Free Samples

Come January and sales representatives from publishers come to my office, carrying bundles of books in big canvas bags, or holding them by the tough thread that holds them together. The watchman doesn’t bother about getting their names entered because they’re unable to liberate their limbs from the heavy wares they are lugging, to sign, and he’s illiterate. If they were saleswomen, I think they would have carried the bundles on their heads. “Or,” said Bai Goanna, joining Shri Husband to peer over my shoulder to see what I was typing, “they’d use a second-hand foldable pram to wheel the stuff from their scooter to your office. Women are smart.” I agreed silently about the smart bit, but prams? Doesn’t occur to her that some of these marketing types might come in four-wheelers, mostly the bread-box Maruti Omni that none else wants? Folding prams, come to think of it, are practical solutions to take to the market, a trolley-substitute, see? Then again, anything on wheels would be defeated on the way to my office; like any decent path in India, it is strewn with pebbles, gravel, twigs and every and anything that would rip the tiny metal balls out of a bearing and break a pram into many useless angular pieces. “That sentence,” pointed out Shri Husband, “sounds awful.” He could have used the word ‘inelegant’. I didn’t—never do--- have the courage to say ‘then don’t read it, stay away’. I just ignored him and typed on regardless. Where was I… the publishers send book samples, several per subject per class. Doesn’t sound like much until you do the arithmetic. Take LKG (lower kindergarten, which takes children between 3.5 and 4 years of age, approximately 2.5 feet in height) as an example. The children have to ‘learn’ line drawing. If they are clever, they do patterns and colouring as well. The little ones spend three hours in school, in which, besides doing a page of work, they have to sing a verse, memorize numbers and tell us the names of their grandparents if they have any. How many books do you suppose each child would buy for the year? I have seven SETS of books for pattern writing, joining dots, gluing cotton swabs and reading aloud, each set containing at least ten books. Do we really need so many publishers printing out the same stuff? At nearly the same cost? So many, many ‘samples’ are gifted to each school, with ‘not for sale’ or ‘complimentary copy’ stamped prominently on the front cover or first page. To prevent ‘misuse’. What misuse could one think of for a hundred pattern-writing books? Now, multiply each set by thirty-five students. Go on, do the maths. By the time I see what the teachers are selecting for the fifth standard, I’m exhausted. I’ve watched them go through tables-books, small sums, problems, divisions, decimals and …wait until I tell you about the high school workbooks. The Devnagari script books are, like the script, complicated, with red and blue lines with broad spacing, medium spacing, narrow and very narrow spacing. The mathematics notebooks have squares of varying dimensions: 1 cm square, 1.5 cm square and worse. There are ‘un-ruled’ books, too. Would you believe, there are at least a dozen different kinds of blank-paper books for art. Did I tell you about graph-books? If the government and/or activists are serious about saving the Earth/trees, by law we should be using only slates. Consider this: if a book costs Rs 100, the supplier gives a discount of 30% to the buyer (parent) and another 20% ‘concession in cash’ to the in-between (i.e. school). And schools, the salesperson tells me, do make profit on the sly thus. I’m stupid, he tells me. I agree. Husband and Bai Goanna also agree. For once, we’re on the same page, the three of us. Now, if we dismiss the supplier from the chain and connect directly with the manufacturer, a student can actually buy an item for 40% of the printed price. Nice, no? What is true about books is true about cosmetic products in a more complicated way. When I buy a toothpaste, I’m paying for research done a century ago, plus the cost of the company’s marketing director’s ‘with family’ holiday abroad, the advertisements showing twenty-metre smiles on hoardings on way to the Dabolim airport, the plastic-coated cardboard box and heaven knows what else. Of course, I buy toothpaste for oral hygiene, but that’s not the point here. I need friends who are dentists (or purchase managers in hotels) who can gift me some tubes; am sure they get plenty of free samples. In the hospital where I once worked, receiving free samples was a way of life. The MRs (as Medical Representatives of pharmaceutical companies are known) came in hordes. On days when the patient-footfall was low, MRs occupied all the benches, laptops on their… what else… laps, typing away, resting their bags by their feet. The moment they saw Target Doctor, the computers were speedily put away, the bags swung on backs as they hurried into the clinics. Those bags contained syrups, capsules, pills, little devices to check sugars/salts/whatever was the latest fad. To be given free, of course, with ‘Physician’s sample, not to be sold’ boldly printed across the label. Samples were often accompanied by calendars, pen-stands, watches (now definitely not in vogue), note-pads, mouse-pads, mobile-phone covers and other cute goodies to make prospective prescribers happy and motivated. “What,” asked Bai Goanna, “About foreign trips and sponsored conferences?” “She,” said Shri Husband before I could answer her, “will write about it later, in another piece. That’s beyond the scope of this piece.” Correct for once, I thought, keeping my thought to myself, adjusting my posture to prevent them from reading further what I was typing. Tea-bags, cosmetics, paan-masalas, pickles, choorans and chivda, everything has giveaway samples these days. We pay for them when we buy the actual stuff, never forget. The good quality stuff needs no small introduction. No matter what the marketing gurus say, a Wendell Rodricks (a man I deeply admired, may he rest in peace) product is to be cherished for design and quality. Word of mouth works best. Just wondering, are any free samples involved in big money products like fighter-aircraft, ack-ack guns and submarines? Never read about India getting free helicopters on ‘trial basis’. “You’re ignorant,” chorused Bai Goanna and Shri Husband, adding, “Remember how we damaged the Tejas (train, not plane) seats on its trial runs?” Sigh. Yes. Said and done, I love free samples. Don’t we all?

Me and the Backache

(13 Nov 10)

            It was the third time I felt the shooting pain in the lower back, this time whilst crossing the road. Agonizing, but I managed to do something that resembled an out of step salsa sequence and got across through the horny (horning?) cars. Luckily, was on the OPD side, so decided that I must see a Spine Doctor. Unluckily, once I reached the building, I couldn’t climb those four stairs. Tried the ramp, couldn’t climb that either, because no railings there. Ten man-minutes were wasted helping me reach the glass door.

            When I made the voucher, the girl at the counter said what I thought sounded like ‘stomach’. I chided her because she didn’t know that Dr N had nothing to do with that part of the anatomy. She looked shocked, then told me she said: “Chamak” the Marathi term for a catch in the back. The person behind me, who also wanted a spine doctor, asked me where Dr Chamak’s name was in the schedule that he was holding!! My bad.

            For one who normally doesn’t wait for a lift and takes stairs two at a time, it felt silly to say ‘first floor’ to the liftman. Someone remarked in Marathi: “She’s only first floor, we’re third” in a superior tone. I was ready to climb out but the lift skipped the first floor (someone had forgotten to press the button or it wasn’t working) and I got a ride to the third floor and back. Smirk, smirk, who’s superior now, I thought as those Marathi people walked out. 

            Next came The Wait. Doctors are always attending emergencies. A few of us patients couldn’t sit. The chairs were too low. We didn’t want to lie on trolleys. So we stood by them, our elbows and palms taking the weight of our painful backs. One wanted to go to the loo. She came back and told us that the seat was lower than the lobby chairs. Oof.

            Then came The MRI. It’s difficult to get out of a sari, fold the darn thing, put it on a hanger and change into loose, crisply laundered, tie it yourself, hospital pyjamas and tops in a 4 x 4 cubicle. I’d heard stories of claustrophobic patients demanding their money back, and was nervous about the loudness of the sound inside as well as the order “if you move, we have to repeat the sequence”. I was to press one balloon attached to a wire if I was in any way uncomfortable. Screaming and shouting wouldn’t help. The other way to attract attention of those outside the room (one is alone inside) is to wave the legs, for the rest of the body is inside the metal tunnel. Of course, the pain wouldn’t allow any movement of the legs so that wasn’t an option anyway.

No one told me how cold it would be. The blankets helped, though. The machine takes you in smoothly enough. The metal tube’s inner edge is more than 6” from the nose, so if one sneezes hard, there’s enough space to counter the move. You won’t bang and injure yourself. The drilling, hammering sound is easier on the eardrums than most car horns or construction sites. When the sound stopped and the trolley moved (with me lying stiffly on it) I believed ‘it’s over’. I was wrong. It keeps moving you, sliding you, bit by bit, every couple of minutes for what seems a very long time and is actually approx half an hour. Each time I opened my eyes and saw the white light and gleaming metal, I wondered how many brain tumour and road traffic accident cases had thus lain in here, possibly unconscious. How many lives had this machine helped save? It’s eerie, the thought that you’ve shared this little space with almost dead or dying fellow beings.

The big film with the little photos all over it showed pictures of my insides that I didn’t know existed. Between two vertebrae or discs, one tiny bit of inner lining had slipped out. A hernia. Like a little balloon. Luckily, no nerve was damaged, said the Spine Specialist; the pain is caused because the strong back muscles ‘guard’ or protect the injured area, go into a spasm and don’t allow any movement whatsoever. Nature does its thing.

Therefore, I have to lie flat (22 hours a day) I’m told, to allow relaxation. A bit of loo and a bit of keyboard won’t hurt, I think, though the doctor disagrees. What are rules for if not to be flexed at times? When I’m better, will write about what went through my mind as I stared at the ceiling day after day after day.

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