‘Disgusting! Thoroughly disgusting!’, I thought to myself.
It had been over a week that I had started feeling weak. So when my aunt told about a doctor whom I could visit, the only question I asked was, if he was old. With experience and ‘no’ antibiotics in picture, I made my way to the doctor with my parents for company.
As the rickshaw made a good attempt to pull itself through the steep stone filled path, making out heads meet the roof of the rickshaw, I started wondering if at all the visit would be fruitful. Finally after the whole effort of getting out of each ditch in our path, we reached, what the driver told the wall of the doctor’s house. As we turned to look for an entrance, I saw a small gate little high up. I opened this gate to see a beautiful little patch of garden. It seemed quite neat and tidy. And much to my satisfaction, the garden faced an aged house. I stood mesmerized by the whole ambience, as a frail looking old man came out from the house, probably hearing the creak from the gate I opened. He motioned us to the next room.
My already existing dizziness seemed to increase with the whole ‘old and mature’ effect of the surrounding. I have heard them say, ‘First impression is the best impression’. This would probably be one of those impressions which would stay with me. ‘The doctor’s torn shirt’, which made me like him instantly. Truthfully, I know I would never come across a doctor (with a MBBS degree) wearing a shirt with an evident ‘torn’ patch on the right sleeve. I tried to concentrate on his lip movements, but I couldn’t make out a single word that he uttered, until my mother helped me out. I was a little bit taken aback when he held my hands to check my pulse. Not for anything but it had been long, and I might as well say, really really long, since a doctor took the patience to hear my pulse for one whole minute. And as the doctor wrote my name on the prescription sheet, I couldn’t help looking at his hands shiver with weight of his age, which would probably be close to seventy.
I couldn’t hold on my curiosity for long. So I slipped away in-between the conversation, to look around. The garden outside was quite neatly arranged, with same plants planted in rows, so that when the flowers grow, it will be all of one color. As I walked ahead, I couldn’t contain stealing a glance inside the room next to his ‘office’.
What I saw was surely a room, but looked more like a passageway. In that was a couch, where in my imagination sat the doctor reading or simply thinking. Next to it was a sofa, with a small pillow, which I could make out, was used recently. Probably we woke up the doctor from his nap, I thought to myself as I stepped in. As I looked around, making million excuses and reasons in my head for entering his private room, my eyes fell on the wall with old photographs. Before I could make any sense out of my actions, the urge of curiosity pulled me in and I stared at the photographs of what I imagined to be the ‘young doctor’. The passageway like room turned to the left to make another room. And as I peeped inside, I could see a ‘blue’ colored idol of Krishna , with other Gods, on the far away end of the room.
I sighed deep. Everything was neat. Everything was where it should be. The bed spread on the small cot was without any creases. That could be the well known sign of ‘loneliness’, I thought to myself. I turned to leave and outside I saw the rickshaw driver who was waiting for us, giving me ‘you-are-weird’ looks.
Even as I was thinking of writing this on my way back, I knew I would get stuck on a conclusion for this thought.
Do I really need to conclude an old man’s story? Can’t I just leave it to him and the wonders of imagination?
