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.