Mystery of Missing Niece

I asked my cousin when I met him at the hospital how he was after the knee replacement. He said “I have got new knees for life.” To which I said “your Amrit Kaal has begun. You will have ease of life.” We laughed together at the implied satire. 

Our family tree has never been strong or deep rooted but we were one joint family in the sense joint problems ran across generations. In my mother’s side grand father and mother, my mother's sister her children, my mom and dad, my sister all had joint problems. I was beginning to have one. My cousin had the worst of it. It made him disjointed in life. He was one person who had tried all kinds of hacks for over a decade. Finally decided to have new knees although as a cousin remained the same. 

Finally, one Dr Surya shed some light upon his dark painfilled life and suggested he should go for binary knee replacement. I offered to come and stay for a week to provide some help. My cousin had the insurance part somewhat worked out though one can never be sure about insurance coverage as the terms were something one can't make much sense.

 All of a sudden one long lost maternal uncle offered to help with some finance. My cousin said it was all God’s grace. I retorted that why bring God into all this as uncle may be doing this out of guilt conscious. 

Why does human kind easily believe in God? God is perhaps the ultimate comforter. If the operation succeeds it is god's grace and if doesn't it is one’s karma. 

Hospital stays at times felt like a fancy air-conditioned prison. I would walk out every now and then. Not like politicians who do a walk out in protest, but for some food. It was during one such walk out I saw the elderly gentlemen being helped in his walk by a young woman. When I said hello I came to know they were our immediate neighbours at the hospital. 

He was still a farmer, not a former, from Kumbakonam town famous for its temples and degree filter coffee. But he said hospitals there ran more like a business enterprise. That is why he came to this hospital. The young woman was his daughter doing her PhD in Israel something to do with cancer. She has taken some time off to be with her father. I got curious as it was a rare that some Indian would go for doctorate in Israel. I asked her if she was learning Hebrew. She said that it was not an easy language and given her focus on her research she does not have the inclination. She added that even the brew of coffee they make is not to my liking unlike our very cup of filter coffee with milk and sugar. Israelis like it black and bitter. She was surprised that I knew something about Israel. I rerorted why not? they survive with grit among a hostile neighbourhood and their defence never derails. 

Her dad enjoyed the little conversations we had on and off. Illness brings family members closer. The man was emotive when he told me his estranged brother came up to see him. He again thanked God for his grace. 

When it was time for my cousin to leave many lowly staff dropped in to receive their mamool (bakshish). Many a hundred rupees exchanged hands. I wondered if anything moves in India without a mamool. I come from Karnataka where the state has become famous for 40% commission to be paid for any government contract. 

When I was thinking about how my cousin was managing his finance, he got good news from the insurance company. He was getting nearly 90% of his expenses reimbursed. He ended up getting two knees for about 50k . Not a bad deal. My cousin said his daughter Megha would food any additional bills. I chuckled and remarked call it ‘cloud funding.’ 

On the penultimate day another niece Sitha had come calling along with her five-year old daughter who was reputed to be mischievous whom I met her for the first time. We ordered for some tea and cookies and got started talking excitedly. Suddenly my cousin felt some knee pain while turning and he called for some staff assistance. The response was immediate as he had tipped them well. Our attention was all at my cousin for the next fifteen minutes. When it was over suddenly my niece Sitha exclaimed that the grand niece was missing. 

We got into a panic mode. I rushed out and looked for her along the corridor and she wasn’t to be found. I asked whoever I met along the way if they saw a girl of about five years wearing a yellow frock. Nobody seemed to have seen her. In the mean-time the staff had alerted the security who came up scampering. As it happens in crisis the technology fails. The CCTV in the fourth storey was not working and the security had made a complaint in the morning and the company team was supposed to arrive any time soon. My grand niece had chosen a good time to do her disappearance act. 

Now it was the turn of the security to run helter-skelter looking for the girl in the yellow frock. In the mean-time our niece started bawling. My cousin too was in tears because of his niece this time and he had forgotten the pain in his knees. 

Then the head of the security walked in and comforted us saying that our grand niece must be somewhere in the premises only. His team had checked the CCTV recording in other floors and exit and she wasn’t seen in any of those footage. 

It was at this time we heard a knock on the door and the girl from Israel walks in holding the hands of our grand- niece. She was surprised to see the reaction in our faces. I explained the drama that we went through for the missing niece. She said she was sorry as the girl had walked out and smiled at them and went in side the room along with them. They were blissfully unaware of the drama going outside. I said she did a Mossad like operation of bringing the niece back safely to us although they were no kidnappers around while the kid caught us napping. 

 When I headed out from the air-conditioned hospital for my evening walk, I felt like a piece of flesh in a processing factory what with the combo of heat, dust, humidity and din. My thought went back to how European the experience was in reaching from my home at Bangalore to the hospital at Chennai. My daughter dropped me near midnight at the railway station a few kilometres away. Then I immediately went to sleep and the train was on time at a quarter to seven in the morning. I stopped by at the IRCTC counter for a morning cup of filter coffee for Rs Ten, perhaps no where in Chennai one can get a coffee for this price. Then a short walk to the metro station and for Rs forty a half hour ride to Vadapalani station. As you walk out you can see the hospital on to the left side. But the experience was short lived as the surroundings of the hospital reminds one of the city belonging to the third rate world. Footpath exist only on paper. One could not walk beyond fifty to sixty metres and one is forced to get down to the road at one’s own risk due to obstructions, broken tiles or it being an open toilet for male specimen to un-zip and pee. I have heard of the singara (beautiful) Chennai but Chennai has very little to offer to a singer to croon about. By the time I finished my walk my right knee expressed signs of strain. 

I had decided days ahead to consult with one of the reputed orthopaedic doctors here at the hospital. When I showed the MRI report the doctor didn’t bother much about the meniscus tear but said the tear being normal for my age needed no intervention. I was quite surprised. Had COVID not intervened I would perhaps have succumbed to the first doctor’s (Bangalore one) suggestion to undergo orthoscopy to set right my meniscus tear. Here the doctor said it required no intervention. The doctor noticed I was developing a bow leg and that at a future date if the pain becomes unbearable may require a surgical intervention that involved bone cutting. I decided not to do any bone cutting lest I lose my bone identity and not worry about my knee. I can always continue with my cycling instead of walking, a non-weight bearing physical activity. But the episode made me wonder that two doctors had diametrically opposite views about the same MRI report on my meniscus tear. Beauty of the knees lie in the eyes of the orthopaedic. 

My cousin decided to stay the night at the hospital and get himself out in the morning next. My niece Megha had come to pick me up and take me to her home. I had good fun at my niece’s home with her kids. She has two of them and their birth were celestial events since it involved the womb of the mother cloud (megha). In the morning I wrote out this poem.

My niece elegant and nice

Calm, collected and quite wise

Make curries with little spice 

Savour them slowly and not in a trice.

Where as

My knees are troublesome and gives me pain

When I walk a bit long gives me strain

I love to be fit and from exercise cannot refrain

Be it heat, dust, cold can’t sit quiet even if it does rain.

While the niece makes ease of life

My knees make life full of strife

This is one relation cannot do without

Peace or consultation fees 

A dilemma presently it was all about.

Next day my cousin got himself discharged and we helped him transport to his bed at his home with wheel chair. “All is well with my knees” he declared. Megha had cooked button onion sambar and mashed potato curry which we enjoyed for lunch, after all it was from ‘cloud’ kitchen. Finally, after my niece left, I eased myself into a siesta. 

On our way back we steered away from pot holes on the road. Our country would be the leader in PH index. If you are wondering what is PH, I call it pot hole index. In my view it was a twin brother of corruption as indestructible as our PM.