Returning, I say to myself in my head. I think of seagulls. Or is it cranes? Suddenly, I can hear every single second of the ticking clock. I hear a game someone in the waiting room is playing, little flourishes after collecting digital diamonds. I hear a motorcycle horn. Kishore Kumar still sings.바카라 웹사이트
‘I did the tests and everything . . . I guess I just want to know . . . if something is wrong. Do I have a disorder?’바카라 웹사이트
Will me wanting something to be wrong with me somehow bias Nirmal? Will she think something is even more wrong with me? What am I even thinking?바카라 웹사이트
Nirmal smiles.바카라 웹사이트
‘Tell me your symptoms. Whatever is striking you if you think.’바카라 웹사이트
‘I’m just tired, I can’t focus, I worry a lot, my thought patterns are a bit . . . And I feel tired.’바카라 웹사이트
‘Every day? Most days?’
‘For some time every day.’
‘Are you sleeping as you regularly do? More? Less?’
Like adding salt to kovakkai curry. Little more?
‘The usual, I think. I sleep around eleven . . .’ I think back to that moment before sleep, which sometimes passes fast and sometimes stays like a rain cloud. ‘I wake up at seven.’ Because Amma is talking, clattering, opening doors around then. Sunlight slowly fills the house, waking up slowly, after Amma. In college, I used to wake up only when the garbage trucks wheeled the ten-foot-high bins down the back lanes outside my window, a loud rumbling, the views broken into grids by scaffolding.바카라 웹사이트
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‘Right,’ Nirmal says. She taps at the file. ‘It is quite clear here. You have mild strains of clinical depression and very much of anxiety.’바카라 웹사이트
Thank God.
Or . . . maybe not?
I don’t know.
I focus on the small details: the blue vein on her right hand, the cream stripe on her blue polo-neck shirt, the Tupperware box under her desk, filled with sweet lime rinds.바카라 웹사이트
‘All right.’
‘Would you like to discuss this?’
No.
‘Sure.’
Nirmal explains depression and anxiety both — the lows and the jitters — but I don’t remember what she says exactly. I just nod at the words that filter through to me: irritable and intelligence and energy and perception.바카라 웹사이트
‘But most importantly, dear, you can easily manage them and live a healthy and productive life. I can definitely help you. Are you overwhelmed?’ She taps her pen against her prescription pad; it lands softly. ‘Usually, people sit here for hours. One patient sat for so long, asking so many questions . . .’ She looks more closely at me.바카라 웹사이트
‘No, I went to my college counsellor, and you know, they had these little books . . . How to identify . . . and then all kinds of illnesses. You know? So maybe . . .’ I look down at my palms.바카라 웹사이트
‘I spent some time there, you know,’ Nirmal says. ‘In the UK. Mostly in Cambridge. It was so easy to drive there.바카라 웹사이트Here, just one main road makes me deaf . . . Tell me how you feel, dear. Take your time.’바카라 웹사이트
I look up at her and she is just looking right at me.바카라 웹사이트
‘I know other people suffer . . . But I just didn’t think I was sad enough . . . if that라이브 바카라 what I’m supposed to think? Or anxious enough.’바카라 웹사이트
We both, or maybe I just imagine this, look to the side: the closed door, the version of myself that no longer exists.바카라 웹사이트
I look at the lizard under the tube light on the wall.바카라 웹사이트
‘Is that like a specific subspecies?’ I ask. ‘Of lizard. The domesticated tube light lizard.’바카라 웹사이트
Nirmal gracefully accepts my need to change the topic. She turns around and looks at the lizard. The light falls slant on her hair.바카라 웹사이트
She isn’t talking, which makes me nervous. I feel I need to say something to indicate my emotional thought process. Something revealing about who I am as a person. I think of Amma, appearing from the kitchen doorway, giving Nirmal tea in a ceramic mug. What did the mug say? I can picture it if I really think . . . It라이브 바카라 still there now, hung up above the sink in a line with all the other mugs, their faces tilted towards the sun . . . Did it say ‘Don't talk to me before coffee' in a cheery bubble font?바카라 웹사이트
‘My mother says I do this a lot,’ I say. ‘What?’바카라 웹사이트
‘Ask unanswerable questions.’
‘Aha?’ She is waiting for more.
Or maybe the mug had little volume levels: mood after one coffee. Two. Three.
‘Your mother is a lovely lady,’ Nirmal says, laying her hand flat on the desk. ‘So strong. I was speaking to her after a long time when she called to tell me about you. What do you ask her, do you remember any questions?’바카라 웹사이트
‘I don’t know. I’ll let you know if I remember.’바카라 웹사이트
‘Please do,’ Nirmal says. ‘Please do, dear. You should keep a note. Sometimes we forget things . . .’ She waves her hand around her temples, like she라이브 바카라 catching air.바카라 웹사이트
‘If we do not keep a note. And now that you are my patient, I would like to know. Will you tell me?’ She looks down at her notes. ‘How do you feel about medication?’바카라 웹사이트
‘Sure,’ I say. Then I realize that didn’t really answer her question directly. I feel great about medication but don’t want to seem insane. She starts writing, a scribble, every wave a crest, a cliché of a doctor라이브 바카라 penmanship.바카라 웹사이트
‘Very small dosage for you, to start with. Let us see how you find it. If it is useful, you will see a visible improvement.’바카라 웹사이트
She passes me the prescription pad.바카라 웹사이트
‘You can buy these medicines from the receptionist right outside the office. And you make another appointment, you come back in one week.’바카라 웹사이트
‘Sure.’바카라 웹사이트
‘If anything is required, call. I find it difficult to respond to messages,’ Nirmal says.바카라 웹사이트
‘Can I do everything with this medicine? I mean . . .’바카라 웹사이트
‘You can be active,’ Nirmal says. ‘In fact, you must. At least two hours walking. And you can eat everything.’바카라 웹사이트
I think of the rule about not eating before swimming. I wonder why I’m thinking that.바카라 웹사이트
‘Bye, Doctor, thank you so much.’
‘Any time, dear.’
I slip out of the door and I look at my phone. Only twenty minutes. I wonder why I’m paying for the hour. And by ‘I’, I mean ‘Amma.’바카라 웹사이트
I pay and pick up my medicines.바카라 웹사이트
Look how seamless these transactions are. How very in control of my life I am.바카라 웹사이트
I feel detached: like I’m administering help to somebody who isn’t me. Usually, I’m fine with this. But I wonder what it would be like to actually just feel something for once. My heart aches and a drowsy numbness pains my sense . . .바카라 웹사이트
When I get home, I see Appa sitting on the landing outside the house, in just his white banian and linen shorts. In front of him are spread boot polish, sponges stolen from hotels and five formal pairs of shoes — wingtips, tasselled loafers, brogues, Oxfords.바카라 웹사이트
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‘Um,’ I say. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Polishing my shoes. How was the doctor? Sam. Sam!’ Sam runs out, still in her school uniform. ‘What, Pa?’
‘Get me a rag.’
‘It was fine. I mean, we only spent like ten minutes together. Oh also, she played a Kishore Kumar song.’
Amma wanders outside, still in her black kurta and big silver necklace, and sits down on the steps. ‘Which song?’ she asks.
‘Lena hoga janam hume . . .’ I half-sing.
‘Kai kai baar,’ Amma says. ‘Shekar, remember? Oh God.바카라 웹사이트
What polish is this?’
‘All polish smells the same, Hema,’ Appa says. ‘Ami, you know what we all loved on campus? Hema, what was that song?’바카라 웹사이트
‘What song?’ Amma asks.
Sam slips her hand into mine. ‘What was the diagnosis?’ ‘Anxiety and depression. But only mild. Gave me medicine.’ I stare down at my sandals. I need to re-polish my toenails. Sam lays her head on my shoulder.바카라 웹사이트
‘Appadi. How suddenly?’ Appa asks.바카라 웹사이트
‘What do you mean, “how”, Shekar. It라이브 바카라 not cholera,’ Amma stares down at him.바카라 웹사이트
‘So what medication is it? Tell me, I’ll look it up,’ Appa says.바카라 웹사이트
‘No, Pa,’ Sam objects. ‘Please, I don’t want you telling her any creepy side effects.’바카라 웹사이트
‘If it라이브 바카라 liver damage, organ failure, something, we shouldn’t know?’ Appa asks.바카라 웹사이트
‘It라이브 바카라 like the tiniest dose ever, Pa, nobody is getting liver damage,’ I say. ‘Nirmal knows what she라이브 바카라 doing.’바카라 웹사이트
‘Nothing. Doesn’t know what she라이브 바카라 doing. Came and nicely told Thatha he had depression. He didn’t have depression. He had a sodium-level problem because of those jokers at the hospital. Get me a rag, someone.’바카라 웹사이트
‘Of course, of course. Psychiatrists are wrong, doctors are wrong, but only you are right,’ Amma says. She hands Appa a rag torn from an old undershirt.바카라 웹사이트
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(Excerpted from ‘The Worlds Within You’ by Shreya Ramachandran, with permission from Penguin Random House India. Shreya Ramachandran grew up in Chennai and studied South Asian literature and history. She writes about mental health on her blog)
