WINE FLU

A Pandemic is tragic enough by itself. But when it is misunderstood, it leads to pandemonium which perhaps is more tragic as such was entirely avoidable. Not being a member of the scientific community, I often strayed away from all debates and discussions involving even the ‘S’ of science. How I was chosen to be the epicenter of the pandemic issue in Mumbai is still a mystery to me.

All I was doing was innocently sitting in the waiting room of my family physician when my cell phone rang. My concerned friend asked whether I had a serious ailment to which I replied, ‘Flu’. Out of the corner of my eye I noted all to go silent and stare at me as if I had some exotic sexually transmitted disease. My friend at the other end whose voice was not heard by others asked me why I got this frequently in the summer like others. ‘Wine’ I replied reminding him to my weakness of the fermented grape juice which has to be had in a low temperature. In summer, low temperatures create havoc with your tonsils and your weakness slides you into influenza is what I think the Doc told me once. So I joked to my friend, ‘Wine – flu’ as a summarization of my cause and effect. Before I could revel in the narcissistic moment of my briefest summarization, I saw the patients beat a retreat as if there was a live bomb in the room. The receptionist reached under her desk to fish out a surgical cotton mask as she admonished me for not declaring why I was visiting the Doctor. ‘Should I have told you I am sick?’ I was confused as I assumed all visited any Doctor when they were sick with the exception of some hardworking junior sales representative of Pharma companies. ‘Not just sick but since you have that flu’. I was still confused as I did not have any inkling of what flu I had. Perhaps if I did, I would have self administered medicine. I was in the midst of these thoughts when I saw the receptionist talking to the Doctor and then punching some numbers hurriedly on the phone.

Within no time, some men in surgical masks surrounded me, asking me to come to the ambulance. I peered over their shoulder to the receptionist who waved me out indicating I should go. ‘Which Hospital?’ I asked of the masked faces. He mumbled something which was muffled by his mask and I swore I heard he said Hyderabad. Since asking him again would result in the same incoherent words, I sat in the ambulance holding the available rods of the stretcher tight as he raced through the congested streets of Mumbai. Donning the dress and mask they gave me, I was surprised to step out off the ambulance not in front of any hospital but the airport. Not listening to any protests, they ushered me in a waiting army transport plane. It seems I heard right and it was Hyderabad.

‘When did you come from Mexico?’ one mask asked me in a place resembling a hospital at Hyderabad. I thought he confused Mexico with the other country of India’s most wanted terrorist. So I corrected him saying, ‘you mean Pakistan?’ He shook his head and told another mask, ‘we got a secretive one; call the army intelligence’. ‘Hey, I am an honest tax paying citizen and I even voted see my finger’ I said showing my middle finger. One mask who was writing everything said aloud, ‘patient gestured insultingly’. ‘Did you kiss any Mexican girl?’ the mask behind me asked. Now I started sweating as it started resembling interrogation chamber of spies and even some surgical instruments in the rooms started resembling torture instruments of the cold war era. ‘Kiss a Mexican? With a face like mine do you know what effort it takes for me to even get an Indian woman to talk nicely with me leave alone some foreigner and that to kiss???’ ‘So, YOU tell us how you got the SWINEFLU?’ asked one mask with authority. That was when I realized that my summarization of WINEFLU in the reception room back at Mumbai was misunderstood.

‘It had to do with cold wine not a swine’ I explained. ‘Mexican wine?’ one mask uttered. ‘Maybe Spanish wine’ another uttered. I was incredulous at their assumption while all they had to do was to ask me nicely back in Mumbai. ‘Mexican wine has no name internationally and now you will say it was Spanish fly’ I burst angrily referring to a movie where wine with Spanish fly made the wine an aphrodisiac. One mask punched an intercom speaker phone and said, ‘Sir we have another angle of complication. The virus survives in alcohol. We have new antiseptic issues here’. The speaker phone crackled with static, Get the antidote and you have a Nobel Prize waiting for you next year.’ The moment he said this, all the masks grabbed empty syringes and came menacingly towards me as if he promised them a pot of gold if they killed me.

That was the moment my flu symptoms surfaced after being suppressed so long by a more serious emotion - fear. As I gave a loud static of about 8 sneezes, the men in green masks fell back as if hit by Rambo’s gun. It took them 3 hours to settle the matter to realize that WINEFLU is no relation of SWINEFLU. They let me go; realizing perhaps that a single letter makes a world of difference. As I stood on the street that night in Hyderabad, I realized it was better for me to have admitted to the SWINEFU as now I had only few bucks in my pocket not enough to fly me back (my Doctor’s clinic was in the same block in Mumbai) and who would explain to my wife what I was doing in Hyderabad as she was bound not to believe the truth as you also have not. I have learnt from this experience that next time I am flying and I see my friend Jack in the same plane, I would not say ‘Hi’ to him as it would sound like ‘HI JACK’.