EGO TRIP

The smoke-alarm shakes me rudely out of my nap. Next moment i am aware of my paraphernalia: the IV line, the catheter, and, worse, the dangling Urosac. How do i run and save myself?
The duty nurse promptly rushes in, puts the alarm off, opens all the windows of the AC room, and with a firmness that comes only with a professional finesse, makes the erring patient understand: “Sir, you are not supposed to smoke in a hospital.”
“DO YOU KNOW WHO AM I?” explodes the guy, in an all-caps-bold-italics-double-underlined 72-size-impact-font, red, and highlighted yellow.
“That does not matter,” she responds coolly.
The coolness sets the man and his faithful wife ablaze with fury.
“What do you mean by ‘not supposed to smoke’?” screams she, “my husband is under arrest or something? We are bloody paying for our stay! We are not going to take those ‘don’t do this’ and ‘don’t do that’ from anybody! Do you know whom you are talking to?”
“I AM THE VP OF THE PRESTIGIOUS ‘24X7’* CHANNEL! DIDN’T ANYBODY TELL YOU? DON’T YOU EVER WATCH THE TV? OUR CHANNEL DRAWS THE HIGHEST TRP, AND I AM THE BOSS THERE! AND YOU TELL ME –ME?– NOT TO SMOKE?”
The nurse leaves the room quietly.

Phew! So that’s the Big Boss that shares the double-occupancy ward with me!
I am waiting to get my prostate, swollen with age, trimmed. The surgery will be tomorrow, and i am going through the preoperative protocol, a bit prolonged because of a minor urine infection.
The VIP has been brought to this room only last evening from the ICU, where he was under observation for a day for high blood pressure. It is indeed a great condescension of the part of His Majesty: all single-occupancy and deluxe rooms are occupied.

I never knew that hospital stay could be so full of entertainment. Ever since the Big Boss came, the room is alive with non-stop cell rings, the yelling and yelping telephonic monologues,; and the 24x7 blaring ‘24x7’ on his laptop. Every ward-boy, every nurse, every RMO, every consultant who visited – and, more often than not, summoned to - the room is administered a viewing of, and a briefing on the history, the modus operandi, and the market share of the channel.
So continually runs his live commentary, deriding and ridiculing the entire world – the politicians, the police, the judiciary, the industry, the NGOs, the country, the system, the public – that i am afraid i would leave the hospital a cynic.

Next, he is wild at the lunch served by the hospital.
“CALL THE DIETICIAN!” – goes off the shot.
The dietician is a young girl with pleasant manners, and she knows what she is doing. The brat does oblige her, but not before extracting a promise for a sumptuous 7-star junk, complete with the nip, for dinner.

Following lunch, the Supremo is again restless for a smoke. He sneaks out of the confinement past me ( i do not exist, for all he cares), walks down the corridor, and goes up to the elevator. Alas! The attendant is too dim to appreciate the exigencies of the nobleman. He stalls his honorable mission, calls the Floor Manager, and hands the delinquent over to him.
What ensues next, would go down the Annals of the Hospital History for decades and centuries.
Enter the entire repertory- the PRO, the Administrator, the Security Officer, the Matron, the nurses, the doctors, the CEO, the ward-boys, the ayahs, and all the ambulatory patients; at the center stage is adorned, of course, by the grandiloquent Thespian, and the faithful prima donna.
And then follows the most flamboyant of the soliloquies:
“DO YOU KNOW WHO AM I? HOW DARE YOU DICTATE ME-NO SMOKING, NO DRINKING, NO THIS, NO THAT? MIND YOU, I AM NOT USED TO TAKE A ‘NO’ IN MY LIFE. I WILL PUT ALL THIS STORY ON MY ‘24X7’, AND CLOSE DOWN YOUR HOSPITAL – I AM THE DE FACTO OWNER OF THE CHANNEL! I TRAVEL ROUND THE GLOBE ELEVEN MONTHS A YEAR! I CHANGE MY CAR EVERY MONTH! YOU GUYS DON’T KNOW WHAT I CAN DO! I WILL BUY ALL THE HOSPITALS AND THE DOCTORS OF THIS WRETCHED CITY! YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT A BIG SHOT I AM! I WILL CALL THE POLICE COMMISSIONER NOW – please go and get my cell, Dear! – YOU KNOW, THE COMMISSIONER IS MY NEIGHBOR’S COUSINE’S CLASS-MATE! I WILL TAKE ALL OF YOU THE COURT FOR. .I AM. .I AM. . .”

The ego trip, however, ends in an anticlimax.
A treaty is signed in the evening, almost unceremoniously, whereby the Lord leaves the hospital against medical advice and against an interim payment, to be settled by him, with the Insurance Company, later.

I am operated upon the next morning. Properly discharged, i leave the hospital not a cynic, but with a bit of wisdom:
‘A man’s ego may be directly proportional to his status, and is, for sure, inversely proportional to his stature.’
However, i don’t know whatever the Grandiosmo did with his BP.
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* a hypothetical name; any similitude coincidental