The (I)ntensely (C)rushing (U)nvironment!

"Aapke saath amboolans ke paise ki baat hui!?!" (Has anyone spoken to you about the ambulance charges?), asked the driver to my hapless mother.

Money – I was stunned. Actually disgusted was more like it. Barely had they strapped in my dad's skeletal frail frame in the bed, key in ignition, pat came the demand for money. I wonder if he would have driven us at all had we (God forbid) fumbled and expressed inability to pay. It was INR 2k to drive my ICCU-ridden father to and fro from a specialized diagnostic for MRI and scans that was 2mins by Mumbai traffic stds. Monetary demands had been the top and most consistent priority in the last few days. True it was the same during my hospitalization but there was better management and 15% good faith. Here, while my father battled to stay alive, his investigation costs came before his prognosis and next vital steps. I felt sorry for the scores who waited, wondering where to produce money from their measly income and no insurance. The hand-to-mouth population. The 90% population. And even though I could produce the money on demand, I felt attacked even slightly blackmailed at the thought of care and basic treatment being pulled if I couldn't produce. Every step spewed money. I think I will be charged even for the air I breathe in the waiting area. Money 1^st; care and vital steps later. Period.

Waiting – Day 5. So far the multitude of docs including passing 2nd opinions couldn't put a finger on it. All I could do was talk, speculate, question, meet dad, comfort him and wait. That wait. The painfully long question-mark accompanied by traffic and yapping people. 6hrs in a row. And the most irritating part was the ladies who attempted to start a conversation with me about my dad's health and then suddenly turning a sharp curve into their family members and details and gross issues. Being nosy and then unloading it on me. I wasn't insensitive. If anything I listened quietly. I was mentally exhausted processing my dad and didn't need to hear everyone's issues. Its exhaustion really that makes us all quiet. My parents were too when I was operated upon. Sitting around or lying around for hours is far more daunting than actual activity. The smell, the cries, the laughter, the running around, the silence. The brain is a powerful ALL-organ. It controls what your body does and reacts to. Keeping it well oiled and running in such situations is a challenge and 1 that teaches us tremendous lessons in courage and patience.

Patience – such an underrated word. I had 3 layers of patience to deal with. Having just completed my stint of hospitalization and an attempt to piece back all elements of normalcy including fitness, I had to pause everything. The 2^nd was dealing with a hysterical and high-octane-tensed and wired mom. The last was the main 1 – dad, his illness, his diagnosis, the reports, the tests and what not. Everything cannot be speeded up just cuz your heart wishes so. Nada. Even if you live in Mumbai. Instead, Indian mentality slows down the most mundane activities or wastes time on stuff that is red-taped high priority. Nurses and on-call doctors would much rather chit chat and complete their packet of noisy wafers than cater to the patient. Any patient. I saw it myself. They get ‘bothered’ if someone were to beckon them once they just sat down for their cuppa chai with a side of toasty gossip. Too bad. Leave the profession if you can’t handle the pressure and the duties it demands. Worse if you don’t have patience with delicate, ailing bodies and minds.

Empathy and Etiquette – or the lack of it. I have been routinely thrown out and ordered into the ICCU for dad over the last 5 days. I have jumped up at prompt and performed like a trained bomb-squad dog. Except, my actions came from the fact that he’s my dad and I will wag a tail if I had 1. I would do that for any member of my family and that includes Abeer and Elsa. But, the officers of the healthcare profession who take the oath upon graduation and get in knowing fully well what the profession demands, shun it. I don’t pass this verdict for all. Actually, the lowest in the hierarchy (the maids and bais) are the most compassionate and kind. Feed them a few Gandhijis and they care for you and your loved ones like you were their progeny. The most distressing part of hospital stay is the bedpan and loo usage. If you are bedridden and have to entirely depend on others for your basic bodily functions, no matter how many times you may have lectured others, you are going to cringe and worry. I did. Twice. But the Tai makes all the difference. The guards ask if you are ok, need some water, comfort, need a fan etc. Nurses are the worst. They carry the expression of corpses; sometimes taking extra effort to hiss at you without actually doing it. The tone, the attitude, the malice is ridiculous. Some don’t make eye contact. Maybe they fear it may humanize them to look at the patient or the relative. I was ‘warned’ not to create trouble the 1^st night I was admitted 2 yrs ago for arthroscopic ACL surgery. Here, after asking me not to disturb dad, I was disturbed by their chit chat and their chiding of a poor lady clearly in end-stage renal failure and another who’s heart had but a few beats left. They fought with colleagues who didn’t turn up for shifts on time etc. All this in few view and audible range of patients and their near burned out families. Empathy is a crucial chapter missing in the fat pages of the medical bible.

In India, the doctor is God and those associated with him in the slightest… his disciples and messengers. Such blindness. Doctors change their tone and language with me when they know they can’t play paddle-ball with a para-medical professional. What about the scores less fortunate (read educated)? Despite dad’s status right now, we are far better treated (by 70% I reckon) than the rest of the populace. They just want someone to talk to. Someone to tell them it will all be alright. Someone to tell them that they figured it out and that its fixable. Things and people break every day. People just want to know “can this be fixed?”. I too am asking the same. I had an unfortunate incident today where an annoyed lady found it too taxing to wait in line for her mother’s MRI cuz my dad’s was taking too long. Rudely (after blasting the diagnostic center receptionist) she asks my doctor in front of me and scores of waiting people, “a thigh MRI is not so important then why is it taking so long?” Before he could answer, I gave a fat piece of my mind. 1 of the rarest times I didn’t care for being judged or considered a noisy nuisance. No one stopped me or dared come my way. Shockingly she turned out to be a doc herself and realized she had cut the wrong wire when she took me on, proceeding to profusely apologize. I would’ve relented except my heavy heart had found the perfect outlet and opportunity to let the screaming banshee out. Then I went back in the dark ambulance and shed whatever tears had surfaced. Wiped ‘em. Even like a fool, used sanitizer on my own hands and walked back in.

I had never seen a loved 1 with 8 tubes piercing a frail body and another 15 tubes running out of each 1. So many monitors all beeping at once, bandages, raw flesh, blankets, catheters and 2 simultaneous saline drips. I had 1/4^th of these but ACTUALLY seeing it is a whole new life lesson. Watching them go through a non-stop cycle of progress and regress. I learnt about my own patience and my own vulnerability. How much is too much for me? I think I have held on long enough and am gonna hold on more. Even candles give that last lil strong bright flicker before they completely burn out. I’m not ready yet to burn out. Still have to burn my brightest best yet!

The "Must haves"

That’s right. There are something’s in life like a wardrobe must-have or a societal must-do that need to happen to all beings. Without them there is just no appreciation for the rules that are broken and triumphed over and nor is there is any lessons-learnt. Here are a random not-so-preferred few.

• Lose your wallet. Maybe more than once.
• Lose money. It pinches and pains and all those times we stole, begged, borrowed, whined and blackmailed our parents for comes flashing by.
• Have someone lie to u and find out about it.
• Have an ugly confrontation or an uncomfortable conversation.
• Fail to read the rules and regulations or that almost invisible *conditions apply. Get fleeced or stuck cuz of your failure to do so.
• Get caught and have that horrible twisty knot like feeling in your stomach. The 1 that makes you lose appetite, squeezes your heart and basically makes you feel like your life is flashing by.
• Exhale and feel immense relief when that twisty knot is untied (usually by someone’s generosity or kindness). Have new found respect for that person who 90% of the times maybe someone who doted on you in the past.
• Get suspended, punished, black listed. Makes for a great story when you grow up. Especially when you wanna prove what a badass you were amidst the journey of nerd-dom.
• Get drunk and make a fool of yourself. Throw up and just pass out being aware that you are gonna have a lot to explain and face when the hangover wears out
• Sneak in and look sheepish.
• Be consumed by love or hatred. Be consumed by some emotion so much that it eats up all of you and you are momentarily blinded.
• Make bad decision. Despite the told-you-so’s. Remember this is YOUR decision and YOURS alone.
• Put on weight. Be in denial. Then try on an outfit that you were eyeing and can’t fit in. Get a reality check and go into major fitness mode. Wow yourself and people around you. Reward yourself. Think you all that and what not. Put on weight…. Repeat cycle.
• Loose or break your fone. Stay a day or… hell even a week without a new 1. Pretend you are in zen mode without being in eSocial mode. It is quite amazing frankly. Get a new phone and get all stupid and spondilitisii like again.
• Write a blog. Pour your heart out. Wake up the day after and read again and go WTF! The same can apply to an sms, chat message or even a voice message.
• Have a wardrobe malfunction and find ways to tide over it. Have a fashion faux pas or a beauty disaster. Lock yourself in till it’s fixed.
• Loose someone you love. Maybe to someone else you cared about or trusted. Live and function around 1 or both everyday.
• Have an injury or an illness. Changes you sometimes. Drastically.
• Be ignored and forgotten. There is redemption at the end of this tunnel. Everyone needs everyone at sometime. Sure you too will ignore, forget and re-need someone too.
• Have your parents not ‘appreciate or understand’ you. Whine about how they don’t get you. Then triumph over how you overcame that ‘challenge’.
• Buy something super cheap. Showoff. Have it perish/broken in a blink. Sulk.
• Buy something super expensive. Showoff. Have it perish/broken in a blink. Sulk x 3.
• Loose internet connection when you NEED IT MOST.
• Have your phone battery die when you NEED IT MOST.
• Fall asleep. Have a bad stomach. Have a bad day of personal hygiene. Look unkempt. Feel tragic. Have someone really hot* point it out to you. *a potential crush maybe.
• Regret something. Anything. Then go all Miss/Mr. World and say, “I have no regrets. All my experiences made me who I am” *wave* (yawn).
• Own a pet. Go all ooh and aah until their 1^st medical and food bill hits you. Now multiply that by their expected lifetime… Congrats you are a parent now.
• Rave about some movie, place, event, person etc. Then have it fail miserably and you hide face.
• Get stuck somewhere. And remain stuck.
• Lie, cheat on a test, blame someone else. Smoke something funny. Drink something weird. Do it all. Cuz even though you were told not to. You still did. Feel guilty thereafter.
• Have a kid ask you a question you can’t answer. Better yet let them begin the question with ‘Aunty/Uncle’ and come to terms with it.
• Cut yourself. Bleed. Get scratched, scraped, jabbed. Bang a joint or sprain a muscle. Nothing hurts worse and nothing teaches you to repair it better.
• Say the wrong thing at the worst time to the wrong person. Try to take it back. Although…. Never works!
• Ache for something or someone. Drown in it till you learn to swim out of it.
• Starve. Run out of cash. Thirst for something. Be parched. Look around and wonder… what now.
• Indulge in stalking. Online ‘perfectly sane and legal’ predation. What he said. She posted. He updated. She erased. He signed up. She signed out. Pictures. Comments. Accounts. Emails. Messages. Drive yourself deliberately nuts interpreting the psychology behind it all. Worse still… call your friends for coffee and drown them in your pool of self-pity (hate these). Pine and muddle over it. A while later let it tide over. Even better, feel stupid for having to realize you got it ALL WRONG! Pause. Repeat. Rewind. Forward and on….
• Be part of a disaster or its aftermath. Feel like a loser or a schmuck for the times you thought your life was a wreck. Come back renewed. Yap about it. *Blink* turn back into that whiny creation called human AGAIN.  
• Hit rock bottom. Rise up. Dust yourself. Leave a lil dust behind. Have a yahoo moment and rise higher. Then have a reminder of the disaster and fall in the pit again. A lil deeper this time. Be aware of the depth. Decide when you wanna stop falling and get back up at all. Or not.

Then sit and write this blog. Think about why and how and when you decided to write this blog. Post it. Go 'dayumm' cuz you missed a thing or 2 to add your post like it was gonna make a world of difference. Wonder if anyone even bothered reading it till the end. Go ‘whatever’… Move on. 

Retro DateNight

The weekend was just like many in the last 2 months. Dreamy and beautiful. Perfect even sometimes. Not always but sometimes near perfection. This Saturday in particular felt retro to me. Old fashioned. Simple. Simpler. Relaxed and didn’t have many quips from my otherwise quick witted other half.

Spent the day at home trying to avoid getting baked in the October humidity and sweltering heat. A plan to go shopping with a friend went expectedly kaput; I had my contingency ready – I was gonna go by myself. Abeer had drunk himself a bar the night before and getting any response from him was like asking a semi-conscious person their entire biodata. I informed him duly like I always do and set out. I was content but frankly not ideal. You see I get excited about anything that works my senses and that moment I feel like I need to share it with someone. Not just anyone – that someone. And his absence only either overworks my memory or I go into a ‘never mind’ mode.

So I picked him up from his abode and we waded through Navaratri traffic and chaos to the station. Train rides had become our thing – only this day we broke protocol from the usual meeting point (keeping it fresh). A short ride to Khar and we hit my favorite stores there. I shopped 80’s disco clothes (short tank with skull designs to go over black jeggings and a tunic or vest). All I was missing was a dirty blonde crop and some Madonna makeup and headgear. Ballet flats were at home. Abeer had a brief stint of sky blue shorts under Fanta orange t-shirt. We all exclaimed how ‘pretty’ he looked following which he promptly dumped it all and stepped outside the store like the ‘complete man’.

We decided to treat ourselves to some old-fashioned apple pie, some good ‘ol coffee and topped it up with a cab ride to town. That’s right a cab ride for us was a big deal. Abeer is big on saving and economical spending. Me – I’m just officially poor who likes to spoil her boyfriend silly. For us the cab ride was the fancy thing just like our parents thought cabs were a treat. We whizzed through the Bandra-Worli Sealink alongside Mercs, Audis, BMWs and what not. Enter. Finally. Heera Panna shopping arcade. A 1-stop-shop for many things fancy and ‘export-worthy’. The fancier chorr bazaar I call it. 1^st copies of nearly all products to near perfection that you could fool a few untrained naked eyes. I loved walking through the arcade that had me lost so many times in the past. But I gripped on Abeer like I did mom when I was younger. He was my bargaining chip and my ‘NO’ sign when it really was a ‘No’. I needed his fashionista-le-French opinion on my new retro frames and cell phone accessories. We did the rounds and the ho-hums and left.

In the middle of it all, his appetite changed from mmmm to “I wanna be light and healthy” and finally resting on the real thing, “I feel like Chinese”. His thought process was like the roulette wheel. It keeps bouncing off ideas until it rests finally on something steady and real. I wait patiently. We went to Kamling Restaurant at Churchgate. Abeer had asked me a few times in the past when we passed it after a meal at some obnoxiously pricey place. As I entered, a strong sterile almost phenyl scent hit us. Ok very very clean. I get it. But what hit harder was the team of really old, cute, ever-smiling, North Eastern staff waiting on us. I felt almost ashamed being waited on by someone so much older than me rather than offering them a seat and a warm broth. I smiled. It felt like home. Then a strong hit of flowery air freshner. Yes… very old school solution to the phenylish scent. We ordered light servings of noodles and a Chinese beef stew. BEST ever. The food was light, fragrant, so very simple and just perfect. It didn’t feel heavy or Indian-Chinese like. The plates had scratches on them and the cutlery was well maintained but well on its way out. This was like the old Chinese restaurants where our parents would take us out for ‘fancy’ dinner nights and birthdays. Nothing was over the top but it still held special place for us. It did for Abeer with old memories that brought him back here. And now me.

We ate quickly and made it to Eros. Abeer’s idea for a faaltu Hindi movie at a single-screen theatre. For both of us it meant a bratty useless evening where we decided at the time to leave our brains behind. It had been years since someone asked me ‘balcony or stall’ and that I had to pay by cash only. Old-school. I chose balcony. We were hustled in to loud, eardrum shattering introductory number accompanied by major pelvic-thrusting visuals from Besharam. Again incidentally the movie took digs at old school romance, dialogues, loud costumes and cheesy lines that had been there done that written all over them. Before interval we both laughed ourselves silly. Only cuz we knew we were there to be stupid with Besharam. But after interval and a sealed tub of pretty decent caramel popcorn, it became unbearable for Abeer to fake-laugh anymore. I didn’t regret leaving 75% into the movie either. For both of us the experience had satiated our need for silliness and now it was time to get back to reality.

Whenever possible through the day we walked. It’s what he and I did best. I always loved to walk. Still do. No matter how tired or in pain I am… I can walk. The motion of walking soothes me. Add to that a partner who does the same – sweet sublime love. We took a late Bhayander train back (the only uncomfortable part of the night for me) and made it in 1 piece to Malad.

Here was the bitter-sweet part of a retro night. Even though I would usually submit to shameless love and passion and probably kiss him anywhere anytime, he was more old-school and preferred a safe peck on the cheek in front of a plethora of rickwalas – 1 who was expected to drop me safely home at 12am. I hated when I had to make do with just that peck and then go home, alone with just a sigh and some smiles to remember the love that seeped through the evening!