Disclaimer: I do not encourage or condone many of the behaviors depicted in this story. All names, characters, locations, and incidents are products of the author's imagination, or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.
During my first year of college, I visited my maternal aunt Chithra during college vacation after my semester examination who lives with her daughter. She too was home during those days due her won vacation. One Saturday morning my aunt suggested that we both start taking care of our health seriously from now on and it is good that we fix our annual checkups from now itself as she does every year. She suggested that her physician who lives a couple of lanes away is known to her for many years, and almost a family friend by now and it would be good that we too can get checked with her, as her checkup was due the next day.
Myself and Reema, my cousin, didn't have much of a clue about all these, but rather reluctantly agreed looking at each as we knew we didn't have much of a reason to say no even though we weren't all comfortable having checkups and all at that stage. We reached the clinic which is a couple of blocks away on a Saturday morning and it was on one side of her house itself. There was no one at the clinic and around the area at that time as we entered after removing our footwear. We were greeted by Shalini, my aunt's physician. She was wearing a t-shirt and pajama bottoms and seemed to be in her mid-thirties and had a slender figure in a tall frame in comparison to my aunt who was a little thicker and shorter but not at all falls into the Chubby category though.
My aunt wore a pale blue knee length dress, Reema was in her kurti and pajamas while I wore a sleeveless netted top with a pair of denim jeans. She took us ahead to a room adjacent to the living area where she had set up a home clinic which was reasonably well equipped and had a very pleasant ambience. My aunt introduced me to Shalini and it wasn't the first time Reema was here I suppose, though probably for a checkup of this nature.
"Shall we start? Who's going to go first then?"Β Shalini looked at me and Reema alternately while we looked at each other with hesitation as neither of us didn't know how to respond.
"Maybe we can do it together for both of you and then for Chithra, or all of you together?" She looked at us again as well as my aunt who replied with just a giggle looking at us sheepishly.
She started with our pressure first. It was Reema at first and then followed by me and it was done in a flash as she then moved to take our temperature. She bought two thermometers and had us hold it simultaneously orally for a couple of minutes before recording the temperatures.