Marathon Man

8220;Uh, I saw your ad8230;8221; I venture. He smiles benignly from across the desk. 8220;Fifteen minutes..?8221; I stutter, making vague won8217;t-stand-up motions with my hand. 8217;Fessing up to impotency must be bad enough, but try revealing imaginary down-there afflictions. It8217;s inexplicably more face-reddening.

8220;Don8217;t worry. You want 15 minutes? 30 minutes?8221;

8220;Thirty!8221;

8220;Yes, yes. Personally tested,8221; the 45-year-old declares with a touch of smugness. I roughly shove the picture out of my head.

Half the reason is mental, says A, who8217;s apparently been a 8216;sex doctor8217; for four years. 8220;Are you having sex with a married woman and worried the husband might enter?8221;

Suppressing the urge to laugh hysterically, I field the doc8217;s checklist. Was I having sex only at night? In a closed room? After food? How many times a week? Was I married? Finally, he shakes his head. 8220;Okay, we must diagnose.8221;

I freeze.

He gets up and draws the curtains across the small barred windows. I stand too, realising what a man must feel as he8217;s blindfolded and the firing squad puts out their cigarettes. 8220;I must say, doctor, I8217;ve never done this in front of a man,8221; I manage.

8220;But I am not a man,8221; laughs Dr A. 8220;I am a doctor.8221; Presumably to put me at ease, he narrates an incomprehensible Hindi joke along the same lines, and then makes a drop-8217;em gesture.

Ah well. I let gravity work on my jeans, and stand there staring out of a gap in the curtains, hoping to Eros he doesn8217;t have a spycam racket going. On his instructions I clear my throat a few times, Dr A peering intently at my nethers while I hack-hack-HACK. Oh holy mortification and covert journalism. If he reaches out, drop-kick him, whispers my fight-or-flight reflex.

8220;No hernia,8221; he concedes finally. 8220;It is normal.8221;

Well, thanks for that. I hitch up in a hurry and sit back down.

With a flourish, he opens his drawer revealing a pack of Bristols: How can you trust a doctor who smokes? and pulls out a rubber-stamped square of paper. 8220;My old address, I was a GP at a polyclinic,8221; he says apologetically and scribbles a prescription: A capsule of Dabur Shilajit twice a day with milk, and 50mg of Progra 8220;as required8221;.

An ayurvedic 8216;vigour and vitality8217; concoction and some homegrown Viagra? I consider telling him that a comatose tree-sloth could have self-prescribed that combo. Instead I ask if he8217;s sure that would do the trick.

Dr A gives me a fatherly smile. 8220;Mister, people who try it send their friends here,8221; he assures me. 8220;I am not like these fakes who charge 20 rupees.8221; I then receive a case illustration of a 55-year-old 8220;man of god8221; who 8220;needed to keep his wife satisfied8221;. A three-month course of Dr A8217;s special fortnightly injections8212;and he steadily progressed from weekly romps to twice a week, alternate days and finally daily. 8220;In the end, his wife said they shouldn8217;t do it so much as they were old people.8221;

For Dr A8217;s critically-acclaimed services, I fork over Rs 500, flinching visibly. 8220;My rates are for my knowledge, not only the prescription,8221; says Dr A quickly, as he pockets the money. 8220;See, I have studied for 17 years, no? So I have perfect knowledge.8221;

Probably as a value-add, Doc then offers some parting advice8212;for sex after dinner, try a brisk 100-ft walk first; and do not masturbate as it 8220;reduces your sex power after the age of 358221;.

8220;Well, thank you,8221; I say.

8220;Welcome, welcome,8221; beams Dr A. 8220;After one month, see the results8212;you will be very happy.8221;

But that, I8217;m afraid, is a whole new Test Drive.