Parama, short for Parameswaran, was not a ‘bone’fide orthopaedist who breezed through a medical college and took the Hippocratic Oath. Nevertheless, whenever the Humpties and Dumpties of Poonamallee had a great fall, they hobbled straight to him, either moaning or using choice four-letter words to vent their ire. Many patients who came to make the broken ends meet struggled to make the economic ends meet as well, their money bags almost always bone dry. But this was not a contentious issue. Parama’s eyes X-rayed only the injury not their purses.
Bones may not be glass brittle, but the relationship between man and woman indubitably is. His wife Paru, short for Parvathi, was ever ready with her down-to-earth soothing words of comfort and wisdom to mend the broken hearts of ladies—victims of the town’s male chauvinist pigs. While her husband was busy setting the bones right, with a finesse the Danvantri would have ungrudgingly admired, she was busy extinguishing the tiffs and tangles between man and wife.
The couple’s unified role of a bone-setter and heart-mender was never more in exemplary display than in the case of Guru, a gentleman of leisure who never retired, because he never did a day’s work to earn a living. The money he had inherited from his uncle, a dubash under an Englishman of the calibre of Robert Clive, was enough. A man given to pendulous swings of mood, he got hot under the collar now and then, expending venom on his indulgent wife, scolding her using bilingual insults.
The poor lady took it in her stride, being submissive. But even the worm turns. One Sunday morning, Guru flew into a rage as the sambar she served was a tad salty, but Guru declared it ocean-salty. When he swung his hand to give her a roundhouse punch, she ducked adroitly, and his blow in its uncontrollable elliptical travel landed on the stout pillar of Burma teak. Physics tells us F=ma, ‘force’ is equivalent to ‘mass’ multiplied by ‘acceleration’ and so the intended damage to his wife was directed to his own hand.
A week later, his hand was encased in Plaster of Paris, that looked like a parcel of masala dosa from an Udipi eatery, a professional job of Paramu. Guru was delighted to see his wife back. She had left him on the day of assault in a huff, unable to bear his hit-and-repent repeats. While Paramu’s treatment was taking care of Guru’s hairline fracture, Paru visited Guru’s wife in her mother’s place, for a bit of counselling. No wonder Guru, a wordsmith, called the husband-and-wife duo ortho-nareeswara in acknowledgement of their fused roles.
J S Raghavan
Email: writerjsr@gmail.com