By The Riverside

Some pain in the A($$)RM

There’s something good about pain.. like Amitabh Bachan says in one of those ads, ‘Dard main bhi kuch baath hain’, and no, I am not driving at the point that pain is what is felt more profoundly than joy, so don’t go barking up the wrong tree. I am in pain. Oh yes !!I am !!Even as I am typing this, little needles of pain are penetrating through my flesh.. So I halt ..then continue…the pain comes back again, so I decide to type with the right hand alone.. what’s the matter with me ??I had this swelling in the left hand that had to be operated out. It will just take very few days to heal, and to think of the melodrama I threw!!

But ever since we decided to get it done ,life’s been good for me. The day before was spent by my supportive folks giving me pep talks which went something like this.

Mom : Its just a tiny li’l thing ,so there’s not gonna be much pain.. don’t worry..

To that ,I do the ‘I’m a brave gurl’ nod of my head.

Dad : Awwww ,my baby girl….

I want to console him ,but can’t and end up chewing my nails..

Grandma : Tell them, and tell them sternly that you can’t stand any pain. Ask them to give you local anaesthetic lest they forget or something…lacchuuu, its really painful without anaesthetics..

I stagger a bit ,run upstairs , pack my bags and almost abscond.

Brother : Wateva!!

My response : #$#$%

But things go remarkably smooth at the hospital. The surgeon talks on incessantly ..But I know that trick, it’s the oldest trick in the book .If you ever went to a hospital and surrendered yourself willingly to a needle prick ,all the while managing a ‘please don’t kill me, I’m not done living yet’ look, you would know too. Its their own patented style of diverting the coward patient’s attention.

The doc shows me the tiniest needle on earth, just the length of an average nail.
‘These tiny things are specially designed for people as brave as you are.’
Oh yea ,that courage runs in the family.. Once when my father was one of the bystanders while one of his sisters were getting an operation done, he was so courageous that he had to be given a B.P check and was made to lie down, and gave everyone else quite a scare.

On another occasion under a similar situation ,my cousin brother proved his courage. That time, he was asked to give some of his blood for his father’s operation. The brave son promptly obliges, follows the nurse ,and five minutes later we get news that he fainted sighting his own blood, and had to be carried away from the battle-front, I mean the ICU-front!

Courage runs in this family!

I sit there gripping my eyes shut with the right hand and every muscle in my body pulled tense, the left hand stretched out for any hell that was to follow.
So the doc asks me while slitting my skin, ’Are there really benches in companies, where people are seated when they don’t have projects to work on?’
(why don’t you go n look, anyway it’s a bad joke..)

‘No ,I don’t think so’..

And then the doc says ‘tadaaaa, thank you!!’

‘wha??’

‘its done.its over’he says clapping his hands..gawd,that was quick!!

An hour later, I am back home gorging on strawberry ice cream(izz good to forget da pain..mmm..) with dad listening to the gruesome details. He hadn’t come to the hospital saying, ’You and your mom are enough for this, its not anything big so I needn’t come.’

Oh yeaa, I know you are soo brave ,daddy..So we brave gurls, amma and me, went alone.
‘Achaa, the doc was so good that I didn’t know a thing’, I manage to say between mouthfuls as he nods his head looking on lovingly, and helping with the ice cream. Earlier , just as I had walked into the house holding my left arm with my right hand, he had burst upon me ,‘Oh my darling jelly fish daughter, look what they have done to you’.
‘Jelly wha??’ I ask mom, who just walks by smiling..

Since the whole thing had taken just around 2 hours of the morning, amma who lives by the so very boring ‘work is worship’ principle ,rings up office and is told to get to office after feeding me lunch ,by her boss(from hell).Five minutes later, the same boss woman calls back and tells mom that its okay if she can’t come to office ,just in case the 21 year old baby needs intensive maternal care. But I do the brave girl act again (twice the same morn, not any more..),and lets mom go, who returns home just as I wake up after my afternoon nap, and along comes Valyamma (mom’s elder sis..one n only..)with loads more food. I sink into the couch and start on the story –telling again, the doc this, and the needle that ,and the nurse this ,and the syringe that. All refreshments are brought to me at my outpost in front of the telly, where I watch tv some ,narrate my story some ,and eat some, and then eat some more.. Later on, at the noisy and overcrowded sitting room of my cousin’s home next door where the entire joint family(we all live close by)get together for our daily dose of cable tv ,somebody vacates their precious seat for me .Usually we occupy seats on a seniority basis, or at times when push comes to shove ,through fistfights. .In return for the hassle free acquisition of the seat, I entertain them with ‘The story of my hospital visit’ during the commercial breaks.. gory details thrown in for the really small kids.

At home , I have been awarded many a luxuries(for this tiny bandage on my arm) like:-

I am exempted from getting the phone or the door bell.

I am allowed round-the-clock tv viewing.

I don’t have to go to kitchen ,the food finds me..courtesy mommy..

I am not allowed to move even a muscle

Hmmmm… I am loving it!! For me, who stopped being the centre of all attention in this house at the tender age of three ,with the coming of my brother, all the pampering looks fit for a queen. And to throw some statistics, my parents have stroked my forehead more in the last two days than the combined count for all theses years.. that’s something..

But there are downsides too:-

I don’t know when I will be able to ride my two-wheeler again.

Because of that, I can’t go to the library .shit

I can’t go out anywhere on my own, in fact. double shit

And if I can’t go out, I can’t recharge my mobile whose validity expires tomorrow. The dilemma because the other occupants of this house are lobbyists for BSNL headed by mom who is employed with BSNL. So I can’t get help recharging my Airtel SIM. Humph!!But my airtel account will last for another week, hopefully, so no sweat.

So that’s the story of my happy outing with pain!

Pain ain’t all that painful after all huh??.*smiles the serene smile*