On my knees

The left knee that had served me for decades like a heavy duty brass door-hinge had the temerity to become rigid and throb with pain. It was strange since its twin partner, the right knee had no such dark designs. The rebel knee scoffed at the liniments, ointments, gels, creams, balms, sprays, hot and cold water jets and frequent  maalish given by my attentive right hand as a trainer would do to a wild filly. I was rattled. With such a knee I feared I won’t be able to squat like Mahendra Singh Dhoni behind the wickets, or sit on my haunches to milk a murrah buffalo, should I become a farm hand.

Ignoring my neighbour’s prescription of a hot gruel of horse-gram, I went for shortwave therapy. The knee was placed like a slice of sandwich bread in a pop-up toaster between two pads connected to an electrical gizmo with snaky-cables, knobs, dials, digital timer, beeper, the works, that transmitted heat. A bell was given to summon the lady physiotherapist if the heat overcooked the knee to dark brown. My adamant knee did not budge.

An orthopaedist, who had more number of degrees than bones in his forearms functioning from a Medical ‘Maul’ was consulted. He critically inspected my left leg with the eye of a homemaker evaluating a snake gourd. After bidding me to shunt like a steam engine, he declared gravely that I had osteoarthritis. “Oh,” he continued, “can be tricky.

Since we have already tried other modes of treatments, what we would take is a steroid shot injected directly into the knee.” We? He said it as if he was also going to take one gamely with me to ward off my congenital fear for the needle.

“I’ve two questions, doctor,” I asked, “first, why my anatomy is playing favourites? My right knee is still behaving like a good boy. And second. What if that steroid fails to act?”

He smiled patronisingly. “About the same-age query, how do we explain your graying right side-burn while the left one is black? Such ageing oddities can’t be easily answered by strides made by medical sciences so far. And well, if the shot is ineffective, we can simply replace the knee.”

At home, my wife hissed. “Replace the knee? My left foot! We’ll replace the doctor,” was her knee-jerk reaction. “Listen, I know one accupressurist...” she began.