The White Coat speaks...

I'm every biology student's dream. I'm every medical aspirant's last bet. I'm every intern's triumph and every doctor's 'amour propre'. I'm the White Coat dipped in ink today.

Every Monday, I look dapper. My creased sleeves and sharply- folded collar announce a week-long battle with sweat, blood stains, food stains and blotches of ink. By the weekend, when I've conquered all, I retire into the arms of my favourite bucket for a night, only to come out anew the very next morning. And I'm game for life yet again. The pride that a doctor takes in me makes me feel larger than life - a mere piece of cloth stitched into an awe-inspiring attire.

On a few days, a handsome young intern enters an overflowing Casualty without me. They notice his stetho, take a sigh and give him way. Afterall, the doctor has arrived.

She rushes into the ICU with her stetho, checks the vitals of the patient and prepares herself to report it. But oh dear, she didn't know that the world is more interested in knowing the 'whys and hows' of her decision of not wearing me today for she might just be a distraction at the workplace. On other days, the world is more interested in knowing what 'she' is wearing 'underneath' me... What made her choose a top over a kurti today? Why is she wearing red today? And wasn't her kurti of the same colour the day before too?

I stay folded in her bag, beginning to question the meaning of my existence for the two genders. I'm the White Coat that spilled the ink today.

What is it, doctor? A BOY?

The mother musters up all the courage that is left in her after a gruelling six hours and asks, "What is it, doctor? A boy?" As she senses the reality hidden in her doctor's rebuke, "Why does it worry you so much? It's a healthy baby... You can already hear it crying", she pretends to fall asleep while her doctor is busy suturing her episiotomy wound.

The doctor goes back home and remembers she has a phone call to make. "What is it, Uncle?", she asks with all her vivacity. "It's a girl", she hears from the other end. The lukewarm voice clearly tells her why it was she who had to place a call, having to squeeze out time from her busy schedule.

And something inside her died, bit by bit that day. The fact that the fact is still so grim. The fact that a stetho around her neck and a round-body catgut in her hand are still not enough to evoke happiness over the birth of a baby girl. The fact that a girl who can grow up to be a guy's silent smile fails to bring a smile to her mother's lips when she articulates her first cry! The fact that a girl who can hold the Universe together fails to be a world to her father as she takes her first breath. The fact that the fact is still so grim. And something inside her died, bit by bit that day. Yet again. And she thanked her parents for the books...the bag...the pen...the stetho...and their smiles. Once again.