A Day in Patna

That is where six of us were last Saturday. Now, you must be wondering what the hell I was doing in Patna of all places. That shall be recounted a bit later. We reached Patna station at around 5 a.m. After leaving the station, we were greeted with a sea of people moving in all directions. It kind of reminded me of Howrah Station, minus the size. Guess it’s the same in all major cities around the country, with the huge population that we have. Anyway, Hims was really under pressure and was about to shit in his pants when he (thankfully) found a ‘Sulabh Shauchalay’. While he was gone, Nilesh suddenly realised that he could not see anything. That was because he had left his newly acquired specs, which cost a fortune, in the train itself. Brilliant! And the train was about to leave for the next station. So he made a run for it, across the crowd, over the foot-bridge and to the platform where the train was still (luckily) standing. He returned five minutes later, his eyesight now restored. As they say, “Morning shows the day!” And this was one hell of a beginning of a day.

Next stop: Patna Medical College Hospital, where we met Dev. Now, the reason we went to Patna was because Dev’s father has been hospitalized and needed blood. I wish him a speedy recovery.   

Hims was like really freaking out because he is scared of syringes. We had a ball of a time chiding him for it.

Useless Observation 1: Cattle like cows and goats are huge in Patna, I mean larger than their normal size. I saw one cow there; it stood in the middle of the road and blocked all the traffic, which seemed to be mainly composed of autos, rickshaws and bicycles for some reason. I had never seen a cow of that size before. The same goes for a few goats we ran into. Guess there growth hormones really kicked in at the right time. 

                                      

Anyway, we went to the blood-bank section of the hospital and after some paper-work were ready to give blood. I was first in. The nurse asked all kinds of questions like have i had any disease like jaundice or malaria, whether I had taken any anti-biotics etc. etc. Finally assured that I was clean to give blood, I was asked to lie down on a bed after which I was poked with a syringe in my arm. And the blood was flowing- my precious blood. Meanwhile, Hims came into the room and went through the same process himself. Around five minutes later, they finally took away a pouchful of nice O+ve blood. The nurse asked me whether I was feeling fine.

                                             

Of course I was feeling fine. Best feeling in the world: satisfaction that I have done something nice. It was bliss. I could see golden sprinkles in front of my eyes and then everything went white- pure and untampered white. The feeling was awesome. I am guessing that this is what they mean when they say drug users are on a ‘high’. It felt like having attained ‘Nirvana’ or ‘Moksh’.

(I was later told that I had actually fainted for about half a minute till some water was sprinkled on my face. Guess the blood just stopped flowing to my brain)

Hims could not stop laughing and get his back on me. After all the leg pulling I had done for his fear of needles, it was I who had fainted. Ohh! The shame of it.

Ten minutes down the line, however, I felt absolutely fine, absolutely no problems. So we decided we would roam around Patna, and bid Dev and his family goodbye. Unfortunately, we could not find anything interesting at all. We finally ended up back at the station at 6 p.m. It was now my turn to use the ‘Sulabh Shauchalay’. They are precious jewels of the civilized world.

Useless Observation 2: The feeling was amazing when the pressure was relieved and I had emptied my bowels. It is difficult to believe that sex would be better than this. I hope it is.

We had a situation on our hands at about 8 p.m. Two among us had to catch a train from Gaya to Lucknow, while the rest of us were going to Dhanbad. It was around 8 that we learnt that the train to Lucknow had been cancelled because of some trouble. So, these two guys had to go through a lot of trouble and spend a fortune on getting tickets for another train from Patna to Lucknow. We finally departed Patna at around 11 p.m. with a few cherishable, but mostly forgettable experiences. To be honest, unless it is a necessity, I would not be going back there again.