When Doctors Go Mining - Me a Fluid Well

My temperature had been running wild for days. Viral fever was going around like it owned the place. I figured I’d tough it out for a week. Everyone survives a fever, right?

Day 8 came. No relief. X-ray and ultrasound slapped me with reality. My right lung had decided to throw a little private party with unhealthy fluid as the guest of honour. What was weird? I hadn’t even had a cough. No wheezing, no drama. Just this silent build-up like a bad Netflix binge going on inside me.

So there I was, sitting on a hospital bed in ICU, trying to look brave but feeling like a confused potato. The doctors wheeled in their gear like a gang of treasure hunters searching for liquid gold. A nurse dragged a desk toward me like she was about to hand me a poker game, and asked me to clutch it. Three doctors, half in scrubs, half in intensity, lined up behind me, scanning me with sonar equipment. They poked, prodded, marked my back, and debated like they were on a battlefield.

"Too little to tap out."
"No, here's a good site... Even if you get 50ml, it’s enough!"
"One vial is 12ml... Let's target at least 4 vials..."
"But we’ll hit the lever there... Let’s take it 2cm higher..."
"But here, there’s this rib blocking the way..."
"Yeah, it might cause a little disturbance. We’ll have to work around the bone..."
"These needles we have are too short for this guy's chest..."
"Check this one out, I smuggled it from the Mysore Zoo. They use it on their elephants!"
"Yeah, that’s the one! Long enough to get in there!"

So, the good doctors got to extracting my lung’s bounty with the Mysore Zoo-approved elephant needle. I sat there, debating whether I should protest or just accept that this is what medical advancement looks like humans reduced to fluid wells.

The drilling operation went ahead. One doctor kept counting, like he was clocking the best haul of his career. After each successful pump-out, he'd announce, "That’s 4 x 12," "Got 7 x 12 here," "Here comes 13 x 12!" They ended up pulling out 32. "That’s 32 x 12," he said, as if he’d just hit the jackpot. "How much is that? I'm bad at maths..." he added.

"32 x 12 = 384," I offered, not because I wanted to help, but because I needed them to remember that I am alive. I feel pain. I’m more than just a fluid well. I am a living human being, not a mine.

Not sure if my message made it through. I sat there, half in shock, half amused. The doctors, meanwhile, were delighted with the liquid treasure they'd just extracted. And suddenly, curiosity got the best of me. "Show me, show me," I called out, eager to witness my contribution.

One of the doctors held up a couple of vials, and there it was, the product of my body's betrayal. Looked like beer, minus the froth. Well, that wasn’t as spectacular as I thought.

The next day, I was resting when a nurse brought me a couple of paper cups, covered with plastic lids. Drinks, obviously. Before drinking, I felt a strange compulsion to check the contents. I lifted the lid... And there it was, the same liquid they’d pulled out of me the day before. Yesterday, the doctor had held the vials in front of me. Today, I was holding it in a paper cup. Recycling at its finest. At least they were thoughtful enough to add a little moosambi flavour to it.

On 'Naatil evideya?'

 

When stranger Malayalis meet away from homeground, the quintessential opener is always, 'Naatil evideya?' It’s like our trademark follow-up to Namaskar(am). Recently, someone pointed out how unique this greeting is compared to the rest of India. While most Indians will try to extract a second name to decode lineage and the unspoken implications therein, Malayalis seemingly take a different approach. But, is this really a radical departure?

We’re all guilty of this behaviour. It may not always be as overt, but there’s a trend that spans across Indian social interactions; an unspoken curiosity about the origins of the person standing before you. Malayalis do it too, eventually, after the Naatil evideya ceremony is done with.

And anyway, Naatil evideya itself may not be so innocent, if you think about it. It’s cute, harmless even, but is it really? Of course, it doesn’t slip into the same line of inquisitiveness directly. In the end, we’re not really avoiding judgment based on caste or lineage, but we’re still categorizing them based on the place they, or their parents, come from.

The problem is, as much as we like to think of ourselves as exempt from the same petty assumptions we criticize, isn’t this subtle form of categorization what we are doing too? We’re still trying to build a mental image of a person, based on their place of origin, just like everyone else. The extra camaraderie we share when we find out we're from the same town doesn't that feel strangely similar to the social assumptions we claim to reject?

So, before we pat ourselves on the back for our supposed 'superior' cultural values, let's ask, how much different are we, really?

ps: I ask 'Naatil evideya?' all the time.

A Feast for the Eyes, a Bruise for the Heart

This is another gem. The Map That Leads to You, an adaptation of J.P. Monninger’s novel of the same name. The film left me in awe, and now I can’t wait to read the book.

The visuals are nothing short of drool-inducing. Those golden-hour strolls, sun-glazed streets, and dreamy landscapes practically beg for a frame-by-frame screenshot. Crafted by Spanish director of photography Elias M. Felix, the film’s aesthetic touch brings that rich, romantic European palette to life and makes every scene feel like it belongs in a postcard, exactly how stunning cinematography is done.

It’s a feast for the eyes. Lavish flowers, dazzling landscapes, sun-drenched streets, and architecture so stunning it feels painted rather than filmed. Frame after frame glows with colour, joy, and the rush of discovery, making it one of the most visually beautiful travel films in recent memory.

But here’s the twist. The movie is tricking your eyes into believing you’re on an endless holiday with sunlit piazzas, flower markets, glowing canals. But all the while, it is quietly slipping in a story of heartbreak and mortality underneath. The bright palette lures you in, but the undertone of loss keeps tugging at you.

It isn’t just a 'pretty travelogue.' The visuals are joy, dance, colour. While the narrative is longing, illness, and the weight of what can’t last. The clash creates a tension that makes you feel both restless and alive, like traveling itself. Beauty in motion, shadow always close by.

And then, there is this brilliant moment when Amy calls out his hypocrisy. Jack mocks people who live their travels through phone screens, while he himself is retracing his grandfather’s travels through a journal. One is ink, the other pixels, but both are memory-keeping. If you respect one, don’t sneer at the other. That line cut deeper than I expected. It turns the film from wanderlust fantasy into a meditation on how we try to hold on to what’s slipping away.

What begins as a postcard romance ends as something more. Survival, hope, and the delicate line between love and impermanence. Maybe that’s why the colours feel so impossibly vivid. Because they’re always vanishing, even as we watch.