Sunday, December 23, 2012

Dr. MBBS

“Welcome Welcome !! ” he invited me and my brother as we entered into the hospital, for a minute we got confused that If we entered the wrong building, I mean that wedding hall near by instead of a hospital. I turned back and confirmed it with the big red cross hanging above. The man who invited us was in his mid thirties and he was wearing a shirt that looked  like it was worn for three straight days. His reactions were similar to the one who has just seen some food after a going through a terrible famine phase .  As he invited us, he went inside the doctor's room, and I thought may be this Doctor hasn’t paid his compounder for months and which was why all this welcoming and all. But, it was an absolute shocker when I saw the same guy with the steth around his neck, and a Close up ad smile, sitting in the doctor' chair. "How may I help you ?", he asked us, sounding exactly similar to those enquiry booth policemen in a railway station. I immediately started searching for the degree board hung some where, and Or you could say, I was waiting for one of his nurses to come running in, with a newspaper in her hand, "Doctor !! Doctor !! congratulations ..you have successfully cleared your +2 board exams" kinda.. Deserted hospital and this hospitable Doctor did make one thing clear, that we made a big mistake !! And yea, this post is going to brief such kind of weird encounters that I had with such doctors..
Once I met with an bike accident ( that was the second one :P ) and this time it was because of a dog that jumped in from no where. Disc breaks - bike skidded - dog escaped and the next moment, I was in rain waters. With that half available consciousness I saw a scooty pep passing by, thought she stopped by to help me, but then she pulled out her phone and started fighting with her boyfriend ( I said to myself "nalla varuvama, nalla varuva") . As soon as I got up, I couldn’t breath and I knew I screwed some of those spare parts within. Went to that above mentioned doctor, and with no relevance to that injury, he was keen in measuring my blood pressure. I told him, Doctor I seem to have trouble with breathing, kindly do something about it. After taking a Chest X-ray he said, there were no fractures and this is just a muscle cramp. He prescribed some gels and pain killers, which he asked me to take for a week. After 2 weeks, I couldn’t even get up from my bed, from bad it became worse. I went back to him with all those agony, and he asked me "Enna pa thambi marupadiyum vilunthutiya :D ??" ( hey, what happened to you, did you fall down again :D ? ) .. This time I was totally pissed, I told him that his medicines never did solve any of my problems (that was totally expected I know but still) and the pain was very severe. He said "We should better take a scan !" , and I was like "And now we're talking".. He referred me to a specific Scan center, and for that referral document, I'm sure he would have been paid ( alibaba and the 40 thieves you remember). As soon as the lab technician came out with the results, he asked me "How did you come here ?" I told him, I came in my bike and that is parked outside ( from his gestures, a mild doubt popped up, that the scan amount exceeded the expected amount and for security purposes he is asking for my bike ). He replied, "Son, better take an auto from here", and he showed me the x-ray report that came along with the scan. It had 3 rib bone fractures, just like someone had drawn a straight line with a ruler in those last three bones. He said, "You better consult a cardio-thoracic specialist from now on", and I understood it like this, "you better go to a doctor who has really completed his MBBS".. While driving back, I was thinking about the X-ray report he gave me initially (the first one), if there were no fractures observed in that report then whose REPORT was it then ??



This wasn't the first time actually, I had a similar incident during my final semester. Sakthi Venkateshan's out swinger managed to get a thick edge, and I being the wicket keeper took it at the cost of injuring my little finger. I went to an ortho specialist in Chromepet, he took a look at my finger and he asked me to undergo some radio waves coupled with electric current in the combination of ugly nurse treatment. I told him that the injury seems to have resulted in a fracture, since I was not able to move it at all. But he was so sure that it was a tendon/ligament/muscular issue, and he asked me to take that IR massage bla blah for one week. So everyday, I used to come there for that electric treatment, my friends thought I was going there because the nurses were looking too good, but no !! They usually connect these two nodes on two ends of that little finger, after which they pass few milli amps. One fine day the new person who attended me screwed the milli amps knob unknowingly and several milli amps passed through my body, my room mate was busy making a video clip of me and that mAh reading. At least after that incident I should have realized about this hospital, but my bad I didn't. A week after that, I went to him and I told him that it didn’t get better, it was when he asked me to take a x-ray (same referral technique). I don’t think we need a specialist to read that x-ray, it was clearly broken. The most hilarious thing was his reaction when he had a look at that x-ray report, he exclaimed "Oh boy, you've a got fracture !! :O ", as if he has come out of a delivery room with a baby boy in his hand, and I was like, "then what the heck have I been telling you for the last one week !!".. Such a huge hospital with so many specialist doctors visiting it, and the treatment is like this.

I don't know how I get referred to such kind of doctors, but thinking of such encounters sends shudders down my spine. Be very careful when you decide to go to a doctor. Try to Google all the medicines referred with their pharma names, Enquire about him / her to more than one person who had already consulted him / her.

Friday, December 7, 2012

Balaji Flats

              "Hey Mukhil, where the hell are you man ?!!! Wini picked a fight with the house owner regarding the maintenance charges and that bickering ended up in a huge brawl. The house owner is now rushing to the hospital with a head that needs at least 10 stitches and the Police are searching for the guy who signed the lease document, I mean you." shouted Praveen on the phone in a panic stricken voice, actually Mukhil was busy attending "BELL the CAT" program conducted by Biju at CEG campus. "What the hell ??!! What's the problem with you guys ?? ", Mukhil was totally shaken by that message and JP added, " You better come soon, or else we can't imagine you ending up behind the bars !! ".. And he hanged up the call immediately after saying that, he then turned towards me who was sitting on Mukhil's bicycle parked outside the house. I guess Mukhil last used that bicycle on that day they shifted to that house, ever since then it was just like that bore water tap that remained useless in that flat. I was busily munching a chocolate or you can say cleaning that chocolate wrapper, after a sumptuous lunch. "Do you think that Mukhil would buy this shit ?", I asked him as I raised my hands up just like a Python wriggling after swallowing a sheep. JP was too good in goofing things up and I knew that right from my schooling.. JP answered in his casual tone, "Based on the hype and the effect given, I have a strong gut feeling that Mukhil would 'bring the house key within an hour'.. And so that we don't miss our afternoon nap !" Simple, but they were very effective. As expected, Mukhil brought that last key from Guindy to Chromepet within an hour only to realize that we made this up for our afternoon nap :D This post is all about those crazy moments at our Balaji flats where we spent the last days at MIT.. :)

               It's not a big deal if we forget to ‘look’ at a 16 mark (leaked) question or sometimes ignoring that one whole unit from which a compulsory question comes, but its totally impossible to miss our "masala milk" at JiJo tea shop at 1 am. What we do till 1 am is still a big mystery, but after drinking that milk or tea, we walk back home like somnambulists. Till then we would have been so fresh and energetic but after consuming it, it would be like one of our ethics professor's class, where we'd feel like he coming to individual desks and slapping / kicking/ punching each one of us, saying "sleep now, sleep now or I'll kill you !!" Semester exam preparations are always associated with a "pocket tanks" tournament. I think I scored a C in networking, but I swear on my friends' EX that a life without a LAN connection at engineering hostels is just like Tamil Nadu without electricity (now will I get arrested for this ?) But coming to the point, Pocket Tanks is such a simple game, but when played at 2 am using the multiplayer option just before the day of the Semester gives you a kind of thrill and pleasure that even a terrible roller coaster ride fails to give. Well it wasn't always Pocket Tanks, if the exam involves a subject like Artificial Intelligence / Digital Signal Processing the game changes to "Counter Strike". No no.. It does not imply that we are Dr.Vasikaran from Carniegie, it's just that how ever you study that, it simply doesn’t get in and so we vent out using CS (Multiplayer with Mukhil being the terrorist all the time). It's not just the games, but petty jokes (totally mokka) during that part of the time makes us laugh as if we are watching a Russell peter's stand up comedy.

              Even for our Semester exams we do not stay awake past 3am, but the water problem during that time was so pathetic that we had to fight with the vendors at around 3am for just 1 or 2 buckets of water ! I do remember standing in the queue at around 8 am on a project review day begging a guy standing in the front of the queue with 20 odd vessels, I called him "Anna, my room mate went inside the bathroom 1 hour back and the motor has failed us, please help him get a life by lending just one bucket.." ;) That generous soul did give and yea the project review was postponed to next week. Pinna, if I struggled so much to get to that review how will it happen :( ?! When I came into this house during my final year, JP said that there was no such water problem as they had a bore which was 90 feet deep, but I realized how deep the issue was when my house owner said "Thambi konja thallu pa" (Son, move aside) from behind in that same water queue during those peak hours ;).

             When talking about my house owner I get reminded of those martyrs and war memorials only. I'll give a short description of how well we maintained that house and you will surely order a bouquet for him. We had a main hall where Praveen had his PC along with all that newspaper stuff, rough papers, project works, shoes, neighbour's socks, Adhitya's (ex roomie) trousers , assignment papers and even our lease documents. And then we had two bedrooms, a bathroom and then a zoo. That was not a typo, it was our store room, sometimes a kitchen and also the place where you can find new / rare insect specifies that even Amazon forests do not have :P. One evening we opened Mukhil's bedroom to call him for dinner, but we found him sitting down on the floor (Aalavanthaan style) with his whole body covered with some kinda pink ointment even worse than Jagan Mohini. Based on the investigation, we deduced that a deadly insect from the zoo had bitten him. Myself and Mukhil did even spot a snake like creature creeping in that room, and right from that day we made Praveen to sleep in that hall. Mukhil's room was the best when compared to the hall and the other bed room, I'm saying this because only in his room you can land your feet on the floor. Even after looking at our zoo, our house owner pretended as if we were maintaining it just like a palace.

           The word 'Palace' also reminds me of our Karthiga mess, which was run by a peevish old man and his wife. The beauty of that pair is, whenever the number of people to attend increases, it directly affects the orders placed. For example, if you order for "1 dosa, 1 omlet and 2 chappathis" you would definitely get "2 dosas, 4 idlis and a half boil".. Yea, he was cool that way and he often comes back at us angrily "Why cant you guys order everything at the beginning itself ?!" (naanga enna vachikita vanchana panrom) .. :D But that was the only mess in that area which was close to our home food and so we had to bear all that. We three consensually agreed to treat one another if we get placed in those one of those companies. Mukhil got placed in CTS and the very next week, Praveen got an offer from TCS and I got one from Accenture. So as per the word we gave three back to back treats at Anjappar and each time the bill amount increased exponentially.

           Mukhil was our accounts in charge, he was the responsible guy among the three, our medical advisor and most often our sponsor, his CAT expedition always reminds me of those who go from one temple to the other for completing this remedy stuff. Whatever type of mobile models that you get him, I swear he can break it within a week if not within a month. Jai Praveen on the other hand was a don’t care master, totally fun loving and has a deceiving look of a very calm person. Whatever electronic equipment he has belongs to one of his foreign uncles / aunts. I still wonder why he doesn't add 'Prank call making' to his resume yet. These guys just didn't share my DNA, other than that they were a part of me.

Saturday, December 1, 2012

Break Broke and now a FREAK !!

             The title is very obvious about the content it is going to deal with !! Have you ever been friends with both sides ? I mean, have you got an opportunity to know the girl very well just like how you are with a guy ?? If you are in a such position, you will always get to listen to both their versions of the same incident and most often you end up cursing your position ;) Seriously, If you must solve their problem, then you must have read wren & martin at least once.. are you asking me why ? it’s because you should learn how to convert active voice to passive voice, how to paraphrase the same sentence, how to convert a statement into an interrogative type etc., You’ll know a lot in detail as you read through this post..

               “How did you meet? “, This was how he answered : “I was almost lost en route to a certain tuition, and i was in a place where even Google maps would struggle to get the co-ordinates. It was a dead end, and i could already hear the passerby scoffing at me. It was when i met her”, he paused there momentarily, and then he moved to the details part which i know was coming any moment, “she was there in her dark maroon lady bird cycle, hair plaited in a typical school girl style, just like an angel (fitting vachi adikurathu), i smiled at her (romantic look) even after seeing that hideous grimace, and then i followed her to get back that lost route” (he would have followed her even if he wasn’t lost, i told myself) But you know how she answered for the same question, “That guy so dumb and was looking totally lost, even in that embarrassing situation he was trying to flirt ! Could you imagine ?” she stopped it there for a girly giggle, gloating that a guy fell for her in that first meet. “He was smiling for glory, which was exactly like a ginger eaten monkey kinda..” .. so that’s their perspectives of that first meet.. Perspectives are always like that, it differs from one person to the other.. Once i met with a small road accident, i just bumped into a guy who was coming in the opposite direction. We both were careless, and once that happened we just smiled at each other and left the scene immediately. The Auto wala who was coming from behind gave a loud comment, “Padicha pullainga” (literate people, see how decently they move on), but only that tea shop Nair knows the truth that we guys were looking at the beautiful girl who was about to cross the road before we bumped into each other. So that’s how perspectives differ you see :D

               Fine fine, coming back to the role which i had taken, i used to often think how does Solomon paappayya manage to give this unbiased decision every single time.. They actually broke up some time back which worsened the situation, even if they had been together, I would not have gotten into this shit, but ever since they broke up, i used to often think about a life at the forest monasteries in Tibet..Yea, to that extent.. He explained the break up like this ( so many times for a jus a lunch offered i had to listen to this ), “ You know who did propose first dont you ?”, he didn even look up to see me nodding sideways , he continued “It was her, She pulled up the idea of this marriage and all this jazz.. I did like her but when i came to know about her cousin and all her stuffs, I just went back and pulled myself together, she was baiting me actually, and only after a lot of fake promising talks I did accept her..I initially had a lot of things going on in my mind, yes .. I took a long time to decide but once when i made up my mind, I was fixed on her… I did love her unconditionally, i was totally true to her, never did i have any kinda second thoughts about the decision i made.. u know !”, once in a while you have to pretend as if you are listening to everything for the first time (pollathavan style).. “What was the problem with me? why should someone all of a sudden pull out the cord ? ( i dont know when was it plugged in first ) We both came from the same community, a known family background, i’m earning decently and I’m good looking as well..” I stopped eating and looked at him, he realized that i was still listening.. “ ok ok, I’m average looking alright, but still why so much fuss about accepting me now ? if she was not so sure about it, why the heck did she give me fake promises ? ”.. I replied, “dai, now what’s your problem ? first tell me the reason that she quoted for this break up ..” he angrily replied, “Mr. Sherlock fucking Holmes, if you find that out, come and let me know..My guess is that she is planning a life with her cousin, which was what her mom was interested in initially.. She is just using her mom’s name here for a lame excuse, she’s just bored with this relationship”.. look at that dialogue, did it have any kinda logic attached to it ? he starts some where and lands some where else.. Trust me, this is how most of his conversations were, losing most of his logic part.. this time i was irritated, looking at my reactions, he answered promptly, “ok ok, chill.. this is the original version, when i was in my home town for a certain feast, she called me and said, hey this is not going to work out as we were planning, my mom said "NO” once and for all, so forget me and move on, in life no one gets to be single, so you will find someone else better”, this time i was partially able to understand what he was going through..

                Being a guy you’d always support another guy’s cause however blind it is, and so I just enquired a little more. It really sounded like a nasty break up, the girl never gave a valid reason. When you are with someone, how do you presume that you would not have any difficulties ? If you love someone, and if you feel that they are a part of you already, then you must be ready to face all the consequences. If you feel that your parents are not going to accept it or if you feel that you cannot convince them, then you shouldn’t have fallen for someone in the first place. So If you had taken that decision already, then you must tackle it no matter what comes in your way, find the loop holes, target it and get it done. I know, that there are too many ifs, but still it pains a lot ‘if’ you come to know that this isn’t going to work after getting along really well. A friend shared a quote like this : “A clear rejection is always better than a faking promise”, No I dont think so.. i guess both are equally hurting from a boy’s end, because most often he unconsciously attaches himself with that concerned person irrespective of the whether she likes him or not. Take your time to decide, that’s not a problem at all, talk to whomever you want to, do all your groundwork, but then once you decide, you better not look back. If you do, then this is how it is..

                After listening to all this, I wanted to call her and ask those 4 tongue pulling questions :P, I did really want to vent out all that bottled up frustration that he gave me during that talk. But unfortunately I was not able to get in touch with her for a while. After a couple of months, she called me and asked me to show up at a certain place. I asked her “why did you do this to him ?” on behalf of that poor soul who was literally lost in his thoughts. “Not all answers can soothe his soul, the mystery should stay within us, certain things if not explained are better”. I said, “hey stop all this philosophy, I’ve heard enough from him and it’s better you tell me what went wrong”, “I love my dad very much, never had there been a single moment in my life have I been stopped for doing a certain thing. This was the first time, i was stopped by both of my parents, I was literally asked to stop everything with him. My mom had been telling me for a while that I had to reduce talking to him, but I did not let him know that I was facing some opposition here. In fact I didn’t take it seriously first, But one fine day my dad called me. He used to always convey things through my mom, but this time it was him. He talked me out of this”, a momentary pause, she sighed, and then she went on, “ My father has never ever asked me anything, he has never stopped me in anything right from when i was a kid. When he started begging me something, how do you expect me to fight or even talk back ?”, “Oh so your father asked you something, and you stopped everything is it ?? what did your father tell you ?”, “He said that he didnt like the boy’s family background, there was some issue which even after insisting they never let me know about it. “, “ Oh, so they tell you something about the family background and you drop it there is it ?”.. “Yea, i told you how much i love my dad, and if he does something for me, it will be definitely for my good.. “ , “ you have been with him for such a long time, you know him better than me, leave all his family thing, you are going to live with him right ? “, “It’s good for an argument, but it wont be practically correct if there is a problem with the family” (ithellam ippo nalla pesunga) ..

                 I was still not satisfied with that answer, how come you drop everything just like that ? Something more solid needs to be there I thought.. “Then what about the promise you gave him ? and all that dreams you shared? he is in complete soup, do you know his pathetic psychological state ?”.. , She said, “ I never gave him a promise at any point, he was my friend and a potential life partner thats all”.. WTF ?! I retorted, “this is a sadistic reply, i never expected this from you.. now even I’m thinking that you ‘dumped’ him for some other reason.. ok ?”, by then she started crying, and with that lump thing in her throat she replied, “ My father is no more, he passed away in an road accident 2 months back, My mom hasn’t come out of that still, there are so many family problems that are going on now and i don’t want to cause any additional trouble to her any more. She’s already broken. I did like him ok ? It was why i did not tell him the reason about his family background, which i thought might hurt him very badly..Not every time does these things happen, but my case is an exception.. Now tell me, did i ‘DUMP’ him ?? Loving and letting go are one and the same process, He is a very nice guy and he deserves someone really good. Dont let him know even about this chat that we are having right now, it is how i can become someone whom he will eventually hate and forget. He should move on !.. ” That was the last word and I couldn’t speak any more. Perspectives you see !!