Every cloud has a silver lining

One is enough

Two are better?

It can’t get more obliging!

There was this autorikshaw ride the other day. The ubiquitous black and yellow-painted three-wheeler has quite a bad reputation in Bangalore thanks to some infamous behaviors of the men behind the wheel.

Being condemned to have a necessity to board one such vehicle everyday, I have developed a fair amount of intuition about the vehicle and the driver, and I get an idea of what is in store as soon as I get into it. Normally it is a tampered meter or a tendency of the driver to take rounds.   

However, an auto driver looking just around 20, showed another facet. After a noisy, bumpy ride, I opened my purse and fumbled for some “change”. But the “smart” driver said, “I have change. Give me.” Good. He will give “change” when getting it is such a hassle with others– I thought, and pulled out a hundred-rupee note which he almost grabbed.

But as soon as I got out of the auto, he cried, “What, Madam, see what you have given.” To my shock it was an aged ten-rupee note.

But how did it happen? It was never in my purse. “I gave you hundred-rupee note,” I said. He strongly refuted it again.

By then, I was sure he was playing a game. The boy raised his voice and insisted I had given just that crumpled note. To prove his point, he opened his purse and there were only ten-rupee currencies. If wanted to cheat, why would he keep the note, I had given him, in the purse? He started abusing me in high-pitch, drawing attention of people around.

I know the truth and he knows it as well. But while he can disprove it, I cannot prove it. He has probably transferred the note to a place inside his clothes. If I don’t want to entertain curious onlookers, I need to close the case quickly accepting whatever he says, I thought. And I decided to forget that hundred bucks.

While walking up home, the boy occupied my mind fully– He must be feeling proud for his “skill”. He is just out of his teenage and there is nothing that suggests that he will not grow into a greater fraud in future.

But I am convinced– I could have been more alert all along. 

A pleasant surprise greeted me one morning this spring. When I opened an east-facing window to let in the golden rays of morning sun, I saw a road-side tree, grown above the third floor terrace, was in full bloom with heavy bunches of pink-hued flowers all over.

It was around 10 at night when a female voice called me up and enquired if the mobile was in my name. I said yes. She contested it and asked irritating questions like when and where I had purchased the sim card which I had forgotten completely. She declared the cell was ‘not in my name’ and if I did not submit a new application within two days, the phone would be disconnected. I got furious and told her to do whatever she wanted to.

But the call left me curious and I rang up the customer care centre. A male voice confirmed that the company was truly on a verification drive and I needed to give all the details I was asked for. After two days, I received an SMS telling me that my application form for the mobile connection (which I had submitted a few years ago) was incomplete and I needed to submit a fresh application at a ‘nearest’ BSNL office with residential proof, ID and a photograph within 10 days.

With all the required documents, I went to the nearest BSNL office. But the ‘nearest’ office turned to be the one receiving applications only for the landlines, and the receptionist there told me to go to another office in the adjacent area. 

As I entered the office, I noticed a group of female staff members sitting inside a cabin separated  by grills and responding to the customers across who were coming in a queue with papers in hand. I understood that was where I needed to submit my application. As I collected the application form, I caught some heated arguments being taken place between the people of two sides of the grill. A gentleman had become furious and shouted at a woman inside the grill asking why the company was troubling people unnecessarily. “I spent hundred rupees for nothing.  Who will bear the cost?”  The female staffer shot back, “Hundred rupees for what? Just to give the new application?” The man’s voice touched a new pitch when he yelled, “Would this photo come free of cost? And the petrol to run the bike to and fro…”

I did not quite understand what the argument was all about until I came back to the counter, after a few minutes, with the filled-up form.I offered my papers to the woman inside the grill saying, “M’m this is fresh application for my mobile”. To my surprise, the woman didn’t even stretch her hand to take the papers. Didn’t she understand what I was giving? On the contrary, she perfectly understood it. She said with a measured tone (may be she was repeating it for the nth time),  “If you have given all the documents while buying the connection and if nothing has changed since, just ignore the SMS.” I found myself dumbfound. Immediately I understood the fury of the gentleman who had a brawl with her minutes before. “No need to give this application? What should I do with this (with all the attachments)?” I wondered aloud. She answered only the first part of my self-enquiry. “No need to give. Even I have got the SMS and I have ignored it,” She explained assuming an air of doing a favour to me.

That is how customers are cared, the BSNL style.

caressing the garden minnows 

and enjoying the serienity in a far-away land

“Do you mind working with younger people?” a person even wondered at an MNC looking at my graying hair.  But it is the one, whose office I mistakenly strayed into recently, has convincingly put a full stop to my hopes of finding some like-haired people around any longer in offices.

As I spotted the name of the firm on an unassuming three-storied building, my spirit of finding a new work place evaporated into thin air. But I needed to complete the ritual after travelling some twenty kilometers. The office was on the top floor. I climbed a flight of narrow steps, looking at the strewn garbage on the adjoining vacant site, and entered the tiny-looking office with low ceiling. The place, though a congested set up with too many things happening in a small area, was brimming with activity, which is the hall mark of something ‘young’.  There was no security or reception counter. I found myself staring at a bunch of yuppies some of whom were dabbling with mouse and keyboards and others hurriedly moving around. I asked for the person who had called me up the previous day and there emerged from the herd an adolescent with a sweaty face. When I spelt my name he took me to a small cabin and said, “Please wait, we will get back to you in five minutes”.

As I was waiting for the ‘five minutes’ to get over my eyes searched for some mature faces among those who were bustling around and seen through the open door. The five minutes stretched into half an hour and started ticking beyond. Then a small and round figure entered the cabin. She could have passed for a high school girl. A silver ring was hanging from her short nose and she seemed to be enjoying the jingling of the metal bangles that adorned her plump hand. With multiple rings all over the ears, a heavy-looking belt on her low-waist jeans and streaks of gold in her lusty hair she was exuding a raw enthusiasm.

I presume, the girl was little embarrassed to see an old woman. But she tried to be as normal as possible and quickly went through the customary round of the interview using phrases like ‘my staff’, ‘my engineers’. She talked about the firm’s product and what was expected of the people being recruited. We quickly came to the conclusion that I wouldn’t fit the bill. However, the girl tried to be extra nice by gifting the samples of the firm’s product and bade me goodbye with a touch of humility.

As I climbed down the building, I tried to figure out how I was dragged into the unlikely experience at an unlikely place. I wondered if I should remove my name from the job sites and save myself from landing in another yuppie world.

Lavender shy

Proud peach

Golden hue

Blazing red

Next day, when I went back to work, names of some ‘sure cures’ for throat infection were tossed at me. “Just one tablet, you would have been alright. I have given it to so many people and all of them have found it effective,” said a sympathetic colleague. I told him I would try the tablet the next time I am down with the affliction. But, will I? Will I hurry to swallow down that wonder pill as soon as I get the first symptom of sore throat and feel relatively more comfortable? Despite the promise of instant cure with the pill and despite the certainty of unbearable uneasiness for 24 hours without pill, I have doubts if I will reach out for the wonder drug as yet.  For, that would be reversing a long path.  

*** 

I was sitting with Gayethri in the reception. My throat and every thing above were hurting like hell and I had little interest in looking at the surrounding except waiting for the call from the doctor inside. But still, I guessed the two boys sitting in the counter were discreetly looking at us wearing a sly smile. As I felt too weak to talk to Gayethri I ignored them. My name was called out and I went inside the check up room. The doctor in his mid-thirty with a sportive look gestured at me to the check-up table. He briefly asked about the illness and put his stethoscope below my neck – on upper back and chest. Then he felt my stomach with his hand which I didn’t quite understand. He quickly wrote prescription and explained about it. As I came out I noticed the boys were quite amused.

The prescription was excellent and in three days I was back at work and people asked which doctor I saw. As both Gayethri and I were new to the town, some of them were really concerned if we saw a wrong doctor. And an elderly woman colleague was quite disapproving of our choice. “I stay in the same colony where his clinic is. Just last week a Lambani couple thrashed him black and blue. During the check up, while husband was sitting outside in the reception, he misbehaved with her. She cried out for help and …” I clutched my stomach. Was it necessary to feel it with hand? Has the hand lingered for bit longer there? I was not sure if that amounted to ‘misbehaviour’.  

After twenty days, I fell ill with severe throat infection once again. But I was reluctant to go to the same doctor this time around. But Gayethri and Nagaratna were against wasting on consultation fees by looking for a new doctor within a month time. “More over, he is good doctor even if a bad guy. You recovered quickly last time,” Nagaratna argued and accompanied me even to the check-up room ignoring the bemused faces of the boys in the counter. Once inside the check-up room we saw the perplexed face of the doctor. “Who is the patient?” he asked with obvious anger. “It’s me. But she takes care of me,” I said. The doctor used only his stethoscope this time and the boys were stunned when we came out. And the prescription? It was same as the one given last time: A combination of antibiotic, antihistamine and antipyretic tablets to be taken for five days.  I noted it down and as I often had the same illness it came handy in treating it.

But in the dusty and somewhat unhygienic environ of a north Karnataka town, the frequency of my illness rose attracting health advice from all and sundry. Also my stomach started hurting whenever I took the ‘bad guy’s wonder pills. At this point, one of my colleagues suggested I should see her relative who was practising herbal medicine. The herbal practitioner  (not a doctor, but a government  employee) said English medicines could not cure without side effects and my stomach pain was the side effect of antibiotics. He said his herbal formula could cure my throat problem permanently and at the same time make me strong with my frail figure becoming fuller. I said good bye to the sunset-coloured little button-like tablets and started gulping down bitter concoction made from the coarse powder that came in a bulky half a kilo- looking poplin bag. One month quickly passed by and I did not have the throat infection. I sent money for the second bag which arrived promptly.

But halfway through the second bag, I got severe stomach pain and could not stand straight. After due consultation with people, Gayethri took me to a famous (as gentleman) doctor. I studied the prescription and found out that the treatment was for peptic ulcer. Meanwhile the herbal practitioner wrote to me asking why I did not send money for the third bag. I replied him that I had discontinued with his concoction as I had ulcer to which he objected strongly and said the ulcer was the result of English medicine and I was required to continue with the herbal thing for the permanent solution to the tonsillitis. I stopped responding to him.

By now, my stomach had become a serious a problem. I was no longer able to cool myself with cold drinks in the hot terrain of north Karnataka nor was I allowed to chill out with my favourite fruits.

Then, accidentally I spotted an article about this man with several FRCS degrees and had become a god to people with burning bellies. Soon I found myself registering for the treatment at his nursing home. The woman at the counter asked me if I opted for an endoscopic test to which I answered yes. Then a nurse took me to a room and told me to lie down. I followed her instruction. As I was waiting for her next move, another nurse came in with tube-like equipment. They said I had to swallow the instrument. I was shocked. It was an arm length and as thick as my forehand. It was like a black snake with white spots. I had not seen an endoscope so far. It seemed quite bizarre that I had to swallow it. Sensing my hesitation, one of the nurses came forward and held down my hands as the other prepared to put that instrument in my mouth. Something in me found the whole matter repulsive and I pushed the nurse who had held my hands and said I didn’t want the test. I saw both of them seething with anger. “What is your problem? Even children can swallow this. How can the doctor see what’s happened to your stomach?” I ignored them and came out quickly and encountered the famous doctor who tried to figure out what’s happening as both the nurses were on my heels. The nurses complained, “Sir, she refused to cooperate. She did not let us put this into her.” Now getting angry was the doctor’s turn. “Then how can I treat you without knowing the exact state of your illness?”  I meekly said, “Give me some medicine.” “I don’t want to. I need to know the status before prescribing. Why should I have got that equipment if I could give medicine arbitrarily?” the doctor retorted and with a derisive note in his voice added, “You are acting like a child.” I fully agreed with him. But that did not change my mind to swallow that instrument. He looked at me for a while and shouted at the nurses, “Give back her money.” He went to his room gesturing me to follow him. He took the prescription pad and scribbled something. Still full of anger he tore away the page and gave it to me saying, “If this doesn’t cure you, I am not responsible.”

I came out of the famous nursing home. There was this constant burning sensation in the stomach like bad and troubling back ground music. But I was really stunned at my inability to come to terms with the ways to cure my illness. I pitied my poor belly. I wished it did not have this problem. I wished I could keep away from bizarre medical treatments. I wished I was never ill. I wished I could treat my stomach myself. “Yea. I should take responsibility of my body. I should not subject it to some grotesque treatment. I should care for myself.” Though he could not see my stomach through the endoscope, the medicine he prescribed worked wonderfully and within two days my stomach cooled down. To keep that at that level I needed to follow a dietary programme which I did for a year.

During this period I developed an intimate relationship with my physique and learnt to listen to the stomach,   the throat and every other part of the body. I ate things which the stomach allowed me to eat. I drank things which the throat permitted me to have. And to this special care and attention the physique responded beautifully. I could gradually revert to the old eating format with a bit of caution. Though I continued to have throat infection the intensity and frequency of affliction came down. Most of the time, I dealt with the illness with simple gargling with saline water and gulping down loads of tablets became a thing of past. …and after traversing a different path for over a decade, will I go for some ‘panacea’ again? I don’t know.