Congo Fever fear in Ahmedabad

It was a late night conversation with a friend, Manoj, which alerted me about a killer new virus fast gaining ground in Ahmedabad. A common friend's father was admitted at the Shalby Hospital, and now that hospital has become the centre of investigation to identify the virus.

Image source - www.cdc.gov

Its only today morning that I read in the paper (Ahmedabad Mirror)that the virus is perhaps the deadly Congo Virus, also known as Crimean–Congo hemorrhagic fever or CCHF. None are really sure about the diagnosis of the virus as of now, though.

The virus is carried by domestic animals and transmitted by ticks, and as of now there is no sure-shot treatment as well. Treatment options are limited, one has to basically support the patient's immune system and recovery generally takes a long time. The hospital death rate is around 30%, which is rather high for any such disease. Our neighbour, Pakistan, was afflicted by this last year (though many of us may not be aware of it as it was hardly covered in the Indian media), and many lost their lives.

Is there any particular food one should avoid? Well, I was very keen on knowing this as I had just boiled eggs and was waiting to eat them this morning. Did a quick search and found nothing to connect the two, so I ended up quickly gulping down both of them. It might be dangerous to eat farm animals, though that's pure speculation from my side.

Does this sound ominous? I do not know, just that Shalby Hospital is just next door to our office and I was planning to visit it to get some tests done today. Its likely that my choice of hospital shall change now. I guess enough on this rather paranoid post for now.

Some more newspapers with the news...

Times of India
Indian Express
BBC

Manohar. Sita. Ram.

This is a three part series, read the first part and the second part as well, the order isn't paramount.

Manohar

Manoharlal looked up from under the weight of mighty Khaba, his most illustrious student who had now become adept at defeating him occasionally. Manoharlal had seen Sita often in the past as she purchased vegetables outside his akhara, and had always wondered how she would look and feel in a voracious mud-wrestling match with him. This made it all the more embarrassing for him today, as he lay helpless and defenseless under Khaba.

Later as they sipped chai together in his room at the back of this akhara, she made a highly unusual set of demands. She said that she needed to test him before she could explain her plan to him and take the matters forward. For Manoharlal, the next hour was spent in ecstasy. The number and depth of bites all over his body forced him to excuse himself from wrestling for the next two weeks, but that day he passed the test with his commendable hour long performance. There were three things Sita wanted - to teach her wrestling, to help her husband last and finally if everything failed, take the matters to another level of intimacy and devilishness. He was too exhausted and excited to disagree.

Ram was a difficult student. He refused to let Manoharlal teach him anything at all in the beginning. He was shy, and refused to believe that there could possibly be anything wrong with him, till one day Manoharlal was forced to give him a demonstration; his obsession for Sita's unmatched assets took hold over everything, including his own self respect. Ram was an obedient student after that, but a no-learner. Nothing worked on him, and nothing helped his abject performance in bed. But not everything was well in Manohar's personal life as well. He was torn between his insatiable lust for Sita and his unquenchable desire to be a useful teacher to Ram. Sita continued to visit him under the guise of learning wrestling, though their playground was not the akhara, but his hot, humid and dingy room.

Soon it was clear that Manoharlal could possibly not be of any use to Ram, his progress was so slow that it would be years before he would be able to satisfy the killing lust of his wife. And it wasn't long afterward that Siat visited him and demanded her final wish to be fulfilled, an incident which reminded him of Queen Kaikai's silly argument with King Dashrath over Sri Ram in Ramayana. Manohar relented.

That fateful night, as Ram walked out naked with a very satisfied smile on his face, Manohar jumped from behind and quickly choked him to death with his famous khooni wrestling move. As Ram's body became in lifeless in his arms, Sita also came out, stark naked and with blood-red eyes. She slowly moved her hands all over his soft and dead body, while hot tears flowed continuously down her cheeks.

They had both loved Ram in their own ways, and it was heart-breaking to lose him like this.

Sita. Ram. Manohar.

This is a three part series, read the first part and the third part as well, the order isn't paramount.

Sita

From the time she accidentally saw him in a state she was never meant to, Sita had been fascinated by Ram, who lived in a house right opposite to her Chawl in the sprawling Parel area of Mumbai. Ram was quite a looker and possessed the body of a Greek god, Adonis, or so Sita thought. He belonged to a family which was richer than the rest, and his house even had an attached bathroom. This was sort of a disappointment for her and her many sahelis from neighbourhood, who were forever keen to seem Ram draped in a flimsy semi-transparent towel waiting to take a bath in the common bathing area. This never happened, though she continued fantasizing about Ram in the rare free moment of her life and in every possible way.

It wasn't long before she decided that more needed to be done to entice him into a relationship; despite all his Greek-god-like attributes, he was still a very shy guy and would only momentarily look at the fallen dupatta and pallu, and would then not even be able to look Sita's into the eyes for days together. There was a beast ready for a hunt in Sita and she took matter further in her hands, quite literally, when he was alone at home one cold afternoon. The encounter left her surprised and confused, and she questioned her sanity for a while, before the dreams of an attached bathroom took over. There was no turning back and soon they were married and she moved in with ram's family.

Right from the first night, she knew that Ram was prized possession but there was only so much you could do with him. He was sensitive, understanding and cautious, and none of these were the things she wanted in bed. And he could never last even beyond a few hand strokes, even lesser if it was her hand. Somehow this never bothered him and he was happy with whatever little 'nothing' they did together, but this left Sita completely dumbfounded.

Not the one to be crushed with such luck, she decided to take the matters in her own hands, yet again. Manoharlal had been training the men in the neighborhood akhara for years now, and his fame in the underground world of dissatisfied men and women had reached new heights, thanks to his advanced Ayurveda knowledge. Sita decided to meet Manoharlal, and it was just luck that it happened to be a hot, sweaty June afternoon.

All these thoughts and more crossed Sita's mind, she she lay under Ram and waited. '...Three, four, five...',  she could faintly hear a number with every stroke that he made; in her mind she did her own, and curiously she was two digits ahead of him. But there was another countdown in her head, much more sinister and fearful. Night was still so young, she waited for Ram to finish.

Ram. Sita. Manohar.

This is a three part series, read the second part and the third part as well, the order isn't paramount.


Ram

Ram was extremely satisfied with his performance today, he had lasted exactly seven strokes and it was way better than his career best four, exactly three months ago. He made a silent prayer thanking the ancient art of Yoga, which he considered to be solely responsible for this unprecedented improvement in such a short span of time.

With a proud grin on his face, he looked on his side to see Sita's reaction. Initially confused by what he saw, it occurred to him only later that perhaps she didn't count properly today. But it was impossible to miss such a grand number, there had to be something else.

'So what do you think?', he asked, the grin intact on his face still, despite her obvious disinterest in his personal milestone. Sita was silent, her mind was preoccupied with many other thoughts. But contrary to what Ram thought, Sita had counted every single of his stroke, though she could hardly even feel her tiny husband move inside her. And it was only after he moved away from her that she stopped counting, and so her score for him was an even mightier nine.

'We need to talk, Ram', she replied. He knew right then exactly what the matter was, though she spent the next couple of hours explaining it all to him. He was surprised to know that the culprit was Manoharlal, his Yoga teacher who had been teaching him the various techniques of self restraint and performance improvement for the past six months. Manohar, as Sita often fondly called him, was also Sita's wrestling instructor and her best friend in the whole world. It was Sita one who had asked Ram to go and meet Manohar, who was already famed for his excellence in the ancient art of Yoga and helping the men in need. This was after Ram's consistent failure to engage her in any meaningful coitus, apart from simply soiling her saree every time he came close to her.

But things changed quickly after Sita's confession. Ram quietly took his crumpled langot and walked naked out of the room. There was, however, a sly grin on his face. Seven was still a big number for him and he felt ready to take on the world and floor/ bed all the members of the fairer sex. He thanked Manoharlal once again as the mist of the night outside enveloped him completely.

The beginning...

As I struggle to write the first line for the new year, my thoughts keep going back to last year, an year of such unprecedented ups and downs. Everything passes, and time passes the fastest, no matter how much we try and hold it. This isn't happening right, am getting unnecessarily philosophical again...It was a great first day, a day spent with the people who are closest to me and the ones I truly love. Last year was different, I was all alone; in retrospect everything happens for the best. And last year reinforced my belief in the saying. It seems am writing a boring personal diary entry, and not my first blog post of the year. My struggle continues...As the charge in the laptop gets over, I struggle to bring this post to a premature end.