Broken Glasses & Broken Promises.

The Victim, The Prepetrator(Dr.Monica) and the Problem Solver(Mahi)

Every morning is the beginning of a brand new day, come to think of it- every new day is a chance to have a fresh start, sure you may have had a miserable time in all the days that went by, but every time the sun rises in the morning you have a chance to experience something different.

However bleak the future may seem life’s unpredictability offers up hope, no matter how tiny it may be.

Just think of it, it’s impossible to predict exactly what is going to go down each day, anything can happen.

Imagine the prospect of meeting an old friend on the street or a surprise party waiting for you at work, maybe an email from a long lost relative, although these may seem insignificant when we consider the sheer size of bigger things like an earthquake or a tsunami they do have a major impact on our lives.

On the flipside sometimes even bad things happen and it’s just impossible to predict the exact sequence of events for a day, we just have to wait and see what happens.

When I woke up on the morning of May 10th I didn’t know that I was going to end up with a broken pair of glasses.

“Oh, C’mon man! That’s nothing; we thought you were going to tell us something better than an incident involving a broken pair of glasses”, You may think, but ask any person who wears glasses on a daily basis and he or she will tell you how uncomfortable it is to walk around without them.

Here’s how it went down.

It was a less busy day at work, my fellow cardiology residents Dr. Chandrashekar, Dr. Monica and I were reflecting on recent events in our outpatient department.

Mahendra our super efficient CATHLAB technician and Dr. Shilpa our colleague joined the conversation.

The five of us have a great group dynamic; we have a lot of fun together and irrespective of how busy things get at work, at the end of the day we get the job done.

Dr. Chandrasekhar has a great sense of humor, When his wife asked him to come up with a name for their son he spent a couple of weeks pouring over books and websites of baby names and when she insisted that the name should be only 4 letters long, an irate chandru replied-“Fine, We’ll call him TATA!

Dr. Shilpa has an infectious laugh and so does Mahendra, Dr. Monica is the glue that holds the group together.(Even though she is usually somewhere else missing all the action), my role is not entirely defined, I guess I add the glamour to the group !!!

Dr. Monica is a little theatric when it comes to expressing herself, I mean she tends to wave her hands wildly when she’s annoyed and she tends to pinch and punch the ones who bug her, it’s a completely different story when she’s hungry.

It was a good one hour after lunch time, Dr. Monica was hungry and angry (A very deadly combination).

We were just about to leave for lunch when a gentle whiff of Monica’s ‘Dupatta’ dislodged my precious frameless spectacles from their safe location on my nasal bridge and send it spiraling down in slow motion to its end.

There was silence.

The fun had ended. (Or so we thought), and so had my streak of not breaking my only pair of glasses for over a year.

No one said a word; we just stared down at floor where my glasses lay, broken.

“I’m so sorry Thomas, I’m soooooo sorry”! Said Dr Monica, once, twice, thrice…… and again and again and again.

I was tongue tied.

I did not know what the right emotional response was in the present circumstance; the other three in the room had resumed laughing and Monica’s pleading was becoming more and more musical with each passing minute.

“I’ll replace your glasses, I’ll pay the bill, I’ll walk you home, I’ll buy you lunch”. The promises kept pouring like rain from the sky.

I was confused, I couldn’t see.

The outlines of things and people weren’t clear anymore; everything looked diffuse, people blended into each other like bacteria under a microscope.

Suggestions poured in from all sides, Fevikwik, Wonder tape, going to the Ophthalmologist, being driven to home and so on.

We chose to start with the ophthalmologist, the five of us walked to the department below, somber looks on our faces, I balanced myself on Chandrasekhar’s shoulder and limped all the way as though my foot was hurt.

Sympathetic looks followed me wherever I went, Monica’s concern increased every time I scrubbed my eyes with my fingers.

I was loving all the attention I was receiving, it reminded me of the time when Dad and Mom took me back home from school when I fell off a desk trying to triple jump my way to the front of the class.

The optician said we were half an hour late, any order placed now would take at least another day to get ready.

“If only Monica had broken my specs 30 minutes before, bad timing”. I thought to myself.

Lunch was surprisingly quiet, (and dim-for me), Monica wore the expression of someone who had just committed a great sin.

We headed back to the Cathlab, Monica returned to the OPD with Chandru to mourn the loss of my precious glasses as I buried my head into my elbows and tried to give my eyes some rest.

Mahi got to work, with the help of some micropore (the wonder tape of the medical fraternity) and ingenious dexterity he managed to bring back my glasses to a wearable state.

I went to the OPD and showed off my ‘old-new-ish’ glasses to my anxious colleagues and then something happened.

I watched in absolute amazement as the complex expression of guilt, concern & sorrow disappeared from Monica’s face in milliseconds and transform itself into a wide grin, she started laughing.

What a funny world right?

One by one Dr. Monica withdrew all the promises she made less than half an hour before, Dr. Shilpa, Chandru and Mahi too were shocked.

Well at least they were all on my side and we weren’t going to let Monica get off the hook that easily.

After hours of deliberation and negotiations we arrived at a consensus.

Either Monica was going to pay all the charges towards repairing my glasses or she was to promise to buy me a refreshing bottle of cold badam milk as and when I demanded it, to know what option she chose see the picture below.

The Deal !

It’s been 5 days now since the incident and only I know how difficult it is to make Monica keep her promises, but I understood two important things as a result of this episode, firstly the whole experience gave the five of us some really fond memories to look forward to in the future.

Secondly, it taught me that if you are Dr. Monica’s friend-Please stand at a distance J

Until next time

TGV