Billing for your medical store in West Bengal
The dram of Arnica 30, the packet of powder and the committee's first-aid box, kept on your phone.
What a Bengal shelf of drams, powders and strips asks of a phone
Low stock warnings
The antacid, the ORS and the bandage rolls for the night after the last pandal closes, seen as running low in the week before and not at midnight.
The whole shop in one place
The homeopathy shelf, the strips and the loose powders as one list of items, with the supplier's order and what arrived kept beside each.
Bills on your phone
A first-aid box for the para committee made as one bill with a dozen lines, sent to its secretary on WhatsApp.
Homeopathy drams, kobiraji puriya and the Pujo midnight: what a Bengal medicine shop stocks that others do not
A shelf of homeopathic drams that all look alike
In Bengal many families go to a homeopath before they go to a physician, and the shop keeps a long shelf of small bottles. Arnica, Nux Vomica and Belladonna each come in a 30 and a 200, and the bottles have the same label and the same size. The prescription is a line in a doctor's hand, often in Bengali and often hurried, the globules are weighed into a paper packet by the gram, and a wrong potency is found only when the patient is back. By then the packet has been taken home and nobody can say which bottle it came from.
Kobiraji puriya and the powders weighed in paper
Some customers still come for the kobiraj's powders and tonics, which are bought in small paper packets and sold by the packet or by the gram. They have no strip and no printed rate, and the same customer asks for them every winter. An old man who walks to your shop in the cold wants the same blend his father took, and you have to find it in the back by its smell. You write the rate on the paper packet in pencil, and the notebook has no line for any of them. When the next winter comes and the customer asks what he paid last time, you say a number from memory and he nods, unsure.
The Pujo midnight, when the pandals empty and the antacid runs out
After a night of pandal walking and street food the para wakes with an upset stomach, and the first calls come to the chemist's shutter. Antacids, ORS packets, plasters and bandage rolls go in an hour, and the wholesaler's lane is shut until morning. The para's Pujo committee also asks for a first-aid box, a dozen things at once, and nobody has written down what was in last year's box. The committee's secretary comes at eleven with a list from memory, and you pack from the list and the shelf at the same time.
From the dram of Arnica 30 to the para committee's first-aid box
The packet weighed out by the gram is named on its bill
Globules are weighed into a paper packet by the gram, and the packet carries no label of its own. The bill names the remedy, its potency and the grams, so a packet that comes back can be matched to what was billed that day and not guessed at from the paper.
The para committee's first-aid box, listed thing by thing
Make one bill for the committee's box with each of the dozen things on it. The committee's secretary receives it on WhatsApp and can keep it for next year. When Pujo comes again, and the secretary rings in a hurry, you open last year's bill and fill the same box in a few minutes, with the antacid and the bandage rolls counted out.
Globules and powders billed by their weight in grams
Give the globules and the kobiraji powders a rate for a gram, and enter the weight you wrapped. The bill shows the grams and the amount, and the stock of the loose powder falls by the same grams. A small packet and a big one of the same powder are two lines with two amounts, and the count of the loose powder is true at night. Weigh it, bill it, and the count follows; the shop never guesses how much powder is left in the jar.
Questions a Bengal medical store asks
The doctor writes the remedy in a hurried hand, and I read it as best I can. Can the bill show what I gave?
Yes. The bill names the remedy and the potency you gave, as an item. If the patient comes back and the doctor says it should have been another potency, you open the bill and read what was given, and the matter is settled from the page.
The secretary remembers two things last year's bill did not carry. How do I add them this time?
Add them as two lines of their own on this year's bill, with the day. They are the two things the secretary had in mind and last year's paper did not, and next year the committee's page will carry them.
On the night after the last pandal, how many antacids and rehydration sachets are left?
Open the night's count. Each is an item, so the stock shows what is left of each. A count that has reached nothing for the antacid shows what the pandal crowds took.
An old man brings a paper packet his father used, with the blend's name in pencil. How do I match it?
Keep the blend as an item named as the pencil says, with its rate by weight. His page shows the packet he took last winter under that name, so the new packet is made to the same name and he reads the same word on the bill.
The chemists' strike and the weaving belt
The Bengal Chemists & Druggists Association backed a 24-hour national chemists' strike on 20 May against illegal online e-pharmacies, fake drugs and deep-discount price competition.
Shantipur in Nadia is famous for textiles; its weaving belt makes fine sarees, and Shantipur itself is known for superfine dhotis and jacquards.