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by Padama Edirisinghe

"Most of the physicians in Sri Lanka regard all their patients and their associates as a brood of nitwits on whom intelligent conversation is wasted on". I had a first hand experience of this state of affairs recently. I sat there like Patience on a Monument.

Actually I was a patient or more correctly an 'aspirante' to a patient. If our country is not in want of a particular entity, it is the calibre of advisers. Every second person you meet turns out to be one. This brand was simply aghast that at my age I was not not consulting a doctor frequently to check my health.

There were also many instances of acquaintances who appeared to be in the most robust health suddenly disappearing completely. So maybe Bahavathanha (greed for the Sansaric cycle) and all these factors propelled me to consult one.

So I sat there waiting for the physician. I seemed to be his only client that Friday afternoon. In the leisured boredom, my straying mind ran on 100 and one things. I even drafted an article on a language issue, mentally of course, as I had no pen and paper with me as what happened to Knox when he was roaming all over the Kandyan highlands. The theme of my envisioned article was the number of English words used today in the average Sinhala conversation.

It struck me at the channelling room and also while listening to the announcements made over the mike. Just one example, "Dr. Perera dan enawa Number ten kamareta. Ticket numbereta queue eka hadenna lobby eke" (8 English words, 4 Sinhala words and one Dutch word i.e. Kamare) Could a time dawn in the near or far horizon when the number of English words increase to such a level that our language would be totally obliterated, I mused, frantic loyalty gripping me. Gods forbid such a state, though even some TV channels including the national channels were setting such a patten by using English titles for Sinhala programmes (Tea break, Neighbour talk are just two examples).

To come back, I of course had no need queue as I was not seeing Dr. Perera. Just then my doctor carrying another Lusitanian name now breezed past me and walked into the room shouting, "Ender".

No He did not say "Enter" but "Ender". The language issue still eating me I pondered on the strange similarity between the two words that had the same meaning. There lurked in me as I endeared or entered a sense of that wide linguistic group known as the Indo European language group with common Aryan roots.

Meanwhile the doctor noted down all my data, sex and civil status. The whole conversation was in Sinhala. I definitely had no grouse on that score for I have always felt it rather ludicrous for a Sinhala to talk to another Sinhala in a foreign language, unless of course one wishes to gain language practice. President J.R. Jayewardene's mother, a Musaeus educated female who knew her English alright, had talked in English only with foreigners reserving her own language for all others including her Advocate husband, E.W. Jayawardena who of course had the Englishman as the most exemplary figure to emulate. He insisted that all his children should talk in English to gain practice and even employed a governess for the task.

Little JR who retaliated to this order first running amok in the mansion in Park road shouting "lngreesi! Ingreesi!", amusing the whole household later became so proficient in and devoted to English that he began to mispronounce Sinhala words (eg. Koranna for karanna, as wittily shown in Charitha Hathak).

Coming back to my main story, the doctor now asked what my ailment was which query put me in a predicament. So I mumbled that I came for a check - up.

That confirmed a suspicion that he had probably been harbouring all along that I was a green horn who had encroached into the metropolis from the deep jungle fastness. "For check-ups" he said kindly "there is a different procedure. But now that you are here I will check your pressure".

He checked it and said I was normal. I restrained myself from saying that I had enough problems for my pressure to escalate to Himalayan heights but that my habit of airing all my woes on paper keeps it in equilibrium.

Had I told him all that he would have dropped dead through his surprise that I could knit so many words to harbour and express such an idea. He was confirmed in my status as a total ignoramus. He asked whether I examine myself for signs of breast cancer and I answered in the negative. "You should always do it if you don't want to die early" I had read a piece recently on somebody discovering that one of the Sigiriya beauties had suffered from breast cancer. The discovery needless to say was facilitated by the fact these females happened to be sun-baking their breasts on the top of the Sigiriya rock for everybody to see. So even long after they are dead via cancer or otherwise, inquisitive ones including doctors can orchestrate the diagnosis easily. How I longed to tell my doctor all this...! But did not want to shock him. Now he mentioned a certain disease and said he was out to combat it. "Mama meka karanne National Service ekak hatiyata' (I am doing this as a national service).

"National service kiyanne Jathika sevayak' (National service means Jathika Sevayak). I acknowledged the translation humbly though I had handled about a dozen translation work myself.

After all I had not gone there to exhibit my language ability. An announcement about myself would, I felt sound ridiculous. "Have you any children above 40?" he wished to know No, I said, all are under 40. "Siblings?".

May be his very superior attitude had killed all the ego in me that in a typical foolish woman style I got overcome with self-pity and said something completely irrelevant. There were seven siblings in our family. But now there are only three." If you don't want the remaining two not to die early you can recommend them these tables. Can you do it?

Now I began to notice a very positive side of his nature, that I had hitherto overlooked.

It was not that he was playing top emperor, but that he was extremely third world. No ornamental talk, no polite mannerisms. He was so conscious of the troubles and traumas of the world about us.

"The Third World" just could not afford them the fopperies, the rhetoric he seemed to be convinced. He was also determined to save lives. I recognized it in the earnestness of his voice.

"I can give them to one but not to other I said truthfully. "Why?"

"He is abroad"

"In the Middle East?"

Now that was a bit too much. He probably visualized my brother working some monstrous machine in the arid deserts and seating hard to sustain his family. So I said. "No. He is a doctor and has gone abroad for further training" For the first time he looked at me with interest or may be this too, I imagined. Just for the final record there is nothing to boost a flagged ego than quoting from one of your own books published at an international level.

The opening quotation is from a work of the writer. You may agree or disagree with the statement but generally that patients do appreciate doctors who take time to talk to their patients leisurely and even go on to ask their professional data.

It is true that we live in what is disparagingly called "the Third World" but why all this haste and insensitivity? Mentally it plummets "the Third world" to a "Fourth World" for the one at the receiving end.

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