Biryani, ‘Super Babas’ and forensic fun: When melodrama meets medical miracles
A railway doctor’s encounters with an entity more unpredictable than your mother-in-law’s mood swings: the Indian patient
In his newly published book, *The Great Indian Medico Masala*, Dr. Kumar Nirbhay, currently a senior physician at the Railway Hospital in Nagpur, humorously chronicles his journey from a student at Mumbai’s Grant Medical College to a seasoned medical practitioner. Initially driven to medicine by his mother’s desire for career diversity in their family and a personal wish to cure his own nasal condition, Nirbhay's subsequent twenty-year career taught him that treating the "Indian Patient" is an art of navigating domestic melodrama and playing detective. Through a series of witty anecdotes—ranging from dealing with eccentric professors and hazing in medical school to uncovering a patient smuggling country liquor in coconut water and diagnosing a husband's psychosomatic "wife allergy"—the book serves as a satirical microcosm of Indian society, demonstrating how levity can make the complexities of human relationships, alcoholism, and medical challenges bearable.
In his newly published book, *The Great Indian Medico Masala*, Dr. Kumar Nirbhay, currently a senior physician at the Railway Hospital in Nagpur, humorously chronicles his journey from a student at Mumbai’s Grant Medical College to a seasoned medical practitioner. Initially driven to medicine by his mother’s desire for career diversity in their family and a personal wish to cure his own nasal condition, Nirbhay's subsequent twenty-year career taught him that treating the "Indian Patient" is an art of navigating domestic melodrama and playing detective. Through a series of witty anecdotes—ranging from dealing with eccentric professors and hazing in medical school to uncovering a patient smuggling country liquor in coconut water and diagnosing a husband's psychosomatic "wife allergy"—the book serves as a satirical microcosm of Indian society, demonstrating how levity can make the complexities of human relationships, alcoholism, and medical challenges bearable.
In his newly published book, *The Great Indian Medico Masala*, Dr. Kumar Nirbhay, currently a senior physician at the Railway Hospital in Nagpur, humorously chronicles his journey from a student at Mumbai’s Grant Medical College to a seasoned medical practitioner. Initially driven to medicine by his mother’s desire for career diversity in their family and a personal wish to cure his own nasal condition, Nirbhay's subsequent twenty-year career taught him that treating the "Indian Patient" is an art of navigating domestic melodrama and playing detective. Through a series of witty anecdotes—ranging from dealing with eccentric professors and hazing in medical school to uncovering a patient smuggling country liquor in coconut water and diagnosing a husband's psychosomatic "wife allergy"—the book serves as a satirical microcosm of Indian society, demonstrating how levity can make the complexities of human relationships, alcoholism, and medical challenges bearable.
There are two reasons why Dr Kumar Nirbhay decided to become a doctor. The first was the Case of the Missing Gene. Both Nirbhay’s elder brother and sister had become engineers, and when he, too, seemed likely to follow after scoring 98 per cent in mathematics for his 10th boards, his mother started feeling the chromosomal deficit. If he, too, became an engineer, what would happen to the diversity of their family’s gene pool? After all, how many engineers did you really need to repair the broken television? Also, in her old age, dentures were a more practical necessity than a desktop, and therefore it was imperative to have a doctor in the family. Hell hath no fury like a matriarch scorned, and so Nirbhay meekly exchanged his microprocessor kit for a stethoscope.
The second reason was rather nasal. It came out during his first year at Grant Medical College in Mumbai. He and three other freshers decided to sneak into the one place that was off-limits to them—the Holy Grail of all things culinary: the Central Canteen. If Amitabh Bachchan is famous for his taste, it is nothing compared with that of the Central Canteen’s biryani. The place was frequented by everyone from final-year legends to professors to visiting deans, but no fresher was allowed into its hallowed portals.
Unable to resist its lure, they decided to risk the wrath of their seniors and entered the canteen. The biryani exceeded their expectations. It was as they were leaving that it came: the Super Baba sighting. The Super Babas were the “ultra seniors who had flunked so many times that no one knew which year they officially belonged to”. They were the ones who loved best to turn the freshers into their private punching bags. For the next two hours, Nirbhay and his friends were roasted relentlessly. Finally, they were given an offer they could not refuse: “Answer honestly, and we might let you go. What speciality do you want to pursue and why?” When Nirbhay’s turn came, he said ENT surgery, so that he could fix his childhood condition of a deviated nasal septum (DNS) and nasal polyps. At that, the Super Babas burst out laughing: “Bugger, are you saying you will operate on your own nose?” asked one of them.
The first lesson that Nirbhay learnt in medical college? Whoever said stereotypes did not exist had probably never set foot inside a medical college. Because there, it was as rampant as plastic waste on an Indian beach. Other than the Super Baba, there was the Eccentric Professor. For Nirbhay, it was Dr Ravan, in whose ward “even oxygen kept quiet”. He met him in his second year, when students attended clinical postings in various departments. His first posting: orthopaedics. By then, the legend of Dr Ravan had spread extensively. At exactly 10:30am, he walked in: a stocky man, sharply dressed and exuding authority. For the next 30 minutes, he grilled, mocked, quizzed and decimated the last vestiges of their confidence. At the end of this “academic massacre”, two students glanced at their watches.
“Do you need to go somewhere?” he asked.
“Sir, we are supposed to attend a forensic lecture,” one of them dared to venture.
“Oh, I love forensic medicine,” he replied. “I’ll just ask one question. If anyone can answer it, you can all go.”
And then he fired the salvo: “What is the definition of a virgin?”
The students were stunned into silence. Some looked down. Others shook with existential dread.
He waited. No answer.
Then, with the timing of a seasoned stand-up comic, he delivered:
“On the verge… but not in.”
The students were not sure whether they were expected to laugh or not.
But it was only when Nirbhay started his 20-year-long career that he came into contact with that mythical creature that his much-weathered copy of Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine had not prepared him for: the Indian Patient. He has put down his encounters with this entity in the laugh riot that is his new book, The Great Indian Medico Masala. It did not take him long to find out why medicine is as much an art as it is a science. It is the art of separating melodrama from medical emergency. Sometimes it is like watching an episode of an Ekta Kapoor serial, like the time the two wives of a man started waging World War III inside the hospital room claiming his body. It did not hurt that whoever won the game of spousal one-upmanship would also be eligible for his railway job on compassionate grounds.
Medicine is also the art of playing Sherlock Holmes with a stethoscope. For example, there was the case of the alcoholic who showed no withdrawal symptom when he was weaned off his liquor. No tremors, seizures or invisible lizards crawling on the walls. When interrogated, he offered a beatific smile. “Sir, I drink coconut water every day,” he said. “That’s why nothing happens to me. Coconut water is the cure.” For a moment, Nirbhay wondered whether he had stumbled upon the miracle cure for alcohol addiction. Until the ward sister informed him of the visitor bringing him coconut water every day. His suspicion aroused, Nirbhay waited until the miracle cure was brought to the patient the next day. “Arre baba,” he said. “This coconut water must be magical. Let me try some today—see what’s keeping you so healthy.”
The patient froze. “Sir, not today,” he muttered. “It’s not good today. You try tomorrow.”
Red flag.
Nirbhay took the coconut and brought it to his nose. He was met with the strong smell of pure country liquor.
And voila! The mystery of why, when other patients battled tremors and demons, this one sipped his way through rehabilitation with a straw and a smile, was finally solved.
Then there was the case of the man with the persistent headache. He insisted on being admitted in the semi-private cabin… until his wife showed up with uncontrolled blood sugar levels and was admitted in the same cabin. Immediately, the man’s headache left and he wanted to go home. Eight days later, the wife was discharged and as soon as she got home, the man’s headache returned. Another mystery solved. Patient symptom? Headache. Diagnosis? Wife allergy.
Nirbhay, currently serving as senior physician at the Railway Hospital in Nagpur, says he has always had an excellent memory for patient stories. That is why he could recollect all his encounters with them. “I don’t know which area of my brain has developed for that, but even when I forget the name of someone close to me, I will never forget the face or case history of my patients,” he tells THE WEEK. “So, these stories were in my mind right from the beginning.”
The book is not just a collection of patient stories; it is a microcosm of the madness that is India. With all its marital woes, alcoholism, dowry demands and abandoned elderly, it never loses the levity that makes all things bearable. Life might not come with a punchline, but if you look carefully, you won’t miss its satire.
THE GREAT INDIAN MEDICO MASALA
By Dr Kumar Nirbhay
Published by Rupa Publications
Price Rs295; pages 210