Friday, May 16, 2008

In which we tell many things mostly random.

While telling you all that I am severely blogged out, I realize I am also churning out posts at a regularity that could match Amitabh Bachchan's Friday outings.
Geez, the man should take a break or something. Or stare into a crystal ball or something. Wherein all will be white owing to his vision being clouded.
By cataracts.
Owing to him being ancient.
That the man should continue to act despite that Jhoom Baraabar Jhoom eye-vomit costume speaks of bravery that is well worthy of the Godrey Philip Award, but he must realize we, the poor audience, aren't quite in the same league.

So why am I, evidently minus the baritone, myasthenia gravis, 6-foot frame and the eye-vomitness of it all, forcing myself upon you unsuspecting people who had thought that the life of an online monkey was no more than a year?
It is in view of finding myself in situations that are far too absurdly idiotic for them to go without being considered thus by a hundred other people as well. Yes, I do need approval from random strangers that there is action in my life and that you are in awe of it. But then again, that is in direct contradiction to the well-accepted adage which when very succinctly put reads, Blogs happen when nothing else does.
Well, who said I was perfect?

What I am though, is a flower.

I am completely aware of the uber-mensch implications of the above line, thank you very much. But yes, that very line was told to an audience of awestruck individuals in the confines of the department of Emergency Medicine by a man we will henceforth refer to as Pig.
Now, why Pig? Why Flower? And why o why, Emergency?
There lies a story.

(Ooh. Look at me simulate curiosity)

So.
So, I am in the village, right? Of Puttamma, of Growth Hormone, of Ragi mudde, the general rusticity, the specific scabies, yada yada? Now, what I am expected to at the end of my tenure there as an intern is to present a project, a Field Study to be specific, profiling a certain health issue hitherto not looked into, in the area I am working in.
So, what did I choose? Psychiatry. (Keep those wisecracks to yourself. No, really.)
So, what did I choose in specific? Psychiatry in Ob-G. (Now, let's see some).
Having thus come to a grand association of streams, the Monkey went to speak to Pig; Pig being porky (the wit, it burns) and a Professor in Community Health.
Pig looked piggishly and said, "Oink. Funtaabulous da, thambi. Oink."
"Gee. Thank you, sir"
"Okay da, now go to NIMHANS."
"Huyn?"
"Yes da, for your project. Go talk to hotshot epidemiologist there, and become hotshot yourself."
"Gee. Thank you, sir"
"Now run to mental hospital. Take someone along."
"Huyn?"
"Go man. Oink."

The project which was to be fancifully titled Evaluating the Efficacy of a Screening Tool in Identifying Risk Factors for Development of Psychiatric Illnesses in Antenatal and Postnatal Women in a Rural Area in South India or Some Such Shit That Seemed Longer, was spoken about with uninhibited gusto. The enthusiasm on the face of one of the interns involved was enough to give the sun the jitters and that on the other one enough to make a firefly feel like King for two decades. You figure who was who. Let's make it harder for you. The first intern wasn't me.

After this heart-piercingly interesting one hour, we decided we would make this visit to NIMHANS even more Damn-God-This-Is-Orgasmic interesting by visiting the most sun-filled and ever entertaining portals of the... Tuberculosis Sanatorium!

And just when I thought that the day had me so filled to the teeth with orgasms that if I opened my mouth I would only moan, I came up with a-nother grand idea to make this Day Out In Vegas a total Stripper Filled Sell-Out. Dean Martin, eat. your. slutty. heart. out.

I say to myself,
Hey, it's a bright sunshiny day.
Let's get stung by tons and tons of bees!
And look like Tun Tun threw up on me!
Ooh!

And that was exactly what I did.

Something buzzed in my left ear.
I vigorously tried to shake it off.
It wouldn't go.
I said Shit.
It still wouldn't.
I said Fuck.
It still wouldn't.
I said What the fucking hell.
It still wouldn't.
And then I finally thought I would say Oh My God, Help.
Which was when a bunch of them went into my mouth. Big Black Bees. At about that time, I panicked. Like my house was on fire. Only worse. Like I was on fire.
Which was right about the time I started running and jumping and shaking and screaming and yelling and hopping and howling and HOWLING. Meanwhile the dear friend that accompanied me said, "Shirt nikaalo, shirt nikaalo". Now, I am chased by a hundred bees. I could do with something covering me, right? Wrong. For, I took off my shirt. One of the side-effects of bee-stings is dementia. Or something. So, I took off my shirt. And the bees thought, Hee-haw more surface area. And took generous bites. Which hurt like mother-of-fuck.
Which was when I continued, in all my semi-naked splendor, with bees actively engaging in thinking of me as a pincushion, to run and jump and shake and scream and yell and hop and howl and HOWL.
There were about sixty people around me. A few just looked.
One of them laughed. The others guffawed.
It was just another day at NIMHANS.
Half naked guy running berserk, jumping flimsy barbwire compounds, and screaming Fuck-O-FUCK-O-FUUUUUCK, save me from this hell.
*Yawn*

One kindly gent then flung a bed-sheet across to me owing to him getting terrible gag reflexes just watching my Somalian refugee phenotype. It was electric orange and had many Mickey Mouses on it. They all had broad smiles on, like Mickey Mouse generally does and I don't. Under the happy gazes of the sadistic electric orange Mickey Mouses, I finally got some alone time. And I examined self.
Not. a. pretty. sight.
I then looked for the places the bees got me.
NOT. A. PRETTY. SIGHT.

The bees then buzzed off (Ooh). My friend, her of the great "Shirt nikaalo" suggestion (do you perchance have the hots for me?) scampered all over NIMHANS and got my keybunch, my mobile phone, my backpack, my shirt, my dignity. Wait, that hasn't returned yet.
The Casualty Ward in NIMHANS (which is surprisingly frill-free, no actually bloody damn basic), had terribly slow doctors, but one good nurse. She gave me a maha-painful Avil injection and said, Go oaf du yuver hawzpidul aa, deyy vil teyg gare (I know, they are everywhere and all that).

I was towed off to our hospital where I made the evening more exciting by swelling up grotesquely, getting rashes all over and throwing up blood. I also gave the Emergency Medicine staff a little bit hell by vehemently denying them any access to my veins. They got frustrated and poked me anyway. I contorted my face rather grotesquely.
Many friends came. They all laughed.
Many more friends came. They all laughed some more.
All the while I was swelling up and looking red and healthy, which was also when Amma turned up and said most excitedly, "Kempakke, gunDakke aagidaane" (He is red and fat, I like him perennially bee-stung).
The rash and the swelling would just not come down. So I stayed in the hospital where I wore the hospital uniform that would have made veteran Kannada actor late Vasudeva Rao look sexy in contrast. I also didn't bathe for three entire days which was like the best thing ever. Which means nurses coming in batches and giggling Bees, bees wasn't.

So were the following lines:
1. What were you doing among the birds and the bees?
2. What's the latest buzz?
3. Are you making a beeline for work tomorrow?
4. I'd make more jokes, but it would really sting.
5. But, bee positive.
6. Earlier you were just a monkey, now you can lay claim to an ape-iary.
7. Beauty and the bees.
8. Honey.
9. Thambi, you are a flower. (I had 40 odd hypodermic bee stings on me, sisters were poking pretty much every one of my veins, but that hurt.)

Anyway. Among other things -
- I turned a year older
- SULKED SULKED SULKED
- There was supraaais party in the village at midnight
- HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY
- Then they all gave many many birthaday bumps
- SORE ASS SORE ASS SORE ASS
- Conducted many (okay 6) deliveries
- GROTESQUE GROTESQUE GROTESQUE
- One of them delivered right on the hospital corridor
- SCREAM SCREAM SCREAM
- One of the kids didn't cry at all, and our neonatal resuscitation kit in the village is from the 1920's, meaning it doesn't exist.
- SCREAM SCREAM SCREAM
- Then I realized these kids were brand new fresh 2008 maal, and I from about the 1920's
- SULKED SULKED SULKED
- Shit I am old
- SULK SULK SULK.
- Bloody young kids with no PG Entrance Exams, no internship, no age issues and ooh-look-I-am-so-cute-I-poo-in-my-chaddies-and-suck-my-thumb.
- JEALOUS JEALOUS JEALOUS
- Shit I am old, like AK Hangal old.
- DEPRESSION DEPRESSION DEPRESSION

To relieve this stinging depression, let's end with the Spunky Monkey guide to bee-ting the bees. (Aren't I just on fire) -

A. Don't go to NIMHANS.
B. Don't walk down the road even if you want to drink Goli Soda.
C. Don't ever say The Bee Movie sucked. Or that Jerry Seinfeld isn't really Ha-Ha funny.
D. Don't listen to your friends when they ask you to strip.
E. Especially when you are running from the bees.
F. Don't run from the bees.
G. Jump into a lake.
H. No, really.
I. Lie flat on the ground and close your ears.
J. Don't say Fuck and Shit and Fucking Shit.
K. Motherly characters around frown on you, and nurses throw looks of extreme disgust.
L. They won't throw clothes at you even if they were returning from the laundry with 100 fresh bedsheets.
M. If nothing works, HOWL.
N. Like HOWL.

That's it, really. I'm off to the village tomorrow, and it's rather late. Besides, you would by now have realized that the post has "yawn" written all over it, and "thought" pretty much nowhere.
Take care, and bee good.

And now, buzz off.

(D'oh!)


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P.S.: How many are still reading this place? Let's find out...