When I told the man that he was occupying my seat, he looked embarrassed and proceeded to get up. But the seatbelt held him back. He tried unclasping it but could not. Finally, I set him free and he moved to the next seat, which belonged to him. I had to help him again, this time to secure the belt. “First time,” he smiled apologetically.
I asked him if he was from Bangladesh — I had figured that from his accent — and he replied in the affirmative. We got talking. The time was 2.20 a.m. and we were in a plane that was bound for Kolkata and about to take off. On reaching the destination, he would be taking a bus to the border and crossing it on foot; whereas I would be killing some time at Kolkata airport before boarding the flight to Bhutan.
As the plane gathered speed on the runway, the man straightened his spine and tightly held on to the armrests, relaxing his grip only after we were high up in the air and the cabin lights came on again. “So what brought you to Chennai?” I asked him.
He had a growth in his left eye, he told me, which had been surgically removed by doctors in Bangladesh. But the eye kept giving him trouble even after the surgery, and doctors could do nothing about it. Then someone suggested that he visit Sankara Nethralaya in Chennai; so he took a bus to Kolkata and from there a train to Chennai.
“World class! Absolutely world class!” he said. “The doctors cured me with just eye drops.” So pleased was he with his recovery that he couldn’t wait to get home, and with whatever little money he was left with, he had bought a flight ticket.
And then he began to praise Chennai, which, for a first-time visitor to the country such as him, represented India. “I was surprised to see how law-abiding its people were, how diligently they followed traffic rules. Back home, they break laws right under the noses of law-enforcers.”
“Do you work in a government department there?”
“Yes. I am in the police.”
It warmed my heart to see a humble cop from Bangladesh being overwhelmed by his stay in Chennai. As an incurable hypochondriac, I have always had blind faith in Chennai’s medical system and now I felt proud to be its citizen. I actually felt smug. The plane landed in Kolkata in the light of dawn and we parted ways without even exchanging our names. Five hours later I was in Bhutan, driving from Paro to Thimphu, with the Paro River — more of a stream — giving us company throughout the hour-long journey.
There must be very few places on earth prettier, quieter and cleaner than Bhutan; and Thimphu, when I finally reached there, turned out to be more like a small European town perched on the mighty Himalayas. I got so busy looking around that I forgot all about the mild cough that had accompanied me from Chennai.
The next morning, the cough got bad. Before it got worse — a doctor-friend of mine from Chennai advised me on WhatsApp — I must immediately gargle with Betadine, the iodine solution. I set out looking for a pharmacy, not easy to find in a happy place like Thimphu.
When I finally found one, the woman who ran the shop said, “Sir, I don’t have Betadine at the moment, will another brand do?”
“Anything will do,” I said.
She handed me the substitute and I rushed back to the hotel to gargle. The relief was almost instant. I examined the bottle. The brand was called Povisep — ‘Made in Bangladesh’.
