Sunday, January 25, 2015

You, me and dengue

English: Nana Patekar at rehearsal of 'Namo Gu...
English: Nana Patekar at rehearsal of 'Namo Gurjari Namostute' (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Laid low. By a mosquito. Of a vicious variety. A daytime stinger, a clean water breeder. Not much possible in way of protection. It was destiny. A bone wracking, delirious, feverish destiny where Nana Patekar's apparition often showed up repeating his legendary dialogue on the aforementioned insect.
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As for the disease itself, no known medicines. Only that ancient hope driven prescription. Rest. With the dengue virus feasting on your pani-puri platelets, it's up to your body to beat out the invader. Good luck with that.
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A party person I am not. But New Year's Eve in a hospital wasn't the alternative on my mind either. More preferable would have been in the company of a good book. Even better, deep in slumber on my very own bed.
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But it was not to be. In general, recent New Year's Eves have been less than happy times for me.
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2015 was rung in with half a bottle of saline strapped to my wrist for company. 2014 was rung in watching Dhoom 3 in a musty old multiplex. I must say this though. This year's experience was much less traumatic than the last.
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The hospital stay did provide enough scope for reflection. On past promises and future hopes and present restrictions. Only when confined to a bed and feeling reasonably recovered, do seconds convey their weight, minutes seem capable of filling ship-holds and hours... hours hold the promise of glories unachieved.
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Then, you are discharged. Time squeezes back into its real world stinginess. Days made of 24 previously infinite hours go by in the flash of an eye. Work that pays the bills can only be put off when basic health is at stake. Getting back on your feet, big relief that it is, translates into getting back into the cubicle.
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I trust that for the bulk of you have had a dengue free New Year's Eve mildly better than mine. To tell you the truth, it wasn't all bad. In a first, I had been imparted Undertaker like capabilities to rise up from the dead, sit up with the magic power of a remote control enabled bed.
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Even if you haven't, keep your peace. 
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What is the 1st of January anyway? A Roman emperor of antiquity declaring one month to be before the rest? Not the start of a season, not the start of a celestial cycle, no basis for the undue attention it gets. 
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Remember that in all the dates and years that your history books forced you to mug up, nothing of significance seemed to have started on January 1. That would just make it too easy to remember.
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