PRATAP: Let’s find out.
SFX- Indicating the stoppage of the car.
PRATAP: Hi, what’s the matter?
RAGHU: Lift up to Hayatnagar please.
SEKHAR: Vimala, don’t mind accommodating him.
SFX - Opening and the shutting of the car door.
RAGHU: Thank you madam. I’m Dr. Raghu.
VIMALA: Never mind, I’m Vimala. He’s Pratap and he’s Sekhar.
PRATAP: Doctor, you may know her daughter Prati is a doctor in the making.
RAGHU: Nice to know, in which year is she auntie?
VIMALA: Pre-final in the Gandhi Medical College.
RAGHU: I did my M.S. in the Osmania.
VIMALA: What a chance meeting.
RAGHU: It’s my pleasure really.
PRATAP: No less ours, meeting a young and handsome doctor.
SEKHAR: Possibly an eligible bachelor.
RAGHU: I can only say I’m a bachelor.
PRATAP: When it comes to eligibility, you might have heard the saying. It’s for the mother-in-law to know what a good son-in-law one makes.
RAGHU: I’ve heard the father-in-law version.
PRATAP: What difference does that make if one is not snubbed?
SEKHAR: Having a doctor at home is fine. But at corporate hospitals it’s like you are thrown at the wolves.
RAGHU: No denying sir, but do you know why it is so?
SEKHAR: Whatever be the provocation, I don’t see any justification. Oh, how they short change you at every turn. Why the unwarranted tests and the uncalled for hospitalization. By the way, when did a doctor last felt his patient’s pulse by hand? Bemoan the society with doctors without integrity?
RAGHU: I will come to that later but our problem is our selective condemnation. We speak of political corruption, baeuracratic kickbacks, and business bribes, but not in the same vein. We don’t see the corrupt spring from our midst but don’t descend from Mars.
SEKHAR: Don’t tell me, you can put judges and doctors on the same footing.
RAGHU: Why do you want place them on a moral pedestal raised on an immoral ground. Don’t they see others take an unholy dip in our polluted waters? It’s stupid to expect they go home dry and clean. What about our dual morality. We’re critical of corruption but not our corrupt caste-men.
SEKHAR: All that is fine, but why the fleecing at the corporate hospitals?
RAGHU: If you know about the capital involved and the return on investment, you get the answer. Have you ever thought why healthcare has become a corporate business in our country?
SEKHAR: That way you can explain away every shortcoming.
RAGHU: I’m talking about specifics. You know our people and politicians alike bankrupt our country. We as a people evade, if not avoid, paying taxes. You know how the politicians are ruining our economy with their populist schemes.