THE LAUGHING BUDHHA

      THE LAUGHING BUDHHA

“Crying is sometimes good!” said a person sitting beside me. I smiled and didn’t retort as I was being obliged with the lift back home and didn’t want to be kick out of the car in the middle of nowhere but it kind of encouraged him and he continued, “So tell me doc, when you cried last?”

To avoid the shrink’s question I passed a general statement, “everyone cries at certain point of time, nobody can be happy all the time, so what’s good about it to be talked about?” But later on I was forced to think about what I said, in fact chew it back. What if someone is always happy all the time, I mean just HAPPY, HAPPY AND HAPPY? 

The famous adage states that excess of everything is bad, so it means that excess of happiness would be also lethal.

TIME – 11 AM

One fine morning sitting in my clinic and seeing outside through the transparent tainted glass door and appreciating the magnificent artwork of the biggest aristocrat, the god, and how his creations fill our mind with serenity but we humans amateur keeps lamenting, brooding, whining and get depress with no apparent reason at all and give up the chance to appreciate the lord’s beautiful world.

As I was going through these chains of thoughts, the transparent tainted door opened and in came a girl in her early twenties, probably 5’3” from the ground level including her block heels. I asked her to sit and asked her the same monotonous question that how am I suppose to help her?

She said she wasn’t the patient but it was her mother. I frowned as I like to see and talk to the patient first then any other of their acquaintances. She understood my frown and she replied very innocently that before she could bring her mother she needs to brief the case to me.

DOC – ME                                                                  G – THE GIRL

Doc – what’s the matter with your mom?

G – Do you have treatment for psychiatric cases?

Doc – { well, that’s one of the best talent of homoeopathy, we have medicines that can change the psyche and get people rid of their illusions, hallucinations, delusions and dejavu powers they think they possess} yes, but it depends and varies from case to case. Is your mother depressed over something? {And my thoughts traced back to my initial ones, condemning amateurish human nature, but immediately I told myself to concentrate, concentrate, concentrate}

G – {She said hesitantly} on contrary, she is happy.

Doc – {shocked} excuse me! You want me to treat your mother because she is happy?

G – I know it sounds so weird and of course, like a good daughter I want my mother to be happy, but not always like happy, happy and happy. Well I don’t know how to put them in words.

As she was spitting those outrageous words from her mouth, my radar got alerted and I started with the phrenological  scanning of her face, to rule out whether it was a trap to make a fool out of me. 

Bright clear flawless skin – honesty

Curly hairs – intelligence

Eyebrows curved and in vicinity of eyes – practical about facts of life

Big bright almonds shape eyes – honesty with no trace of slyness

Ears round small and in their sockets with no unduly protruding – facts supporter

Nose long running downwards – carefulness

Broad nasal ridge – veneration

Two straight perpendicular lines running from the septum of nose to center of upper lip – high quality modesty

Full red upper lips – love an amative quality

Full red lower lip – benevolence and generosity

Muscle filling under the lower lip – love of home

Broad chin – conscientiousness

Cheeks well curved with redness of health

·        Upper part of cheek – friendship

·        Middle part of cheek – hospitality

·        Lower part of cheek – refined domestic traits like cooking and serving

RESULT - After forty five seconds of psychoanalysis – no trap, no joke, earnest victim, and final verdict – HELP HER.

Back to the conversation 

G – my mother like any other house maker, good wife, good mother, good daughter–in –law, taking care of everything perfectly and of course off and on brooding, lamenting over the difficulties of life, fighting with dad, scolding me and my little brother and occasionally, more than occasionally crying {oh! As she enunciated the last words, I remembered the shrink who started with the crying concept, which altogether is a different story and then I suddenly realized that I have to concentrate, concentrate and concentrate}.
But that was perfectly normal till off lately, to be specific, two months back and now she is just happy. All she do whole day is to crack unworthy jokes and laugh at them and be happy, happy and happy {I could sense the irritation on her face}. No scolding, no fighting, nothing seems to piss my mother off. Doc, seriously no one in this universe could be happy all the time. There is something wrong with her; I think she is going insane.

Doc – I see, is there anything else you want to tell?

G –     {Bit hesitantly} yes… she kind of start doing things with my dad openly.

Doc – {confused, asked for further clarity} things?

G –      Adult things.

Doc – {I smiled broadly and nodded my head} – I got it.

G –     Grown-ups do adult things but my parents are even beyond that age they are all old-ups now. For god sake I am 21 {bravo! I was so right about her age. Damn it! Concentrate, concentrate and concentrate} and the last thing that I ever want in this world is to witness my parent’s second honeymoon. My dad has started to complain but she is high on love.

Doc – high on love, hmm! {It rings a bell} is your mother on drugs?

G –     Oh! She hates taking medicines.

Doc – no, I mean, drugs {I gave a deliberate pause and again enunciated the last word} drugs?

G – Drugs…{She repeated, but as soon as the fact transpired in her she became agitated} you mean ganja, heroin, morphine types drugs.{I nodded} oh my god! my mom is on drugs, ah! She meets the drug dealer.

Doc – {if I had not stop her, she would have gone on with her weirdest imaginations} calm down, I am just asking?

G – Not that I am aware of. You mean really?

Doc – bring her in and we will find for ourselves.

TIME – 11.30 AM

A lady in her early fifties entered the clinic. You could give her a miss for any other home maker woman except the fact that she was very red like a tomato. She came, she sat, and she talked and laughed. She seemed as the LADY LAUGHING BUDDHA.

PHRENOLOGY SCANNING

Curly long hairs – intelligence

Broad forehead – good memory skills

Big almond shape eyes – honesty

Curved eyebrows – artistic qualities

Long nose – carefulness

Broad and curved nostrils – constructive qualities

Red full lips – love of children and benevolence

Cheeks well developed – domestic traits

Broad chin – prudence and conscientiousness

Dewlap under chin – knowledge of economy, believes in savings

Ears round and small – good listener

RESULT - FACE OF PERFECT INDIAN HOUSE WIFE

Everything about her so perfect, then why these continuous unexplained laughter. My grey cells shuttling between the remedies of material medica fanatically , but no appropriate match found, as soon as I pick up my pen and zero some medicine, I realized there is some missing link, what was it I couldn’t trace it at that particular time.

Homoeopathic prescription is based on uncommon, characteristic symptoms. It could be possible, what I am confronting may not be an uncommon symptom, maybe it could be trail to something devastating happening inside her body. Except her flared up face and deep cuts at side of lips, nothing seemed wrong with her anatomy.

Finally, I picked up my pen and asked the departing question to my patient whether or not she have any pain in any part of her body, to which she pointed at  a typical point on right lower abdomen and explained it maybe be a gastric disturbance, cracked  a joke over it and laughed loudly. Her daughter stared her and I stared at that point and it is Mc BURNY’S POINT.

G – {Astonished she watched me} – which means in English….

Doc – it’s the point where appendix lies.

G – so this appendix is making my mom a psychopathic freak.

Doc – it’s too early to say that. Let’s run few investigations on her blood and urine sample. I think I got a lead.

MATRIX DECODED

After going through her mother’s report, I told her that her mom’s serotine levels are high in blood and urine shows presence of 5 hydroxyindoleacetic acid. Which indicates towards the carcinoid syndrome and since she is having pain at Mc Burney’s point, the location of tumor is on appendix which is confirmed by her contrast MRI.

G – So appendix was screwing her up.

Doc – actually the serotine being generated by tumor cells were giving her sense of false euphoria. It explains your mother persistently high on happiness and love things.

G – She haven’t gone mad, it’s just a tumor {there was a sign of relief but instantly it converted to deep concern} is it cancerous, this tumor on her appendix.

Doc – the carcinoid tumors on appendix shows low chances of metastasis and have good prognosis after they are surgically excised.

G – Which is translated in English that my mother will live.

Doc – yes and she would be able to cry again.

I couldn’t believe that I would ever say to my patient, what I said in my last sentence to that girl and on contrary she smiled back at me. How much I hate to say that, it turns out my shrink was right while saying “crying is sometimes good”.

Whatever, I learned my lesson, though I have to chew back my own words in my own mouth.

MORAL

Kabhee khushi, kabhee guam. [Alternate emotions expressed sometimes with smiles and sometimes with tears.]