It was an unusually bright sunny day in Athens, Ohio when I was sitting outside the laundry, waiting for my clothes to dry. I haven’t had enough sleep the previous night and the sun-rays, after the long period of continuous snowing, were rather intoxicating. I had assignments to finish. One of them was this very assignment; to write the field notes of a situational observation. And outside this huge laundry, where students came with bucket full clothes, I noticed a strange pattern; that all buckets were blue and that all of them were painfully heavy and that the carriers of the buckets, mostly the students, had to stretch their body really hard to be able to make it to the washing machines. They all struggled against the gravity and the weight of the bucket. Another strange pattern that was quite apparent was the presence of at least one book on the top of the dirty clothes, which did not look as dirty to me as the bucket itself, with brown and green mud-like marks on almost all buckets I noticed. Another observation that I invariably noticed was that the book was never read! People came with the book and the clothes, put the clothes in the machine and started talking on the their multi-colored, jazzy looking cell phones, while the book they brought along, peacefully lying on their laps or in their now empty bucket. I just wondered why add the weight of the book which is never to be read and pain the body?
Anyway, in the midst of this “patternful” laundry, I started writing my assignment from the notes I took while observing a meeting of undergraduate students with a local NGO representative, a few hours ago. Suddenly, I felt a stroke of pain in my left molar-tooth. I recalled that the pain had been there for quite some time and that I had been ignoring it. But this time it was not only sudden, it was sharp. So I decided to see a doctor. On my way, up the hill to the heath center, I decided to observe the heath center and write about it instead of the undergraduate meeting. So as a patient at the health center, I converted myself into an observer as well. As a patient, I think during my observation, I was also a participant in some ways.
So I reached the heath centre and pulled the door open. The door was rustic and made a big sound, which was equally rustic. The board hanging cautioned “No pets please”, which was reassuring that I am not in veterinary clinic! Within a span of 3 seconds, there was another rustic door which made another rustic sound. It seemed to me that these doors are some kind of a declaration of the clinic-staff for the arrival of the patients saying “You are here again, damn it?”. And on my way back, the door seemed to be saying, “Don’t you dare show up again, you sick people!!”.With those loud noises and my perceived meaning of them, I entered.
As I entered, I noticed a huge array of people, again, like in the laundry, mostly students. And yet again, like the clothes never looked dirty, none of these, supposedly patients, did not look sick at all. They were all reading business and entertainment magazines which were very decoratively kept on the shelves. Some of them were talking on phones and yet another set of people were only staring at the first two set of people I mentioned! Later I realized it is this last category of people which actually look ill at least in some ways; they looked lazy, tired, their eyes were drowsy and so on. But let me not run ahead of my discoveries. I entered the gate and went to the reception only to find a male receptionist. After many years of going to places with a Reception, this was clearly a break. I hadn’t seen a male receptionist in many years. And in this case, a white male receptionist was really exotic and rare. But these things do not matter if you have a terrible toothache. And therefore I immediately came out of my observer’s mode, and became a patient. I went to the reception and shared my shooting pain with the receptionist thinking he would stand up and rush me to the doctor. But he looked at me and in a matter- of- factly, routine manner asked, “ Are you a student?” and before I could answer ,he directed me to the computers, installed behind me which was his front asking me to fill-in the details. His 100% flat face which did not react at all to my shooting pain convinced me why we have more women receptionists across the globe than men; for a simple reason; they react at least to a shooting toothache!
With one hand on my left cheek, I turned and went to the computer to fill-in the details. I was happy to find “toothache” as one of the “reason to visit” option. It was soothing. After I filled in the details, I tried to go back to the receptionist but he as I took the first step towards him, he popped up and said, “ Sit there!” directing me to a bunch of chairs, which were already occupied by people I described above.
I went away from him and stood against one of the corners of the hall. I waited for another 5 minutes during which I heard the receptionist yelling people’s name and also the nurses in blue trousers and blue jacket coming in from the other direction and also yelling names. “Blue is certainly the color of the day”, I thought while being in a toothache- blues. Almost after 15 minutes, I heard one name being repeated yelled by the receptionist and no one was showing up. The name was yelled at least 5 times, piercing the silence of the pin-drop silent hall. The hall was really silent. The only sound that registered in my mind, besides this yelling, was the sound of the pain pounding my tooth!
After repeatedly yelling the same name several times, the receptionist picked up another name and then another. “Ricky!”, “Michael!”, “Sophia!”, “Martin!” and so on. My pain was now at its peak and reluctantly, I went to the reception to try my fate one more time. “I will go home and gargle with lukewarm water with salt in it, if he doesn’t take me to the doctor this time”, I told myself while heading the cream-colored desk where he sat. As I went to him and tried to convince him of my emergency-like situation if not fully 9/11- types- emergency, he punched in few details on his computer and almost ferociously looked at me to say, “Where were you?”. I said I was here. He irritatedly said he called my name several times, to which I enquired, “Which name?” ,to which he responded, with full confidence, “ Your name, Saied!” , pronouncing the name with a heavy American accent with all the force on the last “ed”. That was a mispronunciation. And that wasn’t the name my parent gave me 26 years ago. So it wasn’t wrong on my part not to respond to anything that was not pronounced Syed, my first name that he chose to pick or at least something close to it like Saeed, Said and so on. But with the pain already bothering me, I simply apologized and requested to send me to the doctor now. I also urged him to call me with my last name which was much easier to pronounce and I think it cannot be mispronounced, no matter how lyrical one tries to be with it.
To my surprise, I was told to wait. Again. And I did, against the same corner of the wall. But this time in almost 4 minutes, a woman with a stethoscope around her long neck and blue jacket came and yelled my name; correctly enough probably because she used my last name. I immediately stood up and went with her. She smiled and I tried to smile back but couldn’t. The pain blocked the smile completely. She took me to a room with a computer, three chairs and a table with lots chocolate cookies on it. Asking me to sit and she went out. I was alone with those cookies. I picked one to eat but realized I shouldn’t, given my toothache. So I grabbed some 10 of those cookies and stocked the inner pocked of my blue (yet again!!) coat. This, I did as a kind of a small revenge on the clinic that hasn’t treated me at all in the last 55 minutes now!! But in a few minutes, fortunately, the woman, who I thought was doctor because of her possession of a stethoscope, which, in my country, only doctors carry, returned, with another elderly woman. As I discovered they were both nurses. And one, who brought me to this room, was a trainee nurse. Now we all three sat there. The elderly nurse asked the trainee, loud enough and I could hear, to ask me, “What’s your student –ID?”
I waited for the trainee to ask me so that I could answer. She did ask and I did answer. And she punched that in to the computer. Then the elderly woman asked the trainee to ask me, “How are you doing today?”I again heard it but again waited for the trainee to ask. And when she did ask, I answered by lying and saying that I was “fine”. And yet gain the elderly woman asked the trainee to ask me, “What’s the problem that I have?”.This time I did not wait and looking straight into the eyes of the elderly woman I said, “I have terrible toothache and would really appreciate if you can do something about it!”.The elderly nurse looked at me and then calmly looked at the trainee winking with both eyes. The trainee smiled and started punching “that detail’ in to the computer. By now I understood that this was a training session going in progress and not my treatment may or may not be one of its manifestations. I prayed for it being one! After punching for over 3 minutes the trainee nurse asked to follow her. I did. As we walked down the corridor of the clinic for some 50 seconds, we came across a table. I saw one young man in his early twenties sitting. He looked weak and sleepy. But he sat straight on the table occupying only 30% of the table space. The trainee without looking at the table or me or the person on the table, directed me to sit while she slipped my file into the room on my left through an opening in the middle of the door. Without uttering any other word, she moved away from me and almost faded-out in the corridor. I was finishing almost 1 hour in the clinic with my terrible toothache only accelerating every minute while I was being engaged in all sorts of so called, medical- procedures of the health clinic.
Helplessly and by now, hopelessly, I waited for the doctor’s call. Another 15 minutes of silence passed during which the person beside me barely moved. He sat straight demonstrating some kind if a military regimentation in sitting position. I tried sitting like him for a few minutes but soon gave up. “There is no need for another pain”, I soothed myself, almost couching into the table with my fingers running through my oily hair and finally resting on my somewhat-sweaty neck.
And then, the door opened, a name was called. It was “Mike!”. I heard it clearly but by now I could not take any chances and I did not want to take any chances! So, I stood up while the person beside me also standing with me, hinting enough that he was Mike, I still asked him his name while both of us entered the doctor’s room. As we took the first few steps inside the doctor’s room, he said, clearly shockingly, “I AM Mike!!”. I said, “OK” and came out of the room.
After another 10-12 minutes, Mike came out. My name wasn’t called yet and I wondered painfully, “Lunch time??No??”.Thankfully, it wasn’t. I WAS called-in, again by the name which wasn’t mine! But I knew “it” was me. For, there was no one else waiting.
And there I was, finally sitting face- to-face with a doctor who would just give me a painkiller. But I again, I am rushing.
The doctor, like everyone else till now, was very calm-looking. And as humanely as possible, in that shooting pain, I hated it. But this time, I managed to smile and sit on the chair as the doctor directed me. The chair was at least 7 feet away from the doctor. This was an overwhelmingly long patient-doctor distance for me. I had to listen hard to the singing accent. Back home, this distance was never more than 2 feet! I took another deep breath and decided to continue the internal “struggle” with patience.
I did not want the doctor to ask me how I was and how my day was and all of that protocol questions so I went ahead and started speaking: Hi doctor! I have been ok for the last 6 months ever since I came from India. But since this morning I am having a terrible toothache and would appreciate if you can please do some thing it.
The doctor looked little bugged at my decision to speak first without being asked anything. After few seconds, which he utilized to utter a long “hmm..mm”, he started by asking a question and then another question and then another:
“Where is the pain? I wondered where else can a toothache? Heart? Kidney?
I politely said, “My tooth”.
“Which side?”
Left.
“At the end?”
Yes, the very end!
“ For how long?”
Since morning!!
“What kind of pain..is it bleeding?”
And, on and on…
“If only he sees my tooth, he would know all the answers in just one go. That’s what the doctors back home would do. See and not ask!” I thought to myself. So I went-on to suggest if “he would like to see my tooth please. That might help”. After another long “hmm..mm” he said, “Sure”. I spell that “sure” with only one “r”, but as he pronounced that word, I could hear at least five of them!
And then, he continued, “ theek ho.” .Those are Hindi words. He found out from my records that I am from India and assumed that I understand Hindi despite coming from a country, housing 1/6th of the world population and having at least 17 official languages, with 1.5 billion people speaking and understanding not more than one or two languages, one of which is mostly English!
“ Theek hai”, I corrected him and he nodded with a receptive smile. Those words mean “ok”
Anyway, he directed me to another room and told me to sit on a bed-like table. I almost jumped in excitement. He told me if I would stretch my mouth open and use my index finger to point where the pain is. But before he told me that, I had already done it. There I was, stretching my cheeks from inside, so that he could see clearly. But alas! He couldn’t! He pulled himself back and said, “It too dark there. I can’t see.”. I suggested using a lamp, which was safely parked next to the bed-like table. He said we could use it but it has a hot-light.
I responded with courage, “No problem sir. Please use it”. He agreed after deciding to keep the lamp little away from my face because the lamp had a hot-bulb radiating hot rays and not the cool florescent light, which normally are used in such cases. He again uttered “ theek ho”, but almost immediately correcting himself .. “oh o..theek hai.”, followed by his, now standard smile. He kept looking for over 3 minutes and then switched off the lamp, which was a hint to me that he was done. Then he pulled himself back and asked to come back to his room and again directed me to sit on the “distant” chair. I did without a choice. And then he started explaining to me what all he discovered in my mouth. Worse still, his explanations were so “medically jargoned” that I couldn’t believe my mouth was so “full of those alien and scary stuff”. While he was still speaking, I interrupted and asked, “So.. Sir what’s the treatment please?”. But without answering my question he went on and said few other things I heard but did not listen to at all. But after that he said, “It’s normal.”
I did not understand what he was referring to; the stuff in my mouth, his habit of not answering the questions, his pathological urge to tell everything.
Or, my pain?
Or, something else?
I knew my pain wasn’t normal, because it was shooting! And I didn’t care what else was what!! So I simply agreed with a nod to his telling me, “ Its normal.”
Finally I asked him if there’s any treatment for what I came here for. And for the first time in the last one decade (well YES, that’s what I felt at that moment!!) someone said that word; Prescription!! But again followed by three more Hindi words in lyrical accent: Elaaj hai na!, meaning “ Indeed, there is a treatment!”
I normally like non-native Hindi speakers, speak or try to speak Hindi to me but for some reasons this was an exception. Every demonstration that this doctor made of showing-off his knowledge of few phrases of Hindi that he learnt from his son who was in India for a few days, was the most annoying moment for me in that clinic on that day. And probably, as I now recall, anywhere, any time in my whole lifetime!
Finally, he handed over an A-4 prescription sheet to me and said I have to take these medicines twice a day for two weeks. As I said “ok” in a concluding tone while standing up holding my left cheek, he yet again demonstrated his knowledge of lyrical, accented Hindi, uttering this: Slumdog Millionaire dhekhee?”
Meaning, “Did you see Slumdog Millionaire?”
I had seen this film which was weaved around a story in India, almost three months ago, but to avoid any further conversation and gulp the painkillers he prescribed, as soon as possible, I said “No, not yet”. And he suddenly was delighted to find an opportunity to share the film he had seen the previous night!
“This is about “Moom-bai city”, he began, referring to a financial Indian city called Mumbai.
“Terrible life, you know. I was thinking it would a musical Indian film with dance and pleasant story but I was very disturbed.. you should watch and see..and ..and..”
“Does it really happen? “ Have you been to Moom-bai” “ My son was working there last year and he..”
I stood up, painfully smiling and interrupted, “Sir, I will watch this film for you. I have a class now.. Where would I get the medicines?..
While saying those last few words, I was almost out of his room leaving him behind me saying, “there’s a pharmacy out there behind the reception..Straight.. Left..Right..”
And the words faded out behind me, as I rushed out through the corridors.
I found the pharmacy and stood there. The pain of the tooth wasn’t as prominent now as the pain of my recent memories.
In the midst of those memories, I saw Mike, standing just at the pharmacy counter right in front of me; No movement at all. Militarily, straight as ever. I closed my eyes for few seconds, waiting for him to turn to me so that I could give him a farewell smile. But before my few seconds could pass, I heard an accented, melodious “ Yesss.. pleeease!”. I was finally getting the painkiller for the pain that was almost fully treated by the experiential richness of my graduate program’s Observation-assignment.
Everything was Normal.
