Doomoo's Blog

I recently visited a ‘big’ hospital in Chennai, and this is what happened:

Me: I get slightly dizzy these days in the evening, and have a recurring cough that fails to go away.
Doc: So which ‘industry’ do you work in?
Me: *rolling eyes* The IT industry.
Doc: Hmm… *blood sucking mode on; intelligent look and phony contemplation* Have you hit your head somewhere?
Me: What?! No!
Doc: Do you tend to go towards one side?
Me: Only when I ride the bike.
Doc: So you have a tendency of going to one side? Which side is it?
Me: The left side. That’s the side of the road we’re supposed to drive on.
Doc: Hmm… ok. Any family history of insanity/ mental problems?
Me: (Wha… motha… fug…) No.
Doc: Hmm.. and what of this cough? Are you spitting blood?
Me: No – although I would be pretty sure to mention it if I was.
Doc: Hmm.. and phlegm?
Me: A little.
Doc: *more contemplation and phony intelligence display* Here, do these battery of tests. (sounding very please to use the word ‘battery’)
Me: What are these tests?
Doc: Well, you need to go for a brain scan becau…
Me: What what what! A brain scan? What’s wrong with me?
Doc: You never know, you could have injured your brain or …*inchorence*
Me: And what about the cough?
Doc: I suspect Tuberculosis. Very common in Chennai, don’t worry.
Me: So you’re saying that I have TB and brain problems?
Doc: Most likely, but there is nothing to worry at this stage.

Fortunately, I later found another doc (not affiliated with the hospital) who said I have a mild case of vertigo and gave me something for my cough.

Adding to the really long list of social objectives that this blog fulfils; here’s another piece of information – when in Chennai, find a good physician preferably not inside big hospitals.

In the past year, I’ve had TB, brain problems, blood pressure, back spasms and many other issues for which I’ve been sucked dry of urine and blood. A doctor at another large hospital where my company has a free Master Health Check tie-up prescribed me 3000 bucks worth of meds for blood pressure when I just mentioned that I had a spike the previous week. And then he told me that these meds would apparently help me lose weight, causing my BP to fall.

And then there’s the standard fare when you go in with anything above 98 degrees Fahrenheit. Anitbiotics, vitamin B Complex supplements and paracetomols. Yes, antibiotics are the first thing they write down.

Now not all docs in big hospitals are bad, but one needs to be aware of the pitfalls and the strategies that many of these guys use to screw patients over. I for one, am happy to have found a physician who knows what she’s talking about. And happier to not have TB and brain tumors.

…esp. for the non-Mallus

1. Thou shalt not deny the booze. There is no excuse to say no to alcohol. Not after the uncle offering you the booze bought five bottles of whiskey on his way back home from a bypass surgery.

2. Thou shalt diversify. No edible item at the table is ‘the best’. The moment you start stuffing yourself with fried fish thinking it’s the yummiest thing on the menu, you discover the chicken curry. But you might just be a kilo too late.

3. Thou shalt extrapolate. Even if you don’t understand the language, you shall do your best to reconstruct a coherent sentence from the 2 words you understand out of every 30.

4. Thou shalt not try fancy, new-fangled technology devices. Mobile signals are weak and the GPS thingy does not even connect to a satellite. Shame on you for fiddling with that fancy phone.

5. Thou shalt never ever, EVER travel by sleeper class. Whether it’s the noisy guys on the way to Kerala or the ribald Romeos on the way back, you don’t want to have to show your macho moves to save the wife. Mainly because you don’t have any.

6. Thou shalt not accept gifts heavier than 1 kg. You now have enough rice flour and bananas to adopt a pet monkey who likes appams. And if it weren’t for coolies, you would have lost a shoulder.

7. Thou shalt lose weight BEFORE thou travel(eth?). Because 3 breakfasts and 2 lunches and a smorgasbord for dinner everyday will push you over the quintal.

8. Thou shalt believe in a higher presence. Not because there are a large number of places of worship per area, but because you have travelled on a road not wide enough for two cars at 80 KMPH and lived to tell the tale.

9. Thou shalt respect traditional dress. The mundu is not only airy, but also customizable from long to short at a single flick of the wrist.

10. Thou shalt not state preference of food under any condition. Else thou shalt have to eat thy preference till thou loosen thy mundu, regain thy weight, and manage to speak the two words to communicate that you are done.

But seriously, Kerala is a beautiful place to visit especially if you have relatives there like my wife does. Despite not understanding the language, I really look forward to going because of the copious alcohol, the delectable cuisine, the fresh air and the warm people. What more is there to life, really?

Q: What’s the best word to scare one’s wife when one’s down with fever and other flu-like symptoms?

A: Oink.

I know, don’t tell me – I’m mean as an average. Sick as a mass murderer. Aaargh.

The similes are off colour today. Apologies. A little under the weather. And speaking of weather, check this out.

Hurrah for our government and their proactiveness. Ok back to the bed. Blogging shall soon resume. Don’t go too far.

It was a day like many others. I was on my way back from my office in what can be described as the worst transport money can pay for, or as is referred to in more prosaic terms in Chennai as a ‘share auto’. It had rained in Chennai that day. Ok, so maybe it wasn’t a day like many others.

As I sat in the front portion of the rear part of the vehicle, two young ladies got in behind me. To make this clearer, please understand that my rather voluptuous behind was unintentionally touching their feet as they sat on an elevated seat behind me. As the ladies felt more and more uncomfortable, especially since where I was sitting was surrounded by muck, they began to pass remarks about how uncomfortable it was and how they couldn’t sit properly etc. My buttocks may have been mentioned once or twice.

It was a while before they realised that I was getting irritated with all the complaining and ka-pow! I almost got disoriented by what happened next. Lady 1 tapped my shoulder and said, “Excuse me, you have broad shoulders.” followed by a barrage of compliments about me and my appearance. Now, this is bizarre in most places, but in Chennai this is downright miraculous. Of course, it wasn’t so miraculous when I realised that the lady was from Delhi, but at that stage I was reeling from the opening line anyway.

Much later I understood that Lady 1 was apparently trying to flirt with yours truly and I didn’t realise this till we got off the wretched vehicle and Friend of Lady 1 told me that Lady 1 was asking me for my card because she wanted my phone number. At this stage, I articulated something on the lines of, “Ungh I’m married aagrh help.”

And that was that. I turned around and have never looked in that general direction again for fear of seeing these women again.

So what I’m saying is that it’s really embarassing for me when a person of the opposite gender makes a move on me. Being the decent man that I am, I’m usually found fumbling with words and my expressions are randomly swinging between perspiring-embarassed-dull-gaze to glorious-ego-boosted-smile.

I wonder how other dudes treat these situations. Any comments?

Update: Another interesting Chennai travel story.

So it was the wife’s birthday and the creative cycle of surprising, gifting and getting drunk was in action this week.

It was only the second third birthday since marriage, but already I seem to be running low on surprise-stock. My original ‘surprise-at-midnight-with-a-cake-and-gift’ masterstroke seems to have been expected this time. The ‘cook-and-don’t-let-her-enter-the-kitchen’ idea is also slightly jaded, especially since my cooking form is lukewarm right now. No that it requires much form to heat packaged food packets. Also embarassing questions like ‘Darling do you know where the salt is?’ or ‘Is it all right to add eggs to an omlette?’ end up negating the whole out-of-kitchen experience. The cuteness of a lost husband in kitchen has a much shorter lifespan than the cuteness of a baby, I can assure you.

Another innovation this year was my attempt to crowd the house with known faces from morning to evening. That went down well, considering the wife usually tends to mope around the time of her birthday what with the advent of old age and all, imperciptible really in my eyes (brownie point – score!). And finally, to firmly establish that I’m running out of ideas, I even went the corny way of getting flowers and a card with large hearts on it. I had to suffer scanning through cards that likened love to trees, gardens and an assorted range of flowers to finally find something that wouldn’t induce puke.

And after the packaged pasta was cooked and consumed, after the 25 million phone calls were answered and the winter coat that didn’t fit was unwrapped, the age old non-surprising act of celebrating with food and alcohol was carried out with much aplomb. Alcohol, as they say, is the answer – whatever the question. The company was good, the Bacardis stiff and there might even have been some inebriated guitar playing and singing by me. ‘Twas the stuff hangovers are made of.

Anyway, happy birthday to the wife. Apart from my usual brilliance, I did the wise thing and avoided talking about age all day and like last year I wished her yet another happy 19th birthday. My brownie point count is at an all time high – somebody stop me.

There was a warning that the news of Prabhakaran’s killing may cause riots in the city, so the company that I work for let me go one hour early today. No doubt they’ll keep me back one hour late somewhere in the near future.

So, given the risk of venturing out into the city on a dangerous day, half my blog’s readership (my friend PJ) and I decided to do what most rational souls would have done – travel for about 10-15 km to the Landmark store where India’s most powerful blogger (or something like that), Amit Varma was making an appearance to promote his book.

The book reading was good, although for those of you interested in celebrity trivia, Amit pronounces that as ‘dat’. The passage that Amit started out with contained swear words and orgasmic sounds; these were greeted by silence and a muffled gasp by the Chennai audience who are not used to such potty mouths. And after the discussion with Sharanya and another reading, came the funniest part of the session – audience Q&A. Some gems from the evening below:

1. I am a journalist, and as a journalist I know what journalists go through. Since I’m a journalist who’s written a couple of books called ‘?????’ and ‘The ???? of ????’, my journalistic question to you is about journalistic writing. What is it?

2. Why don’t you start a website?

3. WHO IS THIS YOUR FRIEND SANCHI?

The last question came from a really grumpy but cute old gentleman. The end of the session was followed by the book signing and the most anticipated part of the evening – snacks. Unfortunately, my Ayurvedic diet mandates that bread cannot be eaten, so I had to keep away from the sandwiches.

Oddly, Amit seemed to remember me and insisted on getting his photograph taken with me. Here’s the picture we took after a nice, short conversation about writing, Mumbai, blogging, wives (all good), work and books.

Amit signed my book with, “It’s nice to finally meet you.” The feeling was mutual Amit.

Also, check out Sunil’s more detailed coverage of the event here.

A little voice told me today, “Rohan, don’t blog about just cricket all the time. What about your army of female fans?” So here you go ladies.

Today I went out to the Chennai Port Trust and had a whale of a time. Took part in two activities – floating in the water courtesy the life jackets, and sailing. I sailed two boats – an ‘Enterprise’ which I found difficult to manoeuvre and a ‘Laser’ that was far better and I was able to control it quite decently with my weight, courtesy TNSA. Speaking of weight – it caused quite a bit of embarassment when the weak folks in my boat struggled to pull me out. A completely fun day.

And then there was the IPL.

By the time I returned from the sailing adventure, I was just in time to witness the first succesful chase of the evening. KXIP’s victory over the chargers definitely creates quite a stir in the quest for the top 4. Had they lost today, they wouldn’t have been nipping at the heels of the top 4, but their effort ensures that none of the top 4 can afford to take it easy.

Chennai delighted in their run chase. Haydos was at his consistent best and Badri finally came into his own. The Royals lost to CSK for the first time in the history of IPL despite a great effort at the end to reach 140.

Not much change in the top 4 now, the tenants of those positions are still holding on although they keep frequently getting interchanged. CSK and DD are the only ones with momentum though and that certainly seems like the final match of this year’s IPL at this stage.

I’m off to nurse my aches and pains, it’s good night for now!

Kolkata Knight Riders seemed to be out of it at their 15 over stage chugging along barely at 6 an over, but a final blitz from Hodge saw them surge past 150. However, it’s not easy thing to win when your determination to lose is so strong. And so it passed that KKR shot themselves in the foot in the field – over and over again, until they ensured that KXIP Punjab won it off the last ball. And did I see Yuvraj say, “Fuck you” to Ganguly?

RCB vs Mumbai on the other hand was decidedly one-sided. Who thought Kallis could have batted like this? And Uthappa has finally come good this IPL. Just when my shandy-covered tongue at the Pune airport professed that he would no longer be the force he once was. Ah, what the hey – the drink was good anyway. This team has really come a long way – another underdog story perhaps?

Boring observation of the day: The IPL short and long codes that are flashed on the score ticker at the bottom of the screen and the website (iplt20.com or t20.com) keep changing.

Tomorrow sees the beginning of a new diet. I shall fight the fat, I say!

A wonderful evening with family and beer and two decent IPL games. Ah, today was worth taking leave for.

After the battle of the losers yesterday, we saw the top two teams go head to head today. Who decides these draws? It was a hard fought match by the Chargers, but it was always going to be the Daredevils when Gilly and Gibbs fell early. Dilshan held his nerve to guide Delhi home. I guess dropping Laxman is an unlucky omen for DC as their first loss came when they first dropped last year’s captain.

The Super Kings finally got something under the belt and everyone’s favourite underdog, the Royals, fell short. What fun it would have been had Yusuf Pathan carried on. It wasn’t all joy for the victors though. There was a bit of a tragedy for Raina, he celebrated his century and everything when he hadn’t completed it and eventually holed out on 98. It was a great innings in its own right with a number of his left knee-bending shots, and it did take the Super Kings to a total of over 160 which turned out to be comfortable. 5 points now, and they’re beginning to look much stronger.

Bucknor of the day (and maybe the whole series): Gary Baxter. Who is he and which genius came up with the plan of him officiating with Amiesh Saheba??

A day of low scoring games. But at least one of them was interesting.

Battle Royale of losers goes to RCB after a fine finish by Mark Boucher. KKR keeps shooting their foot, chopping it off and trying to flush it down the pot. Another terrible performance. And I almost missed the flight.

I was travelling halfway across the country while the obnoxious Yuvraj’s team was playing Mumbai. My very excited father appended “Welcome home!’ with ‘What a match!!!’. A margin of 3 runs – sounds like a good match. Damn. Just wish good ol’ Mumbai would have won.