Meri Hospital Yatra...

(All the sketches are screwed up, if you happen to be at this link and want the real sketches, drop a line!!!)

I dedicate this series to my good old friend Nagrajan, who has this innate capability of weaving something out of nothing...A tribute to his seminal work 'Madangir ka Pappu'....



Regards

Ankur



An Extended Weekend...

I had the unfortunate experience of spending 4 days and 3 nights(no expenses paid) in 'Saroj Hospital'. Actually, the dusty climate of our beloved city had its toll on me as a stone formed in my kidney out of all the dust that i inhaled over the past few days. I had severe pain on Saturday Morning and since our family doctor had gone to get his 'International Driving License', I had to go to this hospital (I now wish that if he ever gets to use this license, its in Rwanda or

Senegal or Afghanistan...).



The Doctor who did the initial diagnosis was a very interesting character, while giving me the first injection of the day he asked me

whether it was the first time i was experiencing such pain. I replied that i had a similar pain on the other side a couple of years back and with a look on his face that could have put Einstein's look, when revealing his theory of relativity, to shame, he said as if it was the greatest discovery of the 21st century..."iska matlab dard doosri baar ho raha hai..." I haven't still figured out what should have been my emotions after hearing this, whether they should have been of pain or even deeper pain.



Anyway, when even after two injections i didn't get any relief, i was given an injection of size which i had previously seen only in movies (the sort of injections that are given to horses but thankfully, the needle wasn't that big...). And this time the effect was instant, even before i knew i was fast asleep.



I got up in the evening only to know that majority of my relatives had already visited me and the papayas were already overflowing in the room. I also had a slight pain in the back of my left palm which i realised was due to a needle through which glucose was being administered to me. By this time i was feeling very hungry and mercifully the dinner was served at 7:00. On the trencher I found two relatively large bowls and a smallish bowl and a couple of toothpicks.



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<---

dal dalia <---

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' ' ' ' _

' ' ' ' (_)

' ' ' ' ^

'__' '__'

Custard

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(A conscious effort has been made to reproduce the exact

(scaled)dimensions)





The larger bowls contained 'dal ka paani' and 'dalia' and the smaller one contained custard. Since I generally abhor 'dalia' I returned it instantly without a thought(literally) and the Ward-boy accepted it most gleefully as if he was aware of the mistake that i had committed. When it was 7:15 and i didn't start my dinner, the Nurse asked me the reason and as it was, I told her that I was waiting for the chapattis to arrive, but to my utter dismay, i was informed that i was on a 'soft diet' and there were no chapatis for me and those (now)two bowls were the only dinner that i would get. From thereon i am on much better terms with 'dalia' but one mystery that remains till date is what can be toothpicks used for if the only food that you are having is essentially liquid in nature.



Anyway since at the time i was admitted there were no private rooms available in the hospital, I was forced to stay in a room on a twin-sharing basis. The other 'patient' was a much older and a retired man who was supposedly the 'sanchalak' of a 'shaakha'. There was a new visitor every 10 minutes and the lady with this old man was very keen to explain the entire developments that led this guy to hospital. I trust my memory and reproduce what i can remember...



"chaar baje uthe the bilkul theek thaak, apna saadhe chaar baje naha-dho ke nikle hain bilkul theek thaak, apna theek thaak mandir gaye hain aur saadhe paanch baje waapis aaye hain theek thaak, fir saadhe paanch baje gaye hain shaakha pe aur saat baje wahan se waapis aaye hain saat baje bilkul theek thaak aur fir saadhe saat tak akhbaar padhi hai, naashta kiya hai aur aath baje bachchon ko school chorr ke aaye hain bilkul theek thaak fir chai pee hai aur pravachan suna hai nau baje tak. sharma ji ke yahan goshthi thi saadhe nau baje wahan gaye hain aur wahan se saadhe gyaarah baje aaye hain waapis bilkul theek thaak, dedh ghanta soye hain aur ek baje bilkul theek thaak uthe hain aur dupahar mein bachchon ko school se leke aaye hain aur do baje bilkul theek thaak bachchon ke saath khaana khaaya hai..."



Going by their faces, by then almost every one lost interest in the story and as for me i felt like tearing my hair off as i had to hear this story atleast 20 times... I even tried to pick my glucose bottle and sit outside the room till the visiting hours of the hospital got over but somehow, better sense (or my moms orders) prevailed... but if anyone of you is still interested in knowing the entire story of our elderly patient, he fainted at 8:30 in the evening...



Finally I was shifted to a new room which looked like...



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Door papaya-stand

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Alm T.V.

ira _____

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Loo* <--- Exhaust fan+

_ Kabootar-khana







*layout details provided on request





To Be Continued...