The Village Where Everything Happens

Apologies to anyone who might have wondered why I’d gone off the blog for a while; apologies to myself for not talking to myself as much as I like. Reason? I’ve been slogging away in a remote corner in Dharmapuri district, Tamil Nadu.

Here two doctor-friends run a hospital that caters to the medical needs of more than fifty surrounding villages. It is a busy place, the number of outpatients in a day often exceeds 100. Right now I’m the lone doctor here and that means I have to attend to every emergency as well. Sleepless nights I do not like, having done my share of night duties and calls all through my surgical career. I hate being disturbed once I’m home from work. But then, an acute abdomen cannot wait; nor can a very sick infant, a severe chest pain, a snake-bite, a road accident, a woman in labour or a case of poisoning.

I guess it is good once in a while to go back to the basics and that’s what I find myself doing here. I have to be the junior and the senior. I must ask my own questions and chastise my erring self, remember forgotten modes of treatment, and learn from the nurses who have all worked here for ten years or more.

But wait. There’s more. My doctor friends let me and my husband stay in their home while they are away. A terrific place with a wild garden, hundreds of butterflies and bees, lovely fragrances, innummerable insects, two dogs, four cats, frogs, bats (hanging from the roof in the bedroom) and a few other beasts. One day I returned from the hospital (a nice walk of a km and a half) to find Vijay and the maid who comes in to help agitating in the garden. “A cobra!” shouted Vijay who was brandishing a stick at the two dogs that jumped excitedly at the foot of what we in Karnataka call a parijata tree. The dogs managed to scare the cobra down, one of them caught it and ran around with it clamped in his jaws until Vijay brought down the pole on its head and ended the agony.

The very next day we had a scorpion in the kitchen and the following day a palm-sized spider in the living room. Forget the centipedes, there are just too many of them.

A rewarding experience, to say the least. We’ll soon be heading back home. With my new book ready for release in a month’s time, I have other things to think about. But for a long while I will dream of this beautiful place and feel thankful for the experience.