Blog 105: A tryst with measles

The following is an article i wrote for The Scholar's Avenue...here's the unabridged version of it ...:)

Nothing measly about it…

A day in February never came so sweet, to show how costly summer was at hand…
With all due apologies to Shakespeare, this statement couldn’t have been more true for Kgp!!
Remember the first week of Feb, when winter gave way to summer in the space of 24 hours…unwittingly, it also gave way to a mini- epidemic out here.
Presenting, ladies and gentlemen, the 5 day and 4-night fully sponsored vacation at B.C Roy, with multi-colored food, even more variegated capsules and hordes of mosquitoes for company…(a roll of drums)…measles!!!

Allow me to take you on a guided tour of this package. My qualifications: I’ve had the distinct displeasure of having experienced it first hand...

Day 1: the day you reluctantly and misgivingly pack your bags and head to B.C Roy. Weak that you anyways are, your heart starts skipping beats when you wait outside the doc’s chamber while he sits inside and chats with a fellow about some software while the train of patients patiently makes its way in and out. When you turn finally comes, you are sentenced to home arrest until deemed fit for society again!!

Here’s the happy part (you heard that right…there’s a happy part too!!). The thing about measles out here is that it has struck hall by hall. First SN, then Patel, then RK and then I lost track… so when you go into your ward (or whatever it is); you are greeted with cheers from your hall mates…a kind of “welcome to the league of extraordinary gentlemen”!!
Surprisingly, the beds are comfy, and, more surprisingly, its OP time again!! Horror stories about everything from bathroom to breakfast will happily be fed into you before the first 15 minutes are out.

So far so good?? You’d wish it was also ‘thus far and no further’!! Time now to introduce you to the culinary delights (ahem) that this package offers!
All food that’s served at B.C.Roy is prepared at the tech guest house. While one appreciates the idea of focusing on core competencies blah blah…one also wishes someone…anyone…had considered the considerable loss of body temperature of the food during the period it covers the light years between tech guest house and B.C.Roy. Anyways, food arrives in copious volume and while most people duly set the plate aside after having the bare minimum possible, some do exist who nonchalantly finish off the whole buffet themselves!! Did anyone mention Joey?? ;)

When in doubt…sleep!! When in measles…u cracked it...sleep again!!
And moreover, such a heavy lunch leaves few options in any case. Ergo, you busy yourself from lunch to snacks by blissfully falling asleep. Snacks comprise a full glass of hot milk (no idea how it manages to stay hot) and four Britannia thin arrowroot biscuits. Ting ting ti ding!!

Bhaat sessions follow with the topic ranging from the kind of biscuits a certain resident of Zakir Hussain Hall uses, to the reason the beds are so springy!! Sleeping, playing Snake on Nokia, sleeping, discussing the relevance of quantum computational bioinformatics to Indo-Pak relations and sleeping are some of the other ways of passing time usually employed.

And now, the sentimental aspect of this excursion…nothing in B.C.Roy gives a fellow more happiness than to have his/her friends come visit him/her. It makes you realize that there are people who care about you and that in itself is quite salubrious.
Another visit that you have to look out for is that of the doctor in-charge. Twice a day, the doc comes, checks you out (!!) and makes a log of your condition. Thrice a day, the nurse comes and gives you two, three, four or five tablets depending on the position of the sun, moon, stars and the solitary car parked outside (that’s what we reckoned anyway).

Dinner is as spectacular and enticing as lunch and hence, is regarded with an equal dose of fanfare!! Mosquito nets are put up by 9 pm and most people usually go to sleep by 10pm. Some are helpless miserable insomniacs and like to stay up late and, therefore, go to sleep by 10.05pm;)

Oh! I almost forgot the ‘ek ke saath ek free’ offer that’s there especially for this year!! CHICKEN POX!! Here’s the deal…patients of measles are kept in the ward right next to the one for chicken pox. The bathrooms in the wing are free-for-all, and the only balcony, where one can take a look at the world outside, is forever occupied by pox patients. If the proximity to their ward doesn’t help you, use of these public utilities would surely assist you in graduating from measles to chicken pox!!

Day 2, 3 and 4: Someone somewhere conjured up a royally impressive timetable for B.C.Roy patients and staff alike. How else do you qualify the fact that every morning, at sharp 5.30 am, someone comes and takes away the mosquito nets, thereby not only disturbing the sleep of poor sick souls…but also exposing them to malaria. 5 minutes later, a nurse walks in, hands out some tablets to gulp down and then throws some directives to the walls (or the mosquitoes…you’ll never find out which). If you ever thought that story about a sardar doc telling the patient to have the pills after going to sleep and before waking up was a joke, think again!!

Anyways, life continues in this rocking fashion with cool stuff, like food, and hot stuff, like milk, until you find that amongst the most interesting things to do is to lie on your bed and dedicatedly track the trajectory of an insect flying overhead.
Everyday, some excited soul anticipates that the doc will grant him parole on his sentence and starts jumping around while the rest of us meditate on why all our watches seem reluctant to work at normal speed.
One of the few exciting times in the ward is when the staffer comes with a clean bed sheet and pillow case…the forerunner of a new patient!! Speculations start and bets are made on which hall and which wing the guy will be from!! And since invariably the guy is from the same hall as most of the current inhabitants of the ward, a welcoming ceremony, along the lines of that mentioned above, starts afresh.
Adventure too isn’t short in supply, with conspiracies and action plans connived every now and then on ways of escaping from B.C.Roy.

Day 5: D’ day has arrived and you can barely wait to get out of the hospital and back to your comp. You fervently pray that the doc doesn’t mistake the mosquito bites for rashes and pack your things, ready to bolt.

The doc arrives and signs the declaration of freedom and you happily mount a rickshaw and head back to your hall while all those walking on the opposite side of the road regard your disheveled clothes, unkempt hair and wide grin suspiciously and conclude that this fellow needs to visit a hospital sometime soon!!