This evening, a couple of hours ago, I was sitting on an x-ray table at Wockhardt Hospital, Bannerghatta Road, having my ankle x-rayed and feeling profoundly foolish. I'd never been into a corporate hospital before; the necessity had never arisen. My family is of the sort that either has undying friends who are doctors or has doctors who are undying friends; we've never even felt the need to marry doctors or have offspring that are doctors or, for that matter, become doctors ourselves. That, presumably, is for those less gifted at public relations.
It's quite a tradition to uphold, and, to my eternal credit, I managed it even when living in Hyderabad, where, other than the campus doctor, the only doctors visited were friends of friends and in one case the mother of a friend. Not so in Bangalore, at least at present, since I know so few people as yet, and that should explain the disgrace of Wockhardt Hospital. Mind you, the x-ray was fine, very fine--it was so fine and so sharp that I afterwards spent five minutes staring at it, fascinated. And then I heard the voice of Dr K in my head, remarking on what a fine x-ray it was, and manifested an entirely new sort of homesick. Now you witness something you might not have ever heard of before--I am homesick for my orthopaedic surgeon.
My parents first encountered Dr K (initial only to protect privacy) nearly three decades ago. He promptly proceeded to break their daughter's arm.
Surprisingly, this is not the end of the story.
My then five-year-old sister had a green stick fracture of her arm; the bone was bent and only if it was broken could it be set properly. Late on a Saturday evening, three days after the injury had occured, Dr K decided not to delay matters further and to work without the anaesthesia that would be available only on Monday morning. One short but piercing scream from my sister and one loud "crack" from her bone later, my parents fainted away simultaneously. Only my tiny, fragile-looking, pink-and-white grandmother stood by steadfastly, holding on.
Three hours later, my sister was dancing the night away at a building Christmas party, her pain and discomfort forgotten. My grandmother came away with a new opinion of my parents and forevermore, afterwards, when talking about the incident, dismissed them as "a pair of funks." As for Dr. K, with that one spectacular procedure, he gained an entire family of patients to add to the two-year-old orthopaedic practice he had in Bandra.
From then until now, Dr. K has fixed my family's legs, arms, wrists, ankles, hips, and backs efficiently and with minimum fuss. His usual suggestions for the more straightforward injuries are simply rest, the old-fashioned practice of "fomentation" or applying heat to the injured area, simple exercises to prevent stiffness and swelling, and then more rest again. More complicated problems are dealt with carefully, but again, rest has a great part to play. My grandmother's two dozen fractures from a hit-and-run accident, among them broken ribs, collarbone, and femur, were dealt with simply by putting her into traction for two months. Nothing could work quite like having her just lie still and stare at the ceiling, Dr. K said, to all her grumbling, and he was right; she recovered completely from her numerous injuries and had an active life for several years after that. Dr. K was then, and still remains, very conservative; if he suggests surgery, you know you definitely need it. He would never even consider it otherwise.
But Dr. K's skills as a doctor go beyond pure orthopaedics. The man's equally great strength is his ability to walk into any house, with a patient from any community or class, and make everyone comfortable -- including himself. Over the years, I've seen him stroll into our bedroom several times, smiling sunnily on everyone and saying, "Hello, hello, hello! Kya hua, beta? What have you done now?" as if he were a pet relation, not a doctor; and perhaps my fondness for him came out of his penchant to squat to a child's height to talk and call me "gudiya rani" when I was a little girl. If the house calls aren't enough of a shock, Dr. K goes one step further; rather than make the patient go to the hospital to put on a cast, change a dressing, or remove stitches or staples, Dr. K will often come home and do it for you. In the next generation of doctors, it will be impossible to find senior surgeon who will hang around to work with plaster of paris or synthetic fibre roll.
He's not the sort of doctor you'd find impressive at first glance; he's actually a funny-looking, balding man with a big nose. His proclivity for chatting on and on might even seem unprofessional in an era where doctors make patients pay for every fifteen minutes of their time. But this the doctor as family friend, not the doctor as a super-professional stranger for whom you are reduced to being the sum of the body parts he's been called in to look at. Not surprisingly, he has a great fan following among the Auntie Ednas and Auntie Silloos of Bandra and Khar and numerous stories to tell about his interactions with them. My favourites are the Parsi auntie stories, especially the one about the auntie who had surgery in a Jain, pure vegetarian hospital and whispered to him, just before leaving, "Doctor, so nice, no, this hospital is! Very polite, very nice, very clean. But they should give some little egg and bacon for breakfast, not this idli-sambar!"
I didn't really get to understand Dr K at close quarters until a couple of years ago, when I broke the ankle I was having x-rayed today and had to have it fixed up with orthopaedic hardware. I remember that Dr K showed up at 9 in the night at our house, looked at my x-rays, shook his head sorrowfully over the visible damage, and then became indignant when he saw the uncomfortable cast an inexperienced medical student in Manali had put my leg into. Dr K wanted to change the cast. He didn't know that the well-meaning but completely inept med student had pulled my leg around to cause me unbearable pain. When he looked up, he saw that my teeth were chattering and I was shivering, on a warm, humid Bombay night, flinching even before he could take my ankle in his hands. So he smiled at me and looked into my eyes and said, "Dr K will not hurt you."
I didn't quite believe him, but then he took my foot, held it up by the heel and one toe, and wrapped a cast gently, so gently around my ankle, talking all the while to me about the mountains and their beauty and about where I had fallen down, about his terrace-top vegetable garden, about the roads of Bandra on which he walks from house to house and to the hospital, daily, about all the aunties and uncles of Bandra he knew. He seemed to go on forever, and then, suddenly, he was putting my leg on the bed. I had felt not even a single twinge of pain.
He was there again for me before surgery, bringing the anesthetist around to say hello, and then during surgery, when I, under sedation, kept telling him insistently to go and eat his lunch. And then again after surgery, to redo a painfully tight cast, to change a dressing, and then again to send me home, and then again to come home and remove my stitches and let me onto crutches. He scolded when I baulked at walking because it hurt and was as thrilled as me when I showed up walking properly again, after long months of not being able to do so.
One day during that time, when I was lying in bed, staring at the ceiling and wishing that I could just walk as I used to, my mother started to tell me a story I didn't know. Dr K, she said, had had a small son who was around five years old when his father had been practicing for a few years. On evening, the child was playing on the terrace of the building, and a terrible thing happened. He somehow fell off and hurtled down four or five stories. Practically every bone in the boy's body broke. He died shortly afterwards. Many years later, Dr K, his eyes wet with tears, told my mother, "Everytime I see a patient, I think of my son. I think of how I could not mend a single one of his bones. And then I mend their bones."
It was raining when I got out of Wockhardt Hospital, and the rain was pleasant rain, the sort of rain that makes even the nastiness of Bannerghatta Road seem lovely and ripe for a good evening, the sort of rain that ensures I enjoy Bangalore. All the same, it felt odd to have taken an x-ray and not be heading off to Dr K to exhibit it. I have to send it to Bombay, and then, maybe, if Dr K wants to get my hardware out, he'll call me to Bombay. I don't really want the surgery, Dr K, not even if it stops my ankle from randomly hurting. But somehow I can't rid myself of the conviction that it will be good to see you again and to hear about Auntie Maisie and Mr Randelia and Mrs Punjwani and forget for a moment about why right now I have to go to Wockhardt Hospital when I'm in Bangalore.
It's quite a tradition to uphold, and, to my eternal credit, I managed it even when living in Hyderabad, where, other than the campus doctor, the only doctors visited were friends of friends and in one case the mother of a friend. Not so in Bangalore, at least at present, since I know so few people as yet, and that should explain the disgrace of Wockhardt Hospital. Mind you, the x-ray was fine, very fine--it was so fine and so sharp that I afterwards spent five minutes staring at it, fascinated. And then I heard the voice of Dr K in my head, remarking on what a fine x-ray it was, and manifested an entirely new sort of homesick. Now you witness something you might not have ever heard of before--I am homesick for my orthopaedic surgeon.
My parents first encountered Dr K (initial only to protect privacy) nearly three decades ago. He promptly proceeded to break their daughter's arm.
Surprisingly, this is not the end of the story.
My then five-year-old sister had a green stick fracture of her arm; the bone was bent and only if it was broken could it be set properly. Late on a Saturday evening, three days after the injury had occured, Dr K decided not to delay matters further and to work without the anaesthesia that would be available only on Monday morning. One short but piercing scream from my sister and one loud "crack" from her bone later, my parents fainted away simultaneously. Only my tiny, fragile-looking, pink-and-white grandmother stood by steadfastly, holding on.
Three hours later, my sister was dancing the night away at a building Christmas party, her pain and discomfort forgotten. My grandmother came away with a new opinion of my parents and forevermore, afterwards, when talking about the incident, dismissed them as "a pair of funks." As for Dr. K, with that one spectacular procedure, he gained an entire family of patients to add to the two-year-old orthopaedic practice he had in Bandra.
From then until now, Dr. K has fixed my family's legs, arms, wrists, ankles, hips, and backs efficiently and with minimum fuss. His usual suggestions for the more straightforward injuries are simply rest, the old-fashioned practice of "fomentation" or applying heat to the injured area, simple exercises to prevent stiffness and swelling, and then more rest again. More complicated problems are dealt with carefully, but again, rest has a great part to play. My grandmother's two dozen fractures from a hit-and-run accident, among them broken ribs, collarbone, and femur, were dealt with simply by putting her into traction for two months. Nothing could work quite like having her just lie still and stare at the ceiling, Dr. K said, to all her grumbling, and he was right; she recovered completely from her numerous injuries and had an active life for several years after that. Dr. K was then, and still remains, very conservative; if he suggests surgery, you know you definitely need it. He would never even consider it otherwise.
But Dr. K's skills as a doctor go beyond pure orthopaedics. The man's equally great strength is his ability to walk into any house, with a patient from any community or class, and make everyone comfortable -- including himself. Over the years, I've seen him stroll into our bedroom several times, smiling sunnily on everyone and saying, "Hello, hello, hello! Kya hua, beta? What have you done now?" as if he were a pet relation, not a doctor; and perhaps my fondness for him came out of his penchant to squat to a child's height to talk and call me "gudiya rani" when I was a little girl. If the house calls aren't enough of a shock, Dr. K goes one step further; rather than make the patient go to the hospital to put on a cast, change a dressing, or remove stitches or staples, Dr. K will often come home and do it for you. In the next generation of doctors, it will be impossible to find senior surgeon who will hang around to work with plaster of paris or synthetic fibre roll.
He's not the sort of doctor you'd find impressive at first glance; he's actually a funny-looking, balding man with a big nose. His proclivity for chatting on and on might even seem unprofessional in an era where doctors make patients pay for every fifteen minutes of their time. But this the doctor as family friend, not the doctor as a super-professional stranger for whom you are reduced to being the sum of the body parts he's been called in to look at. Not surprisingly, he has a great fan following among the Auntie Ednas and Auntie Silloos of Bandra and Khar and numerous stories to tell about his interactions with them. My favourites are the Parsi auntie stories, especially the one about the auntie who had surgery in a Jain, pure vegetarian hospital and whispered to him, just before leaving, "Doctor, so nice, no, this hospital is! Very polite, very nice, very clean. But they should give some little egg and bacon for breakfast, not this idli-sambar!"
I didn't really get to understand Dr K at close quarters until a couple of years ago, when I broke the ankle I was having x-rayed today and had to have it fixed up with orthopaedic hardware. I remember that Dr K showed up at 9 in the night at our house, looked at my x-rays, shook his head sorrowfully over the visible damage, and then became indignant when he saw the uncomfortable cast an inexperienced medical student in Manali had put my leg into. Dr K wanted to change the cast. He didn't know that the well-meaning but completely inept med student had pulled my leg around to cause me unbearable pain. When he looked up, he saw that my teeth were chattering and I was shivering, on a warm, humid Bombay night, flinching even before he could take my ankle in his hands. So he smiled at me and looked into my eyes and said, "Dr K will not hurt you."
I didn't quite believe him, but then he took my foot, held it up by the heel and one toe, and wrapped a cast gently, so gently around my ankle, talking all the while to me about the mountains and their beauty and about where I had fallen down, about his terrace-top vegetable garden, about the roads of Bandra on which he walks from house to house and to the hospital, daily, about all the aunties and uncles of Bandra he knew. He seemed to go on forever, and then, suddenly, he was putting my leg on the bed. I had felt not even a single twinge of pain.
He was there again for me before surgery, bringing the anesthetist around to say hello, and then during surgery, when I, under sedation, kept telling him insistently to go and eat his lunch. And then again after surgery, to redo a painfully tight cast, to change a dressing, and then again to send me home, and then again to come home and remove my stitches and let me onto crutches. He scolded when I baulked at walking because it hurt and was as thrilled as me when I showed up walking properly again, after long months of not being able to do so.
One day during that time, when I was lying in bed, staring at the ceiling and wishing that I could just walk as I used to, my mother started to tell me a story I didn't know. Dr K, she said, had had a small son who was around five years old when his father had been practicing for a few years. On evening, the child was playing on the terrace of the building, and a terrible thing happened. He somehow fell off and hurtled down four or five stories. Practically every bone in the boy's body broke. He died shortly afterwards. Many years later, Dr K, his eyes wet with tears, told my mother, "Everytime I see a patient, I think of my son. I think of how I could not mend a single one of his bones. And then I mend their bones."
It was raining when I got out of Wockhardt Hospital, and the rain was pleasant rain, the sort of rain that makes even the nastiness of Bannerghatta Road seem lovely and ripe for a good evening, the sort of rain that ensures I enjoy Bangalore. All the same, it felt odd to have taken an x-ray and not be heading off to Dr K to exhibit it. I have to send it to Bombay, and then, maybe, if Dr K wants to get my hardware out, he'll call me to Bombay. I don't really want the surgery, Dr K, not even if it stops my ankle from randomly hurting. But somehow I can't rid myself of the conviction that it will be good to see you again and to hear about Auntie Maisie and Mr Randelia and Mrs Punjwani and forget for a moment about why right now I have to go to Wockhardt Hospital when I'm in Bangalore.
1 comments:
such a lovely story
Ryan
Post a Comment