At last Spartan was there in front of the Orthopedics examiner for the viva. After the usual appetizer savored with blunders, the real meal started. "Describe this specimen?" (sir, pointing on to the osteosarcoma specimen with all formalin leaked out) "Sir, Dry mounted specimen of bone" "Dry? What exactly is this container? Sealed or closed?" "Sealed" answered Spartan "What is the difference between sealed and closed?" "Sealed doesnt allow air to get in" "Right, What will happen if the specimen is not kept in a sealed container?" Spartan after thinking for a while "Sir, eecha....???" "Ok, but there is another thing..." "Sir, ants....??? "Correct, now go...."
At first seeing a cadaver was nauseating and was enough to make you unconscious. Then when it became a habit, we could say jokes poking at the cadaver. At last when that became nothing and when we reached to a point that we could even eat before the body, we reached to the live bodies. Alcoholics, poisoning, snake bite victims, fever patients vomiting and vomitus reaching even reaching your coats and the fans were all to see. Patients spitting blood, bile and everything inside was the next bloody sights.
Pain and weeps in the corners too would make ones eyes water in the beginning. But that too changed not after long. Then one would always believe people are showing pain to make you work and sleepless. At last you wouldnot find it even difficult to close your eyes without moisture when you see the dead body of someone being taken out of the ICU and you see their relatives crying.
And then we believed Paediatrics would change everything. Pain of infants and children were always an agony. But since they are always crying and we could always walk through the corridors, we found ways to overcome them, no actually avoid them. After all these what would be ones reaction on seeing a labour?
And it was then we were put to the Autopsy room. Hanging, railway, road taffic accidents - occupant & pedestrian, burns, drowning, murder, poisoning and the rest of it in others. In a hurry to finish the 10 cases as fast as we could no one could take it as dead men but just cases. One would read the obituary pages in the newspaper and wait eagerly for a murder or a suicide. And would jump out of joy if a murder case is present as it is rare. Its common to see cursing the people for the more number of injuries as it one would end up in writing the record which would run into 10's of pages.
Before long all the humane attitudes and emotions are lost. And it becomes easy to laugh in front of a diseased as well as deceased. But what matter is not emotions, but attitude. As in Munnabhai a doctor showing emotions cant even accurately put an incision. Praying at least the attitude wont change...
Running through the crowded corridors to the Medicine Head's room. On reaching there the horror which was foretold revealed one after other before us. And here stopped the bunking of classes and after that it winded to just 2 classes in 3 months and that too with leave letter and explanation.
To the ultimate horror it was our unit's OP day plus the day before ie sunday was also an OP day. So the wards were thronging with people both on the bed and below it too. Another thing added to it that the House Surgeon batch has not arrived in the college after the results. So all the work on us + final years + post graduates. And when we reached one of the seniors called and asked us to see the procedure of putting a urinary catheter so that we can do it then and throughout the night.
In the meantime pg's demonstrated how to draw blood in syringe. Gloves, not very common in the wards, but being the first ward (belonging to HOD) we had atleast one for the day. Took a syringe, cotton and some betadine and the bottles and stood before the bed. Whatever they asked the only reply was 'No Problem, It would be all right'
Then tapping repeatedly to draw out the hidden veins. On seeing some taps it seems as though the veins are deep under the muscles and that we are straining to take them out. It would be then the patients will be saying that the last doctor took it very easily. Now imagining something to be a vein, and struggling to keep the shaking needle tip right over that its inserted. But blood is not coming, so as told keeping the needle inside rotating the needle round and pricking again at last it would come somehow.
And it would be while pouring it into the bottle, the bystander would say 'It was only just now that someone took blood'. And needle pricks and pouring out the whole blood on the floor by slipping out the syringe piston and dropping the bottle was also too common.
It would be better to talk in English, so that others would believe we know something and they dont understand our troubles. Nauseating smells and occasional hepatitis patients and uncops( as we call non cooperating patients) adds to the problems.
And day slips to night, but there is no stop in flow of patients. And occasional catheterings. Told each time that it should be extra sterile to avoid any urinary tract infection, but at last after losing several catheters on ground learns to concentrate more on procedure than on sterility. It would be while doing the thing that one remembers he forgot to take something and rushes to the nurses room. Only on seeing female ut, that one would believe how easy it was to put a male catheter. Finding the ureter, to the cleanliness it was horrendous.
Looking at the face of pg's there was no response at all. And at 5 am we got the courage to ask them to leave. Then they would say 'we were thinking why didnt you ask before'
Entering into the psychiatry wards and hearing the lectures one would wonder why I am not labelled a Psychiatric patient. Though my attendance is minimal, I think I can talk a bit officially on the subject since I didnt find any new thing in the classes, except definitions. Moreover I was made to stand for a whole 3 hours for 3 days as a punishment for bunking the wards n taking cases.
Beginning to talk all patients are so normal, more normal than us. But there would be always a reason to coming to the wards rit?. Its nice talking to them as most of them are talkative. And talks to the extent that it would be difficult to get to the classes after the wards.
After talking a lot and discussing and writing at last we took a history of a patient. And we concluded the immediate deaths of her relatives was the basic reasons for all her problems. But only when it was discussed in the class that we understood that the whole history is baseless. Many a thing constructed by the patient so that one would believe everyone is using her.. And the real story of a childhood sexual abuse is all where it began. May be because of the taboo and fear of getting abused we didnt dig that deep into her history.
And there were men who were normal till a day, after which he doesnt talk to anyone...Stops going to work..Walks naked in the house..and has delusions (the definition of which I was made to dictate several times, but actually I forgot). There can be delusion, hallucination, illusions, obsessions, compulsions, phobia, mania, depression, addiction and many more 'ion's in the name of the madmen who discovered it. The absurd theories which any insomniac would have written if he thought about psychiatry in the night.
Your mind can even derange to an extent no one would be able to make you laugh or cry or talk or believe a thing.. And people talking undiscovered words(people talking in unknown languages- may be as seen in Bible)..To one if you ask where his house is, he would reply- Kerala, Uganda, Britain and the name of all the places he know. For some a chicken has 6 legs and you have only 1 leg. And most of them talk a lot of philosophies which a common man cant understand. If approved they would have become philosophers, ideologists, scientists etc..only problem being there is no one who can think upto their level..If Einstein says there is 4th dimension its discovery, if someone else says he is mad???
For the most they think they have some kind of somatic illness, which we see actually..But our professors say thats the problem of their mind and their body is perfectly normal.. Then one would doubt whether both of them have some kind of problem actually. Being frank, there is no lack of sadists in the department..
If you doubt whether you have locked the door, or turned off the taps then you have obsessions -OCD.. and if you become excited you are maniac...and sad you have depression.. there may be grades to separate you from the patients..If you think about studies a lot, you have something wrong..and if you talk more your mind may be deranged and the reverse too...And if you anyhow drink more than 3 glasses alcohol a month you are an addict..Everything is wrong..everyone is wrong...and only doctors are right....
I was just into my REM slumber when my pleasant dreams were interrupted by a hammering on the door, by some strange force which kinda threatened to rip it apart. “Don’t move a muscle,” my HYPERALERT senses were telling me. Whichever @#$%!% it is will soon give up and be on their way. My roommate, Aby a.k.a The Harvardian, thought otherwise. He was up in a flash, raving mad at his holy sleep being disturbed by the entity. He walked resolutely upto the door and unbolted it, not contemplating the consequences of his actions. The above act set in motion a chain of events which culminated in you, having to put up with this awesome piece of trash that I call “MY ARTICLE”. Anyways let’s go by the time-line. There sprung a dark, malicious, cold form, into the safe confines of my room. It was the grim reaper in human form, Arun R. a.k.a Mallu wiz. He walked up, and stared at me, eye to eye. He had a proposition for me… “Let’s hear it,” blurted out my roommate, still asleep. So, the entity gave me a contract which read as below:-
I, Tharun so & so, a member of 2K5 MBBS, do hereby pledge my body and soul, to the writing of an article that may, or may not, be published in a souvenir that may, or may not, be released at a function called ‘The Social’ that may, or may not, take place.” Which sounded like nothing but complete crap to me.
“What’s in it for me?” I asked with wide eyes. So the mallu wiz put forward the terms of the deal. The last one hit paydirt. He promised me a RENaming, where my unceremonious “BOW-BOW” would be changed to something classier. I soon sealed the deal not knowing that I was selling my soul to the devil himself. He got up, laughed a heinous laugh and disappeared into thin air, leaving Aby and me dumbstruck. Then, I went back to my sleep. Guess what…? All my dreams were bout the RENaming...
I woke up the next day thinking that the events had been a dream… until I saw the god-damned contract on my table, which brought on an attack of hysteria never before seen in the human race. “Calm down,” I told myself thinking `bout the next line of action. The rest of the day went by in a flash with me consulting the best lawyers money could buy, to find a loophole in the contract. Needless to say, it ended in crushing defeat… So the rest of 2008 went by with me promising my wing-mate ASSems a treat if he would write me an article. It ended in me being subject to ze “middle finger”. My celebrations of ‘09 were cut short by the arrival of the Inspector of Souls (the reaper’s sidekick), Ajmal a.k.a Adebayor who threatened me with eternal suffering in hell; not to mention, legal action, if I did not give my article before 11.59.59 pm on the 6th of Jan. So there I was, all alone in this cosmos, thinking of what to write. So here goes…
On 9/2/1988, a cool, intelligent, handsome kid was born on earth, destined for fame and fortune. He grew up to b’come… me [if it sounds narcissistic to you, you need an asylum and a mental rewiring], waltzed hos classes and finally reached the diabolical place called Medical College Trivandrum, and its associated Aushwitz-Mens Hostel 2,cell 24.
On entering the cell, I see ASSems, Viks and Phil - which brings back memories; the trial, the conviction and finally the sentencing to 2 years of rigorous imprisonment in the Penal Colony for crimes unknown.
The joy we had felt on seeing each other quickly evaporated on spotting the dreaded Lords of Destruction, the seniors. They attacked us from all flanks and finally, fortress no: 24 fell, making us Prisoners of War. The guard supposed to guard us was too busy guarding himself, I guess. The dinner bell gave us some breathing space as the lords went away to get some grub. Little did I suspect that we were dessert! The revelry was perpetual, starting from first light and continuing well past midnight; but it had its positives - the most notable being the discovery of mallu jargon, all of which fit in the elite genre of unspeakables.
Alas, during this phase I had the misfortune of getting a new moniker, which I fear will haunt me for the rest of my existence. Thus began the trials and tribulations that would last a zillion years till the day called Genesis when the lords would be finally overthrown and the title would pass on to us. Unfortunately, we would have to wait till Aug 06 to get our chance to use the authority to pillage and loot the hapless freshers. The interlude b/w genesis and the plunder was dubbed ‘Pax 2K5’ - the era of “the tour” - amity, opulence and…botched romances. The pax age was soon over, and with it came Armageddon. “The University” exams had arrived... and there I was, like the proverbial rabbit in the headlights..., not knowing what to do to avoid the chaos set forth by its advent. Armageddon was quickly over and the three months of nuclear winter before Judgment Day passed by in a jiffy. The dreaded Judgment Day arrived and a lenient ruling saw me escape conviction to remain a free soul. With it, came a perk... access to top secret entities, the patients. So, there we were in the secure area 51, with a tube round our necks and absolutely nothing in our heads. The area was specifically designed to prevent the patients from eluding our clutches. The patients looked on with awe as we blurted out nonsense in front of our tutors. The awe turned to panic when we started the physicals of the IKAN [IKnow Absolutely Nothing] program on them. The IKAN program is in fact a sequel to the Men in Black [MIB] program which gave us such Dark characters like Blacky, Drani and Vishwakat. We were issued shiny new books, with which we had no idea what to do - so most of them ended their lives as shiny new paperweights. Thus the IKAN program continued, with us scrutinizing different test subjects at different geographical sites. To my disappointment none of the subjects were mutants… what a bummer! So, there we trained, 200 whackos in a top secret facility. Needless to say, it was shut down. So, life went back to normal until the Epoch of the Election. Most people think it was to destroy evil; that’s utter rubbish. The main raison d'être was the financial moolah that we saw being lapped up by those in power [LOL]. So, there we were - amateurs, out of place in politics. The result was a skirmish. The termination was in an event that has been chronicled in a book titled “Prisoners Of Azkaban”. The only positives were the royalties received from selling the book and its movie rights to Warner Bros.
And, like that, it was over… A generation lost to politics... Beginning life anew with a new year 08 - new patients, new tours and… more botched romances. The year was uneventful, excepting the global cataclysm that befell us... Armageddon Two - “The University Strikes Back”. Needless to say, most of us lived to fight another day, but we did take certain casualities en route to our victory. With that began phase two of the IKAN program which is still operational, courtesy the surviving whackos …
So, there you have it… The canvas of the 2K5 clan... Streaked with guts, determination, blood, and a whole lot of trash. For those scratching their heads mulling over the title, you can continue doing just that… he... he… ;-) Guess that leaves me unbound to pursue my sleep without fearing eternal damnation in the burning pits of Hell.
It may come as the rain,
drenching all mankind.
It may come as the wind,
cyclones beating ever faster.
It may come at night,
while souls sleep adrift in dreams.
It may come with a true forewarning,
Or pay a visit unannounced.
It may taunt, and it may twist,
in never ending vicious turns.
Those who know,
now cannot tell,
it’s opaque on either side.
Although they may try in vain,
Within the darkness of the night.
It may take away your smiles,
Or give you memories,
So that you may be strong.
It trains your mind and body,
Because it knows its test is hard.
All or none is its rule,
And nothing in between.
It colours life with emotions,
Ensures a cry as we are born,
For life is pain at either end.
So prepare for what is coming,
Taste the colours that it leaves.
Let their strengths seep
into your prayers,
as you learn to lose yourself.
The world is small –
Make it happy.
What is missing?
And who makes this void?
And why make such a puzzling thing?
It’s upto us
To beautify this moment,
The other side
Is waiting…
Always waiting.
Friendship denotes a co-operative and supportive behavior between two or more people. It is a relationship which involves true affection, mutual understanding, respect and loyalty. They usually have similar tastes, and may convey and share enjoyable activities. Yet, for many, friendship is nothing more than trust, that something or someone won't harm them
Every friend in life is the most beautiful gift of God. In fact it is really a 'gift' which is not easily acquirable. We can have so many friends, but we must be 'gifted' to have 'true' friends.
As a person who tries to be friends with everyone, I have always believed that establishing friendship between two persons can actually melt the ice of unnecessary hatred and misunderstandings between them. Abraham Lincoln once declared- “The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend.” How true it is, isn't it?
Bernard Meltze once said- “A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked.” Friends should understand each other's defects and weaknesses, but never try to weigh them in terms of these defects alone.
Every person, once or always, wonders how to make good friends or become one? There are no specific rules or regulations for being a good friend. Friendship is a feeling which has to come from our hearts. It’s not possible to impose pressure upon a person to be a friend. It is automatic, like a reflex, which comes from within. Don’t worry about knowing people - just make yourself worth knowing. The reason a dog has so many friends is that he wags his tail and not his tongue.
And now wonder why somebody quoted -
“A friendship
is like
a sailing ship
that glides upon the sea,
Whose strength lies in
the world of change,
No matter where she be.
For even when
she's tossed
and turned,
She manages to keep
afloat.
For even
storms of life,
my friend,
can’t ever sink this boat”
Ragging took its beginning in about 300 B.C in Greece when the senior athletes started to tease the newly admitted ones. It remained as an art form and is even continued now providing ample opportunities to freshers for their overall development. But it is to fast becoming extinct now by the action of the Supreme Court and successive governments by banning it and the crackdown by the police. Even the juniors are not showing interest these days. The days when we got ragged by our seniors were the most thrilling and entertaining ones, though fear was also there in between.
Our hostel warden gave us a brief introduction that ragging is strictly banned and for any complaints we had to consult the hostel secretary. Secretary who nodded his head for every word after some time came to every room and threatened each of us that no complaints should be heard. And that was how we got to know our hostel and situations better.
And these were the days when we learnt the meaning of the word ragging (since we had to by-heart the dictionary meaning as it was written all over the hostel as a warning to seniors). Day after day every evening when we returned to the hostel there were the series of entertainment. Our first job was to throw our under-wears on to the electric tube and blow it from the floor to make it fall down. Meanwhile the next person would have already took hold of us and make us shave whatever we have left over our face. In the midst there would be blue-film shootings and speeches, action songs, mimicry etc.
It was during these days that we learnt the MH anthem and prayer songs. The prayer song was later sung as a carol during Christmas time by all of us, visiting all the senior’s rooms. An action song with the Santa Claus wearing the lab coat and all of us our under-wear over our head (so that we don’t get by the rain which is actually imaginary)
And on yet another day we were all herded to the college union meeting which was actually that of Students Federation of India, the communist students’ party. And we were late to the hostel and missed the juniors only bus to hostel. When we reached there was everyone waiting for us. We were prone to ragging if we just stepped out of the steps of hostel (doesn’t mean it was that safe inside). And I became a victim for them. I had to collect coconut from all the trees which were actually the windows around the hostel. And the usual imaginary cricket where I was the bowler, batsman and even the fielder and umpire as well as the commentator.
And later I found a way to get rid of some of these acts. In the evening one could go to some spiritual or religious meetings where there was no ragging at all. And exhibiting the gag reflex which we had just learnt in the mess hall when one was overloaded with food. But what we could not get over with was the money escaping our pockets for the food items, cigarettes and all sort of things (and for one among us even sanitary napkins)
The day when we all were proud to be a member of this great college... standing up with heads raised beyond imagination for the oath and flushing all the time. Again discussing about the rooms in the hostel and murmuring' hope we all are in room'. Meanwhile parents speaking out their ragging experience and at last with a sigh ''anyway that all can’t happen now".
Anyway with a small place for fear we stepped into the one and only Men’s Hostel. Though the condition is no better but it was better than what we could manage....Walking between the green walls of the corridor rushing for a room we never could imagine what is to happen next. Everyone running about to occupy the best rooms and to carry the best tables and chairs some with the label Gordrej( if you thought it was a spelling mistake.. NO!!) Chairs instilling in our minds thoughts of the peacock throne... but all told it was better than what they had in the past,
And it was time for the parents to leave,,, at last making us think cant they leave now and at least the advices will come to an end..
Now we into the hands of our warden as told by our professors but actually into the hands of the seniors( experience teaches). Hours pass making friends and complaining about what we don’t have...
Its time for the game to start. TIME FOR MESS announced the one called security.. And into the mess when we learned many.....no learned to make words that were not in the dictionary actually all rhyming and beautiful until you find their meaning. And you are called by one to sit near him. he asks you to ask the name of other and the other......( no not all have to be explained,,, these are all trade secrets which has to be revealed in the years to follow) No you cant eat the porottas which were once your favourite,,,, no you cant eat even a piece more and you think the chicken piece starts to taste bitter. and then the one caring senior near you puts three porottas more in your plate and the desperate you tries to fill your mouth and not stomach anymore... Your trials to at least have a vomit all ends in vain since it has been tried many a times over the years. If its kindness well with something like that the one opposite to you gives you permission to rise after issuing a warning that not this T-shirt any more!!!
OK its better to run to the room now. and the knocks on the door by whoever going to the mess. Which should never be answered since if the door opens it would never close again that night.
Our batch seems perfect in every way, be it unity, fraternity or optimism. We’re blessed with beauty and brains, too. Yet, something seems to be missing in our batch. There is no doubt that there is a dearth of so called ‘love affairs’, or being informal - ‘lines’, in our batch when compared to our seniors and juniors. I don’t know how many have actually thought about this but it happens to be a serious topic of discussion in ‘LH’, at least – right from the 1st year. Is it because no one has ‘fallen in love’? Is it because nobody has the courage to accept that they’re in love? Or is our batch just being ‘practical in life’?
Love made an astounding entry into our batch on our first Valentine’s Day in this college. Some guys had the guts to make serious proposals in public and some went down on their knees just for fun. Some went around distributing roses as a part of ragging. Anyways, none of the gals gave a positive response. “Sorry, I’m not interested’’, “We can be friends if you want”, “I don’t even know you!”. Someone even went to the extent of saying – “I’m elder to you, so I’m your chichi.” The ragging period was not yet over. Maybe that was the reason for such dry replies. We all hoped to see a lot of ‘love birds’ after Genesis.
Genesis got over by about mid-March, but nothing happened. Then came the 1st year tour. A few ‘eligible pairs’ were spotted here and there, but, needless to say, most of them disappeared after the tour. Frankly speaking, we all were a bit disappointed seeing the plight of our batch. We didn’t lose hope, though. There was still time.
The 1st year University exams – a time when tensions built up and love found it difficult to remain hidden. There you had the glorious entry of the ‘combined study partners’. But even they vanished soon after the exams. Then we had the 1st year holidays - Nothing usually happens during that time, I guess.
Back in college after the holidays - New year, new hopes and our 2nd Valentine’s Day. But something unusual happened. The sale of yellow roses peaked. Now, why was that? Had ‘love’ given way to ‘friendship’? Or was friendship the first step on the path to love? Well, there was a boom in friendships. You could spot ‘friends’ in the library, in Mythri, outside the labs, in Essar… Everything seemed to be going jolly well – until ‘chori’ made its villainous entry. Now, why couldn’t people let them live in peace? “Friend are just friends. They can never be in love.” “How dare you insult our friendship?” I wonder why some need a ‘mask’ of friendship. Once they show the courage to accept that they are in love, there will be no ‘chori’. This way, they are insulting both friendship and love.
OK… So, maybe, they are ‘JUST FRIENDS’.
The 3rd Valentine’s Day. I’m sure no one in our batch will ever forget that one. ‘Love’ was nowhere to be seen. Even Cupid walked out on our batch that day. He probably found our junior batch to be a more fertile ground for ‘Love’.
Right now, 4th year is almost over, and still, the scarcity of intra-batch lovers remains a mystery. Is being in love ‘out of fashion’? Or is it just the iceberg phenomenon? (Refer SPM text) Two more years to go before we leave this college. Let’s just wait and watch.
Hard to believe. There had been days when the attendance were 99% or more, when even a thought of bunking a class didnt cross my mind. Those have been long past. Now traversing a U-turn, havent thought a day to attend the classes. The college has changed it all, even if it is a medical college which according to many are homes to studious & punctual book-worms. Mornings are colder, afternoons are drowsier and walking to the college is more tiresome than before. Perhaps a 3rd year syndrome.
The attendance now drops to about 1 in 13 days for the gynaec posting, to a complete 0 for radiodiagnosis. And they are saying the postings for bunking are yet to come like dental etc. "You all are the ones who are increasing the suicide rates in this state"- this was what we heard after a brief bunking of 5 days in Psychiatry.
But nothing reaches near surgery where the professors themselves make you understand that staying in hostel or home will make you more brilliant than wasting time and space in the operation theatre. For that, could anyone scold me for attending a whole lot of 3 days in 3 month posting.
A persistent dialogues from the professors "Sit in the class only if you want to hear the lecture. Otherwise better get out, I will give all of you attendance" (but never happened). Moreover those departments having more female teachers and having no other job at all such as the non-clinical subjects like anatomy, physiology, pharmacology grill the students for attendance.
The final destiny would be University itself, where you have to pay some pretty good amount as Contentation or contemptation(Actually i dont know its spelling) fee. And if its for more than one subjects, thorough study in the same semester for one more year would satisfy them...
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