A Tale of two compounders

I couldn’t update the blog for a few days for the plain reason that I was tired and bored and listless. It happens once in a while. One cannot communicate intelligently and at those times, one doesn’t want to communicate and be dismissed. So I thought I will give things a break. Jayachandran SMS’ed me as early as 4th August, to ask why I am not to be seen. He also sends some other hilarious SMS’s. Thanks JC for the fun. Deepa has posted a message wondering what’s happening. So I thought I will get back to business.

Now, when we talk of doctors, we have hospitals. These days when we buy property, we take care to see that there are plenty of doctors and clinics and hospitals around. We are worried about getting into serious health problems and not having a specialist around. Wadi had two hospitals, one in the ACC colony, of which, at that time Dr. Surya Rao was the doctor. By then, there was also a lady doctor. The hospital initially functioned from a TRT and eventually, (I think it was in 76 or thereabouts, that a real hospital building was built.) It was a good hospital, very spacious. Space was never a problem in ACC Colony. One encountered congestion only after leaving Wadi. Each ACC employee and each of his family members had a medical record book, with a yellow cover and a few pages. Mine carried the legend Master Ramdas, 48(the hospital record number), male, 10(age). If you fell sick, you first went to the record room of the hospital and got your record book from one Pandu – basically an attender, but doubling as a dresser (one who dressed wounds). You then waited in line till you met the doctor, got your prescription and went to the compounder (meaning pharmacist) and got your medicines, or to the nurse to get your injection, or to Pandu to get wounds dressed. Most illnesses were mild and were cured very soon. Serious cases were rarely seen. One serious case I remember was when my classmate Vidya’s mother Mrs.Narwate, doused herself with kerosene and burnt herself. She battled for life for over five days in the hospital, which was housed in the TRT building at that time and then passed away. That was, if I remember right, when I and Vidya were in class sixth. Vidya’s younger brother Mukesh was one year junior to me. The compounder in the hospital was one Mr. Mathews, who hailed from Valakom, in the Ernakulam district of Kerala, which was very near to my mother’s native place, Moovattupuzha, where I was born. Mathews had a daughter Mini and two sons Vinu and Viju. After names like Santhanam and Jayachandran, such names sounded trivial to me till I reached Kerala in 1980 and learnt that children in Kerala were named very oddly. It is only in Kerala and to some extent in Punjab, that people do not take names very seriously. Hence you have names like Dijo, Shinoy, Joji, Mobi, Tiny, Gibi etc. in Kerala and names like Jolly, Happy, Shunty etc in Punjab.

Another hospital in Wadi was the Railway hospital in the Railway colony. I was not very familiar with this hospital except that the son of the compounder of this hospital, Farook, was my classmate. Farook was extremely mischievous. He led the class in nicknaming teachers and other people. Devassia who built the Saint Ambrose, liked to talk as though he hailed from Texas, but his traditional Kerala Roman Catholic Malayali upbringing seriously interfered with his linguistic ambitions, that he sounded ridiculous when he spoke English. Farook took great pleasure in goading Devassia to talk in English and then imitating him for our entertainment. JC points out that one phrase that Devassia was fond of delivering and Farook immaculately imitated was “ollee choo” meaning “only two”. It was the time when in the bustle of Emergency (1975), the Government of India started of with the “Family Planning Programme”, distributing free, condoms called “Nirodh” to people through Government Hospitals. Farook, by virtue of his being the son of a Government Hospital Pharmacist, had access to large quantities of Nirodh. Not being able, nor inclined to use Nirodh in ways in which it was intended to, we, in the company of Farook, in half baked knowledge of their real purpose, blew them up like balloons and had a lot of fun. Thereby, I can vouch for their quality. Unlike ordinary balloons, Nirodhs, even when blown up to cylinders of over 4 feet in length and one foot in diameter, withstood. More about Farook and others later.