People are inquisitive by nature in general.Many people, let's us without generalising. When I walk,I do it with utmost care and concentration. I always walk along a wall, I avoid long corridors, steep stairs etc. I have ataxia and can't walk with a steady gait and brisk pace. I know a stick in one hand would solve my difficulty. But I have one problem, I am 37 yrs, and I am a surgeon. A surgeon walking with a stick do not evoke confidence in his patients to submit themselves to his knife. Well, a surgeon who walks like a drunken man do not either.

That's why I do not expose my walk to my patients as far as I can. My consulting room is very near to the place where I get down from my car.Three or four strides and I am in. My operating theater is some six or seven strides away from the lift. When I visit the patients' rooms I walk very carefully along a wall supporting my self by touching it at every one or two steps.

If I think I can cover my my disability cleverly I am wrong, for every third patient enquires about my walk.It's a minor sprain,I tell them.That would explain it.But, if the same patient returns a month or two later and finds me with the same walk he wonders why I am not cured by now.I tell them my orthopedician advised me to wear a cast and I didn't follow his advice. They would lecture me about the need to treat minor sprains carefully and would narrate some personal experience.

Going to a cinema is another matter that takes a lot of planning.Usually I avoid packed theaters. Even then I always book my tickets in advance and try to take tickets along the aisle, nearer to the entrance.

When I go out for shopping on my own I do it with the planning of an army general planning his maneuvers. I choose a shop where I can park my car right infront of the entrance and without many steps to climb. I choose a shop that has a railing along the steps and one which displays the things I want in the front portion of the shop preferably close the entrance.

Thus, I counter my ataxia.