bitter medicine

I had the privilege of experiencing a cold night out in bangalore recently. And to top it off I had such spicy food that caused a running nose and a glass of mausambi juice that effectively sealed my fate. The next day I woke up with a sore throat and a body ache feeling all warm – that I immediately guessed that I had the FCC – fever cough and cold.

Well this is such a common phenomenon and that is why it is has been rightly named the common cold. It is so common that the average person would not know that there is no cure for it – it comes and it goes whenever it pleases (you see I am very well read). So the average person would say – “nonsense, for the fever take crocin and for the cough take a cough syrup – I recommend TusQ… and for the nose I recommend vicks”.

Personally, I prefer phensedyl… it was so sweet and tasty… and it felt good inside you… and it used to take at least 2 bottles for satisfying my thirst… er… cough. No I am not alcoholic… hic… stop getting ideas… hic hic… I get hiccups when I cough hic hic!!! Cough cough !!! see…

But the government saw to it that all good things must come to an end and they promptly stopped selling of liquor through medicine stores… oops… I mean phensedyl was banned from being an OTC drug (mba mba – OTC => over the counter). So it was only TusQ.

It was easy to prescribe medicines for this kind of situation. “Oh, you got fever – where is the crocin left over from the last person’s fever dose…” it was so common that any other form of the antipyretic drug (yeah another well read knowledge) was called crocin… it was much easier to pronounce crocin than say pa-ra-cet-a-mol… sounds like some mountain peak in karnataka… well the point is that crocin has been in the family since time immemorial that nobody knows how it came into being…

However the story of TusQ entering the family was much different. I was coughing my lungs out in a particularly desperate bid to get my mom to buy some alcohol… er… phensedyl when my extremely friendly neighbor dropped in and said “I have TusQ – the most tried and tested cugh syrup ever” with a plastic smile that looked as if she would have landed a part in the commercial, if only the TusQ people were there to witness it. So my mom got the medicine and forced it down my throat… wot a disgusting taste that was… especially for someone who was expecting a better one… yuck !!! it was green coloured too – somehow green always associates a bitter taste with me after that…

After that I have seen many changes in the color – yellow, pink, orange… And everytime I go sniff-sniff-cough-cough on the phone while talking to home, I would get the standard advice – “have some TusQ and pop a crocin and take rest.” And that has been so ingrained that I always had a inventory of the two in my kit.

So, on this particular day when I woke up and found that I could not answer the phone that woke me up, I decided that this time I would go to the doc. Somewhere my well read self had read that OTC drugs should not be taken indsicrminately without medical advice. I marched off to the nearby hospital to meet the general physician. I was not going to take the usual stuff no more. I will not jeopardise my health for a measly 100 rupees on the consultation fee. No way… then what is the use of my education… an mba at that… moreover there were newer and better medicines these days that helped you get well faster…

I wait in the line to get my token. I marvel at the sophistication of the hospital. They have an id card for every new patient and a records file that they will maintain. What customer service yaar… amazing. My number is 24. that meant there were 23 people before me. Ok… so that meant that the doc was good, else why would so many people want to see him?

But he was not in yet. Blame the stupid bangalore traffic. And yeah it was the peak time as well. So what if he is some 10-15mins late. I found a a chair and started looking around and after every full revolution looked at my watch… it was very painful – one thing even the prettiest young things don’t look good sick in a hospital and it takes only about 30seconds for a full round view… it is tough to see the face of the watch twice every minute… especially when you are longing for that warm blanket.

The doc arrives a full hour late and starts seeing his patients by the FIFO rule… I wait patiently (haha good pun isn’t it… so cool of me to think of humor even in the saddest of times). The crowd of patients doesn’t seem to be reducing at all even after a long time. I look at my receipt (yeah they take the consulting fee in advance) – it says 10:32… I look at my watch – 12:45… man this is too much… I have been here more than two hours… how much longer !!! something inside me tells me “another 1 hour…” . I murmur a sarcastic thanks and go back to my seat to my old routine of looking around and looking at the watch.

Finally I hear my name being called. I look triumphant at the little voice that told me 1 hour – it has been only 45 minutes – buhahaha!!! But then there is a guy who is very very sick and needs to the doc immediately… the great kindhearted soul lets him go in. He was out in 10 minutes… and then a desperate mother with her 15year old child barged in to make sure that the medicines she had bought were the same as the ones that the doctor had prescribed. By the time I went in, my inner voice was rolling on the dirty hospital floor laughing… “I told you one hour more”. One thing I hate is a wise-ass-inner-voice…

Anyways, what matters was that I finally met the doc. He asks me a couple of simple questions. Asks me to take a couple of deep breaths and starts scribbling in his notepad. What the hell??? Dude I have fever – take my temperature at least… nope – no sticking of the thermometer into your mouth or anywhere else… and I was out in less than a minute… I felt like I had just been in and out of tirupathi… sans laddu…

But at least I am triumphant – I felt like I had a prescription for ambrosia. Clutching the scribbled paper on which the doc has given me the greatest relief from my fcc, I march towards the medicine shop as fast as my tired body could carry me and put the prescription on the counter.

The chemist brings out the medicines the doctor ordered in his illegible scrawl – Crocin and TusQ.