Just this and that...

Nothing much is happening in our sleepy little town, which could be good in a way that peace prevails all around.  I have been under the weather lately and have been getting some medical checkups done ; which is really a tedious procedure here since you have to run about from one end of the town to another to get your various tests done.

Private pathological labs trade booms in India, since the hospitals are so overcrowded , and the doctors recommend and refer you to various private medical 'businesses' , which are either partially owned by them, or for which ( recommendation) they are offered a commission.

So I've recently had a breast cancer scare, which thankfully, turned out to be only a scare, since it was nothing malignant!

Another thing I feel is that I would have to change my doctor, since he has been subjecting me to too many X-rays , despite the fact that the results always come out clean. I don't want to be subject to any more radiations than  that  which is absolutely necessary for me to undergo.

I am still trying to get my late husband's funds released . The papers I filed in February have been rejected, as they said that the amount had already been remitted in my account, which turned out to be false, since the account number that they quoted turned out to be wrong. So I have had to file the papers again for the mistake that the officials committed , as they had stated in the rejection letter that, " In case of discrepancies,  please point them out, and file the papers again."  You can imagine how tough that is in India, since there is still no online facility of filing such papers ; you have to do everything by hand , from filling till the handing them over to the authorities. That means running back and forth from city to city, getting the right signatures done at the right places for getting authorizations and confirmations , first hand ; which again requires waiting for hours in various departments!

On a lighter note, let me relate to you my experience at the medical college one day.

Since its the rainy season, there are cases in the Emergency Section that pertain to snake bites. So that day there was one such case . The doctor was inquiring , what type of snake had bitten a patient, when hey presto!one of the men accompanying him, took out a live snake from a basket and held it in the doctor's face , saying 'this one'! The doctor nearly fell out of his chair!

Since in an overpopulated place like India, the rush in the hospital is so much ; they have made arrangement of having ten people measuring the blood pressure of ten patients simultaneously, sitting around a single table. So as I was getting my check up done, there was this another woman who was also being checked. Her blood pressure turned out to be abnormally high, and as soon as she came to know this, she began howling loudly. The doctor reassured her, and told her that she should calm down, and there were worse cases than her where people did not resort to crying at all. She was reasonably consoled for the moment. But as soon as she came out from the doctors' room, she jumped at her husband waiting there and started thrashing him with her shoe , while the other people sitting there watched in stunned silence. The scene was so ludicrous, that I could not help laughing aloud. Hearing that, she turned and started moving menacingly towards me. I ran from there as fast as I could!

My next station was the X- ray section, where there was a long line of patients waiting to go under the scrutiny machine. As I waited , someone rolled in a patient on a stretcher, and parked him right in front of where I sat. I was immediately reminded of G man's Pig waiting to be attacked with knives and forks! There he lay for about an hour as we waited. Soon, I could hear an argument somewhere. Upon inquiring, I came to learn, that the attendants were admitting their acquaintances for scrutiny in advance, leaving the patients in line, waiting endlessly for their turn. At this same moment, I heard a rattling sound emanating from the stretcher and realized that the patient in the stretcher had begun to tremble uncontrollably. It turned out that he was running a high fever, while the people who had brought him in were in argument with the attendants. I immediately got into action, and threatened the attendant to complain about him to the authorities. I told all the patients to move aside and ordered the attendants to wheel the stretcher in and conduct his X- ray check up immediately. There was pin drop silence as I barked orders, but thankfully things got done easily this way.

No sooner than the patient was wheeled in, another woman sitting in front of me started howling! I asked what the matter was, and she started sobbing uncontrollably. I asked her brother what had happened, and he sat there grinning, not replying to my query. Upon insisting, he told me, that having seen me in 'action' had reminded her of their deceased mother , and that is why she was crying!

So that was two howling females within a few hours!

As I was walking down the main hall, I was wondering, if anything else would happen. No soon did I look around, I saw five people wheeling a single man with leg in plaster, in a wheel chair, banging him straight into a pillar in the hall . Another man who turned to look what happened, and who was carrying a baby in his arms, banged the baby's head into another pillar, near which he stood!

Enough said