Eyes Off The Road

I haven’t posted for quite some time. I couldn’t think of anything else, so here is a day’s experience.
My first YRC (Youth red cross) assignment. I had to reach the hospital by 9 in the morning. One of the oldest hospitals of its kind, the Madras Ophthalmic Hospital is some where near Mt. Road as far as I can recollect. It was four years ago, that I went, with my friend.
We reached the hospital at about 9am and we could see, lot of patients, many with an eye covered. We reported to the head nurse, and registered our names. Next was the job assignment, I was excited, but all the excitement went away when I started with my first assignment. Being a receptionist, without understanding tamil was like being in the ‘Tower of Babel’. I didn’t know much of Tamil four years ago. With a ‘red cross’ jacket, I stood in front of the table that showed ‘receptionist’. Many people came and asked me the where bouts of rooms, I was baffled as the numbers they mentioned were in tamil, I could understand one to ten, with some confusion in the 5th and 6th numeral, but above ten I couldn’t make out. I went up to my friend for the translation every time I encountered some problem. With the answers came more questions and I was shuttling from my table to my friend’s assigned place, outside the ward. The patients had to put up with me and many a times I got a piece of their mind. It’s a rigmarole for them and with me creating communication voids, the situation was getting abominably out of control.
I needed a change for the good of both the patients and me. My friend, wasn’t budging from his place and then I got a chance to swap with my college mate, who was controlling the traffic approaching Mt. Road. The hospital was one side and the ward on the other side of the road. Often patients had to cross the road in order to make pay a visit to the doctor. Traffic had to be stopped when a suitable number of people came on either side, for them to cross.I swapped places with him immediately, I had the jacket on but now I also got a ‘STOP’ sign that could fit my hand, like the one the policemen sport at traffic junctions.
I took charge of the traffic going towards Mt. road and another guy was on the opposite side regulating traffic from Mt. road, though there were very vehicles from that side. We had to coordinate and stop traffic as the patients can cross only when the traffic from both sides stop.
I came to the middle of the lane and displayed the stop sign, the traffic came to a standstill. I felt powerful with my ‘Stop sign’ weapon. I just had to lift it up and the traffic stops. I had a stupendous time at the road.
At times we wouldn’t coordinate properly and the patients would be stranded in the middle of the road. Though that happened once, we were in an obvious predicament.
The power of the ‘stop sign’ took over my mind and I kept showing it even when a single patient had to cross.
I was at the acme of glory, but then I suddenly saw an auto racing towards me. ‘Oops’, I had brought down the ‘stop sign’, it was a green signal, with me forgetting to move out of the lane, he just missed, and his acerbate words put me in a predicament. All the same I didn’t know much of tamil so I didn’t bother about what he said. After a tiring half hour, I went back in as my substitute had arrived. The other assignments were fairly simple. It was a fun filled day, an experience that was different from the banality of the class rooms.