Pregnant pauses: Conversations in a doctor’s waiting room

Few things terrify me as much or make me as self-conscious as walking into my doctor’s waiting room .

No, no, it’s not because of my doctor, who is an absolute darling. Dr. V is my GP and I am half in love with him. He’s punctual. He’s thorough. He listens to what I have to say, does not medicate unless absolutely essential. And whenever I’m not well, he calls me up to check on how I’m doing. And never once, in the 15 years that I have known him, has he given me an injection So if my doctor is such a nice guy, why am I so scared of walking into his waiting room? Read on…

One of the places that Dr. V consults from is a clinic near my house. It is not a particularly well-managed clinic, but since the timings and location are convenient for me this is where I go. Dr. V’s consulting hours at this clinic overlaps with that of Dr. K, a hugely popular consulting gynaecologist and a fertility expert. To give you an estimate of her popularity, let us assume that for every patient of Dr.V, there are 30 for Dr. K ! While the former’s patients are mostly elderly men and women, the latter’s patients are women in various stages of pregnancy.

Source: Microsoft Clipart

Now imagine walking into a room full of pregnant women and their accompanying family member/friend and feeling every eye on you. I don’t know about you, but I feel very self-conscious. I didn’t always feel like this, but my visits to the clinic and interactions I have had at the waiting room over the years, has made me so.

These have been interactions based on certain assumptions on the other person’s part. And assumptions made automatically, and perhaps even unconsciously, because I am a woman in the reproductive age range, and who is visiting a clinic where a gynaecologist is consulting. Assumptions made by society at large and just played out at the clinic in a tragi-comic way.

Navigating those assumptions, which starts right at the reception desk itself, has been quite a task as I have found out.

Roses and dancing girls

Have you ever seen a painting, a picture, a poster, a photograph… or any work of art and instantly felt a connection to it? Not the janam janam ka rishta type, but a connection where that piece of art is communicating with you? Talking only to you? And everything around just fades into the background and it’s just you and that work of art. This happens to me sometimes and it’s quite inexplicable, really, as to why I feel a connection that particular piece of art only !

This post is about one such connection. A connection forged while viewing it on a computer screen. It happened something like this…

It was a dull day at work. One of those days when everything moved sluggishly — papers,  people, the internet connection, thoughts …. The humid weather didn’t help and by the time tea break came around I was ready to go to sleep. Of course, I couldn’t being at work and all that. So I did the next best thing — armed with nice cup of Assam tea, some biscuits, and piano music in the background, I decided to do some blog surfing. And, serendipitiously, stumbled across this painting by Monishikha:

“Roses” by Monishika Roy-Choudhury. Watercolour on art paper

Blogger vs. Blogger

This is a true story.

Once upon a time there were two bloggers — Nilam and Sandy. Of course, these two were not the only bloggers in the world; just the protagonists of this story. Though Nilam and Sandy wrote about very different topics, they had the greatest regard for each others’ writing styles. They would visit and comment on each other’s blogs, and over time became good blog friends.

One day, Nilam asked Sandy to write a guest post. Sandy readily obliged and submitted a post to Nilam, who edited it before publishing it. The guest post was well received, which made both Nilam and Sandy very happy.

A year went by. It was a year which saw both blogs registering a substantial increase in appreciation from their readers. It was also a year where both Nilam and Sandy continued writing regularly as well as, reading and commenting on each others’ blog posts. Life went on.

Last month something happened to change all this.

I am a survivor !

My house looks unnaturally clean and dust free. Well, as clean and dust free as a ground floor flat in Mumbai can possibly look like. The bright and newly painted walls enhance the clean and airy look of the house, as does the freshly polished, gleaming furniture. As I survey the house, I can’t believe how calm and quiet it is. This calm and quiet is not indicative of a storm to come, but of a storm that has passed. A storm called “repair and paint the house” ! And a storm that I have just about survived.

It all began with the realisation that I had ignored my house for 5 years. Mumbai’s humidity and monsoon had taken its toll and something needed to be done. That something included some minor repairs, electrical work, polishing the furniture and, of course, painting. So the contractor was contacted, an estimate of the cost involved (gulp !) taken from him, the final cost haggled over and agreed upon, a work schedule drawn out… and we were good to go. Or so I thought.

Work began on October 1st and from then onwards it was a roller coaster ride of small and big hurdles that would that would test my patience, and sometimes my sanity too. At the end of each day, I would breathe a sigh of relief and say “Ok, I’ve survived, and tomorrow is another day.” Each day brought up something new—some funny, and some not so funny. So, while I am certainly not going to recount every little thing that sent my blood pressure soaring, let me share with you some of the more memorable ones, and the ones that make me say, “I am a survivor”.

The dessert box surprise

I love desserts. I love looking at them, love the way they are made, love their vibrant colours, their varying textures, their enticing aromas, their eye-catching decorations… I love everything about them, except eating them.

You see, desserts and I have a rather difficult relationship. I’m allergic to chocolates and artificial food colouring. Sugar doesn’t give me a high; it gives me acidity. As for nuts and other things that make their way into desserts, let’s not even talk about them, shall we? To put it plainly, I need to keep an anti-allergen or an antacid (and sometimes both) handy, if I plan on eating desserts.

Since, I hate taking medicines more than I love eating desserts, there has to be a very compelling reason for me to have both — the dessert and the anti-allergen /antacid, that is. And last month I was presented with one such compelling and intriguing reason — the Brown Paper Bag Dessert Box, which I first read about here.

The Brown Paper Bag (BPB) Dessert Box is a ‘surprise’ box that contains six different desserts, hand-delivered to you on a designated day of the month, usually in the last week. The surprise is in the contents of the dessert box — one doesn’t know what desserts it contains till it is opened. Each dessert box is priced at Rs.750/- and one has to sign up for a minimum of 3 months.

Now, I love surprises as much as the next person, especially one as intriguing as this. And when I shared this with Neena and AS, my colleagues, they were equally intrigued. We decided to share the cost of signing up for the minimum 3 month-period and for the dessert boxes to be delivered at work. Once the payment was made, all we had to do was to wait for the first box to be delivered. And on 24th September, I got a mail saying that the dessert box would be delivered on the 28th !

One evening @ the service centre

One doesn’t always have to go seeking entertainment, you know. Sometimes, entertainment comes to you or it just happens around you.

This story begins on the day my loyal cell phone of 5 years finally decided to give up on me.

I was quite heart-broken for we had been through a lot, my cell phone and me. I had clung on to it in spite of its many eccentricities, but that day it just stopped working. And I knew that it could not be repaired.

So off I went and got myself a new one, and that too a smartphone. This also meant that I could not use my old SIM card and would have to visit the nearest outlet of my cell phone service provider to get a micro SIM card.

So there I was waiting for my turn to be served and trying to read. But the snatches of conversations that I overheard was too interesting and after about 10 minutes, I switched off my Kindle and listened unabashedly to the exchanges happening around me.

Like this one.