Hyderabad 4

Saturday

There. Now you know what day of the week I'm talking about. It's a really novel method, typing in the date, time and the title of what one is about to write. Wonder why I rarely use this method of writing. Oh, hats right, I never know what I'm writing about, I usually don't know what day of the week it is and c'mon, who cares what time it is?

Today was an interesting day. The end of the day still saw me put zilch into the report basket, but I saw quite a bit. I went to the Osmania hospital, that zenith of Hyderabadi medical achievement. My second look into the hospital did nothing at all to help me get usd to my first look. The same half dried pan-spit on all the walls without exception, that same smell, a combination of human excrement, old linen, mild spirit and traces of blood. As I was walking along, I chanced on a story. Keeps your shirt on, I gave up the info to a fellow reporter. After I had filed half the story. Ah, forget it. Well, its about a farmer who claims he owns land on which the new international airport road in Shamshad Nagar is being built. He drank quite a bit of a chemical that is supposed to make roses look brighter. He was conscious when I came in, but quickly lost it when they started pumping fluids form out of his body. The story here, for me, is that none of the family members were surprised that he actually did it. And, none of them believed he might actually die. So it was like this media stunt they pulled, with tens of policemen standing around them.

Well, after that, I took a more detailed tour of the place. I saw the Acute Surgical Ward, the Emergency Operation Theatres and a few other rooms. All the rooms are the same. Neither the security nor sanitation changes by even a iota from room to room. The most telling part was when I saw footprints and drag prints of blood that had not been wiped in the more than two hours that in was in the hospital. The stains were right outside the heath inspector's room. The room adjoining the emergency operation theatres section is where the patient is first looked at. The rubber sheets on the bed have so much crusted blood and antiseptic ointment that it was dyed another colour by it. I had had enough of that floor.

Then I had an interesting chat with the Resident Medical Officer. He just finished his lunch and was so busy picking his teeth that he gave me his left hand to shake. "We are insignificant saar," he said between yawns. He also magnanimously agreed that the hospital was dirty. Of course, he had his theories to explain the situation – "The hospital is too close to the old city. You know, so many muslims keep coming. We have a floating population of a thousand people everyday. All the muslims have this pan habit. So if we clean it today, within one day it is same. Too difficult to maintain." And so the hospital is spit on, from the inside and out.

The next foray was to the mortuary. Now that is quite an experience. The smell is not what I would call foul. Oppressive or extremely pungent is a better way of describing it. By rule, one can go to the mortuary only with the permission of the HoD, but no one objected when I slipped in to take a look. There is so much fluid on the floor, man. That was the autopsy room. It had three bodies on three metal beds. A huge bundle of soiled cotton and gauze lay in one corner of the room. One body had just been done with and was being wheeled out, to make place for the latest body, one of a drunk with no legs. My eyes turned to the cold storage. There's a gulch that runs along the base of the metal storage cupboards. There was blood and water in this gulch. I cant for the life of me understand why a body that's being cold storaged would leak.


Ah well, after that little adventure, I came back and began working on my descriptive story of Osmania. Couldn't get very far, so I'm back to rambling. Well, I'm back. Boss thought since tomorrow is a holiday, I could sit back and write up that piece for his perusal. I did, and he said we could work on it on Monday. He asked me to be more observant and try to gather more details henceforth. Be a reporter, I believe he meant to say. What doesn't bend at 10 wont bend at 25. the amount of resistance my body is putting up against work and learning a new skill is unbelievable.

I bet I wont be able to learn to ride the bycicle or swim or any of the little skills I picked up as a kid. While it's kind of freaky on one side, it also helps you understand the older generation better. If I were born in the 60s and saw the computer for the first time in my fortieth year, I wouldn't be comfortable using such a complicated gadget.

Merry Christmas. It's the 25th, Jesus was born, Sudhir was born on this day. Had a comfortabletime at Bhargavi's place yesterday. After a good movie, we all went home and had dinner and slept. I showed Zahed some of this stuff. After the friendly lines like 'you should write a book', he came up with this - "I have this unshakable belief that You and Vikram will do extremely well in life". Wow. You knwo Zahed, you can hear, and see what he says. I slept well. I wished Sudhir, had a heavy breakfast in Bhargavi's place, took Zahed's bike and came back to the room. Sudhir sounded happy to hear from me. He was quite excited about the fact that he'd been getting birthday wishes and no sleep all nigh.

Ironically, I have no outside assignments today, when I have a bike I can use. I reworked the traffic story and hope it will be used. I did some work on the cell phone story. Made a gram of progress on the Osmania hospital story. And now we wait for something to happen.

This bit of rambling has been more descriptive of what I've seen, than the usual fare of wat I feel. Strange, I cant recall or recount how I felt when I saw those things ont eh Hospital or on the way I spent Sunday. Wonder why. The regular undercurrent of wanting to do well at work and a bit of anxety about the next day was still there, but little else registered.

-Ananda