HIVy League

It all happened on a day I was feeling particularly thirsty. Dehydrated to my core. How I wish I could say it was the side-effect of popping a certain alphabetical pill. But in my case, it was the cured shark I'd eaten after a brief culinary misadventure. It was bought from a native shack from a popular market, as a spur of the moment indulgence. I'd also asked the shopkeeper for cooking instructions before bringing it home.

Now I'm not usually a bad cook, and mostly, just the way the food looks and the aroma it gives will tell you how good it is. 

After cooking, the shark actually looked fine, with the right amount of glaze and did I even detect a sharp undercurrent of the sea? Well, the latter intuition wasn't quite off the mark because when I put the thing in the mouth it tasted like a fillet...........of salt.

I was supposed to soak it in water for about 8 hours, the part of the instructions I'd completely forgotten. But seeing there was nothing else to call dinner, I chose to face it rather than go hungry .

And that's how I got dehydrated. Even two days after that fateful meal, I was gulping down water like a camel in the Gobi. When it continued till the third day I rushed to the doc, carrying a bottle of mineral water in one hand.

The little clinic I went to was a poor man's clinic. The doctor wasn't even there. But when my turn came, I found myself sitting uncomfortably with my mouth wide open to this man who looked nothing like a doctor. He didn't even talk like a doctor; in fact he wasn't even a doctor, as I found out when the apprentice addressed him as compounder saab.

I then suddenly remembered the real reason I'd chosen this clinic, of all the others in my neighbourhod. That hot nurse who looked at the patient with a look of contempt while taking the blood pressureP? But it probably was her off that very day.

I'd just let out a wistful and regretful sigh, and the next thing I remember is a flashlight probing the depths of my throat. The compounder hadn´t even bothered to ask me what was wrong.
"I've been feeling very thirsty." I managed to gargle-warble.

After much inspection and nodding and shaking of head, the man started asking me stuff, with an intonation that suggested he was clearing his throat to spit. He asked me a whole bunch of questions, but still couldn't figure why my thirst persisted. He noticed that I was constantly taking sips from my bottle even while talking to him.
So, his ingenius mind had a plan.


Him: "Is your merij done?" (sic).

There were around 13 other patients in the room, who could hear everything and everyone in the clinic - from the rising and heaving chests to the old woman's crackling bones. So he probably meant marriage, and his question, although very innocent at first, was actually quite loaded.
You'll very soon know why.


Me: "Well, no I'm not married. "
Him: "Hmmm. Have you done anything phhun?"
Me: "Fun?...mmmm, well...a lot of things actually. Drinking, playing the guitar, listening to music, watching sitcoms, going out. Yea, quite a few things."
Him: "Hmmmmm...yes....ok...hhmmm.........yes.....Dhiruuuu....give patient HIV test."
Me: "Huh? What? I mean, excuse me....???!!

But before I could protest, I was whisked to the waiting room, where an attendant stood gleaming with a giant syringe in one hand, ready to draw the blood that was quickly draining from my face.

It cost me some 300 bucks. To see two tablespoons of my blood being whirled around in a little tiffin box, so as to separate the plasma. I liked the sound of it initially. Plasma in my blood and I didn't even know it??

So the plasma then goes into this little pregnancy kit, which has HIV written in big block letters. And that's how I figured it wasn't a pregnancy kit.

A line means I'm ok. Two lines and I'd be joining the big league of celebrities like Michael Jordan, Freddie Mercury, Derek Jarman, and what have you. Sometimes, an extra line is all you can pray for not to appear. There there, I was also beginning to sound like Chuck Palahniuk.

Anyway, Dhiru and I were sitting and waiting for the results to show when I began to wonder what was worse - a positive pregnancy for a 20-year-old responsible adult or HIV+ for an equally responsible adult.

When, very hesitantly, Dhiru asked me whether I'd been up to some fun stuff lately. I didn't know what to say. As if the compounder's incompetence to suggest an HIV check for something as simple as dehydration wasn't enough to make me livid.

Dhiru: Don't worry. If you know you haven't done anything, what's the problem?" (sic)

The idiot couldn't see that the furrowed rows on my face were caused not by worrying, but by disgust, and possibly anger.
Me: "Yea, but I think there's been a mistake. I came here to find a treatment for dehydration. Why the fuck am I getting an HIV test done?"

Dhiru: Good news. Negative. You are not HIV+."(sic)
Me: "Ok man, but will anyone please check my real problem? I'm so fucking thirsty!!"

Dhiru: "You know, your plasma is yellow colour. How many cigarrettes you smoke?" (sic)
Me: "What...? Well, I've cut down to three a day."

Dhiru: "Ahaa..so that is the problem. Just stop smoking three cigarettes a day. You will not feel thirsty again." (sic)

Me: WTFFFF...are you fucking insane? Between HIV and cigarettes, you idiots have no brains? 

Of course that's what I screamed in my mind, but anyone who observed my facial expressions for even a brief second would have no doubt heard the mad and loud clanging inside my head.  

Dhiru: "Please pay 100 rupees at the counter for only checkup. Compunder saaaaaab, patient is not HIV+." (sic)