Main bari doctor kay office kay bahar bethi hoon. I know she’s a bari doctor because there is always a three-hour wait. People come hours in advance to put their names on her list, its first come first serve you see, which means she’s a bari doctor with a heart. Other clients come in couples, or packs, or herds. A herd of pregnant women. I always come alone. The bari doctor is a gynecologist. I’m not pregnant. Maybe that’s why everyone is staring at me. As if they have X ray vision. As if X ray vision can penetrate my frame and reveal the true nature of my disease.

In the old days, I’d stare at everyone in this waiting room too. I was almost as bad as the few men who accompany ‘their’ women. Most of the patients bring their mothers or assorted female relatives/servants. Some patients are obviously brought by their husbands/brothers/possibly but probably not lovers. The men examine their surroundings with all the interest they would display in an auto repair shop where body work is the mainstay. I am secretly waiting for the day one will lean over and ask me what the matter is. I will reply, in a conspirators whisper, that my silencer is broken.
In the old days I would pass time by guessing what the others were here for. If the subject was young, I would guess freshly married and looking for birth control. Nowadays gynaes are so full of this planned parenthood thing that is the first thing they ask you. So… what are you taking? My last one must have asked me that a million times, which used to amuse me. Then she told me, in the midst of a particularly painful infection, that pain was pain but ‘don’t stop making yourself available’ to your significant other because he might get angry and the relationship would end. My relationship with her ended at that precise moment. But back to my waiting room diagnosis…

If the frame was slender, skeletal or merely plump, my first bet was a fungal infection. Evil thing, dampness. If the belly sloped outward, the malaise was obvious. Help doctor there’s a bump in my tummy. It’s ok its ok you’re going to be a mummy. Is it a manifestation of my newfound maturity that I now think ‘sacred trust’ instead of ‘malaise’?

It’s no use pretending. God’s omnipotent. He knows what I’m actually thinking, so I might as well drop the ‘suddenly aware of my maternal side’ act. I actually think the glow attributed to pregnant women is a excess oil or leftover tears from last nights weepfest.

The bari doctor’s angry with me so I’m afraid to go inside. She is a brusque woman at the best of times. Anger makes her more than monosyllabic but less than civil. I clutch my AIDS test results closer to my chest. A year ago she was almost nice to me.

“If a dihati wanted a child I’d discourage them. Women like you have a responsibility to society. Your child could influence the future.” I was flattered. And so keen to maintain the good impression I halved the number of cigarettes I smoked during my subsequent verbal presentation of ‘why this was not the time.’

“Rubbish”, she’d snorted, “anytime is a good time.”

But this is not a good time. And I can’t meet anybody’s eyes.

When it’s finally my turn to step forward and wait in the glassed-in cubicle for the patient inside to come out, I fidget uneasily. It’s not just the pain of the treatment I’m under (bitter and constant). This receptionist is new. She is much younger than her predecessor. The old one and I used to get along well, and time in that cubicle would fly by as we talked of the trials and tribulations of her married sister...

“His relatives say if she doesn’t convert they won’t meet her.”

“Mad people.”

“And why they do it in the name of God huh?”

“I don’t know.”

“Now you tell me, what is wrong with marrying an ahle kitab? Why don’t they think of that?”

“They don’t think. Not-thinkers, the lot of them.”


She liked me. I wasn’t standoffish. Ironic, considering that is how those who could be designated ‘my own’ see me. In the waiting room I am always the perpetual outsider, in her glassed in no mans land, I felt safe. Rooted.

I wish she were here so I could tell her how about my trouble. The new one is my age but somehow that is too young. She stares at me as I fidget. Do you mind? I want to scream. Try having acid dripped on your privates first thing before bed and we’ll see how steady you feel in the morning.

The inner door finally opens, and the new young receptionist heaves a sigh of relief. I didn’t do it intentionally, but I guess somehow my negativity has permeated every molecule of her cubbyhole. She feels almost suffocated. I can tell. But I’m about to enter the den of an angry mother matriarch with an AIDS test clutched to my chest, and I must battle the two tons of pressure centered over my own diaphragm.

The angry matriarch looks at me as I step over the threshold, and I can see her shuffling through her mental reference cards.
“Well Miss?”

I see she remembers me.

“I have the results of those tests.”

She extends a hand and I pass them on. While she scans them, lips pursed, I replay our last meeting.

Gynecologists, I’ve discovered, don’t get overly excited about patients with STD’s. Especially if they’ve been telling you things like “your children could help influence the future” and “you are an intelligent girl.” This one, in particular, seemed especially disappointed. Not that I picked the right time to tell her of course. But then when is a good time to say, “I appear to have an STD.”

My resolve to come clean immediately had withered the moment I looked at her sitting behind her desk. An old woman, my gynecologist didn’t usually bother with niceties, she knew there wasn’t enough time in the world for that. But she’d always seemed secretly happy to see me, and I’d prolong my stay a little to fill her in on what was happening in my professional life. That last time though, I had just gestured mutely to her examination corner.

She’d been in the process of snapping on her sterile gloves when I spoke. Her mouth tightened, and her face as she looked down at me reclining on her examining table was obviously not the one she used to greet new borns on their entry into this world.

“Utaro.”

And that’s when her displeasure became really clear. Three gynecologists to date have examined me, and it is my humble opinion that they don’t really hurt you during an exam unless they want to.

“Ouch!”

“What have you been doing?”

“Something I regret.”

“Does he know?” (She knew I was in a steady relationship, and I
knew she was asking ‘does he know he’s carrying something?’)

“Umm..I’ve been in contact with another person.”

My yelp of pain as she demonstrated her displeasure didn’t satisfy her though, hence the rather enthusiastic journey even deeper into my anatomy. My body tightened and rose off the examination table in protest at the cold steel, but that only seemed to inspire her.

“Get dressed.”

This was almost as bad as the cause of it all.

“You are right. You do have something.”

I wanted to ask her what, but suddenly I no longer felt comfortable in the second skin I’d don for her. I felt like a jahil who’d gone to a pir for a nuska. She went on and rattled off ‘virus’, ‘symptoms’, ‘could be tip of the iceberg’, ‘Aids tests in case…’I nodded mutely, took the list of tests she ordered and the prescription and crept out with my tail tucked firmly between my legs. In the weeks to come, it would function as a crude but effective chastity belt.

But I’ve grown in confidence over the intervening week, and I will speak today.

“The treatment is really painful.”

“That’s because it works by cauterizing all blood supply to the warts“

“It burns”

“How much concentration?”

“25%”

“Didn 217;t I tell you 40%”?

“25% is almost too much too bear.”

Her snort said it all. But just in case I didn’t get it..

“You are the most foolish girl I have ever met.”

So much for my kids shaping the future.

She nod towards the examination table ends the conversation prematurely. I take my place mutely, if I appear suitably chastened before the fact maybe she won’t torture me like last time. The gloves snap on.

“How do you feel?”

“Stupid.”

“You are stupid. Apart from that.”

“Like God decided I wasn’t getting his subtle messages to clean up and
resolved to just beat me over the head till I submitted.”

“Sometimes I think too much education is a bad thing. It makes you people think you’re smart.”

This I can’t let slide. If I’m a jahil, I had damn well better be accepted as one.

“But I’m not that well educated!”

“Didn’t you study after school?”

“Well I went to college but that doesn’t necessarily mean an education.”

“Should have concentrated then, maybe you’d have learned something.”

It is time to change tack. She’s already behaving like my mother. Maybe she’ll feel sympathetic if I share my innermost fears.

“I did some research on…what I have. Is there any truth to the idea that some types of it cause cervical cancer?”

“That’s why I’m doing this Pap smear.”

“Which pap smear?”

PLUNGE.

The body tightens and rises, the mouth screams.

“Relax!”

Well if you put it that way… I reduce it to a minor whimpering. She leaves what seems to be a distant cousin of the corkscrew inside while she puts the slide in a bottle. It is done, the intruder withdraws, and I rise to my feet. I pride myself on my wobble control, having to constantly pass off as sober teaches you that.

Outside, she tells me the symptoms appear to have alleviated somewhat. It should probably only take a few more days of application, six at the most, for me to regain fully operational fertile female status.

“What about the cervical cancer?”

“We’ll know in about ten days.”

“I want to have a baby.”

I don’t know where that comes from. Is it panic? She ignores it. It is as if I’ve soiled my chances once and for all.

“You can continue with the 25%. It appears to be effective.”

I rise from my seat and take the proffered paper.

“Why are you so pale?”

“I’m just tired.” Perhaps because you just tried to slice me open old hag..but it’s not her fault.

“Watch your diet. Put some meat on.”

As opposed to in? Shut up..She’s concerned for you.

“I will.” I turn to go. Maybe something in the set of my shoulders reveals my despondence.

“Your test results were clear. That’s a good thing you know. Both the HIV and the VD.”

“Thank you Doctor.”

“Come see me in a week you silly child.”

I leave strangely humbled. Determined. Clear-headed. I have seen the writing on the wall. It says ‘silly child.’