I spent 3 weeks in Kerala as my sister’s marriage took place there. My mom feared the monsoons, so I’d left for Kerala 8 days before the wedding with my Grandfather and my parents and sister following up the next day.
The first one week, I was pretty jobless. I’d my Godfather novel with me (I’d read this one before, this was the only book lying around in my cupboard). But I didn’t want to read all the time, so I turned on the TV to watch any programs whenever I could as the TV (which btw had mostly regional channels) had eyes already trained on it in the form of my grandfather. He didn’t want to miss his daily boring soaps. Next up, I thought I’d browse the internet for a while and yet again there it was, the computer out there was 10 years old and it had dial up Internet. I couldn’t bare it for long.
Things got a little interesting end of the first week, towards the 3rd or 4th day I noticed my right side of my chin had swelled up. My aunt asked if I’d a toothache or anything. Initially I suspected it some kind of a boil which had gone bad. The following morning, I got a clearer picture of what it actually was, the so-called boil was double the size and eventually it burst with pus oozing out continuously. I immediately suspected it to be an insect bite. That evening I visited the local doctor. The ‘hospital’ was a two-storey building with minimal lighting. The nurse at the reception counter, took my details in a card and gave it to me. I went in to the doctors ‘office’, he inspected me and called in the nurse to take me to the first floor. I followed the nurse with my dad behind me, she said in Malayalam to change into the hospital gown. I thought I heard it wrong, but dad confirmed it to me. I was shown a room to change, the gown was infact only a dhoti. My dad was chuckling looking at the arrangements. I waited for 5 mins and doctor came up with the same nurse and he went in to the Operation Theater and the nurse asked me to follow her. This is only my second visit to an operation theater (after the tonsils operation 14 years back). I didn’t expect this, if I’d visited my local family doctor, she would done it in a nick of time. As I was entering the operation theater, I looked up at the board, and I thought to myself if the red light would be switched on during my Operation as in the movies.
The operation is too painful for me to describe, in short the doctor punctured the wound with a needle to remove all the pus and both the nurse and doctor applied pressure from both sides to remove the pus. After 5-10 mins of excrutiating pain, the doctor finally said ‘its done’ and the nurse put a huge bandage on my chin. It didn’t end there, I was told by the doctor that for the next 3 days, I need to get anti-biotic injection shots starting that eve. I followed the nurse again to another room. As I’m accustomed to injections I didn’t worry much, I lifted the sleeve of my shirt for the injection and the nurse indicated that the injection should be taken my lower back. I twitched my eye-brow and stared at my dad. It was too much of a show for him by now. I got the shot on my back, it hurt a lot. I left the hospital holding my behind.
When I came back home, everyone was shocked with a sterotype tamil expression ‘ai-ai-yoo!’ to see me with a bandage. My aunt looking at me said, “its ok, now you can sport a white beard for the wedding”. I had 3-4 days for this to heal before the wedding. Fortunately, after all those injection shots and about a Thousand bucks down the drain, the wound had healed enough to be presentable.
Recent Comments