What's up Doc? - Agra 21st March

Agra 21st March 06

I’ve been stuck in Agra for two days longer than I planned. A cycle rickshaw hit me when I was in Delhi and my right hand was cut in a couple of places. One of the cuts got infected and my right hand ballooned up, if you can picture an inflated Marigold glove, that’s what it looked like. I can’t bend my wrist or make a fist because of the swelling so that ruled out riding my bike. So yesterday I asked one of the guys in the hotel if he knew where the nearest hospital was, and he told me that he’d bring me to a good doctor first and then the hospital if need be.

I jumped on the back of his scooter and was sitting in front of the doctor about five minutes later. Agra is a small town and everyone knows everyone, turns out the guy from the hotels dad is best mates with the doctor. The doctor examined my hand, sprayed something on it and vigorously rubbed the infected wound until the scab came off, it was bloody sore. He then shone a torch on it and spread some brown “gunk” on my hand and bandaged me up. He sent his helper out to get some medication and he charged me 70 Rupees for that (about £1.00 GBP). The “helper” is a twelve-year-old kid who gets chai, medication, wipes down surfaces and other little jobs around the clinic. We had a bit of a talk about the cricket, but he was a bit shy around me.

The clinic itself is a smallish room with a bench down both sides, and a desk for the doctor at the far end. Behind the doctor was a small room with a table, which doubled up as and examining bench. The patients who weren’t examined in the main room were examined in the “privacy” of the back room, the back room’s door was permanently open and the windows gave a perfect view of what was going on inside. The doctor told me to come back at 18:00 to change the dressing and apply more “gunk”. I returned at 18:00 and waited my turn to see the doc, there were about four people in front of me and I watched the doc deal with sore throats, cuts, ear problems and a shoulder problem. I also got a cup of chai from the little assistant. I got out of there at about 18:30 and was told to return today at 11:00. On my way back to my guesthouse I took a wrong turn and ended up in a little square where there were a group of kids playing cricket. They shouted over to me and asked me to play with them, so I went over and bowled a couple of balls and then had a go at batting. I had to use my left hand as the right was all bandaged up, but I still managed to hit a couple of balls before being bowled out.

As I was playing some other guy came over to me and asked me if I wanted a haircut, turns out he owns the barber shop in the square. I went over and had a cup of tea with him and turns out that he’s got some friends in Enfield, North London. He also introduced me to Agra’s Guru who also happens to play Sitar, Tabla and about a dozen other instruments. I stayed there for about forty minutes and made my excuses, I was really hungry, as I’d only eaten 1kg of oranges, so I went and had a veg curry, which was nice.

I returned to the doctors this morning and I was invited into the back room to watch the examinations! He introduced me to all his patients and he phoned his brothers to come and meet me. Two of his brothers are doctors and their clinics are either side of his on the same street. The doc then asked me if I wanted to go his other clinic, which was about 10kms away. I told him that it was ok to treat me here, as there was no need to go all that way. He went ahead and redressed my hand and I told him that I’d see him later. When I returned at 18:00 he asked me where I had been at 14:00, he told me that he had rang the hotel looking for me but they told him that I wasn’t in. He was going to bring me to his other clinic to meet his other patients! I told him that I misunderstood him and didn’t know we had arranged to meet, he asked me if I would go with him at 19:00 and then have dinner with his family. I waited in his clinic and he introduced me to two of his friends who had just popped in for a chat. As they were leaving he asked me if I liked a smoke, and if so to go with his friends as they were about to have one. He wasn’t talking about the kind of smoke you buy in packets over the counter. First time I’ve been offered non-prescription drugs by a doctor!

I hopped on the back of his bike just after 19:00 and he brought me around to his brother’s house, we had chai and biscuits there in their really old house. It was built to house the workers who built the Taj Mahal and was over 350 years old. There was a covered inner courtyard, which housed about eight pigeons in an open loft. There were three rooms off the courtyard which were all large and had domed ceilings. He then brought me to his house and he introduced me to his wife, two daughters and two sons. The girls are fourteen and twelve and the boys are seven and eighteen months. They were watching a music DVD and we were talking over it. The eldest girl wants to be an airhostess so that she can travel and the younger daughter wanted to work as a scientist in Paris (just like her aunt). I recognised one of the actors who was on the music video, the girls told me who he was and started dancing around the room, they asked me to dance with them. So that’s how I found myself bandaged up dancing around the house of a complete stranger!

After that we went to his other clinic where I was introduced to his patients! He bought me a Pepsi and I sat around while he treated the sick and wounded. I attracted a crowd of kids and they all gathered around the doorway and just smiled in at me. I said Namaste to them and they giggled and said hello back. We left the second clinic at 21:15 and went to another friend of his; we stayed there for about ten minutes before riding back to his house. We drove through what looked like a closed market place as there were loads of people around and a big security barrier was down, people were still walking through a gate at the side of the barrier though, so my doc friend decides to ride the bike through the gate. We manage to squeeze through the gate only to be greeted by an ear-splittingly load horn, we looked to our left, where the horn came from, only to see a train bearing down on us! It must have been no more than thirty metres away from us and closing in fast, I think it was fair to say that we nearly soiled out pants! But it was definitely a “one of my lives gone” type of moments. I really must stop hanging around with doctors on this trip.

When we got to his house, his wife served us up a mutton dish, a veg dish, a biryiani dish and a desert, the food was very nice and the kids watched in fascination as I worked through the dishes and ate Muslim style (fingers and bread). They were asking about my family and I have some photos of them on my ipod, which I showed them. I also played the seven-year old boy some Indian music, which I have on there, but he didn’t like it. His mother told me that he likes pop music, so I played him ‘Get Back’ by The Beatles, which he enjoyed. He then put the earphones into his eighteen-month-old brothers ears and I changed the song to ‘Within You Without You’, which is a Beatles sitar based song, sung by George Harrison. The kid loved this and he covered his eyes with his hands as he listened to the music. I stayed there until just gone 22:30 and made my way back to my guesthouse, it was a great day and I enjoyed some real good Indian hospitality.