Confessions of a foreigner with Delhi belly

“It shuts down entire conferences. It causes people to break into tears. Food turns into an allergen the body wants to be rid of”

You would think that after ten months in India, you’re already through the worst. You’ve seen your colleague burst into tears because her diarrhoea just wouldn’t stop. You thought your body had steeled itself against food attacks. Boy, were you wrong. After another episode of six-or-so painful, draining sessions in the toilet, you realise that reality has come back to bite you where it hurts.

One of my clients, herself a novice to the city, had told me about the Delhi belly bug. Even the most experienced, far-travelled experts don’t escape it. It shuts down entire conferences. It causes people to break into tears. I’ve seen it happen in my office. Food turns into an allergen the body only wants to fight and get rid of. To my relief, I hear it is not only us firangis who have to deal with it.

After all this time in this city, the army of bacteria, viruses, germs and you-name-it still make me run to the hospital with this question buzzing in my mind: what is it this time? Let’s reconsider the last 24 hours. Have I not confined myself to dishes either freshly cooked at home or served in spectacularly clean restaurants? Have I not washed spoons before using them to fight whatever might have found a home there in the last, say, three hours? Have I not washed my hands every ten minutes?

Yes, I have. All lessons that I have learned through my failures have been observed. And yet, I’m entering the emergency room (ER), where the familiar doctor puts me on drip straightaway, having already guessed my predicament.

Strapped to the hospital bed, the world comes to a standstill. The pain slowly ceases. The dizziness is replaced by calm contemplation. After three bottles of ORS directly injected into my veins, a prescription for an assortment of antibiotics and something the nurse wouldn’t tell me about, I feel like a yogi who has just finished a long session of meditation. I leave the ER, with a long bill and feeling blissfully high.

(He has been in India for just under a year)

As told to Pallavi Polanki

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