Mercury Rising

(This is a Monday-morning mail that I sent to my friends when I was at Bangalore last year)

Good morninnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng Mummmmmbbbbbai!

How y’all??

I spent the whole of the weekend trying to recuperate from my illness..

It all started on Friday evening.. While returning home I felt too dizzy and decided to consult a doctor..

I said: I decided to consult a doctor..

Doctor..

(Guys, some reaction pls! Cos this is somethin that I wouldn’t have dreamt of doing normally! I hate all doctors in general, save Sumanji from Munna Bhai)

So as it was, that day I did decide to go to a doc and landed up at KR Hospital pretty close to my house..

The doc inspected me as technically as he could (which was: peering into the abyss of my mouth with a small torch that hardly emitted light in the visible spectrum).. And yeah, he also inspected my breathing pattern (by sticking the steth on to my back with an adhesive for quite sometime.. So much so that I almost fished out a book from my bag to read while he counted.. Maybe he was trying to count on his fingers and was successively losing track of the count..)

But soon it was over when he was sufficiently convinced that my breathing wasn’t paranormal..

That was when I started thinking whether I should tell him abt the medicines that I took myself.. (Ya Ya, self-medication is risky.. but then.. what could possibly happen to me? Like anyone else)

My hesitation stemmed from the thought that the doc might throw a fit or something along the lines of “You ppl never realise.. You take all kindsa risks and put yourself in deepest shit.. and then come running to us expecting us to fish you all out.. What d’ya think we are? Some kinda corporation conservancy workers?”

But soon, Bapuji appeared in front of me and said “Beta.. Karam kar.. aur pal ki aasha na kar” with a pleasing smile..

I know that was nowhere related to my predicament but still it made me feel good.. And I decided to tell the doc the truth..

Ya.. I can get so ruthless at times..

“Err.. Doctor I took a couple of tablets two days back”

“Is it? Which ones?”

“Sporidex 250”

“How many?”

“Two.. Once in the morning and once in the night”

The doctor started to laugh.. He didn’t exactly laugh his arse off.. err.. dunno.. the table blocked my view anyway..

But the overall effect was that he was trying to make me feel small.. real small.. like small..

And he succeeded..

I was sitting there whimpering like an idiot wondering what the blasted doc found so funny in the fact that I popped a couple of pills into my mouth two days back..

Then he soon regained sanity and said “that’s the dosage for children.. had u taken a couple of sporidex 500s you wouldn’t have had to come here today”

My jaw hit the floor.. I gathered it back and tried to look as if I wasn’t gaping..

But deep inside I was churning! Man! I took the right pills, but not the right dosage.. DAMN! Needn’t have come here at all! Could’ve saved 30 to 50 bucks na! That’s equivalent to 3 dinners at the Andhra mess! Ai gaa!

But soon I realised that it was much less significant when seen in other towering terms.. as in units of CCD.. I felt marginally better..

Anyway, I thought then that it was all over.. But no.. He proceeded to prescribe some drugs.. some other drugs.. And the prescription looked something like this:

Rx Mr. Vishwanath

Tablet 1 ? 1 – 0 – 1 (6)
3 days

Tablet 2 ? 1 – 0 – 0 (3)
3 days

#$%#^%^$@^ (The doc’s sign)

Very clear right? Not the sign, I mean the tablets and dosages? But the doc went on to explain the same to me in three or four different ways..

On second thoughts, “different ways” indicates the usage of different words na? then I should rather say he explained the same to me three or four times.. Using the same words.. in the same dragging monotone! I was surprised I stayed awake thru the ordeal of having to listen to his yarn!

I vigorously shook my head thus aggravating my headache.. but that seemed to placate that guy and he stopped his explanation..

Then he wrote “100” on the prescription.. I thought probably that was my patient ID or somethin.. Or maybe the doc was keeping track of the number of patients he has dealt with to date.. We do know abt his penchant for keeping count of things na..

Then I asked him abt his fees.. He told me to pay at the reception..

I went out and the receptionist gave me a bill that seemed to suggest “120”..

I started seeing stars! My throat went dry!

ARRREY! That guy just told me what I took myself was right.. And he went on to charge 120 bucks for doing that eh?! Wat is he? A doc or a psychiatrist?! Only psychiatrists have the right to charge fees just for reassuring people!

But I couldn’t fight na?!

So I spat on the notes before handing them over to the receptionist..

Of course without her knowledge..

Then I went to the medical shop and bought the same drugs that I had taken earlier..

But it so happened that I later got a bit wet in the rain when I went to my CAT class and I did not seem to recover at all.. So had to buy the prescribed drugs..

They cost 103 bucks!!!!!

My temperature almost shot up to that level!

In the celcius scale!

I went home and remained funereally silent..

But the good news is that the medicines did work and I almost became totally alright miraculously! ? within a couple of hours!

Phew! Got to go work now.. Else Bapu might reappear and say something totally out of context and still make me feel guilty..

p.s.: I have a wee bit of a suspicion if one of the tablets I was asked to take is being manufactured by Ruffles.. The package is fairly big.. but there’s lots and lots of air inside.. lots.. Actually, air is good for health.. But never realised they’ve started selling that with medicines like this!