Column

Tales from the Locker Room

Illness is a terrible thing. An unpronounceable illness is even worse. Last weekend saw me open my mouth at the wrong time (a common occurrence for me) only to fill it with plenty of food.

Most of the food was friendly enough and highly compatible but one turned out to be an absolute rogue.

This chap, an obviously frustrated and deeply complexed fellow, (he could have been a complex carbohydrate but according to my own gut feeling, he’s a protein) then proceeded to poison my digestive tract.

This, in turn, led to the unpronounceable illness, whose main symptom is that you spend most of the time on the bathroom floor.

My wife was torn between reviving me and letting me merge with the tiles on the bathroom. Finally, her better sense prevailed and she proceeded to ignore me and watch a film instead which was a comedy about a terminally ill husband.

I called my family doctor. Unfortunately, it was 3 o’clock in the morning in Australia, a country he hadmigrated to four years ago, leaving my family behind, and thus giving the term family doctor, a whole new meaning.

In spite of his Australian accent, I understood most of his diagnosis quite clearly. ‘You bloody Idiot”, and ‘never call me again, swine’, left the most lasting impression on me.
I finally called my good friend Dr Kunal Vijayajakar.

He’s not really a doctor.In fact I’m not even sure if he is a person. However, he has a simple cure for all ailments from a common cold to a cardiac moment. He rushed me to the casualty ward at Breach Candy Hospital.

I must say that if you do fall sick, have the decency to fall sick late at night. Breach Candy then has plenty of parking space late in the night and more importantly, the watchman there just ignores you, which is such a rare and wonderful occurrence.

Dr Sheetal and her staff first thought we were looking for the psychiatric ward, but a wonderful performance by me, which included gasping for air and vomiting, convinced her to treat the unpronounceable illness.

Three hours and six IV bottles later, Dr Sheetal had done her magic and the rouge carbohydrate was beaten to death. Or was it a protein?