READING …. IS THAT NEEDED?
My maternal grandfather gangaram bhai varu was a gandhian and played pivotal role to establish baal mandirs in kachchh. My paternal grand father krishnalalbhai vaidya was an English teacher. My mother was a secondary school teacher and she taught Sanskrit. Thus I hail from families of teachers. My father was professor of economics at Porbandar College for a few years. Despite all this, my father was and still is highly against school education. He believed in natural learning and hated sending crying child forcibly to school.
I faintly remember visiting once a baal mandir run by my nana. That horrifying memory consists of crying children all around me! However, all were taken to visit our famous garden khengar park and were given breakfast there.
First official attempt to send me school, of course against my father’s will, was made by my mother, when I was 6yrs old. Nanalal master’s Gujarati primary school was nearby my home and I was sent along with virbai, our maid, who cared for me like my mother.
It was really difficult to face the new world at the school where everyone had to obey the commands of teacher. There were other children like me, some comfortable, some crying but all strangers to me! For child like me, everything remained in my control at home. This world was up side down! It frightened me. I remember shouting name of virbai every 5 min to get her help in getting out of the new weird experience. Virbai was made to sit near my class by my parents. The scary experience lasted till I was given back to virbai after a few cry filled minutes! I never went to school there after!
At last, when I was 9yrs old, my mother finally decided to send me school. Since I was late, 1st standard needed to be skipped. I had to pass an exam to directly enter 2nd std. I remember some person from education deptt took my exam. He was really unhappy with my mother since despite being teacher herself, she did not send me to school in due time. My mother told him that I was her child and it was none of the officer’s business to see when I am sent to school!
So, the horrifying experience re started. Sanjay patoliya, ravindra travadi, darshan rana were my batch mates. They were very comfortable in the class. My mind was always occupied with fear of being scolded by teacher or teasing by the other children. Practically, it never happened.
My father always wished to be against the system and so I was highly irregular in school. I never studied or did home work properly at my home. My mother used to give help in my home work (I hated from my heart!) which mostly consisted of “pada”. Now and then, I had letters from my parents citing reasons for not attending the school and not doing home work!
But since I was 2 years older than my batch mates, I was better at studies. Even in bigger standards, I never studied and read for exams at home like other children around me. Several times my parents had to present medical certificates so that I could appear in annual exam! I never liked school and lessons.
I do not remember I ever have studied at home. My father used to give only two advises- “school n jajo” “lesson n karjo”. Thus whatever was taught in my class room I used to use it in exams. I never went to separate tuition classes except for mathematics in 10th and 12th std.
Weird, but I got admission to a medical college despite all this. I confess it as my sheer luck! The college was a totally new world for me where I was advised to read by not only the teachers but also the batch mates. It was my firm belief that one should not read the books and learn everything with help of lectures and practical classes using little bit of the “common sense” and questioning teacher. I used to ask a lot of questions especially in physiology classes while all other students were bored with my questions!
On entry to the college, I had fantasy to acquire great knowledge. For me, library was not a place for reading the texts, but to get some deeply hidden knowledge buried in the journals and the big thick books of various subjects in distant corners of cupboards. As I remember, I used to get into the journal section when I had not even slightest idea about those black long descriptions tagged with some “ET al”s! Though it sounds ridiculous today but I used to open up thick books of psychiatry and neurology from haunted cupboards in those days!
Our library was a nicely designed one. It had two floors. The arrangement was such that three students could sit on one side of table, separated by partition. I used to see my seniors reading very seriously the texts of medical subjects. Library was usually a silent place for reading but some girls used to enter with heavy sandals making noise of their steps announcing their entry .some boy would start tapping the reading table harmonically with the steps of the girl and the whole library would join that tapping. This was followed by a wave of laugh and usually termination of reading!
I get very violent sneezing. Sometimes in library, my sneezing used to disturb the reading session especially when it was near 10pm, the time of closure of library!
Initially I tried to manage vivas and exams without reading. But gradually it became clear to me that except for physiology, all other subjects were just tons of information without much use of logic. So, one was not left with any choice but to read.
Thus on exams, I forced myself to read but the efforts were mostly futile. My reading was diverted more towards stuffs unimportant for exams. Most of my friends were from good schools and had good understanding of how to read for exams.
One of our friends had habit of reading the texts aloud or with murmuring. He was named “gun gun” that stuck to him through out mbbs!
Library was not the only reading place for us. Many students liked to read in the college corridors and the steps of the lecture halls. Some could be found reading under the trees of our beautiful campus.
I found even better place to read. Since ours was a rural medical college, our hostel was surrounded by farms. I used to walk and read in the farms. Till today, when I remember red nucleus, retculo endothelial system, optic radiation etc, I remember those beautiful farms where I used to read. There were many eucalyptus trees in our campus and many students liked to read there.
It was only after meeting jasmine my approach for reading changed to professional one. She had capacity to know and to plan what to read, when to read and especially how to revise before exams. She had great sense of smelling the important questions to be asked in exams. Also she had enormous capacity to analyze the question paper and predict the marks. It is only because of her I got through not only the mbbs but also though pre pg exams.
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