like Maximus was not;

Unlike the reign of terror, under him not a man was shot!

Still in the name of the dead it was quite a lot he got,

He only had to learn to live with the women so hot!

The role was too good and he was the superior artist,

He understood what not to be and was not an egotist;

Still better he knew till what time he could persist,

Money and power notwithstanding, which he had to resist!

Thus it was again an evening when the dead died once more,

After nine days in gangland, when no more he had to explore;

A whole fortune at his disposal nevermore to outscore,

With the limits he could spend, he vanished with a paramour!

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!

THE FACE

THE FACE:

            The emerald green eyes wore a penetrating gaze and the pupils in the middle were black holes of emotions. They mesmerized me right away! The long eye-lashes bordering the perfect almond-shaped eyes were however wet and yet another tear was forming! Fine crisscrossing streaks of inflamed red in the glistening white sclera hinted too much crying.

            As she kept repeatedly rubbing the fluent with a satin handkerchief, the friction produced a more visible pink at the tip of her aquiline and slightly hooked nose. Her full lips, which at other times were glossy with vivid colour and capable of creating miracles with a lustrous smile, looked dried and rather than sporting a sensuous appeal, bore only a wistful charm! Her heart-shaped face thus professed melancholy and though I was not privy to the melodrama leading to her sorrowful disposition, the same transcended into a poignant memory!

PRICE OF APPENDECTOMY!

THE COST OF AN APPENDIX!

He had pain in the right side of his abdomen and he had an ultrasound done outside that diagnosed him as having acute appendicitis. When I examined him, he had no tenderness in his right iliac fossa (McBurney’s point) and on doing blood tests, his total leucocytic count was normal. That was the easy part. The difficult part was to convince him that he did not have appendicitis! I patiently explained to him the pathology and clinical features of the disease. It appeared that he understood well.

At the end, he raised the important question, “Just hours ago, one doctor is so much ready to operate on me for Rs. 35,000 and now you say that I can’t have my appendix removed when I have the ESI beneficiary card to get it done for free!”

THE FRIEND WORSE THAN A FOE

THE FRIEND WORSE THAN A FOE

He had black eyes but I now see the green,

And he wore a pretence as well could have been!

For years like that he prevailed upon me,

Behind his deceitful smile the lie I did not see!

The many acts he would not allow me to do,

Saying I’d screw up when better things were due;

That was, I understand, a way of holding me back,

And lest I outdid him, he forever kept a check!

Made me deliver promises for being a chum,

He knew the words to which I would succumb!

Though I always believed that he was a dear pal,

It was my worst time when I knew his moral

Far from any help, he sneered at my woe with a no

“Cut me some slack, you are on your own bro!”

Suddenly I recalled and noticed all the trifle hesitancies

Which in the past were overlooked like my fancies

Though it was a sad moment to hear “you were never a friend”

He was a friend worse than a foe and I now comprehend!