Rohinton Mistry - Such A Long Journey

He laughed. ‘No. But someone who knows him. And me.’ He told her about his conversation with Ghulam in the tea stall.

‘A hundred times I’ve said not to eat or drink from the roadside. You behave like a child sometimes.’

‘I just had a few sips of tea, for the sake of courtesy.’

‘One sip is enough to cause sickness.’

That reminded him. ‘What is wrong with Roshan?’

‘Stomach is a little bad,’ she said. ‘But who told you?’

‘Tehmul-Lungraa. How did he find out?’

Oh no, she thought. What else did the idiot say? To her relief, Gustad did not wait for an answer. He had had evidence before of Tehmul’s ability to ferret out information ahead of others with whole minds and bodies. He went to Roshan, and returned promptly. ‘Asleep. Gave her medicine?’

‘Two Entero-Vioform.’

‘Good,’ said Gustad. ‘Will soon settle. And if motions are still loose after tomorrow, then Sulpha-Guanidine.’ He always kept a ready supply of these pills at home. Before Roshan, it had been Darius who, till he was thirteen, constantly fell victim to bouts of diarrhoea. At first, Dilnavaz used to object to Gustad’s dispensing the pills, insisting that their doctor must be consulted. She had faith in Dr. Paymaster despite his shabby office with the board outside which read: Dr. R. C. Lord, MBBS, MD Estd 1892. Dr. Lord was the predecessor from whom Dr. Paymaster had purchased the closed-down dispensary almost fifty years ago, but the latter didn’t bother to change the board when he first started in practice because money was scarce. If his timid, new patients referred to him as Dr. Lord, he did not pay much attention to it.

In a very short while, word spread of the young doctor who was wise and kind, humorous and considerate, who could cure half the sickness just by making the patient laugh it away. Dr. Paymaster’s practice began to grow. Soon there was a little money to spruce up the dispensary, buy a decent couch and chairs for the waiting area, and subscribe to the foreign medical journals he so badly wanted in order to keep up with new medicines and research. He was even able to afford a board with his own name.

But this last purchase was an enormous blunder.

The very next day, the dispensary was in turmoil. Patients were marching in and marching out, demanding to know who this Dr. Paymaster was. What had happened to the funny, jovial Dr. Lord? When would he return? They refused to listen to explanations or be examined by the young upstart. The few who risked treatment were unanimous in their verdict: the medicine did not cure as well as before; and the news spread.

In desperation, Dr. Paymaster went to the sign-painter to bring back the old board. Fortunately, the sign-painter still had it, lying under a heap of discarded shingles and nameplates he was saving for firewood. It was rehung over the entrance, and the confusion vanished overnight.

And overnight, Dr. Paymaster sorrowfully realized something they never taught in medical college: like any consumer product, a doctor’s name was infinitely more important than his skills. In time, however, he grew reconciled to the fact and did not hold it against his patients, nor did he resent his predecessor’s signboard. Besides, he felt, the year 1892 on it had a touch of dignity, and everything else that longevity and endurance suggested, especially in the doctoring business. And so, only a small inner circle of patients such as the Nobles knew his real name and addressed him correctly.

With the passing of years, Dr. Paymaster became a grandfatherly individual, bald and round-faced, with the countenance of a sad clown. He still conducted the doctoring at his dispensary in his jesterly way: clowning with hypodermics or enemas, sniffing at jars of vile-smelling chemical compounds and making funny faces, or just keeping up an endless patter of amusing nonsense — things which would seem silly to a healthy person, but not to the sick and desperate and frightened, who were grateful for everything.

For all his buffoonery, however, Dr. Paymaster was not a spontaneous individual. His act was carefully controlled, and outside the clinic he was solemn, even grim, when encountered in a non-professional capacity at the market or fire-temple. Once Gustad teased him, asking if his real name was not Dr. Jekyll. Dr. Paymaster replied, unamused, that it was the sick and the worried who needed gladdening, and since his supply of cheerfulness was not endless, it was wise to conserve it.

The Nobles never abandoned Dr. Paymaster, nor did they lose faith in him. But over the years they began to accept his limitations. First they gave up on miracles, then on his ability to effect permanent cures, and finally, on the hope that he would recommend newer, more effective remedies he might come across during his perusal of medical journals from famous research centres abroad.

But Dr. Paymaster’s subscriptions to the foreign journals had run out a long time ago. Like everything else about the government, foreign exchange regulations involved convoluted rules and tortuous procedures, and Dr. Paymaster decided to spare himself the agony. After Lal Bahadur Shastri became Prime Minister upon Nehru’s death, it seemed for a while that the stagnant waters of government would at last be freshened and vitalized, despite the sceptics who said that such a short man would not be able to command respect on the world stage. Then along came the twenty-one-day war with Pakistan in which he fared much better than Nehru had in the war with China, and silenced the unbelievers. ‘Short in height but tall in brains is our Lal Bahadur,’ Dr. Paymaster told all his patients, bending his knees and walking like a dwarf with an enema syringe in the bayonet-charge position. ‘A pukka purgative he gave the Pakistanis.’

While the crowds cheered, Shastri boarded a plane for Tashkent where Kosygin had offered to negotiate a peace between India and Pakistan. The night the Tashkent Declaration was signed, Shastri died on Soviet soil, less than eighteen months after he became Prime Minister. Some said he had been killed by the Pakistanis, and others suspected a Russian plot. Some even claimed it was the new Prime Minister’s supporters who poisoned Shastri, so that her father’s dynastic-democratic dream could finally come true.

Whatever the truth, once again the government was in chaos. Streamlining foreign exchange regulations ranked very low on the country’s list of priorities, and Dr. Paymaster’s subscriptions remained unrenewed. Thus, when it came to diarrhoea, the same two names, Entero-Vioform and Sulpha-Guanidine, kept appearing on his prescriptions.

These repetitive prescriptions made Dilnavaz finally agree with Gustad that it was a waste of time and money to go to the dispensary. Medicinal names now began to roll as trippingly off her tongue as they did his. The left-hand section of the sideboard filled up with the pills and syrups most in demand. There was Glycodin Terp Vasaka for sore throats, Zephrol and Benadryl for coughs, Aspro and Codopyrine for colds and fevers, Elkosin and Erithromycin for septic tonsils and inflamed throats, Sat-Isabgol for indigestion, Coramine for nausea, Veritol for hypotension, Iodex for bruises, Burnol for minor cuts and burns, Privine for stuffed noses, a Yunani cure-all for external use (which looked like plain water but was meant to eradicate every ache and pain) and, of course, Entero-Vioform and Sulpha-Guanidine for diarrhoea. All these were on the first shelf. On the second, the collection was somewhat more eclectic.

As Dilnavaz’s confidence grew, she began recommendations outside the family. When diarrhoea struck some of the more populous families in Khodadad Building, like the Pastakias, who had one toilet in their flat and five children ranging from four years to nine, the situation was critical. They would have to resort to the water-closets of accommodating neighbours, running up and down the stairs to find the nearest vacant ones. With so much movement and urgency, accidents were inevitable; then the air in the building changed, and Dilnavaz’s nose told her that her medicinal advice would soon be indispensable.