SINGLED BY SIMPLICITY
OUR family doctor, for all his vast knowledge, is a very down-to-earth person. However ill you are, he has this way of making you feel that all is well with you. So what if you have to go through a series of tests and all that, get done with it and enjoy life.
When you go to him for a diagnosis, he might suspect there could be something gravely wrong with you but he’ll never make you feel there’s a complication inside of you.
This attitude of his is relected in his persona as well. His consultation room is stacked with medical books, not arranged neatly as if to show off, but as if they have been visited frequently. Everything about his room is clean, as a consultation room ought to be, yet the neatness is not pristinely clinical, thus making you feel at home.
And in the middle of all this sits our doctor in a loose pair of trousers and a pale coloured shirt that hangs about his shoulders. No shoes for him; he wears simple chappals that he can take off whenever he feels them inconvenient.
Recently, we attended his daughter’s wedding. It was held at a famous address in the city, not for show of wealth but more because of the large ballroom that could accommodate the multitude of guests expected, not just relatives and friends but also his long-standing “patients” for whom he was like family.
Everyone who had turned up for the wedding had come decked in their best clothes. But guess who stood out in the midst of all that inery? Our doctor, of course.
There he was in his simplicity, as if he had just taken a brief break from his consultation. He was himself.