Doctors without pockets

Imagine three lady doctor friends going on a shopping spree in a newly opened mega mall. Its lunch time and they settle down for a delicious meal in a swanky restaurant within the mall premises. And when its time to pay the bill, what would be the sequence like? This thought often troubles my mind. Who among the three will volunteer? Will they share the bill and go Dutch? Or they follow a particular sequence of you paid last time and hence it is my turn now etc.. This thought has its origin from my 1st MBBS experience. I saw a girl classmate of mine getting change from a snack shop during the toilet interval and made sure that all the movie goers from my class got their change back after paying Rs.2.10 for the ticket. Same exercise took place while paying the tempo fellow on our way back to the hostel. This entire exercise was strange because when we, a bunch of boys went for movies, no one knew who had paid for the tickets and the tempo. It could be any one of us.

It is not a common sight to see a group of women sipping coffee or eating snacks in the hospital (canteen) where I work now. And I presume that if a male doctor joins them, it is he who dips his hands into pocket to do the honours. I may be wrong as I did not have the good fortune of dining or wining with a group of four ladies and myself. It is also uncommon to see a single lady coming to the canteen to have coffee while single men is a common sight.

I should admit that in my entire surgical career there were only two occasions when I did not pay the coffee bill for the entire bunch and on both occasions when I had announced my inability, every one had announced their inability too. They too forgot their wallets. Some of them have admitted that they never owned a wallet and there was never an occasion where they had to spend money for coffee. That was the day I started classifying doctors not based on their speciality and ability but on their agility in reaching to their wallet with or without money. I had realized that some did not own a wallet while some leave their wallet in the car. There are some who carry a wallet to hold their visiting cards and these wallets strangely do not have a compartment to keep money. There are also some whose wives forgot to keep some currency in their wallets. One of the regulars in the canteen had once boasted that in more than 20 years of his coffee life he never once paid for coffee and snacks. His friends did.

Many of the top notch and high earning surgeons in a big hospital I had worked earlier used to eagerly wait for the 11 o clock hospital supply of free coffee in the second floor OT and they had never developed the habit of spending money. They have been taught at home during their childhood that money should only be earned and not spent. And there were also some whose wives used to give brownie point when they get back home after work without even opening their wallet even once during the day. They would have had two coffees and a samosa, courtesy friends. These are the friends who drive in swanky cars and own the latest version of I phones though.

I conclude by saying that gender does not seem to have anything to do with spending, it is the attire that is responsible. While male doctors have at least four pockets, on in their shirt and possible 3 in their pants to accommodate a good sized wallet and some loose change and a mobile phone ( some have secret pockets in their pants closer to their body parts) lady doctors wearing traditional sarees and other similar attire do not have any pockets stitched into them and wallets are not made for them. The fancy designer hand bags ( some of them cost a fortune -equivalent to whole years’ salary) seem to have room for everything under the sun expect hard currency. Or that is what I believe. I may stand corrected.