Wednesday, February 09, 2005

Zimbly Fandastic

Now "dhis" one is "zimbly fandastic". Even though we are now well into the twenty-first century and there is some sort of awareness about the languages that are being spoken in various parts of the globe, "dhings" do get awkward when a barrage of Mallu nurses surround you in a hospital! This is taking into account that you don’t understand both Malayalee and Manglish.
The nursing profession being dominated by damsels from the God's own country (even in a place like Hyderabad), it’s literally a game of dumb charade. And to give a reel example, the patient's situation becomes somewhat similar to Amitabh in Black - using sign language to communicate to Rani and using words to communicate to the audience.
But even taking refuge in amateurish sign language can be a risk not worth taking. Suppose a male patient is having pain in the groin. Now if he points his finger towards his groin, he might land in trouble. And how will he say that he has fever? Suppose he grabs the hand of nurse to make her feel the heat, he might end up with more bruises to heal than what he already had.
There are also times the nurses break into fluent Malayalee while talking to their colleagues and the patient is left to wonder whether he has been suddenly transported to Kerala. The fact that he doesn’t understand a wee bit of what the nurses are talking about adds to his woes and mental agony. “Plendy” of problems to tackle, isn’t it?

No comments: