The wife got a COVID-19 vaccine as well.

4 min read.

I had the vaccine on a Friday morning and there were no side effects at all. By that time, the wife was keener than me to have the jab at the earliest. She had even asked our daughter to pull some strings to expedite it. The daughter advised her to wait for her turn.

At the weekend she got a few phone calls from some South Asian female friends. I was disappointed to note that her confidence in the vaccine had waned.

On the following Tuesday at about 3 pm, she got a phone call from the Practice Manager telling her she could go to the Civic Hall near us for the vaccination. She drawled:

“Okay.”

But as the minutes passed, she seemed more hesitant to have the jab.

To encourage her, I averred:

“You know very well that there’s no risk at all. You’ve seen me, it’s just a piece of cake.”

She commented:

“But you’re a man and much stronger than me. It’s better if I postpone it for a while. There’re 45% South Asian people who’re not acceding to the vaccination. They must have some reasons.”

I was left in bafflement. Both our son and daughter were not accessible because they were at work.

I tried to have one last throw of the dice, and referred to her the examples of some women of over hundred years of age who had been vaccinated and were doing well. She should take a dim view of the preposterous fears disseminated by some ill-advised women she had spoken to.

Beseeching her, I explained,

“If you hanged back from availing this opportunity, it might be difficult to get the appointment again. There’re countries, in particular the EU, who’re trying to convince the PM to forgo huge quantity of the vaccine already paid for by the taxpayers. One wonders, how long can he hold it?

Thankfully, the penny dropped.

Her sentimental speech soon thereafter is interesting enough to warrant mentioning:

“You’re taking me to go to the Civic Hall to have an awfully strong vaccination against an extremely dangerous virus. There’s possibility, may be remote one, I might not come back. You know I’ve an account with the Building Society. Please divide the money equally among our five grandchildren.”

Before she could say more, albeit with a straight face, I took a facial tissue from the box lying on the centre table and had a simulated wiping off my specious teardrop.

She continued calmly:

“Furthermore, I’m going to mention some family members and family friends.

“Please treat my both the sisters with love and affection. Also, remain in touch with my two cousins, brother and sister. They have always been good to us. Please be kind and obliging to our family friends, the two brothers and their wives, who’re sisters, and their elderly mother-in-law. They’ve been extremely helpful to us since we settled down in this paradisal town. Our part time housekeeper deserves compassion. She’s a single mother of a 16-year-old boy. She has been serving us with dedication for the last ten years.”

She added:

“I know I’ve, though rarely, said or did something which you might’ve disliked, including the idiom used by me which you narrated in your second post last year i.e., Leopards don’t change their stripes. I’m sorry for the bantering tone. I never meant it.

“Finally, I apologise for shoddily cutting your hair a few weeks back. In consequence of the mistakes I had made, there was no option but to shave your head completely. Believe me, I did not do it deliberately. I know it was for the first time in your life you realised that your head was oblong, not round shaped. To boot, I took your photograph, cut the face and the shaved head from it and pasted it on the body of a sumo wrestler, and sent it to friends and relatives in different parts of the world. I regret for the gesture.”

“Never mind that. I assure you, you’ll be back safe and sound”, I replied.

We reached the place at 5.15 pm. The entrance of the Centre was half a minute walk from the car park. I expected her to be back by 5.45 pm at the latest.

It was raining lightly.

By nature, I am not a worrier, but by 5.58 pm I was getting uneasy. I listened to the six o’clock news on the BBC. It was announcing that the days figure of inoculation was nearly half a million.

Further wait was giving me the collywobbles. I got out of the car. It was still drizzling. I went straight to the woman volunteer at the exit door. I told her the wife’s name and that she was of medium height of South Asian ethnicity, and had gone in for the jab at 5.15 pm but was not back yet.

She went in. To avoid rain, I followed her and waited in the porch. I peeped through the glass but did not see the wife, while some vaccine recipients were waiting there for the mandatory fifteen minutes wait

After entering the waiting room, the volunteer announced my wife’s name. There was no response. I felt more restlessness. I could see the woman going to the vaccination hall. She spoke to a couple of persons on duty there and enquired about my wife. One of them accompanied her back to the waiting room to help her to trace her. I was a bit relaxed.

And guess what they saw there?

What a stark contrast! A few hours earlier, the wife was thinking that she was going to meet her Maker, but in the waiting room she was relishing the post-jab moments by listening to Michael Jackson’s music by wireless headphones. That was the reason she could not hear her name announced by the volunteer.

We reached home. My wife had hardly any reaction to the jab.

Next morning, she embarked on canvassing the South Asian friends and others to grab the opportunity to have the jab the moment they are offered. Some of them gave impromptu affirmative answers.

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Ps: Next post will be published on Sunday March 14 2021 at 11 am. It is titled: Our PM Boris Johnson is in a straitened circumstances.