A day in the life of LIFE

Last week, I embarked on the “Amazing Race”, traveling across the congested bylanes of Bengalooru (yes, we’ve re-christened ourselves, as part of increasing the rest of the world’s competency in pronouncing tongue twisters, and after you are done with Bengalooru, you can try Hubballi, Mangalooru, Vijaapura etc…), and battling against all odds to reach Indiranagar, which is diagonally opposite to the part of town where I stay. The journey equalled the duration that suffices to reach the royal city of Mysooru.

All this, because my new employer wanted “saboot” that I was medically competent to deliver benchmarked performance in my role. I arrived at my destination, half blackened by the soot and carbon that fed my otherwise healthy cells with their dose of equivalent nicotine fix. I am almost sure that if and when a carbon dating analysis is done on my body to check for the civilization that I belonged to, my cells are sure to throw up data pretty much off the mark, coz, the carbon content in me would be equal to that of those in the tyrannosaurus rex that once ruled the earth.

Nonetheless, I entered the diagonostic lab, only to find “would be” colleagues also present there for a similar ordeal. The nonchalant ward boy looked up to me and said: “X ray?”. I looked at him, puzzled. Now, how am I supposed to know that owing to the level of fraudulent practices, people are now using the photographs of the spine and femur as unique identifiers, instead of photo ID cards?.

I opened my wallet and showed him my driving license. He retorted, “ Saar, X Ray, X Ray!”. As I looked confused, another colleague of his came up and directed me to go to the X Ray room located in the basement of the building. The stairs that led the pathway to the dingy room were as fragile as Shankar Dayal Sharma’s knees and I was worried that the stairs might collapse under my weight.

The X Ray guy asked me to get half monty and motioned me to pump up my biceps at the count of three as he prepared to fire the trigger. It was almost as if I was modeling for a Pirelli calendar, all set to become the next pin up poster of Bollywood (coz Italian cinema is yet to open its doors to Indian actors) .

Well, that was the end of round one. In Round two, I was ushered into a private room which was apparently the ECG hall. Sister Stella (well I guess that was her name since she was not wearing a name plate), exclaimed “Wellgum Wellgum. In cayse you hyave yenny myettal aabjects von yo, blease geep theym ivadey(here) on the coat(cot)”. I followed her instructions and she asked me to lie down on the adjacent cot.

She proceeded with fastening me with objects that best resembled the vacuum stickers that are stuck on the doors of refrigerators. She applied some solution which was pretty ticklish, and followed up by asking me to pull up my tee shirt, and then she chuckled “ Monney, pvull up the banniyan volso, ECG alle?”

I almost fell asleep, for it had been long since I had been pampered, and nothing better than an ECG room to soothe your nerves and help you relax. The serenity was broken when someone who I assume was the chief matron barged in and said, “ Sister, please be quick! We have a lot of patients waiting”. I thanked the nerse with "Onashamshagal" which was a week away, and walked out of the room.

The ECG was followed by a blood sample collection. In fact the nerse struggled to draw out blood from my fore arm despite securing the pressure pads around my upper arm and she exclaimed, “blooddey illey, monney”. This time I grinned, considering the fact that my new employer would not be able to suck my blood since I didn’t have any (the literal translation for “khoon choos na”)

The urine sample collection and routine color blindness test followed suit and the doc, after some elementary questions asked me to get along.

Thus, ended the half day ordeal, post which I walked out disoriented (they drew out almost a bottle of scant blood, you see), tired and hungry, and mused on an internet joke I had received earlier during the day.

“The employer conducts a medical examination and secures health insurance for the prospective employee as a moral obligation for all the diseases and stress he picks up as an occupational hazard”.

What joy! I say myself, even as I have begun lugging a 3 kg laptop that has already given me a sore right shoulder in 3 days……-:)