Hospital

Fiction

Mr and Mrs Fernandez wanted a holiday. The school where they were working was being bulldozed. That was the reason. But they couldn’t write that as the reason in the leave application.

Bulldozing schools had become the fashion in the city. Land mafia had become the fashion designer under the new government.

“Medical,” wrote Mr Fernandez.

“The hell awaits those who tell lies,” warned Mrs Fernandez who was a regular Sunday Christian.

“The hell is already here,” Mr Fernandez dismissed her fear with the hubris that comes to him as naturally as the rain from a clear sky in the days of the Antichrist.

Mr Fernandez regarded himself as practical as the bulldozer that was breaking down enormous buildings into smithereens in seconds. So Mrs Fernandez found herself standing before the best eye specialist in moments after the alleged holiday journey.

“You’re not seeing things clearly,” declared Mr Fernandez. “So walk in, the automatic door will open for you, and get your eyes checked while I park the car.”

Mrs Fernandez was amused by the automatic door and forgot the holiday.

“Your BP is high,” said the nurse who performed the preliminary diagnostic test.

“Bulldozer,” babbled Mrs Fernandez.

“A bulldozer keeps invading her dreams,” explained Mr Fernandez who had just reached after parking his car which he had bought a day ago in order to keep up with the Joneses while his and his wife’s jobs were being bulldozed right in front of their eyes.

“A bulldozer is shattering our dreams,” explained Mrs Fernandez to the nurse who was not at all amused by the appearance of Mr Fernandez like a bolt from the blue.

“Who can destroy anyone’s dreams?” wondered the nurse after listening to Mrs Fernandez in detail. About the latest fashion in the city. “Even a farmer can make statement at Jantar Mantar,” asserted the nurse.

The farmer was buried while Mr Fernandez waited for Mrs Fernandez to open her eyes after the dilation treatment.

“You have absolutely no problem as far as vision is concerned,” said the doc going through pages and pages of test results. “But buy the medicine for BP.”

TheGarden of Five Senses was on the way back and Mr Fernandez thought three times before taking the diversion. "Miser," mumbled Mrs Fernandez to herself.

“You sit here and enjoy your vision,” said Mr Fernandez after dropping Mrs Fernandez at the Garden of Five Senses.

He’s going to enhance his vision with Teacher’s whisky, mumbled Mrs Fernandez to herself. And her BP rose. She could feel her heart palpitating.

Comments

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below. Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...

Ram, Anandhi, and Co

Book Review Title: Ram C/o Anandhi Author: Akhil P Dharmajan Translator: Haritha C K Publisher: HarperCollins India, 2025 Pages: 303 T he author tells us in his prefatory note that “this (is) a cinematic novel.” Don’t read it as literary work but imagine it as a movie. That is exactly how this novel feels like: an action-packed thriller. The story revolves around Ram, a young man who lands in Chennai for joining a diploma course in film making, and Anandhi, receptionist of Ram’s college. Then there are their friends: Vetri and his half-sister Reshma, and Malli who is a transgender. An old woman, who is called Paatti (grandmother) by everyone and is the owner of the house where three of the characters live, has an enviably thrilling role in the plot. In one of the first chapters, Ram and Anandhi lock horns over a trifle. That leads to some farcical action which agitates Paatti’s bees which in turn fly around stinging everyone. Malli, the aruvani (transgender), s...

The Blind Lady’s Descendants

Book Review Title: The Blind Lady’s Descendants Author: Anees Salim Publisher: Penguin India 2015 Pages: 301 Price: Rs 399 A metaphorical blindness is part of most people’s lives. We fail to see many things and hence live partial lives. We make our lives as well as those of others miserable with our blindness. Anees Salim’s novel which won the Raymond & Crossword award for fiction in 2014 explores the role played by blindness in the lives of a few individuals most of whom belong to the family of Hamsa and Asma. The couple are not on talking terms for “eighteen years,” according to the mother. When Amar, the youngest son and narrator of the novel, points out that he is only sixteen, Asma reduces it to fifteen and then to ten years when Amar refers to the child that was born a few years after him though it did not survive. Dark humour spills out of every page of the book. For example: How reckless Akmal was! ...

A Curious Case of Food

From CNN whose headline is: Holy cow! India is the world's largest beef exporter The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon is perhaps the only novel I’ve read in which food plays a significant, though not central, role, particularly in deepening the reader’s understanding of Christopher Boone’s character. Christopher, the protagonist, is a 15-year-old autistic boy. [For my earlier posts on the novel, click here .] First of all, food is a symbol of order and control in the novel. Christopher’s relationship with food is governed by strict rules and routines. He likes certain foods and detests a few others. “I do not like yellow things or brown things and I do not eat yellow or brown things,” he tells us innocently. He has made up some of these likes and dislikes in order to bring some sort of order and predictability in a world that is very confusing for him. The boy’s food preferences are tied to his emotional state. If he is served a breakfast o...

Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Search This Blog