Ravana Is My Role Model!

Cheeniya · May 24, 2016

Ravana is my Role Model!

My diary tells me that my next visit to my Doctor is due. At my last visit, when I asked him when I should come next, he said ‘Three months’. I gave him a naval salute and said ‘Aye, Aye, Sir!’ He gave me a hearty laugh partly because the manner of my taking leave might have tickled him and partly because my crisp, new Rs500/- note had found a new sojourn in his shirt pocket. When my Doctor’s visit becomes due, I start getting all kinds of symptoms in which he specialises. I collected all my old reports which were less than a year old. You may ask me ‘Why less than a year old?’ In one of my earlier visits, when I dumped all my reports of more than a decade on his table, he sternly told me that he hated reading the old stuff again and again and he made an exception only in the case of Wodehouse novels. Coming to know that he too was a Wodehouse aficionado like me sowed the seed of a warm relationship between us.

When I reached the Clinic, there was already a sizeable crowd in the waiting hall who could be seen mentally rehearsing their dialogues with the Doctor. He was a busy man and the patients were anxious not to forget conveying all their problems to him within the time allotted to them. There have been occasions when the patients became tongue-tied in his mighty presence and forgot to convey most of their health issues. They blurted out something about a headache and walked out with the prescription for an aspirin. Being a seasoned patient, I have perfected the art of being cogent about what I want to tell the Doctor. After waiting for quite an hour or so, the receptionist called my name and asked me to be ready to get in when the one inside came out. I had left my footwear at the door as instructed and waited. I was at a loss to understand why this ‘removal of footwear’ was insisted when everyone else including the coffee boy moved in and out without removing the footwear. I made a mental note of discussing this with the Doctor.

When I saw the shadow of the patient inside moving towards the opaque glass door, I became alert like a war-horse at the sound of bugle. I entered the room the moment he came out and greeted the Doctor effusively. He returned my greetings and beckoned me to sit on the tripod of which I have written a lot on the past. ‘First things first’ he said and checked my BP and weight. ‘At your next visit, I expect the needle in the weighing machine complete a full circle’, he said adding ‘Apart from your high BP and overweight, is there anything else that you want to discuss with me?’ ‘It is this nagging pain in the neck’ I told him touching my neck with my finger. ‘I know where the neck is! Tell me more about your problem’ he said.

I explained to him that turning my head was becoming painful and how it resulted in my losing the balance at times. He said that most of our kings of yore had this problem and that was the reason that they turned half the torso instead of the neck whenever they wanted to address someone in the side. That was news to me and I felt immensely grateful to him for this valuable piece of information. Talking of royal necks led us inevitably to the mighty Ravan. ‘We all knew he had ten heads’, he said ‘but Valmiki is silent on how many necks he had’. He immediately tore off a page from his prescription pad and drew two Ravans, one with ten heads connected laterally to a single neck like what we saw in Ram Leela and TV ads. The other had ten necks sprouting from his shoulders like a Travellers Palm Tree each carrying a head. ‘Do you know the botanical name of Travellers Palm?’ he asked me suddenly. ‘Ravenala madagascariensis’ he said. He pointed out that the name of Ravenala could have been named after Ravan and it was most likely that he had ten necks like the Travellers Palm.

We went on to discuss how he could have managed his ten necks if he had neck pain and vertigo like me. He made use of his sketch to explain the various options available with Ravan to defend himself against neck pain! ‘Don’t turn your neck. Be like our old kings! When you need to turn your head, turn it with the shoulder’ was his advice. ‘The old kings would have given a bag of gold for this advice. You pay me the usual Rs.500/-‘ he said when I asked him how much I should pay. He carefully folded the paper on which he drew the picture of Ravan and gave it to me asking me to consider him as my role model!

jskls · May 24, 2016

Good humorous one! Smiled all the way reading it. So did you remember to ask about the footwear part? Take care of your vertigo.

satchitananda · May 24, 2016

LOL CS. I love your visits to the doc. No, I am not happy that you go there with a problem. That in fact disturbs me, but I enjoy your conversations with the doc. Now just a little question. Are these true transcripts of your conversations or your imagination running a little riot? Either way they are most entertaining. Reminds me of our family doc who had a knack of making every patient leaving his room smile. :-D Sad to say, God wanted him on his medical panel and decided to take him away.

Amica · May 24, 2016

@Cheeniya, thanks for making me laugh. It's exactly what the doctor ordered.

Did you find out about the footwear removal rule? Inquiring minds want to know.

.

Srama · May 24, 2016

Oh my Cheeniya sir! What a delightful post and what a treat. I never ever would have imagined how this post would end and you know what sir, bringing in the traveler's tree threw me off completely. Literally too I mean. It brought back memories of my favorite Botany professor - he is no more and I do think of him very very fondly, our treks and what not. Thank you for that. I was so fascinated with the name but then the study of plants and animals and the nomenclature, so fascinating. Is it mostly normal to have this kind of guilt as we grow older....you know the ones that start with "I wish I had something with my interest in that or this". During those good old young days, this or that interest is always replaced by another this or that interest!

But you know what not in all the years we studied did we make a connection that your physician made. Brilliant and I do think we have simply been depicting Ravana wrong. It is not that hard to imagine a face where those big leaves are It is just our aesthetic sense that tries to portray him the way we do. It is a different matter altogether that there may not be much aesthetics to a ten headed figure and what sense it may make to anyone and then we try and build a story around why he has ten heads. May be that is why they have those big brows and mustache, to add aesthetics I mean. Well all I realize is the more I talk of aesthetics and Ravana, the more damage I seem to do. Perhaps it is from Ravana and his inability to move his head that the later kings decided that it is a better way to move their necks and Ravana with so many necks was a pain in the neck to the others. I doubt if he ever experienced any pain in his own necks though. Talking of necks, you know who I thought of? Gladstone Small, yes the West Indies cricket player! It became a standard phrase to use when we talked about any one with a small neck between us friends and siblings. I know before I become a pain in the neck with my chatter, I should say .......nice reading the snippet sir!

Oh BTW, I do hope that 500 that made its way back to you has earned a special place

shyamala1234 · May 25, 2016

Cheeniya said: ↑

My diary tells me that my next visit to my Doctor is due. At my last visit, when I asked him when I should come next, he said ‘Three months’. I gave him a naval salute and said ‘Aye, Aye, Sir!’ He gave me a hearty laugh partly because the manner of my taking leave might have tickled him and partly because my crisp, new Rs500/- note had found a new sojourn in his shirt pocket. When my Doctor’s visit becomes due, I start getting all kinds of symptoms in which he specialises. I collected all my old reports which were less than a year old. You may ask me ‘Why less than a year old?’ In one of my earlier visits, when I dumped all my reports of more than a decade on his table, he sternly told me that he hated reading the old stuff again and again and he made an exception only in the case of Wodehouse novels. Coming to know that he too was a Wodehouse aficionado like me sowed the seed of a warm relationship between us.

When I reached the Clinic, there was already a sizeable crowd in the waiting hall who could be seen mentally rehearsing their dialogues with the Doctor. He was a busy man and the patients were anxious not to forget conveying all their problems to him within the time allotted to them. There have been occasions when the patients became tongue-tied in his mighty presence and forgot to convey most of their health issues. They blurted out something about a headache and walked out with the prescription for an aspirin. Being a seasoned patient, I have perfected the art of being cogent about what I want to tell the Doctor. After waiting for quite an hour or so, the receptionist called my name and asked me to be ready to get in when the one inside came out. I had left my footwear at the door as instructed and waited. I was at a loss to understand why this ‘removal of footwear’ was insisted when everyone else including the coffee boy moved in and out without removing the footwear. I made a mental note of discussing this with the Doctor.

When I saw the shadow of the patient inside moving towards the opaque glass door, I became alert like a war-horse at the sound of bugle. I entered the room the moment he came out and greeted the Doctor effusively. He returned my greetings and beckoned me to sit on the tripod of which I have written a lot on the past. ‘First things first’ he said and checked my BP and weight. ‘At your next visit, I expect the needle in the weighing machine complete a full circle’, he said adding ‘Apart from your high BP and overweight, is there anything else that you want to discuss with me?’ ‘It is this nagging pain in the neck’ I told him touching my neck with my finger. ‘I know where the neck is! Tell me more about your problem’ he said.

I explained to him that turning my head was becoming painful and how it resulted in my losing the balance at times. He said that most of our kings of yore had this problem and that was the reason that they turned half the torso instead of the neck whenever they wanted to address someone in the side. That was news to me and I felt immensely grateful to him for this valuable piece of information. Talking of royal necks led us inevitably to the mighty Ravan. ‘We all knew he had ten heads’, he said ‘but Valmiki is silent on how many necks he had’. He immediately tore off a page from his prescription pad and drew two Ravans, one with ten heads connected laterally to a single neck like what we saw in Ram Leela and TV ads. The other had ten necks sprouting from his shoulders like a Travellers Palm Tree each carrying a head. ‘Do you know the botanical name of Travellers Palm?’ he asked me suddenly. ‘Ravenala madagascariensis’ he said. He pointed out that the name of Ravenala could have been named after Ravan and it was most likely that he had ten necks like the Travellers Palm.

We went on to discuss how he could have managed his ten necks if he had neck pain and vertigo like me. He made use of his sketch to explain the various options available with Ravan to defend himself against neck pain! ‘Don’t turn your neck. Be like our old kings! When you need to turn your head, turn it with the shoulder’ was his advice. ‘The old kings would have given a bag of gold for this advice. You pay me the usual Rs.500/-‘ he said when I asked him how much I should pay. He carefully folded the paper on which he drew the picture of Ravan and gave it to me asking me to consider him as my role model!
Click to expand...

Dear Cheeniya sir,
Your doctors' appointments create beautiful blogs! But that doesn't mean that we want you to go to doctor often. We want you to keep good health. It reminds me of a line by by Telugu poet Sri sri "Kadedi kavithakanarhambu, kukkapilla, aggipulla, sabbubilla......" means anything is suitable for a writing. I admire you for viewing even health problems with a sense of humour when people grumble and grumble for even a little upset.
Your have inculcated humour to your doctor also......in drawing pictures of Ravana with one neck and ten heads or ten heads with ten necks, that too on his prescription pad!And he charged 500 Rs. for that! He must have thought handwriting of doctors is unreadable (except by pharmacy stores), so let me draw a picture and explain! I like your doctor because he is also a Wodehouse fan.
Moving the shoulder whenever we want to turn our neck is not always possible....especially on road while driving!But you should be proud that you have something in common with kings and Royalty.
My guess is this whole episode ,may be you have vertigo problem, but everything else is imaginary, in line with your expertise in writing and make us smile.
Thank you.
Syamala

jayasala42 · May 25, 2016

Dear Cheeniya Sir,
Simply fantastic! Let me get introduced to your doctor ( If he is real) so that I too can have the pleasure of seeing such real lines and curves in stead of seeing all letters in the form of curves in our doctor's prescription.Very often in advts of balms we get such jokes about Ravana.
After all Ravana is not that bad you see.As per kamaba Ramayana he followed the tamil culture and lifted Sita along with the hermitage without touching her,though the description varies in valmiki.Often I have heard a saying in tamil
" Ittuk kettaan karnan, Idammal kettaan Dhuriyan,
Thottuk kettaan indhiran, thodaamal kettaan Ravanan.
( Karna suffered on account of giving, Duryodhana suffered out of 'non-giving'( even 5 houses to Panadavas.
Indra touched Ahalya and got cursed;and Ravana suffered even without touching Sita)
An episode was being described by Upanyasak. Ravana and Mandodari were seeing from a mountain hill. It was the scene of Sethu bandanam Vanaras wrote 'Rama' on the stones and dropped them into ocean and the stones began to float.Mandodhari was admiring this.Ravana said " what is there in the name 'Rama'.I will write 'Ravana' in a stone and drop it.You see the result." Ravana wrote his own name on a rock and dropped it into the sea. Amazingly the stone started floating.Mandodari was elated and felt that her husband was equal to Rama in greatness. Ravana said" When I wrote 'Ravana' on the rock my thoughts were all on Rama only..

Dear Cheeniya Sir,when I read your rambling I could not but think of Mandodari's lamentations on Ravana's death as narrated by kamban.
'வெள் எருக்கஞ் சடை முடியான் வெற்பு எடுத்த திரு மேனி, மேலும் கீழும்,
எள் இருக்கும் இடம் இன்றி, உயிர் இருக்கும் இடம் நாடி, இழைத்தவாறோ?
"கள் இருக்கும் மலர்க் கூந்தல் சானகியை மனச் சிறையில் கரந்த காதல்
உள் இருக்கும்" எனக் கருதி, உடல் புகுந்து, தடவினவோ ஒருவன் வாளி? 23

(Did the arrows of that matchless one search on the top and bottom of the body,
Of the pretty body Of Ravana who lifted the Kailasa mountain ,
Belonging to Lord Shiva who wears the white Yerukku flowers ,
For finding out where his soul is located ?Did it think that Sita who decorated,
Her hairs with flowers over which honey bees hover must have been kept,
In his prison of mind and were those arrows enter and search the body for her?)
On reading your writing it appears to me that it can be interpreted in another angle.Perhaps Rama was searching for himself in all the nooks and corners of Ravan's body-because wherever Janaki was there Rama also would be there.In case Rama was found inside Ravana, it was as good as Sharanagathi and all his wrongs could be pardoned straight away.
Perhaps Rama would be hiding within one shoulder or ten shoulders of Ravana and even if he had any 'vertigo' problem Rama would solve it.
There seems to be greater justification in your doctor advising you to have Ravana as the role model.

Now a days many children are named as Ravana' since it is a 6 lettered word, supposed to bring in good luck.There is no Ramayanam without Ravana.The character of Ravana alone ennobles the character of Rama.Actually though Agni Pravesam by sita is taken as a blemish on Rama,, it revealed that Ravana was blemishless and the chastity of Ravana was proved beyond doubt than that of Sita.

What wrong is there to have Ravana as 'role model?'
I am sorry that my response is too long and needs the patience of Ravana .
Jayasala 42

Rith · May 25, 2016

Hilarious One Sir! I enjoyed reading it. Do you still suffering from vertigo. Take care of you Sir..

Cheeniya · May 25, 2016

Dear @jskls & @Amica
Good to know that you enjoyed my trip to my Doctor. I too enjoy it immensely as Doctors are such fun to move with. Their main grouse is that patients with even minor ailments enter the room with the gravest of expressions and expected the Doctors to be equally grave. If the Doctor joked about their ailment, they feel pretty annoyed. So the Doctors feel considerably perked up when they come across a patient who is willing to joke around with them. There have been times when I greeted the Doctor with a high five!

Coming to leaving the footwear outside, I did discuss it with him. There are many reasons for this custom but the major one appears to be based on the experience of one of the Doctors. In one of those, upmarket hospitals, there was no custom of leaving the footwear outside before entering the Doctor's room. The Doctors too hardly noticed if the patients came in with the footwear or without it. One day, a well-dressed lady came for consultation. After the usual consultation, she rose to go and started looking all over the room. When asked what was it that she was looking for, she replied in a broken voice that she was looking for her brand new sandals which she just bought for a thousand bucks! She combed the entire room but the shoes were not to be found. The Doctor had a nagging suspicion that she might have entered the room without the shoes and when he made a suggestion to that effect, she became hysterical and refused to pay the Doctor's fee if her shoes were not restored to her. As it was becoming ugly, the Doctor agreed to forego his fee with a heavy heart. With that assurance, the lady left and the Doctor swore to his colleagues that he noticed a triumphant smile on her face when she walked out of his room!

On that day, the Medical fraternity decided to introduce the system of asking the patients to leave their footwear outside the room. This was not only to protect their fee but their honour as well!
Sri

Cheeniya · May 25, 2016

@satchitananda
My dear Satchi
Nice to see you to be the early bird this time to respond to my Ramble. And nice to know that you enjoyed my conversations with him. In a country where Doctors are looked upon as a necessary evil to go to, I just endeavour to present their 'human' side. There is a senior neurologist in Chennai who is a good friend of mine. Whenever I visited him for professional consultation, he would be quite abrasive in his bahaviour and I always kept a respectable distance from him out of some nondescript fear. One day, I met him in the club and invited him to have a drink with me. Within minutes, he became the life and soul of the party and he even sang a couple of old film songs which, he said, he wanted to get out of his chest for a long time! He then regaled us with a number of medical jokes. That was the moment I realised that a consultation with the Doctor was another human interaction just as any other and we only made it fearsome.

'Are these true transcripts of my conversation with the Doctor?' you ask. Good question! You can say 90% of it is true and spiced with 10% of my imagination. Or make it 80/20. What is in percentage?
Sri