Of India in Mumbai,I was dumb-struck when I arrived at page-11(under
the heading:Times City, which presumably reported about events in the
city itself)
A write-up by a certain Joeanna Rebello Fernandes features prominently
in the middle third of the page with the heading: TWINS ARE TWICE THE
TROUBLE FOR DOCS.
The write-up is ornamented with a cartoon featuring a mother grinning
and carrying with a pair of twins who are shown to be crying,one of
them tugging at the thinning hair strands of a doctor,supposedly a
paediatrician,who is thinking,"This is too much!"
The write-up begins with the following sentence:
"The waiting room of a paediatrician's clinic is like a petting zoo
when the animals are getting their shots."
The second sentence ends with"..and the doctor has to remind himself
why he chose this discipline in the first place."
Obviously,Madam Fernandes has attempted to write something humorous
involving howling twins and the plight of the hapless paediatrician at
that point.While unwillingly trying to accept the 'unfortunate fact'
that this Joeanne CLOWN Fernandes must be possessing a sense of humour
of superlative quality,a dry humourless intelligence like that of
yours truly feels that the lady-clown has gone a bit too far with this
one.
Nobody would mind similar digs and jokes in the entertainment section
of the same newspaper,or in popular books of jokes around the medical
profession.Not even poker-faced unattractive medicos like me.But it
becomes difficult to comprehend why responsible journalism would
create an article of such a poor,distorted taste and macabre humour
and why it should find its away to be in printed expression associated
with a cartoon in page-11 of a widely-read,responsible newspaper,where
the unassuming reader is supposed to search for important news-feeds
about the city in which he lives.
Joeanna the Joker proceeds to investigate the cause behind a
'seemingly unwanted,pathological situation'(read recent increase in
the birth-rates of twins) and 'blames' recently developed fertility
programmes and use of drugs like Clomiphene Citrate for this.
I don't know if Frauline Funny Fernandes have got relatives who have
copulated to have given birth to babies,or she herself has
participated in a similar active exercise to produce off-springs and I
seriously doubt that the 'funny products' of copulatory exercises of
Fernandes have ever been taken to a paediatric clinic to be branded as
howling inmates of a zoo.
May her tribe increase,but it remains to be seen in what circus-like
novel manner Mad Madmoiselle Joeanna will react and with what funny
creatures she will compare to,if anybody from the Fernandes tribe
comes up with a pair of twins who will ultimately develop the clinic
of a paediatrician.
Joeanna has made fun of twins as terrible,howling creatures-not for a
moment pausing to think of the mother who might have responded with a
pair of twins to a fertility programme and apparently her black humour
makes her unaware about how invaluable a child is for its mother and
father,whether born singly or with another sibling,or for that matter
two,three or four.
And nothing gives this over-enthusiastic nuthead,the unholy Joeanna,
the right to confidently and publicly ponder over WHAT a doctor of any
stream and speciality thinks while approaching human lives who need
his consultation,irrespective of whether they are a member of a
quadruplet born together or a nonagerian restricted to a bed and a
wheel-chair.At least that doesn't come anywhere near the expression of
a cartooned white-coat in the middle of a news-page following and
preceding sad news of untimely deaths occuring in a panicking country
at the moment,from whose deliberation Jumping Jackflash Joeanna or her
newspaper cannot completely wash their hands off.
Dear Joeanna,the responsibility of being a senior journalist and a
social activist necessitates a little amount of dignity,while sharing
a good laugh and while reporting about children of a god which is
perhaps lesser than yours.
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