Category: Stories

Amazing – was the only word they could use to describe his practice. he had a medicine for every ailment under the sky. his critics would argue that almost all doctors did, but his patients swore that he would consider the worst of the diseases they had as common ailments that everyone got, and therefore the cure also came from simple medicines (not that they knew simple from complex ones)- gelusil/milk of magnesia for the stomach, incidal/actifed for the cold, brufen for body pain and his personal favourite – crocin for , well, almost everything else.sometimes he even used alternative treatment measures like homeopathy or ayurveda. and he insisted on giving all the medicines himself, so his patients were spared the costs. oh, they loved him !!
the critics were also skeptical about whether all these treatments were according to accepted practices, coz no one had seen anything that suggested that he was indeed qualified,and well, he was so young!! they hesitated to go to the authorities because his popularity was immense, and besides, there was no reason to be afraid because none of the medicines he gave could be fatal or even produce any side effects, coz well, the beauty of his treatments lay in their simplicity. what was even more confounding was that almost all his patients were his peers, and it was only rarely that he gave medicines to older folk, in fact that was only when he knew that they had no other sources for treatment……
meanwhile, he had his own reasons for his ‘strange’ practice – the primary reason was that he loved the adulation, the way his peers looked upto him and relied on him to treat them. and to be fair to him, he also didnt like to see anyone suffering.
he would have loved to continue this forever, but he had his share of problems, mainly two- one was that his sources were secret,and couldnt be expected to last forever and two, his parents didnt approve of this. in fact he had been severely reprimanded at least a couple of times. he was told that he was dealing with human life here, and if something happened to his patients, he would be held responsible, but he was confident.
he had already understood it took a lot to become a great doctor, and judging from his patients’ reaction, he was already on the way.
this went on for two years, and then unfortunately, he had to move on to a different place, a place where he couldnt practice.
Amazing was the only way i could describe the practice, because the critics were right- i was only in primary school and still had more than a decade to go before i could make a career choice on whether to become a doctor or not.
until next time, practise ……

Disclaimer : For those expecting a children’s movie review, uh uh!!

For years and years he had roamed the high seas, though his movements were restricted to only the ones near to this subcontinent. he had migrated from an ocean elsewhere, he could only remember that it was westwards. well, he could also remember that survival was much easier there, and then.. and that he had left the place because there were too many like him there.
around the time, he got here, times were good, because there were thousands of poor people who were forced to come to sea to feed themselves and take of other needs, theirs and their families’. also, the seas were extremely useful for trade.thus, for various reasons, people slowly got used to being at sea, they then ventured farther out, and the more they ventured, the more they got used, and the cycle continued. all the better for him, because the more they ventured out, the brighter his chances became.
then suddenly, times started to change. an old, bald man with a stick came on the scene, taught them to weave and be self sufficient, slowly people stopped venturing out to sea.
there were still some who did, but then the factories started coming up, industries blossomed and the people could feed themselves without going out to the sea. people were satisfied with the choices they had, and those who werent always found ways to smuggle things in.
times got so bad that he had considered going back westwards where (he had heard) things were much better, but then some new phenomena started coming to this land, and suddenly things started getting better, because these phenomena brought with them a whole lot of choices, and suddenly the people found they no longer could be self sufficient. they started contemplating the sea again, and just when he thought it couldnt get better, he suddenly found a new and a much more subtle but shrewd ally..they called it a credit card..
a major portion of people who used it ended up venturing into the sea, enjoying it momentarily before reaching a stage, when they were totally at sea…..
a smile found its way back to his face, for you see, he was no ordinary shark, he was a loan shark!!
until next time, take the credit !!