Adverse situations bring out the best in me. The last time when I was in the hospital seriously ill, I came out with one of my most popular humorous articles: ‘Sleep And I – Lovers Once Strangers Now‘.
Likewise, I had the only surgery of my life performed on 12 May (except for an excision biopsy performed forty-one years ago). It was an open surgery and not a laparoscopic one. I was given a spinal anaesthesia whilst the doc and his assistant operated on my inguinal region.
The docs at the Apollo Hospital had told me it was “a semi-emergency”. However, they had refused to perform it saying that surgeries were not open to ECHS (defence) patients. Hence, I had to fall back on good old friends in the oldest hospital in Mumbai: INHS Asvini. When Kokilaben Hospital was inaugurated by the PM Narendra Modi, they erroneously ascribed to themselves the title of “the oldest hospital in Mumbai”. INHS Asvini is older by more than 150 years.
So, there I was, wheeled into the operation theater and a spinal anaesthesia given to me so that the inguinal region and region below it became numb for pain.
In order to make it easier to pass time I was chatting with the anaesthetist at my head, a Keralite. It was about ninety minutes of surgery and when we came to near the end of the operation, I mentioned to him how beautiful Kerala is.
At this, the treating doctor’s assistant (a Tamil) told me jovially, “Sir, you may like to decide what is more beautiful: Kerala or Tamilnadu before I suture you up.”
My anaesthesia got worn out by that time and I saw the beauty of Tamilnadu in a new light.
The suturing up was completed happily after that! Fresh Local anaesthesia was given but even the anaesthetist agreed with me I had made the right choice!
The doctor’s assistant had given a new meaning to the phrase: ‘Beauty is but skin deep.’ My skin was made intact again and I saw beauty where I had failed to notice it earlier.
