“We’ve begun your visa renewal process, so here are the papers to get your blood test done,” my office admin guys told me last week. Like an obedient soldier, I end up at the Ministry of Health’s Darsait facility the next day to fulfil necessary obligations. Well, for starters, I just hate to go there. I feel like I am inside ‘Guantanamo Bay’ detention camp.

I walk inside early in the morning only to realise the queue is just a handful (earlier I’ve waited for hours in the queue). Thanking my stars, I wait for my turn. My turn is up, and I handover my papers to the guy at the counter. He hurriedly checks out the papers, glances at me, and says, “One more photo here.” Shit, I say to myself, an effort lost. Since I didn’t have an extra copy of photograph, I return to office. I checked with my admin guys, only to be told, “Normally we paste only two photographs, why did he ask for one more?” Cursing my luck, I made arrangements for one more photo, and next day I was back at the Darsait counter.

Luckily, the same guy checks out the papers, and this time, he looks satisfied. He hands over a token and small tube for blood testing purposes. I ask the security chap for directions to meet the doctor, and he lazily points his hands, and says, “Up”. I knew for sure he didn’t want my question to distract himself from checking out Filipino ladies from top to bottom, with his utmost concentration.

I make my way up, only to stand in a queue of 6-7 guys. I can hear the doctor (a Jordanian probably) say, “shirt utaro” (remove the shirt) to the Indian guys in front. Next he says, “Hath upar karo (lift your hands). When my turn came, the doctor switched over to English, and I don’t know the reason behind his logic. I look 100% Indian though. I raised my hands as per his instruction, and the doctor placed the stethoscope over my chest and back, and said ‘ok’. Next was the ‘blood donation’ part. The Indian nurse does the job quite mechanically, and when she pierced my veins, I didn’t pain much. I assume she gets the volumes daily to be an expert at that. The whole process is quite mechanical, sans human touch. I guess two robots could carry out the job very well with help from ‘Windows DoctorNurse 2008’ software.

All done, I walk down through the stairs, only to see our man (security chap) still gawking intensely at women. He must be having a ball of his life working there, I assume.

I walk back happily thinking that I will have to return to his place again after two years, that only, if I am still here…