Mixed Shots

The $1,100,000 Cure

Michael Flor was so sick with COVID-19 that his wife and children bade him their final goodbyes. But after a 62-day marathon treatment at Swedish Medical Center in Issaquah, Washington, the 70-year-old recovered. As shocking as his recovery was the 181-page bill of $1.1 million (Rs 8.14 crore). The outrageous sum would have possibly proved fatal for most, but Flor had already defeated death once. His insurance meant that he would have to pay only $6,000 and thanks to new US regulations specific to COVID-19, he might not even have to pay a dime from his pocket. Private hospitals in India charging exorbitant advances of Rs 6 lakh and offering per day packages starting at a lakh a day now seems like a nifty bargain from Chor Bazaar in comparison to US hospitals.

Baba Black Kiss

One wonders why scientists are bothering to develop a vaccine for COVID-19 when a ‘baba’ in Madhya Pradesh’s Ratlam district had found an antidote. The magical medicine? A kiss on the hand from the baba and some black magic to bolster its potency. However, there is one side effect of the prophylactic: contracting Covid. About 85 people have tested positive in the district—among them, 19 were at the receiving end of the baba’s labial ministrations. The virus also infected the baba and before one could say, “Healer, heal thyself,” he succumbed to the kiss of death.

Corona Of A Solar Eclipse

The ancients knew a thing or two about the sun. That it has a ring, a corona, and that it gives life, takes it away too. And the eclipsed sun occasioned some bloodletting and head-rolling in the Mayan universe. Could the accursed solar eclipse have a connection with the coronavirus? Yes, yes, says a nuclear and earth scientist in Chennai. His theory: COVID-19 outbreak began with the December 26 eclipse, breaking out after ‘a mutated particle’s interaction of the first neutron due to fission energy’ emitted by eclipses. What? Well, an inter-planetary configuration/variation in a realigned solar system helped the particle nucleate with absorbent foreign material in our upper atmosphere, thereby forming a biomolecule nucleus. Mutation of this nano-protein gave birth to the virus. If you believe in quantum astrology, wait for the next eclipse when the sun’s fission energy will make COVID-19 disappear.

Baby Got Back

IT was the most incongruous of pairings. A woman tested negative for COVID-19, but her 27-month-old baby was positive, while another woman suffering from the disease found out that her six-year-old son was negative. The boy’s entire family was suffering from the virus and there was no one to take care of him. So, doctors at STNM Hospital in Gangtok came up with a devilishly smart plan—they switched the kids between the mothers to ensure he was looked after and the disease doesn’t infect the woman who tested negative.

When Life Gives You Bananas…

P Venkata Subbaiah, 43, has a Bachelors in education and two MAs in Telugu and public administration. But now he is forced to sell bananas for a living. He had been working at a premier corporate school in Nellore when the management asked him to find students to enroll for the new academic year if he wanted to keep his job. He couldn’t and soon went around town hawking bananas on a cart. He has diabetes, kidney disease and an outstanding loan of Rs 3.5 lakh he had taken for his child’s medical treatment. Unfortunately, he could not even earn Rs 200 a day, so his former students started a fundraiser and collected over Rs 87,000 to assist him! Surely he must have been the kind of teacher who never reprimanded his students for saying, “Sir, can I come in?”

Brevis

Illustrations: Saahil; Text by Alka Gupta, Syed Saad Ahmed