Bajaj, Bacteria, and Bold Doctors

Some of the stories from my first job are so wild, I bet no one would even believe them today. But hey, times change, and with them, people’s sense of “normal.”?

Take my dad, for example: he used to leave for work at six in the morning and only get back home around eleven at night. And my grandfather—a teacher—was somehow famous across the entire town. Me? I had more degrees than both of them put together, and yet, no one knew me beyond the local tea stall.

“Small town, son,” they'd say with a shrug, as if that explained everything.

Back then, as a medical rep, I had to roam across the whole district on my trusty Kawasaki Bajaj, covering places like Mauranipur, Gursarai, and all kinds of far-off villages. I practically lived on that bike for years, until one day my spine finally protested with a slipped disc. Every doctor I saw had the same advice: “Enough of this ‘Hamara Bajaj’ nonsense, Manish. Give your back a break!”

Now, one of my most memorable stops was a doctor in Mauranipur. This guy was a legend—patients lined up to see him, his clinic was packed day and night, and let’s just say he had a little extra fondness for a “colorful drink” or two. He was known to insist that any female patients coming in solo enjoyed a nice cup of kulhad chai, courtesy of the doctor himself.

The clinic? Let’s just say it had…character. There was no room for the usual setup; so, if you were there for an IV drip, you had to hold the bottle yourself, inside or out on the platform. Picture 20 or so people with glucose bottles dangling from their hands. In those days, the more people doing that outside a clinic, the more highly regarded the doctor was.

And his treatment style? Well, it was, um, direct. Every patient who walked in got an immediate jab in one arm. Then, without asking, he’d shoot up the other arm too. Try to explain your symptoms, and he’d say, “Ah, there's more. Turn around!” and, well, let’s just say your hip wasn’t getting off easy.

But my favorite part was the grand finale. When the patient tried to stand up, he’d call out to his assistant, “Ram Lal! Give this one a bonus shot for good measure.” And Ram Lal would swoop in with one final “booster.”

One day, I just had to ask. “Doctor Sahib, why the four injections? Isn’t that a bit…much?”

He looked at me with an air of wisdom and said, “You see, Manish, I tackle the enemy from all directions: East, West, North, South. Whatever direction the bacteria’s hiding in, we’ve got it covered!”?

Now, you might be wondering, “So what? There are plenty of doctors who are generous with injections.” But this doctor had a few extra quirks.?

First, there was no need to bother with lifting your shirt—the injections went straight through the fabric. Efficiency at its finest! And if he remembered, he’d give the needle a quick huff-and-puff “disinfection” right before he used it. Where did my carefully taught training fit into all this? Who knew? But, you just rolled with it. Business was business!

It reminded me of school, actually. Not much past fifth-grade math ever came in handy, but boy did I master the art of standing around in long lines and baking in the sun during annual functions.