A Brush with Illness

In the view of The Man from Madras Musings (MMM), it was touch and go. But here he differed sharply from his good lady, also known as She Who Must Be Obeyed. He felt it was serious probably plague, or at least tuberculosis while she insisted it was nothing more than a sharp attack of hypochondria. For once, both were partly right. It began with a cough, followed by loss of appetite, and finally fever. Recovery happened in reverse the fever first, then the appetite, and finally (still ongoing) the cough.

MMM didn’t waste away but recovered after three days of rest enough to live and tell the tale.

How People React When You’re ill

This tale, however, is not about the illness itself but about the way people behave in our city when they hear you are unwell. There are a few truly decent souls who wish you a speedy recovery and ring off but they are now a minority, perhaps deserving protected status.

The rest fall into varying degrees of insensitivity.

The Competitive Patient

The first kind are those who demand a blow-by-blow account of your ailment. They interrupt you frequently to recount how they too once had it but in a far more serious form. Your mild fever was their pneumonia. Your cold? Their near-death experience.

It was enough to shatter MMM’s ego, who had imagined himself the kind of patient that might baffle doctors and inspire medical journals.

The Prophets of Doom

The second variety, though outwardly sympathetic, are prone to dire predictions. They always have an uncle or aunt (gender parity being observed) who had the same symptoms and was soon being measured for a coffin. A variant of this type is the armchair diagnostician one who insists it must be COVID, and when told the tests were negative, speculates instead about brain-eating amoebas, swine flu, or sleeping sickness. They warn you gravely about what to “watch out for” and suggest, in undertones, that it might be time to write your will.

And then there is the self-styled doctor, who quotes medicines and home remedies with the fluency of a pharmaceutical rep.

The Opportunists

The third category assumes MMM is not really ill but merely pretending to rest. This, in their view, means he has all the time in the world to do something for them. “Really sorry that you are not well,” they begin, “but while you’re at home, could you please look up this reference for me?”

MMM chose not to respond. When pressed further, he politely suggested they take their custom elsewhere.

A Lesson in Etiquette

Taken overall, MMM believes our city’s residents could use a few etiquette lessons on how to respond when someone is unwell. Extreme curiosity about other people’s illnesses is as unwarranted as unsolicited medical advice. It is an art to be concerned, yet not intrusive. And MMM hopes more people in the city will master it.

This article appeared in Madras Musings–https://madrasmusings.com/vol-35-no-12/short-n-snappy-230/

My book, Chennai, A Biography can be ordered–http://- https://sriramv.com/2021/12/27/how-to-buy-autographed-copies-of-chennai-a-biography-from-outstation/