There is an old Asian trait – we love to be the centre of attention. It is in our genes I’m afraid.

A person gets ill and half the town descends upon the hospital to visit the poor fellow.

We all camp in the hallway and are allowed in two at a time to see the person. On most occasions there is nothing wrong with the guy but he milks it for all it is worth.

He is suffering from some gas-related issue but he makes out it is some serious illness that even the doctors have not heard of.

The saddest sight ever is how 50 of us visit this ‘not so sick’ person and in the next bed is a guy on his last legs who never has any visitors.

Every so often we have 10 people around the bed and are told off by the duty nurse who we claim is ‘racist’ even though she is Asian herself.

Then you get the family head honcho who thinks he can change hospital rules because ‘they have to do it because we pay the taxes you know’.

Soon enough he is walking around and arguing with every third person and cannot understand why they won’t rent him the bed next to his relative. There are some embarrassing moments when the immediate family get pushed out into the hallway because some overzealous family friends turn up.

They proceed to take up the whole visiting hour and no-one has the balls to say...’Get lost’.

Then the gifts start to arrive.

In the past we would normally turn up with a Lucozade bottle and some bananas. Yes, he needs Lucazade and bananas and he will be fine. If he had a private room then we would literally take over the place. By the time visiting hour was over, we had replaced the duvet, the curtains and the pillow covers.

The best bit was bringing in his favourite rotee (chappati) and curry. It may well stink out the whole ward but we had to make sure we gave him the very ghee laden curry dish that led to him having the heart attack in the first place.

The worst at milking it big time are the women. I’m sorry but you know you do it. For most, it is the first time their husbands have been left alone for more than a day and boy are they going to make sure he runs around like a dog.