| Username |
Post |
| ashu |
Posted
on 22-Feb-03 10:49 AM
What follows was an attempt at writing humor, circa 1999.
M. Singh was my co-author.
This was published in The Kathmandu Post.
Enjoy this for what this is worth.
oohi
ashu
ktm,nepal
******************
Diagnosing doctors
-By M Singh & Bhupendra Rawat
Doctors and long-distance bus drivers have something
in common in Nepal. Both are responsible for other
people’s lives. Yet, as our media point out, both
often fail in their duty. Just as our highways are
littered with squashed men, women and children for
whom the light at the end of the tunnel was that of an
oncoming bus they failed to dodge, our hospital cabins
and nursing home-rooms are filled with patients,
knocking on Heaven’s door — overmedicated,
over-ignored and overcharged.
If you want to learn more about long-distance bus
drivers, hitch a ride on the rattling Sajha Bus to
Tulsipur, Dang. If you want to get the inside dope -
no, not THAT dope, silly — on Nepali doctors, read on.
Dr Signboard-only: This Dr Signboard-only is more
interested in keeping his degree-studded,
Shyam-Arts-painted brown signboard outside his clinic
cleaner than your lungs. More a salesman than a
doctor, he knows how to fudge a routine, ordinary and
even necessary two-week-long clinical training in
Calcutta as an impressive-sounding degree on his
beloved brown signboard.
When you visit him, just watch him: He has absolutely
no idea what in Nepal is wrong with you. Yet, in a
serious voice, he intones that you take Cetamol twice
a day, each time with a glass of mineral water. And
ladies, don’t ever let him squeeze your breasts just
because he seems a little too eager to cure your
headache!
How this guy exists as a medical doctor in
Nepal says much about our Nepal Medical Association
and the Nepal Medical Council, and the dirty politics
in which they are enmeshed.
Dr All-in-one: Dr All-in-one acts as though he were
a direct descendant of Mr Hippocrates himself. He
thinks he knows all about medicine and he wants you to
know that he knows all about medicine. Even in casual
conversations, he makes references both to the New
England Journal of Medicine and Kamana patrika. That
is why, the word "referral" is foreign to him. In
fact, he’d rather kill you than send you over to
someone more qualified.
This guy, being Dr All-in-one, practices all kinds of
medicines. On Sundays, he deals with mortals like you
and us. On Mondays, he operates on your newly-rich
neighbour’s Alsatian dog. And he spends the rest of
the week, peddling cod-liver oil from his wife-managed
drugstore. And oh . . . In between, he has plenty of
time, not to mention cash, to rush his relatives to
Delhi or Vellore, even if they have as much as a
sneezing problem.
Dr No ‘Source Force’: Remember that wide-eyed,
bushy-tailed ISc classmate from Bayarban, Morang who
drove you nuts with his "tapai ka tapai" salutation
and oh-so-formal spoken Nepali?
Well, guess what. He wiped his nose clean, worked hard,
studied medicine on a Plan scholarship, and has now become a human
football - kicked around by the Ministry of Health.
Since this doctor, then as now, lacks connections that
matter, bureaucrats keep on transferring him from one
remote zilla to another, ordering him to fill in the
"rural service quota" for yet another slick Kathmandu
medical boy who enjoys the benefits of his Papa’s
right connections.
Yet, our No ‘Source Force’ hero uncomplainingly bears
the burden — like mighty Hercules holding up Atlas,
dreaming of those juicy government scholarships to
Glasgow, London or Dhaka.
But, alas, those opportunitoies never arrive, leaving our
daktar-shaheb to spend his working days in Khalanga,
Jajarkot - playing cards all day with the peons,
stealing chuskis of banned raksi, and being reduced to
massaging the broken jaws of the Maoists.
Dr No Ethics: There exist at least three variants of
this mutant medico species in our beloved Nepal. The
first variant worships money. To that end, he’s always
ready to make arbitrary diagnosis, go for
unjustifiably expensive procedures, and prescribe
back-breaking nostrum which he wants you to buy at the
drugstore of which he is a shareholder, if not the
owner. He pockets commissions from pathology labs and
much else besides.
The second variant, though officially an employee at a
state hospital, will only see you at his private
clinic, where, up on a wall-papered panel, hangs his
license to kill. Always busy, he treats you as though
you were a Hero Honda motorcycle, whirring over to him
for a quick tune-up. "Roll on, roll on", he seems to
say, "and hand over the money to my brother-in-law
outside."
And the third variant practices medicine by becoming
skilled at politics - both local and national. Acting
as advisors to political parties, he, together with
his comrades and jai nepal friends, tears medical
fraternities apart — choosing to operate on all only
with (choose one) Congressi or RPP or Marxist or
Maoist knife.
Ah, such and more are the hidden tales
from our medical land. At least, our long-distance bus
driver hasn’t made us swim out of the Trishuli yet! THE END
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| Padme |
Posted
on 22-Feb-03 11:34 AM
Ashu ji,
Thanks for the nice satire.
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| noname |
Posted
on 05-Mar-03 06:45 AM
Hi ashu,
Though i have very good experiences with Doctors in Nepal, i found your article interesting.
what made me poke my nose here is your alias that you use to post articles in the kathmandu post - one of the leading national daily. i am surprised that instead of using your real name - which sure would give you a national identity, and which counts in day-to-day business - you chose to hide your real identity. though it is not necessary that you respond to this posting, i have few querries:
1. how come a real looking name for alias (as underground communist leaders do like pradip nepal used to write under sanjaya thapa) instead of a short and unique name (as Shree Nispakchhya used by CK PRASAI or Bairagai Kaila for Til Bikram Nemwang) or a short addition (like Govinda bahadur Malla Gothale...)?
2. i found that you are using this name from TND era. does it have some relation to your real life or a bolt from the blue appearance?
3. do others (like Pratyush or someone from the KP) know that this is your alias ?
as i said, it is not necessary that you should respond to these querries! but i am interested to know! more so when you choose your real identity to join sajha!!
thanks in advance!
:P
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| Biswo |
Posted
on 05-Mar-03 04:45 PM
Ashu,
Good one again. But just wondering if I had read this (and another one humour you recently posted in another thread) before here in sajha, probably couple of years ago.
How about replacing Under My Hat with your humour pieces in Nepali Times? Your humour pieces are better than most of the UMH pieces, honestly.
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| M.P. |
Posted
on 05-Mar-03 06:24 PM
I second the motion, if that helps.
I am not sure if it is within Hon. Ashu's reach to replace UMH with his pieces, but I do hope that Hon. Ashu has some "siyo banera pasne, haatti banera niskane" policy so that we will be seeing Hon. Ashu's pieces there soon!
Kunda Dixit's pieces are great, but if there is a slack recently, that is also reasonable. How many things can one can think of every now and then that actually make people laugh? I think it is hard!
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| paramendra |
Posted
on 05-Mar-03 06:37 PM
-- better than the "lover" story posted elsewhere
-- a good piece, entertaining, informative
-- great satire
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| Dilasha |
Posted
on 05-Mar-03 07:23 PM
Ashutosh, I guess i'm a little late but hey congratulations! katti kura matra bhyaune hai? but i guess it's true when they say, "where there's a will, there certainly is a way". tesai bhanchu jack of all trades? :) anyway I also think you should consider having a humor column in any kind of online newspaper. I'm sure there are many people who haven't read your humor series although they're published somewhere else(?) perhaps under "oohi ashu", they should be written :)
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| ashu |
Posted
on 06-Mar-03 07:52 AM
No name,
I have used that name Bhupendra Rawat for about 20 or so satirical/humorous pieces
that I wrote in English and published primarily in The Kathmandu Post.
At the time, I used that name basically to see whether people I know enjoyed reading that kind of humor pieces even when they did NOT know that I wrote them. In other words, I wanted the "humor" to be independently validated/appreciated without
people's knowing that I was behind it.
Plus, for some reason, I wanted to keep my "funny side" (or what's left of it!)
separate from my "serious side", and thus felt that a separate identity would
keep things separate.
Later, I started getting alarmed and amused at the same time WHEN well-meaning
friends started forwarding those very humor pieces to me via emails, thinking that I
too would find them funny. :-) I mean, it was like being told the same joke today that you told others the week before!! How funny can that be?
For instance, in 2000 and 2001, I received multiple copies of one piece that I wrote called "A suitable girl" -- forwarded to me by 7 different people on 7 different occasions!!
It was then that I decided that I should start publishing humor in my own real name.
But sadly, since then, I haven't written a single humor piece . . . though now, I am
fired up to write a few more in coming months.
Thank you for your interest.
**********
Biswo,
Thanks for the compliments.
But honestly, I find it easier to write a piece that argues a point of view than a piece that makes people smile and laugh.
As (was it?) Woody Allen, the Einstein of neurotic humor, put it, "Comedy is a serious business", and it remains so for me.
I know my limits: I don't think I can write a humor piece every week for a publication UNLESS, say, I get into a full-time, decent-paying comedy-writing career . . . and chances of that happening are as high as Babu Ram Bhattarai's giving away
awards to winners at a Miss Nepal Contest :-)
Meantime, I can only sympathize with the kind of intense pressure that Kunda Dixit has to put himself under every week to come up with something new and funny for that column, and I am just happy that I don't have his that job!!
**********
Dilasha and Paramendra,
Thank you for your words.
As I said, encouraged by all your reactions here, I have decided to re-start writing more humor and publishing them on sajha and beyond.
oohi
ashu
ktm,nepal
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| Poonte |
Posted
on 06-Mar-03 10:38 AM
aja balla fursad payera basen...sararararara padhen.
Ramailo lagyo, Ashu...good to hear that you will be writing more humor!
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