Dispatches from the Hotzone

Anyone who reads this blog knows that I'm an avid observer of flora, fauna and the office loo.

Why the loo?  I could say it's a symbol of our most private cultural differences (Although the fine people at Frommers prefer not to dwell on them, each country's loos are as unique as its cuisine, history and lawn ornamentation practices)

Anyway.

Our loo is unique because one of the women in my office is a loo-body.  Everyone knows the type.  She plasters smug signs over every available surface, with slogans like -"Clean up after yourself - no one here is your mother"  (Because, as everyone knows, cleaning up after errant office workers is a task only a mother could love). 

Today I was visiting this august and discreet establishment, and I noticed that an alarming new placard has come up over the flush tank.  "USE SANITIZER," it says, in big type.  "AVOID EYE FLU."  Next to it, there is a minty green bottle of hand sanitizer.  The display is reminiscent of the little box of cakes that welcomed Alice to Wonderland.  "EAT ME," they said.  Much like Alice, I decided not to question authority, and promptly slathered my hands in sanitizer (after washing them, of course.  And incidentally, why isn't there a sign over the faucet that says "WASH YOUR HANDS.  AVOID ALL TYPES OF GERMS.")

On the way out, though, I was shaken. 

Just this past week, I met five people who had come down with dengue, which (if the papers are to be believed, always an act of faith along the lines of astrology) has been wracking the city with a thoroughness not seen since Bubonic Plague.  They didn't call it the Black Death for nothing.   I live alone, and my greatest fear is that I'll wake up roiling with dengue fever, only to be discovered three weeks later.  I mentioned this fear to one of my friends.

"Oh yeah.  You'd wake up and you'd be too tired to call anyone.  That would suck," she said.  She has roommates.

The Delhi dengue crisis has become so bad that the government has decided to call in the Army.  Needless to say, a crowd of people with no medical background splashing through the city's many ponds of standing water and crowding into its already-musty alleys should solve the problem in no time.  And by "in no time" I mean, "ideally, before the Rapture."  And by "solve the problem" I mean "our Prime Minister is an economist, not a doctor, a fact that has never been more evident than now."

But moving on.

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi thinks that we should forget about dengue and start worrying about cholera, of which 200 cases were reported in August alone.  The last time I heard of cholera I was in third grade, playing Oregon Trail, and CDs hadn't been invented yet.  The  members in my fictional wagon party often died of cholera, along with Yellow Fever, dysentery and snake bite.  We mourned their deaths by putting up makeshift graves, going on buffalo-hunting expeditions, and then getting the hell out of town, an approach that the MCD might do well to adopt.

For those who think cholera and dengue are too New Age, swine flu still rears its snout in the South, where it has been stamping all over the scenic state of Kerala.

About the only way I could up my disease risk, at this point, would be to eat a live monkey brain.  Or so I thought, until the office loo-body decided to shatter my remaining serenity with her dire warning about 'eye flu.'

What is eye flu, anyway?  The flu, as far as I know, is a disease characterized by high fevers, vomiting and whining, all things I thought eyeballs were incapable of, at least on their own.  But then I realized that 'eye flu' is the Indian term for conjunctivitis (continuing our trend of coming up with vaguely cute names for things that are actually much more threatening, witness 'sexual harassment' which now goes by the far more charming 'Eve teasing'...if there were a disease called 'euphemism flu' I would have it)

Apparently, "every year eye flu sweeps across the country and affects almost every family" in India, according to an article from the Hindustan Times.  (Found in the "Fashion and Beauty" section, as if 'eye flu' is in fact a dangerously shocking pink eyeshadow, or a hot new designer..."Did you see my seeping red eyeball?  It's from the new collection by I Flew.")

The article also warns that sufferers might experience a "foreign body sensation," which sounds like something one is a lot more likely to experience after a few beers at a nightclub than after an unwise attempt to scratch your eye.

Apparently, the current eye flu epidemic is severe, resulting in damage to the cornea (damage that I fervently hope is temporary, although the author does not say)  The author does quote a doctor as saying that "cases of super-added bacterial conjunctivitis are also coming."  Coming!  Like the horsemen of the Apocalypse, or yet another Judd Apatow movie.

But next to cholera, dengue and swine flu, 'eye flu,' which is "self-limiting" sounds somewhat banal.  Perhaps we should call it "Christmas in July flu," because when you get it, it's almost like you've been given a gift.  "Thank God it's eye flu, and not dengue," overwrought parents will say.

Now, if you'll excuse me.  I'm off for my afternoon sanitizer bath.