Dr Shankar of Krishna Medical Hall had been introduced to me by Rangappa who swore by him. ‘The greatest physician on earth,’ he used to say, ‘easily the most successful practitioner in the town.’ Krishna Medical Hall was in Market Road, and it was a mile’s walk from my house. I enjoyed this outing. It suddenly relieved the stress and gloom of the last few days. I met one or two people, and spent a little time in conversation on the way, purchased a packet of cigarettes and smoked. All this seemed to restore the old glow of life – its peace and tranquillity.
The doctor was away. His seat at the central table was vacant, but all around the benches and chairs were filled with patients and patients’ relatives waiting for the doctor. An accountant and a clerk sat next to each other at the entrance poring over leather-bound ledgers and making entries.
‘Be seated please, the doctor will be in presently,’ said the clerk. I felt gratified by the warmth of his welcome and the smile he bestowed on me. I sat in a chair and looked about. The walls were lined with glass shelves loaded with the panacea that drug manufacturers invent – attractive boxes, cellophane wrappings. The days of bitter drugs were gone. All medicines were good to the taste and even to see. Piles and piles of sterilized cotton in blue packing reached the ceiling. ‘How do these people know where they’ve got the things they want, and when do they take it?’ I wondered. The walls were decorated with placards containing coloured pictures of beauties and beasts and skeletons and rosy-cheeked children, benefited by one cellophane-covered nectar or another.
From an ante-chamber issued voices of women and cries of children. Somewhere else a dispenser was jingling his glasses. He came out presently, a business-like man wearing silk trousers, in shirt-sleeves and apron. He held up a bottle wrapped in brown paper: ‘Who is Kesav?’
‘It is for me,’ said a feeble man wrapped in a shawl with a woollen muffler over his ears. The dispenser handed him the bottle with the brief remark: ‘Three doses before meals,’ and went in. This sufferer had some further question to ask, and opened his mouth to say something, but the dispenser was gone. The man clutched his bottle and looked about helplessly, turned to the clerk and asked: ‘Can I take buttermilk?’
‘Yes,’ replied the clerk.
‘Should I take this immediately after or a few minutes before food?’
‘Say five minutes before food,’ replied the clerk and added: ‘Six annas, please.’ The patient put down the change with a sad look, still feeling that he hadn’t received his money’s worth of doctor’s advice. He hesitated, looked about and said, ‘I would like to ask the doctor himself …’
‘You need not see him till you have taken this mixture for three more days. I will tell him how you are.’ The patient felt grateful. ‘Please don’t forget to say that the pain on the left side still persists.’
‘Yes, yes,’ replied the clerk, who seemed to be half a doctor. He scattered advice and suggestions liberally. He even examined throats, and suggested remedies for headache.
A car stopped, and there was an agitation in the gathering. The doctor had arrived. Everybody pressed forward to receive him. He looked like a film star being mobbed by admirers. He waved his hand, smiled, and gently pressed all his admirers back to their seats.
His assistant placed some slips of papers and bottles before him and the doctor got down to work. He read out the names on the slips and bottles one by one, examined a throat here, tapped a chest there, listened in to the murmurs of hearts through a tube, and wrote prescriptions at feverish speed. Here he whispered into an ear something private, and there pushed someone into a private room and came out wiping his hand on a towel. He might have been a great machine dispensing health, welfare and happiness. I felt a great admiration for him. At last my turn came: ‘What can I do for you, professor?’ he asked, mechanically picking up my wrist. For some reason he always called me professor. ‘I’m not the patient, doctor,’ I said.
I explained to him my wife’s symptoms. He asked a few questions, wrote down a prescription, and put it away. He passed on to the next slip and called the next in order. A man from the village stood before him and began: ‘Last night …’ The doctor turned to me and asked: ‘Have you brought a bottle?’
‘No, I didn’t expect …’ I began apologetically.
‘It is all right,’ he said, and on my prescription made a mark, and turned to his next patient. ‘Last night …’ the other began and gave a long-winded account of a pain in the back of the head, which travelled all the way down to his ankle and went up again. He might have been a witness deposing before a magistrate. The doctor tapped his back, tingled his ear, looked into the pupils of his eyes, and pinched his knee. He cracked a couple of jokes at the expense of this patient, prescribed the treatment, and disposed of him. In a quarter of an hour the smart dispenser who had swept in the prescriptions a few minutes ago, came out with a few paper-wrapped bottles and called: ‘Mrs Krishna …’ I stood up and took my bottle, and looked at the doctor, who was busy writing. The clerk said: ‘It is your bottle?’ and held his hand out for it. He looked at the label and read: ‘A third every four hours before food, and five minutes before each dose one pill. Repeat the mixture for two days and then see the doctor. Diet – rice and buttermilk. Ten annas please.’ I was disappointed with the mechanical, red-tape method I found here. I looked at the doctor, he was still busy. I paid down the cash, but returned to my seat. I waited for ten minutes in the hope of catching the doctor’s eye. But he was far too busy.
‘Doctor,’ I butted in.
‘Half a moment, please.’ He finished the prescription he was writing, leaned back, and said: ‘Yes, got your mixture and pills?’
‘Yes.’ Now that I had his attention I was at a loss to know what to ask. ‘When is this to be given?’ I asked, guiltily looking at the clerk.
‘Didn’t he tell you?’ he asked pointing at the clerk. ‘Yes, yes, he did,’ I replied hastily. I now realized the need for this red-tape arrangement – everyone wanted to ask the same set of questions.
‘But what I want to know is … Don’t you have to see the patient?’
‘Oh, no, it is just malaria. I have fifty cases like this on hand, no need to see her. I’ll tell you if it is necessary. You can bring her down sometime if necessary.’
‘But she can’t move, she is rather weak …’
‘Put her in a jutka and bring her along, nothing will happen … Just peep into that room and see how many persons with fever have come here. It is usually more convenient for me than calling on them.’ I really felt it was absurd to have ever thought of asking this great man to visit me.
‘No, no, I understand,’ I said awkwardly.
‘Really no need. She will be all right in a couple of days. She will be all right, don’t worry.’ He smiled confidently and it cheered me.
‘Diet? What can I give her?’
‘Buttermilk and rice, anything you like. Don’t make it too heavy.’ Clutching my bottle I went out.
At the door my daughter met me. ‘Mother is very cross, father. She won’t look at me at all, but keeps her hand over her eyes and …’
‘Oh, she will be all right. I’ve brought her the medicines.’ My wife looked at me and asked: ‘Why’ve you taken such a long time to get back?’ She was still moaning with headache. ‘The old lady is cooking and the baby has no one to be with …’
On hearing my voice the old lady came out of the kitchen. She was overjoyed to see the medicine. ‘I pray to the Lord of the Seven Hills that this medicine may put her on her feet again. I am longing to see her moving about the house. What food is to be given?’
‘Buttermilk and rice.’ She threw up her hands in horror. ‘I have never heard of buttermilk being given for fever!’
‘Never mind. The doctor knows better. The days are gone when buttermilk was dreaded,’ I said haughtily.
Next day I went to the doctor, reported the patient’s condition, and took h
ome the mixture and pills, and then again the next day, and the next. It was becoming difficult to make Susila swallow the pills. It agitated her poor heart so much that she felt suffocated and perspiration left her prostrate. One night she perspired so much that she lay in a faint, and could communicate only by feeble signs. I gave her something hot to drink, and nursed her, but this condition frightened me. It was two o’clock at night. Her feet were cold.
I told the doctor about it when I met him next at his dispensary. He muttered something about idiosyncrasy and declared: ‘But we can’t stop this pill now. It is the latest anti-malarial compound; it must be effective. It’s bound to depress the heart a bit, but don’t worry about it. She will be very well again. Don’t stop the pills on any account.’
She swallowed the medicine and pills for about a week more. The temperature did not go down.
I went to the doctor’s house, and begged him to visit us. He dressed and came along. ‘Usually it is unnecessary. All these cases are alike. But I’ll do it for your sake, professor …’ He drove down with me by his side to our house. He was most amiable and leisurely – an entirely different man outside the dispensary. He played with my child and gave her a ride on his shoulder, examined all the books on my table, proved to be a great book-lover and student of philosophy, and was delighted that we had similar tastes. He was overjoyed to hear that I also wrote. He had great reverence, he said, for authors as a class. He appreciated one or two pictures I’d hung on the wall. All this established such a harmony between us that when he came to examine my wife he seemed an old friend rather than the medical automaton of Krishna Dispensary.
He took half an hour to examine the patient and declared at the end of it: ‘Nothing to worry about …’
My wife asked him: ‘When can I move about again?’
‘Very soon. But all your life you will be moving about the house doing this and that, why should you grumble at staying a little while in bed now? Many people take it as an opportunity for a holiday …’ He then narrated his experience at a house (he’d not mention names) where a daughter-in-law fell ill and was in bed for two weeks or so, and put on weight. Her husband came to him privately and said: ‘Doctor, please keep her in bed for a fortnight more. It is almost her only chance of being free from the harassment of her mother-in-law.’ On hearing this story Susila laughed so much that her face became red and she broke into sweat. He counted her pulse and said: ‘She is already shaking off her temperature … That is a good sign. She will be absolutely well again, in a couple of days unless she wishes to stay in bed like that daughter-in-law,’ and he winked at me. ‘Take the medicine and pills, madam,’ he said and went away. He radiated health and cheer. Susila and I felt more confident and happy after this visit. So that when the child came from the next house she asked: ‘Is mother all right?’
The doctor’s presence was so beneficial that I requested him to visit her at least once a day. He was very obliging; it was quite a thrill for us to hear the sound of his car every day. We gave him coffee and he stayed for over half an hour talking to us on various matters. In the evening I went to his shop to fetch the medicine. It went on for nearly a week more. Although his visit cheered us it did not help the temperature to go down. It remained unaffected by all the drugs so far administered.
One afternoon the doctor came in, removed his coat briskly, opened his bag, and took out his sterilizer, a syringe and other things. We had never seen him getting down to business in this manner before. ‘Will you allow me to take just a little blood, please?’ he asked. At this my wife started crying. I pacified her.
‘It won’t hurt, I assure you,’ said the doctor. ‘Give me a little blood and I will see what sort of fellow the mischief maker is and throw him out …’
‘That’s good, good,’ he said, drawing up and sealing. ‘Now we will know what stick to beat him with …’
I was asked to see him next morning at his dispensary. All night I kept awake. ‘What is the blood test going to reveal?’ I kept asking myself over and over again. My wife asked: ‘Why is he taking the blood? Anything serious?’
‘Don’t be absurd, it is nothing more than malaria. He has taken it only to see what kind of malaria it is. Anyway, why do you worry? He is a good doctor, he will cure you whatever it may be …’
I sat next to the doctor at his dispensary. He passed me a brown piece of paper with the stamp of the Government Hospital on it. ‘I sent the blood for clinical test. This is the report.’ I looked at the brown sheet. ‘Widol test positive – Typhoid …’ My throat went dry on reading it. ‘Doctor, doctor …’ I cried. He was once again in his official seat, and so was an automaton. He said merely: ‘Don’t worry. It is a mild attack. Take home a tin of glucose, barley and a bottle of Lentol – it is a good disinfectant … I will drop in on my way home in the afternoon.’ I blabbered questions. He merely said: ‘Don’t get so nervous. I attend a dozen typhoid cases every day: nothing to worry. Here, give this gentleman …’ he gave directions to the dispenser and passed on to other patients.
I entered my house clutching a tin of glucose, some barley, a bottle of Lentol, and broke the news. I said with affected cheerfulness: ‘It is a very mild attack; perhaps it is only paratyphoid. If it is, you will be up and doing again in two days.’ She merely replied: ‘Keep the child away. Write to my father. You must also take something to protect yourself …’
The doctor came at midday. He seemed cheered that it was typhoid. He beamed on all of us and joked continuously. ‘I like typhoid,’ he said. ‘It is the one fever which goes strictly by its own convention and rules. It follows a time-table and shows a great regard for those who understand its ways! Don’t look so miserable, lady. Like a good daughter-in-law, make up your mind to make the most of your stay in bed for the next few weeks …’ Ever since she heard the word typhoid, Susila had become very silent. It was heart-rending to see her in this state. I tried to speak to her and put a little courage into her, but it was a futile effort. She lay listening to my words with grim unresponsiveness. She felt now that the doctor deserved a remark and muttered: ‘I thought it was malaria …’ ‘Malaria!’ the doctor said. ‘I was only dreading lest it should be malaria – the most erratic and temperamental thing on earth. I wouldn’t trust it. But typhoid is the king among fevers – it is an aristocrat who observes the rules of the game. I’d rather trust a cobra than a green snake; you can depend upon the cobra to go its way if you understand its habits and moods …’
My wife’s little room was converted into a sick ward.
All the furniture and odds and ends in the room were removed to the hall, where they were dumped in a heap on the floor. I had the room neatly swept. I dragged in an old wooden cot which had been put away somewhere and spread on it the thickest mattress and bed clothes, neatly folded the shawl and kept it at the foot of the bed. I fetched a small table which I used for writing and put it in a corner of the room, spread a white cloth on it and arranged all the bottles and tins on it – the yellow label of the glucose tin, the green of the barley, the pleasing violet-coloured label of Lentol – they were ranged artistically and formed a striking pattern. I looked about me proudly. The doctor nodded his head with approval. And then I brought in another stool and put on it a basin of water with a few drops of Lentol in it. It became a whitish solution and imparted a hospital aroma to the whole house. ‘Whenever you touch the patient or her clothes you must dip your hand in it, the best disinfectant on the market …’ There was a slight twinge at my heart at the new designation my wife was given: ‘patient’. She would no longer be known as a wife or mother or Susila, but only as a patient! And all this precaution – was she an untouchable? It was a painful line of thinking, but I curbed it by much scientific argument within myself.
Now I gently lifted her and helped her to reach her new bed. ‘See how nice,’ I said with great pride. ‘You will come out of it with a new life … All your old ailments will be gone. Even the pain a
t the waist you have been complaining of for so many day …’ The doctor was tremendously pleased with the arrangement: ‘It is the most attractive sickroom I’ve ever come across. You won’t get this comfort even in a special ward …’ I brought in a chair, put it beside the cot, and said: ‘See, this is where I shall be rooted.’
‘Plenty of glucose, barley water and mixture. (And gentle lady, don’t ask for lime pickles please.) Temperature once in four hours, and note it down somewhere … It’ll be nice to put up a chart on the wall – you have made it look so perfectly like a special ward …’ I seized on this suggestion with fervour and brought out a piece of paper, and stuck it on the wall. I marked the date on it and her name. There was a morbid pleasure in this thoroughness … We were setting the stage for a royal illness from which she was going to emerge fresher, stronger …
The doctor said before he left: ‘If my reckoning is correct she is running her second week. So you have to spend less time in bed than you’ve already done.’ It was an exhilarating revelation. I stretched my mind further and further back in order to know if she had been ill longer than we counted.
‘For practical purposes let us count it from the day I attended – it leaves us with an outside limit of eleven or twelve days …’ said the doctor.
‘No, doctor, it can’t be so much …’ I pleaded. I wanted it to be all my own way. The doctor ignored me and said: ‘I will see that her fever comes down in eleven days, and it is up to you to see that she doesn’t have a relapse …’
The English Teacher Page 9