A Brief History of Pain

I knew this would happen eventually, but I wasn’t prepared for it to come so soon or in this manner. Months of reckless behaviour, irregular eating, and drinking, I think one glass of water in eight days finally took their toll.

Once upon a time I believed that toothache and pain in the ear were the most unbearable form of agony known to mankind in general and me in particular. During my ICSE exam I spent a fortnight with a hollow tooth and an exposed root canal, the giant cavity was filled with cotton dipped in clove oil. Every time there was some pressure on the cotton, a sharp fluorescent blue bolt of pain, would leave my jaw and enter my brain easily destroying a few hundred brain cells. Hmm, what bad timing, it was the most important exam of my life at that time. It’s another matter that this title was snatched by every subsequent exam over the next seven years.

But I guess I could have been doing something fancier than selling detergent had I not lost all that grey matter. Oh and I must make a mention of that clove oil; the sister at the infirmary provided my with I think the most concentrated form of the lubricate; she might as well have given me sulphuric acid. I lost the better half of my sense of taste to that evil bottle of grease. Had it not been for her I would be a chef at some fancy restaurant.

The pain in the ear occurred in my first year at boarding school. We were forced into eating supper at half past six and pushed into our beds by eight. I always felt that the timings were a bit odd but the comfort of my bed and the bitter cold outside of it would put me to sleep soon enough. But then one morning, I woke up feeling a little strange. One side of my head felt incredibly lighter than the other. I got up slowly, using my elbows and turned around to have a look at my pillow. It was covered in pinkish blood.

Years later when I watched the horse sequence from The Godfather I was reminded of that pillow and all the blood.

The ayah informed me that a ‘kaan khajoora’ had made its way into my ear at night; she seemed all excited about it. I wanted to hit her, but the pain clouded my senses and I was rushed to the infirmary. The treatment consisted of amazement, ridicule and some strange red liquid that the sister seemed to use for everything. She didn’t care whether you had a bug bite or a tumour she was always waiting with her bottle of red medicine and a quiver full of cotton swabs. But she was a nice lady.

In case you are wondering what a ‘kaan khajoora’ is – its some sort of caterpillar like creature but with only eight legs and two small antennae. I never got hold of that vicious being, but as revenge, over the next few days, I went around school collecting, torturing and executing a million of its brethren. I also wanted to put one of them into the ayah’s ear but my plan never worked out.

Kidney stones. The past month or so has educated me in pain. I have realised that the spectrum of agony has no upper limit. I have also figured out that there are as many different varieties of physical anguish as there are body parts. I currently can isolate six different breeds of pain of varying intensity in the area below my abdomen. Have you ever felt a pain so intense that you want to tear out that part of your body and throw it as far away from yourself as possible? Now multiply that by ten and you’ll know how I feel.

I am willing to spend a day in a tank full of ‘kaan khajooras’, date the ayah, drink a bottle of clove oil, or sulphuric acid, lose all my brain cells and have a root canal treatment without anaesthesia in exchange for this suffering.

The trouble with getting treatment in your home town is that the doctors often tend to be family or friends. I hate this, because here in this world, being a doctor isn’t so much about aptitude as it is about ancestry. So my ultrasound was done by my uncle who had his neck turned away from the screen during the entire check up. The stick I think didn’t even go over the lower abdomen; he just kept circling the area right under my ribs, and said that it was nothing serious. All this while he was chatting with my dad and yelling at his assistant.

Okay so I have been drinking about eight litres of water a day, taking medicines in every imaginable colour, size and shape, I have taken antibiotic shots, and have dabbled with homeopathy. But the evil pain won’t go away completely. A fresh round of tests and checkups are scheduled for today. I just hope they decide to saw off everything below my ribs.

Oh this entire episode has also exposed me to all sorts of people. That’s another reason I hate going to doctors who happen to double as family. Or rather family that happens to double as doctors. I’m so sick of exhibiting my nudity, but now I’m almost used to it and the shock and terror that I experienced the first few times is gone. I remember I went white when I did this for the first time, during a thorough check up before joining my company. “Please take off your pants and hang them on the shelf by the door, then come and stand on this platform.” “Yes your underpants, too”

He then proceeded to do things that I cannot mention here. At that time I could trade the experience for a kidney stone the size of a football.