The mystery behind a doctor’s handwriting….

I am yet to meet a man who claims to have completely deciphered a doctor’s handwriting and this excludes the pharmacist. Doctors are single-handedly responsible for bringing back the hieroglyphics script back to life.

I had been to the doctor few days ago and I was recommended to go in for a scan. When I got the results, I saw that there were some black and white pictures looking like clouds and some observations written next to it. While the pictures gave no clue (to me that is) as to what I was suffering from, the written observations used letters previously not known to me. I assumed it was hieroglyphics brought back to life from Egypt. When I showed this to my doctor, not only were the pictures making absolute sense to him, the written observation was crystal clear to him. I guess this doctor must have had special training in reading illegible handwriting. In fact, I am sure the doctors must be taking two special courses in their university days namely the art of illegible handwriting and secondly, the art of deciphering illegible handwriting.

The other issue due to this kind of handwriting is that the patient never has a clue of what he has. And how the pharmacists manage to read the doctor’s prescription without any formal training is a big mystery as well. Maybe they learn it the hard way, like an on job training. The only way to solve this problem is that legible handwriting and usage of only the 26 letters in the alphabet must be a made a pre-requisite during the medical entrance exam. Maybe a written essay section like the GMAT/TOEFL should do the trick.

The return of the wedding season….

While 2005 and 2006 saw me attend about 10-12 marriages, 2007 will see me being invited to at least 16 marriages. Marriage seems to be an epidemic this year and this has quickly overtaken gastroentritis in the numbers of casualties :-) . While I have attended 3 of them in as many weeks, this has resulted in me travelling all over South India in the sweltering heat where the average temperature seems to be about 42 degrees. I have just completed one sojourn to Kerala and immediately travelled to Hyderabad for the next one. A Pune marriage attendance had to be cancelled due to some unforeseen circumstances else that would have covered the western part as well. I have a humble request to all the people getting married. Please get married in the following places:- Ladakh, Sikkim, Kaziranga National Park, Bhutan, and Lakshadweep. I haven’t travelled much in North and East India, and I guess this occasion would provide the right opportunity to visit these places.

These marriage trips have also had two good side effects on me. I travel more lighter than I used to and I have now learnt to shake a leg thanks to the wedding dance rituals. I still continue to be dance challenged but the situation is way better than it used to be. I can at least move my feet now. But this whole marriage thing has also brought a very serious problem to the limelight. Getting the right gifts for the newly married couple is a Herculean task and I do not seem to have any bright ideas in this department. I almost always have to turn to the ladies for some help in this regard and they often come with the most bizarre as well as the best of ideas.

On a closing note, almost the whole gang is in town this month. Its back to the good old days for a while and back to the days of the late night coffee.