Achilles Tendon

 Not again! Here we are, in the Military Hospital at Mhow, with my Achilles tendon probably torn and in pain trying to be brave about the injury, after all we are from the "mard ko dard nahi hota" generation.  The last about an year and a half we have been doing the rounds of hospitals in both Delhi and Indore as someone or the other was constantly gravely sick and needed attending to, please refer my blog for more details .(https://senseinthenonsense.blogspot.com/2023/08/faith.html ) Just as we started to think that we were now on the other side of the hill, I succumbed to the temptation yet again trying to believe that lie which some blessed oldies like to boast about ,"age is just a number", the body of course knows better and delivers a royal kick  from time to time, this time it was the turn of the poor tendon to bring me back to mother earth. Well you can't find fault with me there are some friends who have drunken from the elixir of youth and have successfully conned ageing, they are running marathons, ultra marathons, participating in national sports events for veterans and showing off their prowess on our course groups all nearing the sixties. Green with envy we try and play catch up and land up in such a mess. The sheer ecstasy of the sweat on your brow trickling down on the face has to be experienced and once the saline drops touch your lips then you can't live without it, you are hooked for life.

Folks at home have given up on us long back, we are the incorrigible ones, getting injured or the threat of the injury can't hold us back. But I think I have the singular privilege of having been bestowed with a magnetic personality, the magnet which attracts injuries and not people, have broken so many bones and torn ligaments on the sports fields and courts that I can bid for a place in the Limca book of records. The gory details of my encounters with medical fraternity have been elaborated in  detail in https://senseinthenonsense.blogspot.com/2019/05/carry-on-doctors.html. From the football ground to tennis court, basket ball to hockey field have made it a point to sentence me with eternal penance, this time it was the turn of Squash court to squash my tendon without any remorse. I think the blame lies with the sport itself, 45 years ago when the only squash I had heard of was Kissan Orange Squash I landed up in RIMC and took a liking to it, as it rhymed with my name and a racket game to boot which could be played round the year, round the clock. A sport not very popular in India, but in the Services it was a favourite with the officers precisely for the reasons I just mentioned earlier. We Rimcollians of course take pride in the act that we can boast of Raj Manchanda and Ritwik Bhattacharya, two well known names in this sport, almost all of us indulge in it and are considered reasonably good at it.

Any way getting back to this tendon business, I am sure most of the readers would have heard of Chinese Whispers, so guess what, tendon became tentacles and from there it was testicles and suddenly the pain multiplied as even a mere thought of injury in the gonads can send shivers down any loins. But this tendon has a Greek mythological connect, as Achilles was the handsomest and bravest warrior of Agamemnon and guess what, like Krishna his weak spot was  also his heel, and it was her mother who held him by his heel and dipped him in the waters of River Styx, the rest of the body was like steel but the heel was untouched, reminds you of Duryodhan and how Gandhari empowered his body with her gaze except his loins which was covered. The tendon is thus appropriately named, it bears the load of complete body, but if it snaps one instantly turns lame. 

Thanks to modern medical science, we can now repair this tear, as my doctor tells me, so there is hope, just that the light is at the end of the tunnel, which is about three to six months long. So here is hoping I can get back to at least Golf soon, as Squash  racket may have to be given a ceremonial burial now or just handed down to the next generation, time to pass on the racket, but the quest for the sweat on the brow will remain, this thirst can only be quenched with that elixir. So folks please pray for me as my salvation lies in this magic potion.