Aggravated Wall

One of my uncles is here in my house getting his cataracts expunged. The obvious choice - Agarwal Eye Hospital. Eons ago, in my school days, I was finding some difficulty in focusing and concentrating on female forms more than twenty feet away. I panicked, and set up an appointment with Agarwal Eye Hospital. I pedaled my rusty Raleigh to the hospital wondering whether glasses would make me look distinguished or scholarly, with no clue of the trial that lay ahead of me. The whole hospital was constructed in a circular pattern, and if you walked fast enough you could actually go back in time. All the doctors were from some other planet and spoke hindi. Very loudly. I was given an extremely cheap plastic folder with a label that had my name spelt wrong. I was asked to go to Room 105. I walked down the corridor, and suddenly I was back in the reception area. I steeled myself and walked down the corridor again, checking my watch occasionally to see if I am going back in time. I located the Room and the million people waiting outside it. Went inside after a long wait and I was asked to put my face on a machine that looked like something Dr. Kevorkian made in his spare time. After that I was asked to go to another room and then to another. Samples of almost all of my bodily fluids were taken, and something scribbled on the cheap plastic folder, at every pit stop. Every doctor would either scream "Nyaekshht" or slam on an antiquated buzzer that would emit visible shock waves. This process lasted for a few hours, and by the end of it I was a hundred percent sure that they were cloning me.
It was only after an extremely cute doctorish thing prescribed glasses that I officially declared the saga to have a happy ending. Some years later, I was forced by close family to go and have another check-up. I was surprised to see that the cute doctorish thing had almost blossomed into an aunty, and was twitching some responsible looking eyebrows. I discharged all the designated fluids, and answered all questions, asked in horribly pathetic tamil, in equally horribly pathetic hindi, and was finally given a phenomenal sales pitch from some hybrid Agarwal to undergo a laser corrective surgery, and be rid of glasses forever. I pursed my lips and turned down the offer on the grounds that glasses make me look scholarly (which I am not), innocent (which I am not), and that I would rather avoid going under the knife for cosmetic reasons (read I am scared shitless of operating theaters).
I can stand the sight of blood only if it spurts from a major artery after being bitten by a vampire or a zombie, in a movie.
Several years later, I went today, to the circular hospital with my uncle. As I drove up to the entrance, I was so shocked that my laces came undone. The exact same crew manned the circus. Even the watchman at the gate. Almost all of the doctors and the nurses were in different stages of decay, and hobbled around in scrubs everywhere. There were fresh recruits, everybody in scrubs, with the same look that those blokes wearing huge turbans in weddings have. You know, the kind that are waited upon and people grovel at their feet whenever they discharge a frown. I saw a couple of fresh hindi interns near the elevator, oblivious of their surroundings, coffee in hand. The male scrub was leaning on the wall with a smirk on his face while the female scrub was talking rabid sentences that ended with "hai na". This is called the Indian make out, and fondly referred to as "peanut" (kadalai) in Dosaland where I exist. The original circular monstrosity was almost entirely demolished, with debris equally distributed everywhere, and there was a new circular monstrosity behind the main building, which was where the kadalai was going on. The would-be patients with whatever levels of blindness they be in will have to walk through the debris to the new circular building. I thought long and hard about the circular concept at Agarwal Eye Hospital, and my only conclusion was that if some doctor went "OOOPS" during some operation, and the kith and kin started chasing the said doctor, they would keep running around in circles, forever. (Unless some mama would trip someone with his umbrella.)
We were asked to remove our footwear some 50 feet away from the Consultation and Operating area, so that by the time we reach the supposedly dust-free room, our feet would be covered in at least seven layers of filth. Which we will proceed to deposit all over the waiting hall. My uncle was called in and they broadcasted the entire thing on close circuit TV. It was exactly a gore flick without names and credits. I didn't care too much for sharp metal rods poking and tearing at my uncle's unconscious eyeball, so I diverted my attention to browsing the net on my HTC Touch, over the unsecured wi-fi. The mayhem was done with in some twenty minutes and my uncle walked back with a huge plaster over his eye. Almost immediately another bleary eyeball burst onto the TV and a perfectly spherical woman with a few pounds of jewelery and a jasmine garland on her head, started watching intently. I realized that the Agarwallians may be a bit lost in the aspect of sensitivity, considering that they've raked up more eyeballs than even the most popular TV serial.
The moment I paid the bill for my uncle, the entire crew of the circus started smiling. That would mean only one thing - Bhakshish. Everybody expected a tip. I tried to tell the coffee vendor, who had rushed to us leaving the coffee machine unmanned, that Bakshish is a crime implying a sum or gift given that alters the behavior of the person in ways not consistent with the duties of that person. (wikipedia, not me). But I saw from the corner of my eye an army of agarwallians heading our way. So, we actually beat the hasty retreat, down the fire exit ramp, avoiding the elevator man (partly due his halitosis, that we endured on the way up).
But the shocking, startling and very disappointing thing was when the post operative consultation was kept in the old building, amidst the debris. There was dust everywhere, and a passive Ponnuthaayee was sweeping the place raising a mini-dust storm. Since this was a bit over the top, I asked one of the permanent fixtures there, the reason behind this palpably idiotic activity. The answer was, (brace yourself), Vaasthu. Apparently the Queen bee Agarwall, who the other fixtures referred to as "Big Madam", insisted that they be consulted upon amidst the debris, owing to sentimental reasons.
The combination of Ummaachee (God in everything) and the term "Big Madam" proved too much for me, and I was laughing so hard that my laces came undone.