Wednesday, October 04, 2006

What is in a name???

They maybe a minority group, but I know some parents who seek lifelong revenge on their toddlers and give them names which prove more to be a life long stigma rather than an identity. Mala seems like an innocuous name..Couple it with an initial 'D' and voila ..I am not saying more on it. We have a habit of naming our children with names of gods/goddesses. Taking it a step further a relative of mine named his first born 'Jai Hanuman'. The fascination to English terms also gets reflected with disastrous consequences. I had a senior in college called 'Shabby'...

More examples on this..I can keep on writing..But a recent incident has made me a firm believer of the need of naming medicines more appropriately.

the other day, I had valiantly offered a friend of mine my help. The task was to get a list of tablets from the college hospital. Since she was in no condition to cycle down and get it herself, I set myself to the noble deed..

I trotted down the apollo hospital wing in IIT campus...Went over to the counter and gave the list of tablets neatly written in a piece of paper. Now, I pride in having a beautiful handwriting but most people say that a doctor's prescription is easier to read than my handwriting..hmmph.. jealousy. Anyways, I think the attendants over at the counter were bad in reading comprehension or something and kept on asking me to read out the names of the medicine. There were quite a few cases when I have misspelled the name..By an alphabet or so.. The best one was an ointment called Faktu. The 'T' was replaced by '-'. now starts the comedy of errors. A full and impatient line of students behind me in counter..The attendant asks me to say the name..I say 'fak u'. His look turns from surprise to disbelief to anger in milliseconds. I realized what I just said out aloud and

me : "that's what my friend wants. A tube of fak - u ointment"

attendant: "there is no such thing here"

me (hit by a sudden brain wave) : "maybe I have misspelled it.. I'll tell u what it is used for. It is used for haemorrhoid treatment"

attendant: "it should be faktu then"..(and grumbles about his time being wasted by illiterate nincompoops)

sheesh..These guys are fit enough to diagnose and prescribe even. I should have asked my parents to send my sis to the dispensary of a hospital instead of enrolling her in a med school. Would have saved us some pennies as well as taken care of her handwriting.

Now I proceed to the billing section, where they want the name of the student. Unfortunately the lady in billing favors Tamil over English and my command over the language is limited to "Un peru enna? " (what is your name?), "enikku pasikkithu" (I am hungry), "bathroom enge?" (where is the bathroom?). Just enough to get my work done.

The billing lady asks me something which I interpret as 'what do u need these medicines for?' and instead of saying the very detailed and complex symptoms my friend is suffering, I say "piles". She repeats the question and I shake my head vehemently and repeat the same answer. I hear muffled laughter and smirks behind me and choose to ignore it.

I get the bill and to my utmost horror, discover that in place of name of student she has typed in 'piles'.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

good one..
but the title does not match the incident. The first part about names also is insignificant right?

sands.

Gomes said...

ha ha,ur incompetency is not limited to the language,u'll be equally incompetent anywhere else,i bet.

by the wya,as i remember us being in the same college- who was 'shabby'?

keerthy karthikeyan said...

@sands: kinda felt that it did match...well that was the response i gave when i presented my friend with the bill

@gomes: thanks for the vote of confidence.. i was talking abt pre-degree..

Navaneeth said...

Hi keerthy,
i am not gonna sit here and say that as i was looking for my old friend keerthy, i came across ur profile and may i add u(cuz i dont have one named keerthy)..blah blah like that..... its not for tht... i normally dont scrap or message anyone that i dont know ... actually i was goin thru my friend's friendslist..and as u know in no time i dont know how far i went ..and i was in ur profile.. as i was readin thru it i saw ur blog address... thought i shuld look that too..jus wanna see wht this gal is upto (IIT MADRAS product must have some brains! so lets see wht she got) ..hey!!!! read the first article...then the second..then the third..and yea! all of them are good..u are a good writer.nice humor. i was wondering how someone can find so much fun in their everyday boring life(i shouldnt say tht with out knowing how ur everyday life is..but i m jus takin a guess based on mine!) u have a good way of writing. i really liked all the articles. U RE THE NEXT BEST THING KERALA GOT AFTER SREENIVASAN(who finds humor in the most unusual way)..NO .. i wont go that far...hehe.. but yea u re pretty damn close! i have tried my luck with writing and sadly it really didnt click..lol ..but i was using malayalam for my blogs..i update it every now and then...well ..i was talkin abt ur blog.. write more...waiting to see wht kind of troubles u re getting into...and where that nokia phone is gonna go.... lets hope with some twisted black magic it ll end up in Surya's hands and he ll give u a call to meet u in person so that he can return ur phone(chose surya out of ur list of guyz cuz he has a better chance of being in chennai than the others)! hey best wishes and a happy b'day to u(i dunno if its belated..i jus saw it in the scraps)
regards
Navaneeth

Anonymous said...

gonna bookmark dis page :-)

Anonymous said...

Hilarious....Had a nice laugh after a useless day at work!

keerthy karthikeyan said...

@navneeth: since i have conveyed my gratitude thru orkut scrap, i wont repeat it here..but all the same..do drop in time to time

@param:thank u..

@dinakar: can empathise with u..used to spend several billing hours reading up blogs. thanks for dropping by,though.may u have many more useless days at work.amen.

Anonymous said...

Ente ponnae....Karinaakano iyaludae?? If there are 'Many more useless days', both my boss@CAIR and my guide@IITM will crucify me.....I am running behind schedule by a couple of months!

keerthy karthikeyan said...

@dinakar: oops..thought u actually wanted it easy.

Anonymous said...

Yea, even I wish it was that way....Fundamentally, I am a lazy hapy-go-lucky fellow...Unfortunately, my boss and guide wont let me remain that way. Ennae vaal munayil kayatti nirthum!

Next week I will be coming to IITM to meet my guide...Last time I met him I had promised to do 'this' and 'that'....Fact is I havent done a thing! 1st Nov will be pooram @ IITM!