Can anyone survive so many blunders in one evening?

My unruly tummy turned me into a squeaky good for nothing liability, I had rammed myself against the steering wheel while go karting. One of my colleagues was dragging himself to the hospital. Never ever so much of realization fell on me in a go that I was working in a wrong industry: communication (non personal persuasive communication – advertising and PR). I couldn’t convince a single person that I had done a great damage to myself. The only solace now is one thought: Had I faced so many failures in a normal day of my work life, I won’t have seen the next day. Good excuse. Isn’t it?

Only after six hours of futile attempts, I could reach St. Thomas’ Hospital in the UK. I took a taxi driven by an unconvinced driver that I was making efforts to remain together and intact. I am sure even the nurse who measured my BP wasn’t convinced; another Failure. And the people waiting with me in the A&E, St. Thomas’ Hospital were intermittently looking at me through the corners of their eyes. Their unimpressed or rather unconvinced eyes were going hoarse in saying: these immigrants are always a nuisance; an uncultured and ill-mannered lot. I was howling without giving a thought to the scorn on their faces.

The staff nurse asked me to wait. She could read blood pressure and temperature whereas I could feel the tumult inside. When I realized that the wait is inevitable; out of sheer frustration, I started an onslaught of meaningless questions mixed with shrill groan. Irritating people has always been one of my hobbies. So I was also enjoying all the twitches erupting because of my bawl.

Then after enjoying those twitches for two long hours, I heard my name Rahoooool Bajaaapi (Rahul Bajpai). Without loosing a moment; I was standing and walking without squeak – this was a strange wheel always squeaked when not in motion. My colleague and the staff nurse escorted me to a room. A medical student was gearing up to know what made me see the hospital. But natural inquisitiveness and circumstantial curiosity forced me into asking more questions about her than she asked about me.

The third-year medical student was very tentative and cautious while answering questions related to my medical condition. She gasped for air while answering my questions; I never told her that I began my career as a journalist. So I can ask nth number of meaningless, stupid, open-ended questions. Though I told her that I am an ‘Indian - a good enough synonym for garrulous’. Confusion was smeared all over her face. She must be thinking whether I was really in pain or passing time in the hospital. Then I was taken to a huge man.

This huge man was a doctor whom I wanted to meet every minute in those six hours. He hurled questions towards the taciturn student and garrulous patient. The doctor was grilling his student with some technical questions. And then he started his routine checkup. He got my urine tested. He reached an unbelievable decision: it’s just a spasm nothing serious. I listened this sentence in the form of suggestion, advice, analysis report and finally from a doctor. When I showed concern about my excruciating pain, his exact words were: if you hit steering wheel at that speed and you don’t have that’s abnormal nothing abnormal if you have pain. The only person who got convinced during that evening was a lorry driver from Nigeria who took me to a shop helped me buy some painkillers. Other wise everyone thought it’s just a spasm.