A priest blesses the X-ray machine. Picture by Main Uddin Chisti

Cooch Behar, Sept. 18: Several patients wanting to get their X-rays done at the district hospital here today were turned away as the technical employees performed Viswakarma Puja in the radiology unit and operation theatre and cooked khichdi inside the radiologist’s chamber.

The X-ray facility at MJN Hospital remained closed during the first half of the day. The X-ray machine and the computer monitors were decorated with flowers and leaves, while the technicians put sandalwood paste and sindoor on scalpels and other surgical instruments.

“I have cast a spell on the equipment so that they do not malfunction while in use,” said Arun Goswami, the priest.

A few doctors and nurses were also seen trooping in to have their share of the khichdi, or prasad, which was being cooked over a gas stove.

All the while, Puchuni Roy from Tufanganj waited in the corridor outside the X-ray room with her five-year-old son, Bappa, who had a piece of electric wire stuck inside his cheek. “I have been waiting for over an hour and I do not know when they will do the X-ray,” she said, adding that the puja could have been held elsewhere on the hospital campus.