Health is wealth*

One of the biggest threats that urban Indian middleclass face today (until they come across tiffin-boxes kept on bicycles) is their ever deteriorating health due to a myriad of factors like work habits, lifestyle, liberalization, cholesterol, UB, TV etc. In the past people were occupationally either men who worked hard in the fields while their women cooked food and fostered children or were women who worked, cooked, fostered children and died while their men drank and gambled and hence many of the health hazards such as Diabetics, Hypercholesterolemia, Cardiac problems were unknown to our forefathers and foremothers.

This points to why getting comprehensive health checkups done is important for those who are urban, fat-flattened, petty bourgeoisie men, women and computer professionals who are crossing their half-life period, something they never do just because they have reservations on sparing their Saturdays for anything other than the TV and/or their excremental output with anybody other than a septic tank. They are simply wrong because a comprehensive health checkup is a painless, effortless process and my advice is do get it done to achieve that self-realization, I mean anatomical. For those who are still playing Doubting-Thomas, here is how that simple process goes.

1. Fix an appointment few days in advance to avoid waiting in long queues, these days there are too many cooking-oil commercials in TV to make people more health conscious.


2. Reach the hospital early morning with an empty stomach because they cannot see into your body through a full cup of cereals or upma. Also, your appointment of the previous step doesn’t matter; it’s an early bird process, without the worms but.


3. Enroll yourself and sign the agreement that says you are willing to share any solid/liquid exertion that your body is capable of producing with whosoever it may be a concern.


4. Choose a suitable comprehensive health check package. If you are not sure, the receptionist will recommend one based your physiology and T-shirt brand, accept it and pay, don’t question because it’s not their fault that you don’t look like a Bollywood Chest-nut but a 60 year old chimp that just ate a full jackfruit.


5. Wait for your turn, upon invitation walk briskly towards the sample collection desk. Don’t panic, they are not going to unclothe you in public and extract body fluids and solids. Even if they do so there will be a half door that will help hiding your head (the ostrich strategy, it works)


6. They will only suck your blood out there and for the rest you can help yourself in the privacy of a rest room, again with a half door. Don’t hesitate, do as instructed; remember, you have signed the contract; any violation can now put you behind bars, or even pubs


7. Now go have some food, and get ready for a second round of bodily waste sharing exercise. Don’t worry, this wont happen, though you might feel like doing so after the hospital canteen food. They will only suck your blood the second time, because by now they have realized that it’s all in your blood.


8. Now you will be pushed through a series of dental, mental, ophthalmic, cardiac check-ups depending on the number of different organs that you have, and will also be asked irrelevant questions to keep you entertained.


9. Wait for couple of hours for the final report to come, various entertainment facilities will be provided, like a TV running muted bollywood music, which will make you feel like you are watching a butcher shop with full of fresh flesh dangling around.


10. Finally the physician call you and declare that you are a dreaded bio-terrorist carrying life threatening ammunition like bad cholesterol, bad sugar, bad habits etc. But don’t worry, the physician will also advice you that the hospital has got specialization in each of your problem areas and can have a further detailed organ level checkup at the cost of Rs.9999 only per organ. That’s all, you are done with, I mean done with the comprehensive health checkup.


11. Walk out confidently, now you are a self realized person, start eating green leaves, grass, tree bark and whatever comes on your way that none of your senses can ever detect what it is; by next checkup, you will as fit as a lion. Ok, at least a lion-tailed macaque for sure.
    

Now you will all agree with me that getting a comprehensive health checkup done is as simple a process as getting a haircut, the only minor difference could be that you will never get your head cut during haircuts.

* For the hospitals I mean.