Coming Down with Something

“Coming down with something” in India is a bit different than getting sick in the United States.  In the US, for instance, when your stomach starts to feel upset, you dismiss it as “something that did not agree with you” or if it is extreme, then it must be food poisoning.  You take a few over-the-counter elixirs to settle the discomfort and you go to bed happy in the thought that by tomorrow, it will all be gone.

In India, the thought process it slightly different.  You hope that it is “something that did not agree with you,” but you pray this is not a long-term argument.  You hope it is food poisoning, but you pray that it is not the kind that eats away at your organs and leaves you to die in your own bile.  You do not go to bed happy with any thoughts, but you stay awake combing your mind for what you possibly got on your hands or ate and struggle to feel the first signs of your lungs shutting down.

The reaction by those around you is also different.  In the US, people say,  “go home and rest.”  In India, everyone orders you to go to the doctor.  They do not, though, do it in the “well, if you don’t feel better, you should go to the doctor” way, but they say it in a “you should urgently make a beeline for a hospital before it is too late” way.  Now, in all fairness, in India, they do go to the doctor every time they feel even the slightest bit off, but for an American, this is very disconcerting – as if they know something that you don’t.

Lastly, there is the journey to the hospital if, in fact, the worse case scenario happens.  In the US, your local 911 operator dispatches an ambulance to your home and a few well-trained, people jump out, hook you to whatever needs-a-hooking and you are whisked away on a speedy journey in which all traffic parts for you like the Red Sea.  In India, an ambulance, or rather a smallish van that says “Abmlance” will show up… eventually.  When it does, the driver and co-pilot will hop out and, well ring your doorbell.  You make your own way to the ambulance and then you join the other 13 million people trying to get to wherever it is all of you need to go.  Although they have a siren, absolutely no one pays any attention to it.  Travel time to the hospital can be well over an hour. 

All in all, the mere thought of getting sick is far worse the sickness itself … or at least I hope it is!