Surely, You're Joking Mr. Hattangadi

All the way to the hospital I was terribly worried. I was wondering just what could have happened to my wife all of a sudden. When I left for the office that morning, she was looking so hale and hearty and now within a span of next few hours came this cryptic message from my friend, Dr. Narsingh that she had been admitted to the BARC hospital and was heading for an emergency operation! What could be the matter? Had she met with an accident or something? Or was it just a case of Appendicitis or Brain Tumor, perhaps? In those anxious moments, I couldn't really think of any other serious ailment that calls for an emergency surgery. Whatever it was, it had to be something grave or seriously important, else my friend wouldn't have given me such a frantic call at this time of the day. It was our lunch hour, when it is almost next to impossible to find any mode of transport from the god-forsaken place where my office was situated to the nearest point of civilization. Luckily for me, Dr. Jain came to my rescue and sacrificing his siesta, he so graciously offered to drop me at the hospital in his car.

  Arriving at the hospital, we both rushed straight to the Surgical Ward on the sixth floor. Dr. Jain also accompanied me, perhaps, more from curiosity than compassion. We met the ward matron, Mrs.Thomas in the corridor and after promptly introducing myself, I anxiously inquired about my wife. She gave me one stern matronly look as if I had been a naughty, misbehaving, stubborn child, who had turned up very late at the school. "You are coming now, Mr.Hattangadi, after everything's over?" she chided me. "We have been looking for you all morning, you know! "

  Everything's over! Whatever did she mean by that? "God! What's in store for me now?" I wondered silently, but aloud I asked, "What really happened to my wife, Sister?"

  "Ayyo! You really don't know!. What kind of husband you are, I say!" replied Mrs.Thomas eyeing me through her rimless glasses. "First, you create all the mess yourself and then pretend you don't know anything! All you men folks are like that only!! Actually, when she's in such advanced state why you just go to office leaving the poor thing alone to fend for herself? Ah, now I know what you will say. You had duty! Ya, only you men have duties! Your blessed duty is more important to you than wife, no?" " But how—I mean, where is she now, Sister?" I asked.

  "In the Operation Theatre, where else? It's mostly all over by now. We wanted your signatures on some papers but Dr. Zutshi didn't want to wait - formalities can wait, she said. Didn't want to take any risk, you know."

  "But what surgery has she undergone, Sister?" I asked uncertainly.

  "Ayyo! You don't even know that. Arre, in her present condition what other operation can we do? After seeing her condition, doctor decided immediately that she should go in for a C-Section. What else to do?" "What is this C-Section, Sister?" I asked her weakly like a frightened schoolboy, terrified of his stern and strict headmistress.

   "Ayyo! C.S you don't know? C.S means Caesarian Section, I say" she said.

   "Oh! Of all the goddam things, why would she need a Caesarian!" I said. Even from my mediocre general knowledge, I knew that a Caesarian had something to do with delivering babies.

  "Oh, these days the girls are so slim and weak! Don't even take proper care or exercise. Even for single baby we have to do C.S, now a days. In your wife's case, it was a question of wrestling with three little rascals all at the same time! Again and again, they just kept going back into breech position. So, what to do? C.S was a must — no alternative. Ah! Dr. Zutshi's coming here. She will only tell you everything."

  Dr. Zutshi, the departmental gynecologist was just coming out of the O.T in her olive green robes. As she came towards us, Mrs. Thomas pointed to me triumphantly as though she had just caught India's most wanted man and said,"Doctor, the patient's husband, Mr.Hattangadi has shown up, at last!"

  Dr. Zutshi greeted me with a pleasant smile. Aha! At last I was going to get some humane treatment, I thought. "How's my wife, doctor? And what's this I hear about Caesarian, three babies and all?"

 "Oh,yes. Congratulations, Mr.Hattangadi. Your wife's just delivered a Triplet —three bonny little boys for you. And don't you worry now. Everything went off so smoothly. No problems — all four of them, the mother and the kids are doing fine."

 A Triplet! Oh my God!! What did I do to deserve this ? After the second kid, our enthusiasm for any more additions to the family had started waning long back and now it had reached its nadir. Now, another "bumper offer" of three kids at this age was not something I had ever bargained for, especially not now when I was already looking forward to a quiet and peaceful retired life!

  My expressions must have reflected my inner thoughts. For, presently, Mrs. Thomas letting down her earlier stern mantle, beamed at me: "Ayyo! Triplet no problem, Mr.Hattangadi. And never say a no to God's gift. God is like that only. Whenever he gives, he gives with no holds barred. Bhagwaan Deta To Chhappar Phaad Ke Deta. Ask Govinda!". My mother would have readily agreed with Mrs.Thomas. She would have said that this indeed was God's way of rewarding her for devotedly reciting Duttatreya Stotram every morning. God, what if she had been reciting Vishnu Sahasranam Stotram, instead !

  "Yes, we had to do a Caesarian" Dr.Zutshi continued. "But, that's normal in such cases. She is under sedative now - so, it will be some time before you can see her. Meanwhile, you can see the babies, though. They must be all cleaned up and in the Glass Room by now. You can see them from the outside through the glass for now -just a normal precaution, you know."

   "Now, hold it! Just, hold it, Doctor. I think there's some terrible mistake somewhere. My wife couldn't have delivered this triplet! I just can't believe it, Doctor."

   "Well, Believe me, Mr.Hattangadi, it's true. I did the Caesarian myself. Your wife has delivered a triplet and it's a fact you can't deny"

   "No. no, Doctor. It's just impossible!  I didn't even know this morning that she was carrying!" I said with all the emphasis at my command. "Now. Come, come. Surely you must be joking, Mr.Hattangadi" said the lady surgeon laughing benignly.”

  I don't know why this always happens to me. For some mysterious reason, it's not very often that people, in general, take me very seriously. When I tell them something in all earnestness and sincerity-people think that I am just joking. Once, in my school days, when I came home one day and proudly-announced that I had won a prize in the inter-school quiz contest, everyone laughed as if I had said that I had won a beauty contest. Later, in my adolescent days, when I wrote a rather serious letter to a beautiful girl, making a clean breast of my innermost feelings for her, the silly girl burst out laughing on reading it. as though she had been reading a Stephen Leacock novel! Even my wife says she acceded to my marriage proposal only because she thought I was joking! Now, here I was trying hard to explain to this Dr. Zutshi that I was not the fortunate father of these three bonny babies and she thought I was joking! To add salt to the 'wound', Dr. Jain, who had been just a silent spectator all this time, had to tell Dr.Zutshi that, indeed, I have always been "a big practical joker like that even in the office". However, I was so sure of my stand in this matter, because I knew very well that my wife was not 'in the family way' that very morning when I left for office!!

   "You must be joking, Mr.Hattangadi" the doctor said again. "You see, all through the pregnancy for the past seven months, I have been seeing your wife regularly for check-ups and since long we have known about the triplets from sonography."

    For a moment I was nonplussed. Does this mean that all these days my wife had been trying to keep it all a secret from me? And for the first time in her life, she had been so successful at it, too! Perhaps, that's what she had meant when that morning she had said that I was in for a pleasant surprise. But, how on earth, could I have been so ignorant—so non-observant as not to have noticed anything unusual or 'progressive' about her all these days! No, I knew that my wife would never keep from me so vital a matter. After all. my own life had always been like an open book to her; that it may have been a 'revised', if somewhat un-readable edition is quite another matter.

  "Don't tell me. Mr.Hattangadi, that all these days you knew nothing at all." the doctor continued her attack on me, "I know you scientists are so very busy with your research — that you are so absent-minded and all that crap. But, not knowing one's own wife has conceived must be the limit!" "Actually, Doctor, I think you're the one unable to conceive what —"

   "What! Just whatever do you mean by that, Mr. Hattangadi?" screamed the gynecologist angrily. "Well, I mean, you don't seem to follow what I am trying to say, Doctor" I said nonchalantly."You see my wife couldn't have conceived at all,because —"

   "Mr.Hattangadi, I think, you're suffering from acute psychological stress because of this sudden acquisition of a triplet. I can understand -- it's natural. It's called multi-parturition neurosis; usually mother gets it, but it's not uncommon with the father too. But, don't worry, Mr.Hattangadi. The medical science has made such great strides in recent years that --- —"

   "But certainly, doctor, your medical science has not progressed so much as to enable conception even after hysterectomy--or has it?" I countered. Not knowing how to respond to that one, Dr.Zutshi stood there completely bewildered with her mouth wide open.

     Just then, a nurse came running to inform Dr.Zutshi that her patient i.e. my wife had started regaining consciousness. On hearing this, we all rushed to the Recovery room to see my wife. As we entered the room, the lady doctor cooed, "Hello, Mrs.Hattangadi. How do you feel now? Look who's here, your dear Husband!" The patient slowly opened her tired eyes and looked up at me. "Hi! Congratulations!" I said cheerily and she promptly reverted back into her unconscious state, this time not because of the sedative but probably from a sudden shock. Naturally! Which decent lady in her condition would not go comatose after being introduced to a total stranger like me as her dear husband? She was not my wife and I told the doctor so. Suddenly, I felt both happy and terribly relieved. Now, it was the doctor's turn to look worried. "But, how's that possible? She has got to be your wife!" she insisted. "Here, her file says so. You're Dr.Hattangadi Vasant Rao, aren't you?" I just had to nod my head to that assertion. As almost every third person in BARC has a doctorate in some subject or the other, it had become so common a practice to prefix every decent looking guy's name with the 'doctor' epithet that no one really seemed to mind it. It seemed to me that I had no escape from this triplet. But, what about the mother? I supposed it was not as in the recent promotional ad in papers that promised "for every THREE Baby Soaps, a large one absolutely FREE! " 

   God must have heard my silent prayers, because, just then my friend, Dr.Narsingh the main culprit in the entire episode and the root cause of all my troubles, appeared from nowhere. Seeing me there, he immediately asked me what the hell I was doing there. I told him that, in the first place, I would not have been there had it not been for his urgent message and secondly, I wanted to know what sort of a practical joke it was supposed to be implicating a simpleton like me in this 'triplet' affair. Upon which he burst out laughing while all the rest of us kept gaping at him in total bewilderment. It seems, he explained, that he had asked his P. A. to contact his brother-in-law Dr. H.V. Rao from Metallurgy Division and get him over to put his signatures on various papers. But, since, like everyone else in B.A.R.C, he knew that we were both such good, inseparable and intimate friends the P.A. in his wisdom, had assumed that I was the person his boss wanted! Now, I happened to know this Dr.H.V. Rao a little and had met him once or twice, but never had I imagined that he would also be my namesake!

   Think of the devil! Just then, as I was about to leave, the ever smiling Dr.H.V.Rao entered the room!! On seeing me there he promptly widened his grin from ear to ear and said, "I just met Dr.Jain in the corridor and he gave me the good news. A triplet,eh? How nice! Congrats. Mr Hattangadi". I rushed out before he could notice any embarrassment in my expression. I had to catch hold of that blighter, Dr.Jain before he could cause any further damage to my reputation!

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Published KS, LXXXIV,No.1, p11, (Jan 2003)

              KS, LXXXIV,No.2, p21, (Feb 2003)