Goddess Lakshmi

 The waiting days wrenched my nerves. Each minute seemed like a hour, and 2 hours like a millennium. The kabadiwala too had business, while the mochi too chipped plastics and leather, merrily. Empty Rickshawalas, not plying to the customer needs,  rush passed frivolously as if Aishwarya Rai or up in the ladder, Sonia Gandhi waited the ride. One's dependency on the tricycle for lack of husband's funds, while other's apathy due to son in law's splurging, not that the son did anything great. Still, the ladies had a business of going somewhere, for which these rickshawalas were being arrogant, to their daily bread and butter. How a man goes crazy for a day of malai kulfi and italian pizza, is a story of another blog. 

So, to lay emphasis here is, the nukad boy crying 'bhindi lelo' too has an involvement in occupation, but not me. Yes, the doctor's degree certificate fresh out of printing and framing, ridicules at me, 'Go find a better way of whiling time, than shooing away the third generation of flies born in two months, at the prosperity of an empty clinic!' If this was the state of mockery spat in my face by the beget of my hardwork, imagine what distantly related animates spoke. 

"Let the children do some drawings here, till I fetch some veggies." Once a Mary had gone shopping, leaving her little lambs at my idle mercy. The blow came when she remarked the next day, "Oh, they just loved the empty, safe space, to bring out the Picasso in them." EMPTY SPACE the real dagger, minced my ego, and made a kheema out of it. Even when the kheema was not ready, the spectators were too humble, to bring in their own pav. 

The next auspicious day, my immediate neighbour, the carpenter decides to abuse my mantra of 'Live and let Live'. "Madamji, kuch saman aayega, bara baje. Main ek order lene ja raha hu, paleees, aapke chaurahe pe rakhne dena. Mention not, Madamji!" Cursing expletives was not part of my upbringing, and Mother's son was a pure relation for me. Yet, again the Homoeopathic clinic was a babysitter, to woody babies of a carpenter who was out on work. 

WORK!! Again everyone had it, except me. I longed with dewy eyes, at the labourer sweating it out, digging roads for the nth time in two months, while the sun shone on his brow. Dejected and bruised, I went back to my cabin for a nth round of silent wailing and head banging in exasperation. 

"Madam, aau kya? Dawakhana khula kya?" She uttered those three magical words-DAWAKHANA KHULA KYA! Arey aana, tere liye toh mera dil ka darwaja bhi khul gaya. Two things, I loved Lakshmi for-one being my first guinea pig of an independent practice, second calling my clinic by its real name DAWAKHANA! Pet names however cute and mushy they sound, never establish your true identity. 

If only I had an arti thali, I would have done the unfathomable. So Lakshmi, deep dark eyes with even darker skin covering her bony oval face. Flat pressed, cleanly oiled hair, plait or bun, not visible due to a veil covering the caput majorly. Shade over shame, the thin pallu of her rayon saree protected her from the Surya devta. Lean, with curves putting the Indian and Italian beauty both to shame, Lakshmi didn't come singlehandedly. On her curves, sat the baggage of her bitter young days and victim of my sweet pills. The baby smiled gleefully as if it heard that I was going to treat it sweetly, over puncturing its dusty bums. 

"Dekhona, madamji, kya kha liya hai nalayak ne ki julab band hi nahi ho rahe!" The baby marvelled at his janani, but not without relishing a dallop of sticky mucus hanging precariously from the nasal origins. I so desperately wanted to say 'This My Cleopatra, this unhygienic mouth and habit will make you run to the Hippocrates!" But I dare offend my first visitor, who days into treatment would bring the entire digging clan to me. 

"Pachas rupiya!" I proclaimed, after 30minutes of doing all the chest, abodomen and eye nail examinations, if what the Hutchinson says, I had only betrayed the genital examination otherwise scrutinised the entire territory for a bout of watery diarrhoea. While I maneuvered on my object of gratification (gratification to my five years of struggle to don the colourless white apron), Lakshmi pulled off her veil, and settled down on the marble flooring, basking in the glory of the flapping air conditioner.

"Itna nahi hai! Ye bar bees rakh lo, agli bar pura degi!" Thus, began our sojourn of udhari. But the child so innocent and pure, never went without a Parle-G packet from me. Cheap charities, you may say. But it definitely set my practice rolling before the moss could set in. Lakshmi brought many of her clan women and children, for problems of leucorrhoea, anaemia, domestic and occupational injuries, for treatment with sweet pills. Everytime a benevolent promise, 'Agli bar pura paisa degi!' And everytime the child awarded a Parle-G! The glee in his eyes not less than holding a Padma Bhushan, if not a Vibhushan! The sweet pills or the biscuits, what brought them back again and again to the clinic, is a mystery of the dinosaur era. But I enjoyed their indulgence in my practice. 

Lakshmi taught me Zen meditation. Her talks enlightened me like Osho. Her frugal ways of life, made me believe in Buddha and Mahavir. Brahma Vishnu Mahesh, I worshipped all forms with her tryst for life. The glucose biscuit was a fragile offering to a Goddess who answersed my prayers of a successful practice. Where she is, I am not eager to know, only a silent prayer that those diarrhoea afflicted bums, work their ass out to keep the veil of respect on her caput safe. 

Agli bar, to some other somber practitioner may she have the 'pura paisa'. To her name, may she at least afford a Parle-G. If not, some doctor with a beating heart, may offer those treats to her grandchildren bathed in smug of poverty.  Amen!