There are a couple of Tamil sayings that I’ve got to implement over the next few days:

• Vallavanukku Pullum Ayudham

Translations: A capable man will turn even a grass into a weapon.

• Siru Thurumbu Pal Kutha Udhavum

Translation: Even a small splinter can be useful as a toothpick.  

I became a samurai warrior fighting against the itching sensations that my mind started throwing at me. My armory consisted of two plastic scales (one flexible and another non-flexible) and a comb. The comb was part of a gift set given to my daughter by one of my sisters a couple of months ago. When I had a first glimpse of this comb, I thought to myself, ‘What a weird-looking comb. Which idiot has designed it?”

After the usefulness of its pointed tip in getting through my cast and helping me to scratch the itches, I would say he or she is a genius. My soul wants to stand on top of the Eiffel Tower and declare to the world, “The designer of the comb deserves an iF Design Award and a Red Dot Design Award.”  If I came across the designer today, I would even kiss his or her hand with the same reverence that underlings had for Don Corleone in The Godfather.

Once I heard a comment in a documentary, “The best of our dreams and the worst of our nightmares never come true.”

After getting the cast on my feet, there was one scenario that I used to ruminate endlessly. What if a mosquito enters into my cast with the precision of a Japanese Kamikaze pilot conducting his bombing sorties? Once inside the cast, what if the mosquito sips my blood with the sophisticated pleasure of James Bond sipping his martini? And in response I would be agonizing over the unfairness of life like an indentured laborer in one of the 19th-century British colonies. Luckily for me, this phantom of my imagination did not come true.

And whenever I would reach out inside the cast with a scale or comb to scratch, the Shastri and Manjrekar in my house would come uninvited for a pitch report, sans the mikes.

One of them: “You are ruining the structural integrity of the cast.”

My mind voice: “This is a cast. Not the RMS Titanic.”

One of them: “The doctor is going to scold you for messing with his creation.” My mind voice: “He is not my father-in-law, and this cast is not his daughter.”

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This essay is part 3 of the 5-part personal essay series – Agonizing over a cast

Part 1: https://yogesvr.xyz/2025/10/05/agonizing-over-a-cast-the-crybaby/

Part 2: https://yogesvr.xyz/2025/10/21/agonizing-over-a-cast-the-bad-news/

Part 4: https://yogesvr.xyz/2025/10/23/agonizing-over-a-cast-the-zen-master-in-the-house/

Part 5:  https://yogesvr.xyz/2025/10/24/agonizing-over-a-cast-painting-our-own-rainbow/