Review: The Wrong Prescription
Honestly, I was skeptical about writing this review initially. The author is someone who I have personally met since he is the father of a dear friend. This ‘dear friend’ also happens to be the guy responsible for all the creative stuff (and the goof-ups!) happening on dfuse.in.However, when I started reading the book, I knew I had to review it. Rarely do doctors write books that don’t only fit amongst various medical journals and dissertations. This one breaks free from the typecast and finds a place amongst one of the lighter books written by anyone in he medical profession.
In The Wrong Prescription, Dr. Manoj Kapoor takes inspiration from actual happenings and turns them into interesting incidents with hilarious characters who perfectly portray the psyche of the average Indian patient. From how we always need a second opinion on every illness to how medical centres have become increasingly profit-oriented with the help of technology, Dr. Kapoor covers it all.
Welcome to the life of Mr. Anuspain Dungsting who will journey with you as you read this book. He will make you laugh and he will make you think. An element of this book that is as important as the book itself is the sarcasm that the author employs in order to put his point across. The author invents doctors who come from a place with the address, ‘Foolsville, Bragasmuch, Assakissus’. This can only be the product of sheer exasperation with the kind of hopeless cases that this profession churns out.
At times, you feel that the jokes fall flat but there are other times when you laugh out loud. I felt that the book was divided into two parts – one was spiced with humor and consisted of various incidents. The other part was in stark contrast. It spoke about society’s expectations, the responsibilities of a doctor and how modern technology is now assisting the profession. Sometimes this was stretched to the point where the book started seeming a little preachy. The reader also comes to know quite a lot about the author’s humble beginnings and his progress as he now runs one of the most well-reputed hospitals of Ahmedabad.
Read it not for its language or for its tone – read it because of the honesty with which it is written and because of those laughs you wouldn’t want to miss.
Here’s an excerpt -
One of my friends in his curiosity plucked a hair from his head and started examining it under the microscope. He did not realize that the professor had caught him at it. After a fifteen-minute lecture and a warning my friend was asked to go back to his seat. As he was crossing the seemingly slumberous professor, who had until then seemed oblivious of the goings-on, the latter suddenly asked my friend a question. My friend was sweating and fumbled for an answer but the entire lab started laughing after those tense minutes. The professor asked my friend
rather innocently, “Kahan ka baal tha?”
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About the Author: Lipi Mehta
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