IT’S PAYBACK TIME!!

Did it strike you as odd how much rain Delhi has witnessed this season? Why did the level of ice dip to the lowest in the Arctic? The tsunami in Indonesia!. The earthquake in China! The typhoon in Miami! Why did the Kosi flood? …..the El Nino………….the La Nina………… Why in the name of the Almighty has the weather gone haywire? God’s barometer out of order or what?

Let us look back……retrospect…….. Not much …..Just a few decades. Saw or heard of any industrial plant spewing black smoke? Or people cutting trees to make way for a train track or apartment building? Or making a Dam for irrigating large fields? Or earth’s crust being drilled into exhaustively for oil and minerals? Or poisonous chemicals being dumped into water bodies? Or farmers spraying pesticides in fields? These are the colossal occurrences….. Policy decisions? …..Imminent and required for development and progress?……Government’s responsibility!….…Right?

OK. Let’s consider the individual or minor ones. When did you last get the PUC of your vehicle? No Idea? (What’s PUC man?) Never planted a sapling? Never tried to segregate the waste you generate? (Into bio-degradable and re-cyclable) Never pooled a car? Never used a mosquito net instead of vaporizer repellant? ‘No’ to any question?

Ever owned an AC or fridge using CFC? Installed a bore well for tapping ground water? Enjoyed a bonfire? Lit a cracker on Deepawali? Took a dip in the river at a hill station? Threw a toffee wrapper on the pavement? Honked endlessly at the vehicle in front? Left the water running while brushing your teeth? Forgot to switch off the light? Danced to the mind numbing and blaring music in a marriage? Smoked a Marlboro? ‘Yes’ to any query?

Then YOU are also one of many responsible for causing grievous injury to Mother Nature. Polluting it. Aiding in its destruction. Something which you could have controlled had you been sensitive enough to notice the subtle signs and warnings. Oh yes! Nature has been warning us for quite some time! The droughts in monsoon season! The rise in sea level! The extreme heat in summers (> 50 degrees centigrade)! Significant drop in winter temperature! The depleting ozone layer (causing skin cancers etc)! The earthquakes! Fresh activity in long extinct volcanoes (Mt Etna, Sicily)! The depleting crude oil and mineral reserves! The disappearing ground water! The decreasing soil fertility resulting in less food grains! The changing patterns of rains! The shifting climate!

It is you who chose to ignore them. Turn a blind eye!

Now Mother Nature has decided to payback! And with interest! Go figure!

DO’S AND DON’TS AND DOCS!!!

There are certain things that need to be kept in mind while visiting your friendly neighborhood doc. The do’s and the don’ts! Each do and don’t is the moral of a certain story, an experience, that has either given the doc a headache and made him count his blessings…..repeatedly. Or has made his job tolerable and the patient’s experience bearable and relatively pleasant …..if not altogether cheery.

So the do’s are:

REMEMBER all your complaints/symptoms….. or at least most of them. Any symptom ….. however irrelevant you might ‘think’ it to be, may be vital. So you just tell …… and leave the ‘thinking’ part to your doc ….. it his. Any pain that seems to have fallen in love with you. Or chills that are not related to the horror flick you saw last night. Or a numbness that is not a sleeping limb. Or the tingling that has nothing to do with watching Katrina Kaif in a swim suit!J Any allergies…… like any medicine that might have given you the runs to the loo……or made you look like you have had a date with bumble bees…….or made you puke-ish….or worse ……caused you breathing trouble.……please remember. Any worm passage in …..you know ….poo(p). Any insect sting …..like wasp, bee. Any infestation like lice, fleas, ticks, mite. Any animal bite….. like dog, cat, horse, bat, pig, mice or any other. Also recorded are pigeon, parrot, ducks, camels, cow, goat! (It’s a big bad biting world of our feline, canine, bovine, porcine, equine and avian friends!!) Any addictions………….smoking, drugs, alcohol, and censored one night stands…………DO remember.

SPEAK UP. Tell…... Explain….. Elaborate….. Yakkity-yak if needed. Don’t worry. Docs are good and ‘patient’ listeners. J Tell what you remember. Keeping it to yourself will not cure it. And however competent your doc might be…… he surely cannot read your mind!

SHOW…. Any sign that you feel is related to your illness. Any rash that you think is recent and not related to mosquitoes or bugs or nappies! J Or swelling that has cropped up overnight. Or discolored patch…..lighter or darker …… or having no sense of touch….or is intensely itchy.

And now the don’ts.

DON’T REMEMBER all the infirmities that you have EVER suffered from….in your whole life till date!! Please limit to the ones that are giving you trouble at present. If there is any other info required regarding past illnesses, family history etc etc……….the doc will ask himself. Don’t relate past illnesses to present ones. This is the doc’s job ………and believe me he is quite competent to do so. (This does not apply to genetic disorders like hemophilia, thalesemia etc or chronic illnesses like diabetes, heart disease, hypertension etc.)

DON’T SPEAK UP FOR ETERNITY………especially irrelevant talk……that yakkity yak should not be irrelevant …..something that is ‘not at all’ related to your present condition. You are only eating into some other patient’s time if you do so. And the other patient might be suffering more than you are! The doc is not interested in what soap you watched last night or what color suits you or where you do your shopping from. But he might be interested in what you ate last night or how often you eat out or whether you have a water filter at home or what sort of fabric you should wear or what cosmetic and jewelry you should avoid. So take a few moments to think before you engage your (24 X 7 busy) doc in meaningless chatter. Last but not the least……….take appointment with some doc who understands your dialect! If you go and speak Bengali to a non Bengali speaking doc then you first need to get your head examined!

DON’T HESITATE TO SHOW the exact location of sign/symptom. But for goodness sake show it on 'your' self………..not on the doc’s body. Missed my point? Well ……if you are hurting YOUR arm, touch YOUR arm to show where it hurts…..not the doc’s! Because the doc is OK, thank you very much! Most importantly….if you are a female visiting a male doctor ask for a female nurse or attendant to be present while you are being examined. And vice-versa. It is your right. And the doc is wrong if he is not doing so.

So ........ have a nice date with doc!

PS: The use of ‘he, him, his’ for doc in the above article is purely for the sake of continuity and not any gender
discrimination. So all my feminist friends, please bear with me.