The Ramdev saga

Until a couple weeks ago, for me, Baba Ramdev was someone who woke up people at 3 in the morning to teach them how to sleep well. I am essentially a lazy man, and I occasionally walk the treadmill at home only because I happened to spend a small fortune on the stupid walking machine. For this reason, the Baba mattered to me as much as Mungerilal did (whoever he is). However, of late, the poor Baba has managed to be on national television on times other than his allotted slot of 3AM to 6 AM. In fact, in the last few days Baba Ramdev went off air on TV news channels only for commercial breaks and the weather report. He had purportedly turned his ‘yoga shivir’ into a protest ground at the Ramlila maidan in New delhi, where the Baba started an indefinite fast, demanding from the government stringent and sure-shot measures to bring back crores of black money stashed away in clandestine foreign banks. The ruling UPA government (read Congress), quite sheepishly went on the back-foot ever since the Baba made his intentions public, what with the senior cabinet ministers including the finance minister Pranab da meeting up with the Baba at Delhi airport to win him over with negotiations. This panicky attitude of the Congress bigwigs made the top brass in the opposition sit up and take notice. It may be recalled that the matter of Indian black money in foreign banks was first brought out by Mr LK Advani, the perpetual prime-minister-in-waiting. They were in awe of a simple yogi who suddenly seemed to have more than a fair chance of doing what Mr advani couldn’t do in so many years. And better still, he was immediately seen to have the potential to pull away the voters from the congress- an invaluable feat for the opposition in context with the next general elections. And Lo and behold! All of the BJP, along with the sangh parivar band-wagon, started supporting Baba Ramdev openly, the Baba's claims of being 'politically neutral' notwithstanding. Everything was going on fine, and the government really did not have much to worry about; it had ruled too long to be bogged down by protests like this one.  But suddenly, the government lost its mind and cracked down on the peaceful protesters in the middle of the night with lathis and tear-gas shells. While this caused physical and mental harassment for the protesters, and one can only thank God for saving those gathered from a major mishap like fire or a stampede, the opposition got on platter a fully baked issue to pounce upon the government on, which it did without mercy. The condition of the injured members of the public is not known as the plight of the common man does not make good news material for the media, and the focus immediately shifted to the blame game- BJP sitting on Dharna at Rajghat with Sushma Swaraj dancing to patriotic songs, and Diggy Raja calling her a 'nachania'. Meanwhile, the Baba, having been driven out of Delhi, and denied permission by UP government to protest in Noida, commenced his fast at his Haridwar ashram, and according to the latest news, he has been shifted to a Dehradun hospital for his deteriorating condition owing to a seven day long fast. I am sure the politicians on both sides are busy calculating their gains and losses from this episode, while the Yogi Baba  battles with starvation-related maladies for the country's cause...May God help the Baba...

Noble profession?

We doctors have the unique distinction of being the people who make their fortune from the misfortunes of others. An elderly lady who was happy with the treatment she got in my hospital gave me this blessing- along with the bill amount, of course- ‘May your hospital be always full with patients!’ I smiled and humbly accepted her blessings, but upon reflecting I realized that while she wished well for me, she inadvertently ill-wished for several others! Another interesting parlance in medical practice is ‘season’. A low season means bad flow of patients that leaves the doctor worried about his practice, and vice-versa, a good season means an out-patient department full of patients, prompting the doctor to plan perhaps for his next car. I remember a particular epidemic of chikungunya a couple of years ago in my part of the country, which saw such boom in the practice of some doctors that they named their new cars as ‘chikungunya car’! So, if everyone, everywhere, starts leading a healthy lifestyle, eat properly, exercise well; and drivers drive so carefully that there are no accidents, would that be good news for the doctors or bad news? If they succeed in eradicating malaria, tuberculosis etc, if somehow humans stopped having appendixes, and if they succeed in ‘switching off’ the cancer gene, what would happen to so many doctors? I shudder to think about my receptionist telling me at the start of the day, ‘No appointments, sir!’ We doctors like to see our waiting rooms brimming with patients. As an orthopedic surgeon, I confess that the sight of a gurney being pulled into my emergency room makes me hope that the fracture is a major one- it is a sadistically pervert thought, but true. Sometimes a normal x-ray report of a patient suspected to be having a hip fracture makes me almost think ‘bad luck’. I sometimes wonder if a doctor’s profession is really a noble one. Or if it has continued to be a noble one. I think a noble doctor would be the one who would treat his patients selflessly; one who would make a living out of his profession, and not a fortune; one who would be as happy as the patient on hearing that the reports are normal. I hoped to become such a doctor, but unfortunately, I too have been sucked into the band-wagon of I’m-going-to-be-stinking-rich kind of doctors. 

This world cup, that world cup !

Before 2 April 2011, India had just one moment of true glory in the world of cricket..and that was the 1983 ICC-Prudential world cup victory- at Lord's. Will this recent triumph overshadow the earlier one? I hope not. In 1983, India played as the underdogs, and the victory over the hot favorites West Indies in the final was indeed exhilarating. In the early eighties, cricket as a game was followed in the country, but not yet at the level of madness. That victory brought madness to the fans of the game in India; that victory brought out the desire in the likes of the then young Sachin to pursue the game; that victory had made him want to play for India and win another world cup. And after playing 21 years of international cricket, Sachin Tendulkar repeated the feat for India, making his own dream come true. So I hope the dazzle of the recent victory does not dilute the sense of triumph brought by the first one ever; I hope the media-men do not forget to bring out the Kapil Devs and the Roger Binnys out of the closet every four years to take us down the memory lane with them. Every one of us has probably heard how Kapil Dev felt while lifting up the trophy that year, but still we want to hear it all over again; we all know that game almost ball-by-ball, but we still want to know how Mohinder Amarnath felt on being the man of that match; we all have heard hundreds of times how difficult a catch was the one that dismissed Viv Richards, but we want to hear about it just one more time.. I would never want those sepia images of Kapil dev's men posing with the trophy to fade away from my mind because I owe my love for cricket to those cricketing heroes of our country, because I owe my first moment of true cricketing glory to them...

Naughty after forty?

There are many woes of being over forty. When I was in my mid-thirties, I kept hearing of the adage ‘Naughty after Forty’ and therefore had actually looked forward to that milestone. But here I was, all of 44, and I never got my chance to be naughty, and all hopes crashed when women as old as 34 started addressing me as ‘uncle’. Devastated, I sought refuge with my best friend- My wife. She sympathized, and assured me that women were just being respectful. Could the respected be expected to be naughty? Considering that my wife could have her own vested interest in mothers of 2-3 children calling me uncle, I decided to talk to some of my friends. It was duly deduced that the culprit could be my graying, and fast-disappearing hair. Once a proud owner of a fulsome mop of flowing hair, I had painfully witnessed over the years the receding of my hair-line and the paucity in its volume. And now the gray strands added to my hairy misery. Hence came before me the question that foxes not-so-young men and women- To Dye or not to Dye. My wife immediately dismissed the idea, giving a variety of reasons against coloring of the hair- allergy, hair-fall etc, and favoring the silver strands by saying that the ‘Salt and Pepper’ look enhanced my personality. Oh, yeah? My personality incidentally looks enhanced by twenty years! After much deliberation, I decided to dye my hair and ordered my barber of many years to do it for me. Despite the risk of being detrimental to his business, he tried to deter me from the act. After an earful from me, he gave in with a sad look on his face. When he finished after 45 boring and messy minutes, I immediately knew why. In the mirror, I looked like an old Fiat car with a fresh coat of cheap paint. Out of shame I changed my barber forever. Then I waited patiently for several months as the colored portions of my hair was gradually replaced by my natural hair. A proud owner of whatever has remained of my God-given hair, these days I give my sincerest blessings to all those who address me as ‘uncle’.

Net Lingo!

When we were in school and college, and I’m talking of nearly 30 years ago, we had just  about one informal acronym in use- LOL, which we used to scribble at the bottom of greeting cards, and which meant, quite simply, ‘lots of love’. Quite recently I came to know that now-a-days the acronym is more often used for ‘laugh out loud’, in internet parlance. Internet has been around for a few years now, and I always considered myself an ‘updated bloke’ on technology, very proud of the fact that I was aware of newer terms in the internet lingo viz BTW (By the way) and CU (see you). My pride took a serous dent the other day when I sent across a humorous text to my daughter. She immediately replied with ‘ROTFLOL’. Assuming that she made some mistake punching in the keys on her keypad, I called her up to inform her of the oversight. Sounding seriously disappointed with me, she told me that she was too deft with the keypad to make silly mistakes and that I should look up the meaning of ROTFLOL. After spending just a few minutes on Google, not only did I realize that ROTFLOL meant ‘roll out on the floor laughing out loud’, it dawned upon me that she had actually been considerate to her poor dad by not replying with ‘ROTFLMFAO’, an acronym that I cannot possibly expand here for decency’s sake. Google offered links to sites fully dedicated to internet and even Facebook lingo. There was even one paid site- $1.95 for 50 acronyms! God!

Upon returning from a recent vacation, I updated my status with proper and perfect English words, trying to sound as poetic as possible about our trip. However, I was quite flabbergasted by my daughter’s status who had this to write on her wall: ‘Had ma gr8test vacs eva with ma fmly n frnds…srsly njyd ma best!! :) :D’ ‘Now what sort of English is that?!’ I asked my daughter. She smirked, ‘who wants to read boring perfect language on the net, dad? Look at the number of ‘likes’ and comments I get for my statuses and look at what happens to yours…’ she almost said tch, tch. Indeed, she had comments pouring in from her friends in much the same language she used…And my status was responded to by a    ‘few old men and women’- as she put it!

Is it now da time to frgt the good ol’ English and swich ova to the nu nd fab net lingo? Tell me, k? CU..!!

Bheja Fry

As someone has said correctly, humor is just about everywhere; we only need to have the sense for it! Medical practice involves, by default, interaction of us doctors with all sorts of people. Some of them are really funny in their own ways. This piece is not intended to make fun of anyone; I’m just trying to portray how situations can turn really funny without anyone in the scene trying to be a joker. Sample this conversation with a lady patient of mine who was otherwise a complete stranger:

‘Doctor, I have hurt my ankle.’

 ‘When did this happen?’

‘Umm…lemme see…ah, yes, the day my son got married!’

Oh yeah..I was in the baraat and was dancing away to ‘Sheila ki jawaani’, and so I should know the exact date of your injury.

‘Ma’am, I wouldn’t know when your son got married, so could you be more specific about the date?’ I asked politely.

‘Why,’ she said pointing at her brand new bahu who sat shyly on the opposite chair, ‘Nilesh and Reena got married as soon as we returned from America!’

And I was the travel agent who arranged for your tickets, so I should know that too.

Luckily for me, Reena sensed my growing discomfort and intervened with answers that made sense.

Another obsession with some patients, mostly those from the rural areas, is regarding the dietary advice. And although very few medical conditions warrant limiting citrus food in diet, there is an inexplicable phobia for sour foods among the populace. In early days of my orthopedic practice, where the patients are otherwise medically healthy, I was vehemently against severe dietary restrictions, except when the co-existing conditions warranted, like in diabetes, hypertension, or gout.  

The conversation in those days used to go somewhat like this:

‘…And what should I eat doctor?’

‘You can eat your regular food.’

‘You mean except sour foods, right, doctor?’  

‘Wrong, you can eat everything, including sour foods.’

The patient would then look at me as if I’d secured my medicine degree by fraudulent means, and fly out of my clinic, never to come back. Slowly, I mended my ways, only to save my practice, and made it a point to strictly warn patients, wrongly of course, against eating anything sour lest they should aggravate their conditions. But that did not bring end to my woes either.

More recent conversations go somewhat like this:

‘…And what should I eat doctor?’

‘Everything except sour foods.’

‘But I can surely add some lime juice in my dal, doctor? And what about tomatoes, doctor? And buttermilk? I will surely not touch tamarind.’

How about my bheja fry?

Mumbai Masala

My brushes with the enigmatic city of Bombay, or Mumbai, if you must, have always been by the way of transit- I have traveled through parts of the city either on the way to airport from a railway station, or from one railway terminus to the other. The historical and other important tourist attractions of the maximum city notwithstanding, the bad traffic conditions and worse weather conditions have deterred me from taking an extended tour of the city itself. It is funny how so many million people adore Mumbai despite, or shall I dare say, because of these inconveniences. Some say their day does not get over unless they are themselves part of one of the hundreds skirmishes within the local suburban trains or at least witness one during their commuting hours. Others swear by the stink that Dharavi emanates. Some are fans of the sticky, humid summer months; others simply love the time spent on traffic signals with street urchins begging to buy their trivial merchandise.  

Recently I was on the way to the airport from Churchgate, via Haji Ali, in a cool cab, with my family. The taxi driver from, where else but Uttar Pradesh, was chattering off to glory, convincing us that his wife did not let him speak at home. The humdrum Mumbai lanes were already getting on to me and I was looking forward to the familiar signboard that said, in proud Marathi, ‘Vimantal Pudhe aahe’. Suddenly, the driver excitedly pointed in one direction and said, ‘There it is!’ My daughter and my wife were jolted from their slumber and we all looked to where his finger was pointing. We couldn’t spot anything spectacular and told the driver as much. ‘Arre sahib, dikh nahi raha? Mukesh Ambani ka Antalla!’ Oh, so he was trying to show us the majestic multi-storey residence of Mukesh Ambani- Antilla. We had seen pictures of the now famous building so we could easily spot it standing taller than most of the other buildings in its vicinity. We can’t claim to have passed by it, as the building was quite far off, visible only because of its size, and fame. ‘Weird shape,’ said my wife, Sangeeta, in the compulsorily-find-flaw-with-something-that-can-never-be-yours tone. ‘No, it is quite cool,’ countered my daughter Maliha. After a pause, Sangeeta asked, ‘How much do you think the Ambanis spent on it?’ ‘You wouldn’t want to know,’ I said. After another brief pause, Maliha asked, ‘Dad, how many people live in there?’ ‘I really don’t know, dear,’ I said, but then went on to tell her, as much as I knew, about the Ambani family- how Dhirubhai Ambani started the first of his businesses in polyester yarn trading, and then went on, over the years, to become the chairman of one of the largest companies in the world- Reliance Industries Limited. I also told her about his two sons, and how they continued to expand their businesses, and by default their personal wealth. Perhaps completely mesmerized by the wealth of one single person, something that she had hitherto seen only in Richie Rich comic strips, she asked me one final question, ‘Does Mr Ambani wash and reuse his underwear or simply buy a new one for each day?’ I did not have an answer to that. And I guess no one does.