How old are you?

I wrote this six years ago. Am posting it today in honor of a few patients I saw this week who replayed this scenario in slightly varying versions...What is it with women and age....?

  

        “Yes lady, what’s your name?.... How old are you?” These are stock questions that I ask at least fifty times a day, probably a close second to my stock commands-“Yes, lie down; come down and show me!” 

        “My name is-------.Er…Age? I don’t know. Neeve osi barkoli (translated from Kannada to mean-Write something yourself!) This is the answer from at least 50% of the patients 100% of the times! There! Numbers mean nothing to them. They say they are married for 30 years and when I bounce-What’s your age?-again, they say-25!

        “Married five years before birth?” I question trying to draw attention to their blatant ridicule of sacred arithmetic.

         “No! I mean married for 30 years and I must be 33 now-not 25!” That drives me to brass-tacks.

         “How old is your first child now?”

        “Um…” She’s scared to say I don’t know again. “Maybe 35.” OK! Mother is 33 and son is 35! Theirs is an age-no-bar; all-spirits-only lifetime! We are nowhere close to old and young concept or the presen and future tense. I try my circumscript method.

         “How old were you when you got married?” A blank face, eyes staring at the ceiling and then rolling sideways as if to remember a long forgotten event, bang down to the date of the month and the day of the week!

         “OK! Let’s pass that. Did you get married after you matured or before that?”

        “Well, of course, after I matured.” pat comes the reply. The first sign of breakthrough. (What kind of a doctor is she? Getting married before maturing was in my mother’s days not mine!)

        “So! Did you mature at the age when other girls generally did or much later?”

        “About the same time as everyone else.” Now she says with more confidence. Set a woman to catch a woman! (Why is she asking me about when I started it when I have come to ask her why is it not stopping? Probably she will charge me for the question-answer session too?)

       “Right! How many years after maturing did you wait to get married?.. I…I mean did your people get you married off immediately or…? ”

        “Right after.”

       “And how many years after marriage did you get your first child?” Questions no living human had ever asked her.

        “One year.” The flow of thought and number-sanity was getting better.

       “So! Now he is 35?” I sense that with a little adding of the numbers I have jotted down, I can come to an approximation of her age. It has already taken me five minutes of age ascertaining; with clinical history taking, examination, explanation of prescription still pending. (I have listed the major time-gorgers only. I always set aside another five minutes for every patient for these things too: re- and re- explaining the drugs for the patient, free BP/weight checking/ dietic advice for those accompanying the patient and medicines for body ache/gastritis/indigestion/flatulence for the dear ones at home who could not accompany the patient!) 

        “No..no..no! Wait a minute. This son who is 35 is not my first. I had a miscarriage….no two..or maybe three of them. After a long time, a daughter.. who died when she was five-no four…no died when she was this high-the palm looking earthward hovered at about three feet from ground.. “Then this son.”

        “How many years after your daughter was this son born?” Another scalp scratching brain teaser!

       “I don’t remember!” Enough is enough! Another two three more of such questions and I shall even forget a few questions from that llong list I’ve made. Back to square one. I scratched all I had written. 15+1+1+35=52. I thought I must add another 2 or 3 and round it up to 55 and proceed. I had extracted 22 forgotten years more from the professed 33. Illiterate or well read, women tended to knock off a few years and it clean wiped my guilt for constantly under quoting two years every six months!   

       “OK! So you must be around 52. Now let me examine you.” My stock commands poured forth. As she adjusted herself, she suddenly began to chatter. 

       “My father said I was a lucky baby. Because, it seems India became free exactly one week after my birth!” I stumbled at the foot-end as my gloved hand lingered in confusion.