CHAPTER FOURTEENTH:JASMIN SHAH

JASMIN SHAH

During our initial time of ragging and adjustment, jasmine shah was our natural partner as he lived in our hostel like only a few others from our batch. No doubt, stress makes relation stronger in short time-thus our friendship grew within no time. Jasmine was frank, witty and practical. Also, he had all qualities of an amdavadi. We used to go to buy things from karamsad and anand together.

Jasmine and tapasvi puwar, my best friend, had a few things common. Both were from amdavad, both used to rush to home on Saturdays, and both had distinct skill to communicate with girls! To other’s envy, both were seen surrounded by girls at college and at their routine journey to amdavad.

However, tapasvi had a typical rajpoot-ek ghaaa ne be katkaa- temperament while jasmine was a real baniya.

On one fine evening, when tapasvi had just sat down to start his dinner, jasmine came.

“Hi tapasvi!” he looked in witty mood. “Hey yaar, I wanted to make a serious suggestion for you…”

Not interested in any kind of joke, tapasvi plainly asked “what?”

“What if I call you by name puwarbhai ? he..he..he..” jasmine laughed on his own words.
“What did you say?” tapasvi’s voice and eyes changed.

Jasmine could not recognize that change of tone perhaps.

“I said tapasvi is a bit plain name without any note of respect. Don’t you think puwarbhai is a better name for you?” jasmine liked to tease tapasvi.

“I say stop this nonsense.”warned tapasvi

“Or what ? puwarbhai? All girls would love this name!!”

Next moment, tapasvi took his tiffin full of shaak daal and –wow- unexpectedly threw it towards jasmine!! Somehow jasmine was able to save him from that sudden attack. Sensing high temperature of tapasvi, jasmine ran away from the scene. After this incident,He never suggested ‘puwarbhai’ for tapasvi again….!

The throw of full tiffin made a permanent mark on wall of our hostel room no 19. The mark was seen till we completed our internship! But this incident had never any permanent effect on jasmine and tapasvi’s relations.


Jasmine was not happy with the fact that there was one girl in class having similar name. Whenever we needed to write his name, he insisted on us to spell his name as
J A S M I N and not jasmin E!

“Neh, can you please come to my room?” One evening after the college hours jasmine requested. “ I have a small problem and no one but you can help me solving that” he flattered me. Accepting the appraisal swiftly, I walked behind him to his room.

“ I have a difficulty in one question of physiology.” I liked physiology as a subject the most and I used to ask and answer a lot (maybe right or wrong!) in the physiology class of dr mazoomdar. The subject was quite near to my first love- physics. As I entered, I noticed jasmine’s room was full of my other friends and they all looked curious to our activity. I felt the question must be such that no one from them could solve them and so I - dr neh- was called to give the final answer!

“What is the issue?” taking gyton, our heavy textbook of physiology in hand from jasmine, I inquired.
“Can you read this line?” jasmine made me sit on a chair with those words.

----dhaff!! I was on the floor with the book in my hand and the broken chair on me! From subject expert, I was suddenly reduced to a subject of a practical joke! Everybody laughed.

“neh today we made so many fools sit on this chair and fall. Every one was tricked here asking them different things. We could not think any plan to get you on this chair. So finally I thought your love for physio and a bit of flattering words could work….and it worked very well..!” explained jasmine.

CHAPTER TEN:THE MESSY MESS

THE MESSY MESS AND EATING GAMES

May I ask you a direct question? What is importance of taste and flavors in your life? Have you ever lived at least 15 days without food of your choice? I guess, like me, most of us think we can greatly compromise on taste of food and live. It is not a big deal. One has to eat to live and not live to eat…huh?

Take a challenge. Come to our student mess and eat for a couple of days only, I mean, go to any student mess run by contract system and then look in your mind. Definitely you would find a great change!

In the new class room of the college, students had to face stresses of medical studies with hell of vivas and exams now and then, out side the classes there were challenges of living alone in the hostel making new friends, and when their stomach demanded fuel to take on the world with all such problems, the students had to face one more challenge-the special food of student mess!

The mess was, none the less, one of the great places for student interaction. You would get all kind of campus news and gossips there. The activity would start daily in morning with breakfast and tea. However, I hardly went to the mess in the morning for that luxury as I belonged to a group of rare human variety which hated even smell of the tea! The activity was highest in the 10pm night tea party. (I have heard a lot about 10pm tea but I never had been there, so I expect others to comment on that.)

After a session of torture of lectures we were set free to fill the stomach in the afternoon at about 2pm. The time was such, function of our brains were taken up by hungry stomach. Even if you blind fold our eyes, urge from stomach would take us directly to the mess building. The building was situated between nursing hostel and the old boys’ hostel.

Mostly we were greeted there by raju bhai, the mess contractor. There were enough tables and seats but sometimes we had to wait for the turn. The service was usually prompt. The servants there were uniformly ugly. But eyes did not see that when stomach demanded its due.There were many servants but rameshbhai was perhaps most popular as he was very fast in serving rotis. One would hear ‘e ramesh….e rameshbhai…’etc as soon as one entered the mess. The kitchen was a ‘sacred’ area and no one was allowed there.

The menu was usually same. We were served roti, rice, gujarati daal (with jaggery) Punjabi daal(same as gujarati but without jaggery) onion salad, papad , sabjee of potatoes called sooki bhaaji and buttermilk. Even though each item had its own negative merit, roti was standing out more on negative side. It was made in such way and such a flour; it needed both of our hands to tear it off. I wonder weather it would have been easier if we tried to use the bone cutter to cut and tear the roti! Moreover, it was smeared with a kind of sticky oil they claimed it to be ghee. After anatomy practical class, one needed to rub off the formalin in order to eat and after eating one had to wash off the pungent oil- so called ghee!

Wednesday and Sunday were special for mess. On Wednesday we were served bits of apples, few grapes and bits of banana in milk containing probably 50% of water, making a special dish called fruit salad. Sundays were the days for feast. Our friends from nearby cities would flee to their home, leaving us alone to enjoy the feast. Apart from deep fried and oil soaked items, we were served sweet dish of gulab jamun on Sundays. Some of the students were having voracious appetite and they would challenge each other with number of gulabjamuns they eat. Since my stomach could hardly bear 5-7 gulab jamuns, I really envied those students which had capacity to eat and digest 70-80 gulab jamuns! (Some one can tell me the highest record of gulabjamun eating competition!) However, I could take good amount of routine food in those days and my good friend bimal used to say “Abe e macrophage (A kind of big whit cell having great capacity to eat micro organisms) …now its enough! Get up and wash your hands!”


All the messes, including ours and those at vallabh vidya nagar, as a general rule, were remaining closed on Sunday evening, giving us compulsory chance of eating outside. Karamsad was not much developed when we were there. We had to go to vallbh vidya nagar or anand on Sunday evenings to fill the stomach. Apart from dhabas and gallas, there were only two good hotels in vvn- avre and avkool.

We gujaratis are world’s most fanatic vegetarians. I also am such. We would not eat even cakes and pastries containing egg! We would not like to kill any animal for our food but we might sacrifice ourselves on the dining table eating oil rich dishes! Gujarati jains and swaminaraniyans would not take onions and garlic even. However, in theory, I never ever had opposition for non vegetarians, since I believed all lives equal be it veg or non veg.

Most of my friends were veg., however, samir was a non vegetarian. He usually would go to his home every week like other amdavadis. But one Sunday, due to some reason the stayed back with us. We both went to karamsad that evening to eat something from laari-gallas there. He chose to eat non veg.

The laaris were situated on the highway connecting karamsad anand and vvn. He chose one cheap laari selling non veg stuff, just for fun. As we sat down on the table, samir ordered an item. I did not know what it was, but within minutes, it was ready. This was very first time in my life I saw some nonveg stuff. The place was fairly unhygienic and there was typical non veg smell in the atmosphere irritating my pure vegetarian nose. As I saw the dish, a fresh medical student living in me recognized few of the anatomical structures in it.
“Hey samir, let us play a game.” I proposed.
“What game?”
“You go on eating and I will give commentary on what you are eating.”
“But what game?” He said.
“Despite hearing my commentary, you should not stop eating…whatever kind of ugly words I use.” I explained the single rule.
“Ok” he smiled and agreed and picked up the first morsel. “this is easy man!”

“Now... Samir starts eating...” I initiated my running commentary. “ He picks up one bone that looks like a part of thoracic rib…he looks at the lower groove from where the neuro vascular bundle passes….he takes it in his mouth and sucks the bone marrow of the rib…is that tasty?”

Giving me smiles in between, samir was enjoying my commentary and the food.

“Samir now picks up a muscle bundle… separates the fibers … and they are gone in his wide open mouth. He also takes now the blood admixed with spices with the spoon.”

Samir was a jolly guy and he had a great sense of humor.

“There is some round small globe like object in his spoon…he looks at it to decide from where to eat. It has a cord like structure attached… he picks it up from the cord….takes it to his mouth…. The structure is difficult to identify… perhaps it is a testicle with a cord attached to it...”

“What?” My last words had immediate effect on samir. He took his hand swiftly away from his mouth in lightning speed. He stared at the stuff for a moment.

“Oh yaar, it really seems one!” he threw the part back in the dish.
“I genuinely feel so.” I gave my honest opinion.
“Neh, I am feeling nausea.” He stood up very next moment. “I may vomit…let us go...”

The game was over.