I am sitting in the waiting area adjoining an operation theatre where my wife is to undergo a cataract surgery. There are perhaps twenty surgeries scheduled for the forenoon. The patients and the 'bystanders' — in most cases the respective spouses — are all seated on the cushioned sofas. (It beats me why this blessed word — which means a 'mere, passive, onlooker' — is used for referring to someone who is supposed to be at the beck and call of the patient, the doctor, the nurse, the ward boy and the cashier, but let that pass.)
Presently, a nurse appears and announces the names of four patients — all women. She beckons them to follow her to the theatre. They get up, nod to the respective 'bystander' and proceed.
Ten minutes later, the nurse returns with four identical bags and hands over them to the four 'bystanders' of the patients now in the theatre. "It is the clothes of the patients," she explains. The hospital has thoughtfully provided uniforms to the patients for wearing in the theatre, one presumes.
Thirty minutes of expectation pass. A ward boy comes and asks the next batch of four to await the call. The surgery of the first batch must be over, one guesses.
A little later, the nurse reappears and asks the 'bystander' of Mrs N to identify himself. She asks him to hand over the bag containing the clothes of his wife, which he does. The next four, including my wife, are herded in the direction of the theatre.
Post haste, she returns with the bag and tells Mr N, "There seems to have been a mix-up. Your wife says these are not her clothes."
She collects back all the four bags, takes them to the gentleman and asks him to identify which of the four is his wife's. She pulls out the clothes one by one and displays them.
One of the bags has a peach-coloured sari, the second a navy blue ikat kameez and a white salwar, the third a mundu-veshti set and the last a black top and ice-blue jeans.
Mr N looks at the garments, fumbles, scratches his head in embarrassment and admits that he cannot identify his wife's clothes!
The nurse retreats to the theatre with the four bags: the patient would know which is hers.
I ask myself: she could have asked the other three bystanders to identify the clothes of their wives and, through this process of elimination, identify Mrs N's clothes.
Perhaps she was not too strong in the Logical Reasoning department. Or, by then, she had realised that husbands couldn't care less what their wives wore, which seems more likely.
No comments:
Post a Comment