As soon as he saw me, he asked the dreaded question. "Do you remember me?" I responded with the truth "Yes." He did not stop but went on to ask the dreaded followup question. "In that case, tell me my name." Once again, I decided to say the truth "I remember you but not your name." I thought it was a fair response and he seemed satisfied by it too. He said "Aaaaah! That's what I thought." He went on to say his name. I remembered him. His name pops up regularly in the conversations that I have had with my relatives. At those times, I only remembered his name but not his physical self. When I saw him, I was able to identify that I had seen him a number of times. But, my mind simply did not have the connection between his name and him. So, it ended up embarrassing me. I am never good with names anyway. During the last year of my school teaching career, I spent three months in a class without remembering the name of half of the class. That proved to me that names are overrated.
I have the feeling that people only ask the question "Do you remember me?" when they are sure the other person does not remember the 'me'. One has to be a psycho to remember every person that he or she has met during his or her lifetime. Even if I am a psycho, I am certainly not that kind of psycho. I belong to the other end of the spectrum. I am constantly trying to forget the people whom I don't have to remember. The word networking only brings cables and electronic boxes to my mind, not people.
He liked to talk and so continued talking to no one in particular. Fortunately for me, my two aunts liked listening to his story. Frankly, I enjoyed listening to it too but I could have lived without them. He talked about this and that before landing on a story that involved his wife. Men of that age and possibly every age invariably narrated stories that portrayed their wives in a comic strain. I will now try and reproduce the incident as he narrated it.
My wife was sitting with her cousins and discussing family politics. Suddenly, she lost her conciousness and fell off the chair. I ran towards her and tried calling out her name. Obviously, she did not respond to it. Someone opened a bottle of water and sprinkled some water on her face. That proved effective. Slowly, she opened her eyes and looked at us in confusion. She asked the question that a million heroines have asked "Where am I?" One of her worried cousins responded "You are at Devu's house". She said "Oh!" and closed her eyes again. The person who had sprinkled the water earlier, sprinkled water on her face again. She opened her eyes and said "Stop it! I am alright now. As such there is a water shortage, don't waste water." She attempted to sit up but another cousin stopped her by saying "No! Don't! I have called the ambulance. You should go to the hospital." My wife protested. I joined the protest too but everyone present shushed us. One of them even went on to say "Careful! It might be brain hemorrhage. It might get worse if you move. We have to get you to the hospital by the time the golden hour ends." At first, I wanted to laugh and then I started wondering if it could actually be a hemorrhage. Before she could protest, the ambulance arrived and two persons rushed in with a stretcher. They placed it next to my wife, picked her up and placed her on it. All this happened in a short time and before I realized it, I was sitting inside a speeding ambulance besides my wife who was lying on a stretcher. I tried to talk to the attenders in the ambulance but they seemed too occupied to listen to my words.
At the hospital, my wife was taken to the emergency room. The doctor asked "What happened?" I said "My wife fainted."
"Did she fall?"
"Yes. From a chair."
"Did her head hit the ground?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"Did she have lunch?"
"Yes."
"Was there a problem with her speech before she fainted?"
"No. She was talking well with her cousins."
"How was she when she woke up?"
"She was tired."
"Her speech?"
"It was fine. She was about to get up when ..."
"Wait! Let me check her."
The doctor checked her with a few instruments. Soon, he turned to me and said "Looks like her BP went high." She looked at the doctor and me sheepishly and said "I forgot to take the medicine this morning." The doctor looked at her with a grave expression and said "That is not good. You should have your medicines on time. Never forget it." She said "Yes doctor. I alway have it. Only this morning I forgot and then I was standing in the sun at the temple the whole morning. So..." The doctor interrupted her. "You should take care of your health. Health is important." I pitched in by saying "Yes, yes. Health is important." I turned towards the doctor and said "So, can we leave now?" The doctor seemed shocked by my statement. He said "No, no. We have to run some tests. Blood test, MRI and so on. We have to make sure that there are no other issues. At this age, you should be careful. You have to wait."
I realized that the doctor will not let us out for the next few hours. Worse, I will end up losing a few thousands unnecessarily. I took out my mobile and called our doctor who works in the same hospital. As soon as he picked the call, I informed him about everything that happened during the past two hours. The doctor listened to me patiently and said "Oh! That is all is it? She can go home. You can come back tomorrow and meet me. Give the phone to the duty doctor. I will inform." I gave the phone to the duty doctor who looked at me suspiciously. He explained the incidents that happened from the time my wife arrived at the hospital. For a few minutes after that, he only said "Hmmm", "Ah", "Yes" and "No". Finally, he gave me back the phone and said "I will prepare the discharge summary. You can leave after that." I smiled and said "Thank you doctor."
Thanks to our doctor, I saved a lot of time and money.
Everyone listening to the narration laughed and nodded in agreement.
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