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.”

---

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/

So how did this start?

Tuesday – 23, September:

Around 8 PM, I was taking the washed and dried clothes lying on the bed to the sofa in the living room. I had placed one bunch of clothes on the sofa and was coming back for the remaining clothes.

I was walking into the bedroom in an absent-minded way that only middle-aged Indian uncles can do when they reluctantly do household chores. I have a tendency to walk fast from time to time. This time I was walking fast in an absent-minded way towards the narrow passage between the steel bero (almirah) and wooden cot in our bedroom. As I was taking the first step into the passage, my left foot hit one of the two large wooden blocks supporting the weight of the cot. The edge of the smallest toe and the one immediately preceding it on my left foot.  

Within a split second, the impact transmitted a shooting pain to my brain. My vocal cords involuntarily made an acoustic projection of a painful scream. I managed to sit down on the bed with tightly clenched fists and my upper and lower rows of teeth in airtight formation.

On hearing me scream, my wife, who was on a call, cut the call and asked me, ‘Are you ok?’ I did not answer her immediately. My mind was quickly scanning through its database of painful memories. Being housed within a body that had endured 45 years of life of falling down, getting hit with cricket balls, more falling, bumping against walls, furniture, etc., it could quickly recognize that this one didn’t have an equivalent entry.

“I think I have fractured my toe,” I blurted out.

Once the pain receded a little bit, I placed both my feet side by side. The smaller toe on the left foot had moved outward compared to the little toe on my right foot.

“Not good… not good,” I said to myself. 

I tried to lift all the toes on my left foot. I was able to lift them despite the pain.

“Ah, good,” with a sigh of relief.

As we started discussing if we needed to see a doctor, the little toe on my left foot started swelling like a thin sheet of damp maida dropped into boiling oil.

“Oh no… oh no… oh no, no, no.”

We decided to go to the Ortho clinic in Mandaveli. It was around 8:30 PM, but the clinic was not far from our house. When we reached the clinic, they were already closing it for the day. The assistant opened the door to the doctor’s room. He was about to leave, but we caught him in the nick of time.

The doctor made me sit on a long wooden bench. He asked me to lift all my toes. Then he pressed the injured too. There was so much pain, I started to shout.

“The toe is fractured. But it’s swollen, and there are so many blood clots around it. It’s not a good idea to put a plaster around the toe or a cast around the leg now. I will prescribe you some tablets. Come back on Thursday evening with an X-ray of the left foot. I will put a plaster around the toe and a cast for the left foot,” the doctor delivered the bad news in an ambivalent manner.

As he was busy prescribing medicine, I tried to indulge in oodles of self-pity.

“Be thankful that the toe did not get dislocated. Otherwise, you would need a surgery right away. This will heal in about six to eight weeks,” the doctor tried to console me with his expert advice. Yes, it was comforting to hear his opinion, but in a very darkly comic way.

After buying the medicines, we got into an auto to go home. On the way we spotted a lab still open. We went in to get the X-ray taken. One look at the X-ray, the technician said, “It’s a hairline fracture. But it should heal in six to eight weeks.” 

I looked at the X-ray. The crack looked deeper and much more visible compared to the one on my son’s X-ray from January.

On reaching home, we decided to cheer up the damp evening with burrito bowls for us. The thought of my fractured toe and the possibility of a cast around my left foot made the Barbeque Paneer Burrito bowl taste like Rava Upma.

---

This essay is part 2 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 3: https://yogesvr.xyz/2025/10/22/agonizing-over-a-cast-conjuring-up-scenarios/

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/