Cost of chewing paan-masaala

I have been chewing paan-masaala for over 40 years. My dentist, Dr Arun Kumar, warned me that my teeth were decaying fast and I was running the risk of getting oral cancer. There were others like my friends — Saeed Jaffrey and Shammi Kapur — who assured me regularly in TV ads that entertaining friends and samdhis with paan-masaala was the in thing. So I persisted in my habit. Blisters erupted; blisters subsided. I said to myself: "What the heck! I am 85. I have to go soon; so one excuse will be as good as any other. Enjoy yourself as long as you can".

Last month another blister erupted on my upper palate. When I pressed it with my finger, it shot out a stream of blood like a pichkaaree during Holi. It filled up again. And again. So I went to see Arun Kumar. He punctured it with a sharp instrument and was rewarded with a spurt of blood on his gloves. "You think it might be cancer", I asked him. "I don’t think so," he replied gently. "It looks benign. But I suggest you get biopsy done to get suspicion out of your mind."

I did not know any doctors who performed biopsy operations. I consulted my tennis group: Rita Sahni and Dr Mangala Telang. I was referred to Dr Harcharan Singh. In his turn, he fixed a time and date for the surgery at the East-West Clinic which is at a stone’s throw from my apartment. I arrived at the clinic with my daughter Mala.

In the reception room, a natty, young Malayali nurse handed me a long form to fill. Her Hindi was the level of kya bolta tu. I nodded my head. But she took the form out of my hand and passed it on to my daughter. She filled in the details. Dr Harcharan Singh arrived and took me into a room to examine my blister. He felt it with a gloved finger and said it would need a minor surgery and its contents would be sent for biopsy. I was ushered into an operating theatre by the same nurse. She handed me anoher form and asked, "Sign kar sakta?" I smiled and replied "Ungootha lagaa sakta". She did not catch my little joke, so I signed the form with a flourish. She examined my signature. It meant nothing to her: I was just another sardarji who could write his name in English. She handed me a white smock and ordered, "Utaro". I dutifully took off my shirt and put on the smock. She was not satisfied: "Neechey walla bhee utaro". Another time and place, I would have been more than happy to obey her command but an operating theatre did not have the right atmosphere. I tamely slipped down my salwar and followed her like a lamb being taken to slaugher, to another operating room.

Surgeon Harcharan Singh awaited me. He had his mouth and beard covered under a mask. I recognised him by his turban and glasses. Another nurse, also a Keralite, joined us. The two girls got chatting in Malayalam which neither the doctor nor I understood. They did not seem much concerned with my blister and had more important things to convey to each other. The doctor made his irritation known to them. He refused to let them fill the syringe with the anesthetic and said firmly, "I will do this myself." He stuck the needle on both sides of my gums. My mouth went numb. I did not feel him scraping away the blister from its roots nor realised it was protesting by spurting blood till I heard him speak sharply to the nurses: "Don’t you see he is bleeding profusely! I don’t want any blood to go down his throat. Use the suction pump at once." They did so. He jabbed wads of cotton wool in my mouth. At last I stopped bleeding. "It’s all over," pronounced Dr Harcharan Singh and held aloft a small jar full of white fluid in which my blister lay flat and defeated. "We will get the result of the biopsy in two days." The surgery which I thought would take five minutes took well over an hour. I walked unaided to the other room and put on my salwar-kameez. I took the cheque book I had brought from my daughter’s hand and went into the now crowded reception room. I was introduced to the boss of East-West Clinic, Dr Chawla, known as Duke. I had known many members of his family, including his father. I flourished my cheque book to pay for the use of the clinic. "No hurry," assured Dr Chawla. "I will send you a consolidated bill."

The bill arrived two days later: Rs 3765. Come to think of it; for that amount I could have enjoyed chewing paan-masaala for another 10 years.

Facing death

A few weeks ago I wrote about how people evolve their own formulas to face death: some drown themselves in drink, some take to prayer, some become workholics, some simply crack up and spend their days and nights wallowing in self-pity and crying. As an example of workholism, I cited the instance of my cousin’s husband who 10 years ago was afflicted with cancer of the liver.

He realised his days on earth were numbered. He spent most of his time in his study editing research papers he had written. He died in the early hours of Monday on May 24. As dictated in his will, his body was cremated in an electric crematorium as he did not believe in wasting wood to dispose of dead humans. He also had a personal relationship with plants and trees, as he had spent all the creative years of his life on research on evolving new varieties in his laboratory. His name was Yashpal Singh Bajaj.

Yashpal was one of a family of six children born in Kohat in 1936. After Partition, the family migrated to Delhi where Yashpal did his schooling. He went to Birla College in Pilani to get his degree and returned to Delhi to do his postgraduation in Botany at the university. He earned his doctorate in 1964. The following year, he married my cousin Satinder, currently head of Lady Irwin College. The couple spent the next 12 years abroad. Yashpal worked in prestigious research laboratories in Canada, the USA, Germany, England and the Netherlands. In 1977 he joined Punjab Agricultural University as Professor of Tissue Culture and was later awarded the National Fellowship of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. He was invited to lectures and seminars in countries across Asia, Europe and America. In this time he produced over 200 papers on plant bio-technology and edited 46 books on bio-technology in agriculture and forestry for Springer Verlag of Heidelberg. When he was afflicted with liver cancer, a very painful disease, far from retiring, he began to work round the clock to keep his mind off his inevitable end. "I have lots of work left do do", he told his wife.

When I went to call on Satinder after her husband’s body had been cremated, I saw something of the frenetic zeal with which her late husband had worked during his terminal illness. On the door of his study was a notice: "Don’t disturb". Inside were many shelves crammed with books that he had written or edited. He did not relish visitors. To make his intentions clear he had a mattress on the floor. Most of us have words like "Welcome" printed on them; Dr Yashpal Bajaj’s mattress had a one-word command "Go".

Doing the wrong thing

An American soldier, serving in World War-II, had just returned from several weeks of intense action on German front lines. He had finally been granted R&R and was on a train bound for London. The train was very crowded, so the soldier walked the length of the train, looking for an empty seat. The only unoccupied seat was directly adjacent to a well-dressed middle-aged lady and was being used by her little dog. The war-weary soldier asked, "Please ma’ am, may I sit in that seat? The English woman looked down her nose at the soldier, sniffed and said, "You Americans. You are such a rude class of people. Can’t you see my little Fifi is using that seat?"

The soldier walked away, determined to find a place to rest, but after another trip down to the end of the train, found him-self again facing the woman with the dog. Again he asked, "Please lady, may I sit there? I’m very tired." The English woman wrinkled her nose and snorted, "You Americans! Not only are you rude, you are also arrogant. Imagine!"

The soldier didn’t say anything else; he leaned over, picked up the little dog, tossed it out of the window of the train and sat down in the empty seat. The woman shrieked and wailed, and demanded that someone defend her and chastise the soldier.

An English gentleman sitting across the aisle spoke up, "You know, sir, you Americans do seem to have a penchant for doing the wrong thing. You eat holding the fork in the wrong hand.

You drive your autos on the wrong side of the road. And now, sir, you’ve thrown the wrong bitch out of the window".