Elixir in primary colours

 I had never thought of this story. But when I wrote of an incident  ( real, but unfortunately people refuse to believe --- even the protagonist denies) at  the PM hospital in Mavelikara, suddenly I had some fleeting memories of the Malaya Dispensary near the Pookkada junction and quite a few incidents cropped up in my mind. This hospital was also known as the Prasad’s hospital.

A word about Dr Prasad. When I had his “darshan” for the first time I might have been six or seven and he was in his late sixties. His thick grey hair on his head and the thick grey handlebar moustache gave him an exotic look and he was certainly much more handsome than someone a third his age. He comes to the hospital in the morning and the first thing he does was to remove his shirt and hang it on the back of his chair. While on duty he wore pants and a banyan with sleeves. Every time I was taken there with fever, head ache or stomach ache I had noticed all that I have described above. It should be mentioned that those days there weren’t any disease beyond fever and head ache. It was easy for parents to write the clichéd leave letters “as my son/daughter was suffering from fever and head ache ....”. The first change occurred when a student wrote one for himself as he was suffering from his sister’s marriage.

On every occasion  I was there with some problem or other I had noticed one thing. The treatment had a simple pattern.  The doc will first examine the patient and scribble something on a piece of paper which the patient has to take to the “Kamponder”.  Kamponder is the ancient form of the Chemist. The name might have its genesis in the work he did. After a glance at the prescription he would mix some three or four liquids measured out of big bottles  using an ounce glass and forms a compound.  Thus the one who prepares a compound is a “Compounder” and the “Kamponder” is by natural evolution, the way Superintendent evolved into Suprant or Hurricane lamp evolved into Arrakkan lamp or  Jaffna Pukayila evolved into Chappanam Pola. Kamponder, Compounder or whatever, the patient always got the medicine in the liquid form in one of the primary colours – Red, Blue or Green.  The medicine always had a magical effect with the patient getting cured in a day or two.  Some five years ago Pradeep  (Pradeep Luke Sam) told me of a Thomachan doctor in his village. Whatever be the problem of the patient, this doc too gave the same medicine, again in one of the primary colours and of course, with quick relief.

Pala Thulli Peruvellom

The scene is again the Malaya Dispensary. This time I was there with fever or head ache of course, and was a 10^th standard student. Nothing has changed. The same doc in the same" uniform", the same “Kamponder” and of course the medicines in the same colours. I don’t remember who was accompanying me. But I very well remember the following incidents. I found Kumarettan (name changed) lying on a stretcher very very weak. His father was an aristocratic feudal Nair of our village. Kumarettan was the unchallenged boozer of the village. I saw Dr Prasad running towards the stretcher and feeling Kumarettan’s pulse. As per his instructions Kumarettan was taken to a special room. Those days none had heard of ICU’s or other units. After some twenty minutes or so Dr Prasad came out with sweat all over his face and his banyan soaked in sweat. From the doc’s talk with Kumarettan’s relatives (by this time some of my uncles too had arrived), I gathered that the patient’s heart had stopped and it was revived with great effort. I still remember what the doc said next. “Last week I saw his X-ray. He has only two or three centimeters of liver left. If he consumes another drop of alcohol he will die”. The crowd slowly dispersed. I have no first hand information of the next part of the story. But the person who narrated that was a highly respected senior of my family. The story goes like this. Kumarettan was admitted there and along with the medicines, complete rest was advised. By about 8 O’clock in the evening a nurse came to give an injection but alas, she was shocked  to see none in the bed. She waited for quite some time and was shell shocked to see Kumarettan and the bystander walking unsteadily towards the room. Even before she could open her mouth Kumarettan said ,”Prasad doctor said that one more drop and I will die. I have big faith in him. Therefore I took one full glass in one go! My dear child, I feel much better. Good bye to drops”.

When this incident occurred I was 16 and Kumarettan 26.  It is 45 years now. He still maintains that ten year lead over me.  The only adverse thing that had happened to him was that his teeth deserted him even as he was entering his forties. So good bye to drops was not such a bad decision???

Shyla, I and The Schrondinger's Cat

1983 or 1984 I don’t remember exactly. My right ankle had sprained. Those days there weren’t specialty or super specialty hospitals unlike as in these days when we have such hospitals separately for the right ankle and left ankle. In Mavelikara, the PM hospital, popularly known as “Pilippintasootri” (Philip's Hospital) was the panacea. After the registration formalities I was told to follow the nurse to the doctor’s room. Limping, I found it impossible to catch up with the fleeting nurse, a young little girl. After moving in “first gear’ for some time I could spot the angel waiting impatiently for this hapless patient. Seeing me limping towards my destination the angel flew into the doctor’s room, came out in no time and waved to me indicating that I can go in. In a little while after the angel flew past me I reached the room still in the “first gear”. I gently pushed the half-door and tried to sneak in. I found the doctor, again a small little girl, examining a patient who was lying on the patient’s table. The table was the typical narrow one that can just keep the patient from falling down like the Newton’s apple. Also, these tables are often very high so that the doctors examining the patient will not have to bend.  Though the table is designed so for the comfort of the doctor this girl-doctor (read lady-doctor) was standing on her toes to have at least  a glimpse of the patient. The patient was a fat man in his sixties and that added to the effective height ( and  also to the misery of the young doctor)of the point of examination.  Seeing the doctor struggling to examine the patient I withdrew from the room and waited like a decent citizen never eager to jump the queue. I was then in my twenties and had this mischievous thought. Instead of standing on her toes and trying in vain to plant the resonator of the stethoscope on the patient’s chest she could carefully throw it and achieve her aim !!! There was a chair near the patient’s table and standing on that and examining was the easiest thing to do but a doctor cannot do that.  Standing there, now in neutral gear, I explored various possibilities but none was worthy of being conveyed to a doctor (one was to ask the patient to climb down and lie on the floor !!!).  Some fifteen minutes might have elapsed. The angel appeared again and with a contemptuous stare asked me “didn’t go inside, yet?” Before I could open my mouth she ordered “just go in”. I felt like telling the angel that you are only a little girl still in your teens and I am twenty seven and am teaching in the first college in India, the CMS college, Kottayam. Those days I thought that teaching in CMS was a great thing.  It was only much later I realised that what matters is what you teach and how. Anyway wisdom prevailed and I went inside. This time I was not as much gentle with the half-door as I was earlier. The doctor still standing near the patient turned back and seeing me she shrieked “Edo, Iyyallo”. She abandoned the patient and seeing me limping, came to me and helped me sit on the stool near the patient’s  table. “That was like an angel” I told myself. I too was pleasantly surprised. She was Shyla. Shyla P Sankunni. Now  Dr Shyla P Sankunny. The brilliant head of the 1973 II II B (read 2 2 B) batch of the Bishop Moore College Mavelikkara. I had not seen her since then but had learnt of her 2^nd rank in BSc Botany in the Kerala University and joining the Kottayam medical college for her MBBS.

Time was ticking away and this doctor had no intention of asking me what brought me there. She kept narrating old stories and inquired about what all happened to me after I left Bishop Moore College etc. I too felt very happy seeing her after some ten years. It was some ten minutes and the doctor was in no mood to examine the sprain on my right ankle. The pain was disturbing but we kept talking all bla bla bla. The room was very small and I could not even stretch my legs to make myself a little more comfortable.  Sitting on the stool made me more uncomfortable and I banked on the table behind me with my elbow resting on the table knowing well that this can be considered indecent by the patient lying there. But I wanted to relax a little. It was another ten minutes and I thought I should remind the doctor of her duties towards her patients  as I started feeling a sort of conscience prick thinking of the abandoned patient on the table just behind me. I told myself,” The guy must be too weak. Otherwise he would have got down from the table and walked off in protest against this neglect or insult”.  In a low voice I conveyed my concern to the “unethical” doctor.

Shyla rose from her seat, laughed aloud and told me “Edo athoru dead body aanu” ( Bro, that’s a dead body).

My good heavens !!! For so long I was sitting with a dead body ?!? Oh oh my elbow was even touching him !! oooh!!  Instantly  I sprang on my feet and jumped on to the veranda crashing the half door and in the melee I forgot to protect my right ankle and as it happens on such occasions I landed on my right foot ! I heard a small sound and I told myself that something has broken inside my leg. But alas, the pain has disappeared  !!!  Is this the healing touch of doctors ??

Kaippuniam. Kaippuniam indeed, I told myself.

The next day I went again to the PM hospital. By the night  I realised that my landing after the “three-and a half somersault” was not “perfect”. The problem with the right ankle has shifted to the left one. So the sound I heard was not the right one getting cured but the left one getting injured.

Note: Those who have not learnt Quantum Mechanics kindly Google for The Schrodinger's Cat.

Alappuzhakkaran Kesavan Aangala

This one is a sequel to the previous post. Therefore please read “Celebration In A Ghost House”  so as to get a continuity of the story. In that, I have narrated how Mohan Kurien Sir with his uncanny knack of spinning yarns could fool us so easily. Now the next day morning after Mohan Kurien Sir “complemented” us for our cowardice I was sitting in the lawn with a sense of defeat when I heard some low pitched yet mellifluous unorganised humming notes. “Top of the World”, I said. Christeena or Liby, I don’t  remember  was humming this “Carpenter’s” number. My sense of defeat melted and I was mesmerised by the beauty of the song. Perhaps it appealed to me so much since I was in the unique ambience of Kodai. It resurrected my spirits and my mind again became musical. Christeena promised to sing the song in the company of Liby in the evening, but I could not wait. Before the tour party started off for the day’s sightseeing they sang in perfect harmony and back in Kottayam, I made them sing the song many times for me.

We were in Kodai for two or three days. All the fun apart, leaving Kodai after being in unison with the enchanting beauty of nature in its majestic glory and breathing the cool air filled with the fragrance of Eucalyptus , was always very painful to me.

The swirl down the hair-pin curves of the Kodai hills was a nightmare for me. I used to have all kinds of problems like giddiness, pain in the ear and nausea. Therefore until our bus “landed” on the plains I would remain rooted to my seat with closed eyes. During all the tours to Kodai this part remained dreaded.  It takes a little over two hours to reach the plains. This time a nice thing happened.  A certain song I had heard during my school days came to my mind. It is a sedate folk song which goes like ....”Alappuzhakkaran Kesavan aangala enikkoru kuthu thoda venam ....”. I don’t know how it surfaced in my mind because it is so sedate, unsuitable for a tour party raring to rock. In half slumber an idea crept into my mind. I did a little bit of what we call “re-mixing”. A “Dhintha Dhithai” was inserted after “Alappuzhakkaran” and a “Dhakridha Dhithai” after pronouncing Alappuzhakkaran for a second time. And the Alappuzhakkarans (twice) were given an inebriated punch replacing the sedate, decent original Alappuzhakkaran. The effect was magical. The dragging monotonous stuff  sprang into the lightning stuff so suited for a tour party.

On reaching the plains, I conveyed the idea to Durga. We had a small rehearsal and the musically talented boys and girls picked up the high spirits of Alappuzhakkaran.  They wanted me to lead. Though I liked it I am always very shy.  Still I agreed. All the senior teachers were pleasantly surprised by the new number. It reached a crescendo and remained there non stop. The song had all the makings of a Pandimelam. Singing with closed eyes I was in high spirits and the boys and girls were dancing in joy and their chorus resonated well with the tempo of the music. On situations  like these one loses one’s sense of time. It went on and on and on when I felt some one tapping gently on my shoulders. Naturally I neglected it. After a few seconds I felt the tap again but this time it was not as gentle as it was earlier. But I was in no mood to relent.  The third time it was not a tap but a mighty hit on my shoulder. I stopped and opened my eyes, only to see Easow Mohan Sir ferociously staring at me. Seeing the fire in his eyes I politely asked “What Sir”. Without saying anything he pointed to outside. My good heavens!! I could not believe. I realised that the bus was not moving. It was parked in some unknown place in Tamil Nadu and I could see about a hundred Tamilians dancing all around the bus in frenzy. They demanded continuing the music. But seeing the fire still in EMG’s eyes all music had deserted me. We were facing a dangerous situation. Some in the crowd started asking us to stay in their village overnight with dance and music of this variety. I fell into my seat and remained there as if I knew nothing. Somehow  Easo Mohan Sir with his Tamil and Mohan Kurien Sir with his diplomacy of all seasons, convinced the crowd that we have to reach Kottayam  by mid night and extracted their permission to leave. And there was no music thereafter. The next day I learnt from Mohan Kurien Sir of what had happened. He narrated the incident like this. The bus was running non stop for some two hours and the music too. When the bus reached a small little place with a tea shop someone suggested to have tea and the bus stopped there. That was the time when the  labourers from the nearby paddy field came to the tea shop after a gruelling day in the scorching sun. And our music gave them the much needed entertainment. And naturally they started dancing. I have often felt that thalam (beats) and dance are encrypted in the Dravidian Chromosomes.

Though there were a few criticisms,  in my mind I felt a little flattered. The Tamilians danced only since there was the right Talam and Melam to invoke those powerful Dravidian expressions.

Celebrations In A Ghost House

While in CMS college one of the most important things I enjoyed was the annual tours with MSc students. In the early years, during the five days we were on tour we would visit six or seven important places. That meant traveling almost all the time. This was often grueling and robbed of the charm of the tour of my concepts. A tour, to me, meant being in a different place in a different atmosphere among strange people speaking some other language, lying idle in idyllic spots like the banks of a slowly flowing river listening to the folk songs of the boat-men  or enjoying the inebriating fragrance, again lying in “savasana” in a quite corner of the sprawling Ooty  Botanical Garden and inadvertently  transcending  to romantic heights of fantasy.  Mad, it may sound. By the start of the nineties  I still had many seniors in the Physics department. I could convince the big wigs  there to toe my line. Thus started the kind of tours where we would reach a destination and remain there for two  or three days singing, dancing filling each moment with fun, making each moment to be fondly remembered for ever.

Each tour was unique in its own right but the one with the 1993 batch was very very special with musical stalwarts like Durgaprasad, Joji, Liby and the jovial Christeena. Jerry made us burst into thunderous  laughter with his mono-act and mimicry. His master piece was his imitation of Devassya Sir (of course in his absence). His depiction of Sir was so incredible that, I am sure, even Sir himself would have failed in a competition with Jerry. Jerry in full flow was simply amazing. Dev was a welcome interlude with most of his “launches’  crash landing. The taller of the two Sujas provided a crop of humour  all through the tour. She never intended to crack any jokes, but whatever she uttered made others laugh. And one cannot blame her if by the end of the tour she started counting herself as a humorist! Just read this sample..... “Jesus fed five thousand people with just “FIVE BREADS and TWO EGGS (Karthavu 5 appavum 2 muttayum kontu ayyayirangale poshippichu!!!”. Reeni, Sreelatha, Molcikutty, Maya formed the “Ulsaha committee” which stuck to its duty with utmost devotion.

In Kodaikanal we stayed at the Kenley House (or Aanley House, I don’t remember – both were CSI cottages). These imperial bungalows situated among the pine trees blended divinely with the nature. The stay there was one of the rarest of my tour experiences.   One felt like being detached from reality and felt like living in some distant past.

 In the evening there was a “Pandimelam—Western fusion” played on the antique round tables made of Rose wood. The musical quality of these beats was very close to that of a Chenda. Those beats still reverberate in my ears. Durga, Joji, Jerry and I formed the foursome that engaged in some fantastic drumming for about an hour non-stop, with of course,  Durga in the lead. All in our group who heard it vouched for the quality and the entertainment it provided. This was followed by dinner. Christeena had brought a huge variety of pickles in huge measure from her father’s iconic PALAT  Pickles. It will be a sin if I don’t describe the role of our driver Thankachan. A man born to drive vehicles and drive people to rapturous laughter. After the dinner we all settled for the much awaited “Talent Night”. This is the most important item of our tour. The talented can showcase their talents. That is not any special. In this show anyone can participate. Even Mohan Kurien Sir and Devassya Sir can sing. Thankachen  was the star of the night. He gave us his visiting card (instantly created) where it was written “Dr Thankachen, MBBS,INOUT”. Dr meant Driver. I forgot the expansion for MBBS. The degree INOUT meant “ In/Out”. Thankachen high jacked the day with his fancy dresses. Every fifteen minutes he came in a new avatar. If he is Tippu Sultan now after a little while he would be Veera Pandya Kuttabbomman. That was amazing. The show was progressing with ecstasy filling the  atmosphere .  It was about 1-45 am. Mohan Kurien Sir summoned me and some of the students to an adjacent room and started talking in a hush  voice.  “At the stroke of 2 we should stop the show for ten minutes. There is nothing to fear. But let us not take any chances. I have been to this place many times. There is a story in this locality that at two in the night the ghosts of the British Bishops who lived here will visit these bungalows. If they find something wrong here they will bring havoc and our whole tour will be in doldrums. You people should manage it somehow”.

It was fireworks of fun in the adjacent room. We had fallen into a gloom. Seeing us so helpless and shattered Mohan Kurien Sir offered to manage it for us without telling anyone of the ghostly situation. We were frozen. We feigned in vain to be courageous. I told the others that all these are rubbish ...... after all we are Physics people. When Mohan Kurien Sir stepped into the next room we were  terrified as there was only five minutes left for the Bishops to come. I still do not know what Sir told the boys and girls in that room. The show stopped abruptly. Sir came back and told us. Nothing to worry now,go and sleep.
Sleep? I and the two students could not sleep a wink that night. A small tick there or a slowly moving shadow there, we were shivering with fear. We kept reminding ourselves that we are Physics people and should not be scared by such rubbish stuff. Physics of course ... but... in case the Bishops....?
All fear vanished with the first rays of the Sun. All were still asleep and Mohan Kurien Sir was still roaring, read snoring. At about eight Mohan Kurien Sir came out of his room. Seeing the three of us sitting under a tree shattered, he came to us with a broad smile on his face and instead of wishing us a good morning said ....." SorryDa. This is the first time I am staying here. We were very tired and wanted  a good sleep...... that's why I..". Now adding insult to injury he hastened to add ..."But I never thought you all are such cowards".