Have you ever seen anyone walking into a doctor shop laughing ? Leave out the doctors, nurses and support staff from your count because they dont belong to the speicies of "Patient". For that matter have you ever seen anyone walking in talking loudly?
I wonder what it is about a doctor shop that you are expected to be instantly glum, gloomy and sad. Whether you have come to get your knee-scrape cleaned and ointed or whether you come to get your innards opened for a surgical operation, the mood needs to be equally grave and composed. The one thing I remember from my childhood is being sickly. I landed up in doctor shops more often than most kids, or thats what I think in retrospect. The one thing that made an impression on me was the big SHHHH.....poster with a little blond girl holding her finger to her lips. This was like the universal sign for "Maintain Silence" in almost all the doctor shops I went to. Just spot the blond girl on the wall and you knew for the next one hour you couldnt utter a word out loud. So mighty was the impression that even when the friendly old man in a white coat would forcefully give me a "chuchi" (baby talk for injection), I would not howl or cry in pain as the normal kids but give out a mature "AH" with an occasional tear daring to drop out. As I grew up though some other realisations dawned on me. The urge to crack a joke and laugh became uncontrollable when one is in a doctor's clinic. Like what happened today. We had to visit the doctor for some reason and me,T and my b-i-l had to choose that exact moment, when the doctor was examining the patient behind a curtain, to start whispering and giggling. I mean suddenly very common things start feeling funny in a starched atmosphere like that. We start chuckling for no reason, ok we did find the whispering funny to start with. And we whisper because we have a constraint of being silent. (We are all closet rebels.) The crinkly cover seems funny, the doctor's propped out ears seem very very funny. And ofcourse you are not allowed to laugh out loud (even though nowadays there is no blond girl on the wall). So you snicker behind your palms and try not to turn red. There are some doctors who never smile. There are some who always smile. But there are none who ever laugh out loud, not even when they see that they have cured their patient completely. Makes me wonder if a "full cure" is a myth. I couldn't even imagine doctors laughing in their private personal lives till I became more acquainted with my cousin's uncle and aunt who are doctors. They do laugh a lot and are very funny people! I think when they don the white coat they assume the role of the most responsible persons on earth and responsible persons dont giggle or talk loud just for the heck of it!
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