Health Is Wealth. Insurance is neither

If you are part of the 80% + of India’s population that does not have health insurance (and are therefore a blot on the GDP landscape), here is what it is:
1. You pay
2. You fall ill
3. You claim
4. They reject
5. You plead
6. They reject
7. You beg
8. They reimburse cost of toothpaste used, up to 60 days before and 90 days after hospitalisation
9. You renew
10. You fall ill….and so on.

If you don’t claim anything, they give you thank-you-for-not-pestering-us-so-we-can-watch-the-world-cup bonus.
 In April, I applied, after considerable research on options, to Cigna TTK.  My sophisticated reasoning was that a company that makes pressure cookers headed by an Iyengar who did not follow Ramanuja to Melkote must be the best at health insurance.  

In a moment of utter asininity – induced by a neighbour who was smoking pot and talking to the moon – I applied online.  Once you are done, you will get about 43 calls, between which you are allowed daily duties. 

The calls begin as follows:
“Are you so-and-so?”
“No, I am his labrador retriever.” Actually I did not say that (not quick-witted enough), but strongly recommend that you do. 
“For the sake of verification, can you provide your date of birth?”

This is ridiculous.  They call me and ask me to identify myself, when telephone etiquette since Alexander Graham Bell has been the reverse.  When I said this, they asked me how I was related to AG Bell, which of course warrants not an answer, but an education.  

Next they need everything, and by that I mean anything.  Actually everything that is anything (or the other way around).  If there was a pimple on the dimple of your baby bottom, that is vital information.  And they always end with, “You have been speaking to Rajesh Khanna,” as if the said R Khanna is a neurosurgeon in disguise, adding to his income by toiling in a call centre.  

I fetched up for tests at a diagnostic clinic in Koramangala where the only technology in evidence, other than the syringe, was an ECG machine (honest, I mean this.  Ok, I also saw a desktop).  The ECG machine, judging by the stains, had been used in its free time to remove bits of intestines and to lay roads in Defence Colony (this is a joke by the way.  There are no roads in Defence Colony, only wide jungle trails.)

The young doc who examined me had both his eyes on the pretty nurse and his fingers on my pulse (the other way around would have caused him trouble on social media: “Doctor assaults nurse in presence of legendary writer”).  He asked me if I had something called a hernia and I smiled and said, No, I have always been a Honda buff and have a City.  He then stared at me, which was the only time he took his eyes away from the nurse, and shook his head questioningly and I shook mine in response; no doubt he was checking if the ball bearings around the skull base were well oiled.  
And when he told me that the heart was pumping along satisfactorily, I told him that his wasn’t at the moment.
(No, actually, I didn’t.  I am lying again).

And then he said that I was done.

I agreed with him on this.  

As I really was done, I cancelled the policy.  

If you are Japanese, then this is a bathroom

 As I have not trained to be a commercial pilot, I find it hard to use the bathrooms in new hotels.

Bathrooms here seem to be full of buttons, switches, knobs, taps, rods, handles, levers and joy sticks, some of which seem to be there because there was a buy-one-take-one free offer.  The only thing missing is a geographical positioning system.

And even as I find my way around this instrument panel, the thing that drives me nuts is that the bathroom wall that separates it from the main room is made of glass.  You can therefore come to  one of three clear conclusions:

Conclusion 1: Hotel architects can’t see through glass

Conclusion 2: Hotel architects are dim on the uptake (unlike the lights in the bathroom)

Conclusion 3: Hotel architects are dim on the uptake and can’t see through glass and think that others are as blind as a bat (without Nipah. I don’t know if a bat with Nipah is as blind as a bat without it, but it’s a piece of research I am not enthusiastic about.)

So if you happen to have guests and are taking a shower and press the wrong button, the blinds lift; and you are presented in birthday suit, armed to the teeth with soap, shower gel, conditioner, body lotion, loofah and shampoo, to the mass of visitors (most of whom are on their third drink and hence ready to laugh at anything, pickled morons).  The towel rack is helpfully about thirty feet away, which only strengthens Conclusion 2 above, unless hotel architects dry themselves by whistling loudly and think others do too (in which case refer to Conclusion 2 above). 

Sometime ago, the hotel I stayed in had a secret shower on the ceiling.  Now, in my considered opinion, there should then be a knob in the wall which says, ‘Secret Shower – ice cold water refrigerated in liquid carbon dioxide.  Please look up’ so that there is the excitement of a treasure hunt and you look up and leap out of the way.  But I turned one perfectly normal looking knob, got soaked in water that had just been shipped in from the polar ice cap, and then spent the next ten minutes trying to stop my teeth from involuntary chattering.  This Marriott had, trust me, three showers, one on the ceiling, one flexible contraption that went up and down a rod (which was a wonderful past time once you figured it out and got the right temperature, all of which takes about 24 minutes) and a final shower at knee level.  At knee level?  Are they trying to give you an enema?  (No, I know there is another shower thingy at knee level in the toilet, but I wasn’t referring to that).  I saw later that all three showers had icons showing their location in a nano print that needed an electron microscope, which should compulsorily be provided in each bathroom.  

And the switches in these new bathrooms are embedded in the wall and look like art in the Louvre, but most of them don’t work on two times of the day – before 6 pm and after.  I pressed one of these, thinking (foolishly) that switches mean lights on or off.  But a panel by the side turned to reveal an unkempt beast staring unblinkingly. Quite a shock to see, I tell you, till I realized that it was me staring into a concave shaving mirror.  

So, I am applying for a commercial pilot’s licence.

Aap ka Manpasand

I miss the 1980s.  

It was in the Bangalore of yore that I delighted in being the third person on a phone line, when I picked up the receiver and found a cross connection. These were utterly fascinating: I would listen in for a bit and then ask, “Excuse me, which one of you has loose motion?  This is Doctor Sharma speaking’ and wait for the response.  Sadly, not once did this ruse work, despite a heroic attempt to mimic a doctor.  
And then the BSNL phone service got boringly efficient, much to my dismay.  The private operators too don’t give you a cross connection even if you are willing to pay for it.  But recently, a new invention has brought charm back to existence again.  I am referring, of course, to the tethering of the phone to the sound system in the newer cars.  

Last week, a chap parked in front of my house and made a call on his phone-cum-sound-system.  The ringtone sounded like distant thunder.  The moment the other fellow came on line, they began to quarrel and I craned my neck to receive better audio.  

Evidently, the fellow at the other end was a stock broker who had, sometime ago, recommended Manpasand Beverages – a juice maker – and the guy in the car had punted on it.  Apparently, the problem is that it isn’t just the stuff inside the Manpasand tetra packs that is fluid, it’s the stuff in the balance sheet too.  
So, these two chaps went at each other, the broker defending himself, and it was most enrapturing to hear, so I listened intently, making mental notes and silently cheering when points were scored.  

The fellow in the car had a clean shaven, fine North Indian face.  From the voice and the Hindi, it was clear that he had spent three quarters of his life in Delhi and, judging from the volume,  the remaining quarter in a maternity ward for frogs.  
Once he had hung up after twenty minutes of mutual recrimination, I opened my gate, walked over and tapped on his car window.  
‘I agree with you,’ I said, ‘The broker was wrong to suggest this.’
He seemed surprised, almost agitated and said that I should not have overheard their conversation.

What stupid logic.  It’s like announcing in front of a child that the ice-cream tricycle is coming and then getting worked up that she heard it.  ‘I did not interrupt you or defend the decision, both of which the broker did.  Also, remember I am agreeing with you.’  As you can see, I was justifiably indignant.  
But, I must say, he wasn’t impressed and said something about regretting having used the sound system.
‘Please don’t say that,’ I pleaded, ‘I found the conversation most interesting and you’d ruin an afternoon if you turn it off.  Do use the parking area in front of my house anytime to call your broker.’

Besides, I wanted to ask him about a couple of invectives he had used that I had not heard earlier, one of which seemed a very musical word to summarise the stock broker’s father’s ancestry, but before I could enrich the vocabulary, he drove away.

The problem nowadays is that it’s hard to find someone who is not a spoilt sport.

Today's buffett special: cheese from Mohenjadaro

One of the undoubted joys of my occasional corporate work is that I get to have the buffet lunch in a large hotel. Every time I see the plethora of colourful dishes, with their marvellous French-sounding names and Urdu superlatives (‘paneer lajawab-e-pasandila-Mumtazi-dilruba’ sort of thing), two ‘Which’ questions die to be answered, both of which are intellectually deeply engrossing:
1.Which original dish was this before its leftover was made into another dish, the leftover of which is in front of me in another form? and
2.Which financial year was the original dish prepared in?

Hot chocolate pudding is a great example.  When you see one in front of you, be reminded that it is an archeological marvel, originally baked around Aurangzeb’s time, then soaked in sugar and stored in deep freeze, removed and cooked to pulp, marinated in chocolate syrup (and, maybe, some leftover fish sauce) and now on the hot plate.  If the sign says ‘Walnut chocolate pudding’, remember that they take their singular sign seriously: the pudding will have one walnut piece that a South Korean ahead of you has lifted.

Yesterday, I picked up a piece of fruit cake and pointed out to the unsmiling steward that it was so old that it had wrinkles on it and a walking stick on top.  The fruit tray itself had, by weight, the cheapest fruits going – pineapples, watermelon and musk melon, the last mentioned being cheaper than cow dung (ton for ton – I am not joking because I checked online and showed the steward the data).  I asked if, being in season, I could have mango instead.  The steward looked surprised, possibly at the existence of such a fruit and even more at the sheer impertinence of a diner to ask for it, and scurried away.  He came back to say that there was no mango, sorry, but could I have mango ice cream instead?  Well, mango ice cream is flavoured, coloured, preserved and murdered, so I said no, give me a South Indian dessert, so he brought semiya kheer that had been boiled on the stove till the lactose asked for forgiveness and promised never to misbehave again.

But you know how I exaggerate the negatives.  I must admit that the white rice was very authentic and clearly white in colour, so they didn’t mess around there.