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

Whose Rama?

Book Review Title: Whose Rama? [Malayalam] Author: T S Syamkumar Publisher: D C Books, Kerala Pages: 352 Rama may be an incarnation of God Vishnu, but is he as noble a man [ Maryada Purushottam ] as he is projected to be by certain sections of Hindus? This is the theme of Dr Syamkumar’s book, written in Malayalam. There is no English translation available yet. Rama is a creation of the Brahmins, asserts the author of this book. The Ramayana upholds the unjust caste system created by Brahmins for their own wellbeing. Everyone else exists for the sake of the Brahmin wellbeing. If the Kshatriyas are given the role of rulers, it is only because the Brahmins need such men to fight and die for them. Valmiki’s Rama too upheld that unjust system merely because that was his Kshatriya-dharma, allotted by the Brahmins. One of the many evils that Valmiki’s Rama perpetrates heartlessly is the killing of Shambuka, a boy who belonged to a low caste but chose to become an ascetic. The...

Maveli in the Pothole Republic

Illustration by Copilot Designer I was trying to navigate the moonscape they call a ‘national highway’ when my shoe vanished into a crater big enough to host the G20 summit. Out of it rose a tall figure, crowned and regal, though with a slight limp. “Maveli!” I exclaimed. “Yes,” he said grimly. “Your roads are terrible. I thought the netherworld was bad, but this—this is hell on asphalt.” I helped him up. “Don’t worry, Maveli, our leaders say we’re heading toward becoming a global economic superpower. See, even Donald Trump is impotent before our might.” Maveli frowned. “Yes, yes. I saw your leader guffawing in the company of Putin and Xi Jinping. When he’s in the company of world leaders, he behaves like a little boy who’s got his coveted toy.” “Are you a little jealous of him, Maveli?” I asked. “I have reasons to be, but I’m not. Let him enjoy his limelight. A day will come when history will put its merciless foot on his head and send him to his own Patala.” Tha...

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...

The Real Enemies of India

People in general are inclined to pass the blame on to others whatever the fault. For example, we Indians love to blame the British for their alleged ‘divide-and-rule’ policy. Did the British really divide India into Hindus and Muslims or did the Indians do it themselves? Was there any unified entity called India in the first place before the British unified it? Having raised those questions, I’m going to commit a further sacrilege of quoting a British journalist-cum-historian. In his magnum opus, India: a History , John Keay says that the “stock accusations of a wider Machiavellian intent to ‘divide and rule’ and to ‘stir up Hindu-Muslim animosity’” levelled against the British Raj made little sense when the freedom struggle was going on in India because there really was no unified India until the British unified it politically. Communal divisions existed in India despite the political unification. In fact, they existed even before the Briti...

Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Search This Blog