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.
.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
CHAPTER ELEVEN :KILLING SCIENCE: WE, THE WHISTLE BLOWERS
KILLING SCIENCE: WE, THE WHISTLE BLOWERS
While practical classes of anatomy were full of excitement initially, practical classes of physiology were much like our 12th standard laboratory classes. Our physiology laboratory initially was in the old college building.
We were, in the beginning, taught usual blood counts, how to recognize different cells in the blood in microscope and principles behind such tests.
All this was done manually. But from where did the blood sample come? Naturally we had to do the tests on our own blood! This was a bit painful procedure.
“Today, we are to perform total white cell count. We will tell you how many micro liters of blood are needed, how to see them under the microscope and how to count the white cells. But first of all, you ask your friend to get your blood sample from your ring finger.” Looking at our herd, our tutor announced.
They made such a big college. Could not they arrange a few blood samples for the tests? Oh man, thought of getting pricked was painful. But there was no escape. Kamlesh,one of the thinnest boy of our class was my partner in first practical in physio lab.
as we sat down to our table, kamlesh took the lancet. i unwillingly extended my hand. he looked at my hand for a moment and then got strong hold of my ring finger. I looked helplessly to him. He smiled. Though kamlesh was very lean and thin, he looked like demon to me at that moment! Ouch! He gave a nice deep merciless prick to tip of my ring finger. Was it really that painful? probably my pre conceived fear made me feel enhanced pain. i could not say. Tip of my finger became red with blood. I felt as if kamlesh got the blood deep down from my bone! I could count my heartbeats at the pricked tip of finger due to pain. (Though, this was not the part of practical learning!) I picked the pipette and draw required blood in it.
Same event was probably repeated at each table. Some boys rendered such ‘gentle’ services to girls. Pragnesh was notoriously very well known for this.
the pain ful experience was worth because It was really amazing to see one’s own white cells under the microscope. I really forgot the prick. i saw my own amazing cells. the world under the microscope was very exciting.
When the main new building of our college was ready, like other departments, the physio deptt soon was shifted to the new building. We had luxury of two labs there. One was for human physiology and the other was an animal experiment lab. the animal lab was mainly used to show us practical physiology on frogs.
In our 12th class also we were forced to study live frogs. That was really very cruel. The frogs were dumped in chloroform and were cut open inhumanely to study and finally they were left to die. Students were supposed to see the different live systems of the dying poor creature. I really still do not understand the logic of doing such a cruel exercise in name of science. Honestly, those lab experiments neither contributed to increase my knowledge of biology nor they helped in slightest way to understand human machinery. But that was in the syllabus. We had to do that.
Here in physiology, such experiments went a step further. The deptt had a separately maintained animal house outside the college. Different types of animals were kept there to be slaughtered in name of research and science.
Since chloroform had bad effect on nervous system, the frogs were required to be ‘pithed’, keeping their nervous system intact for study. Can you guess how cruel the procedure was? Prof harsoda used to do that. He would hold a live frog in his left hand firmly and then would take an instrument that looked like ice cutter in right hand. The sharp point was pushed between the eyes of the frog and then the instrument was rotated destructing the connection of brain with the spinal cord, keeping the poor animal ‘intact’ for study. Just compare this with the fear of small prick we humans fear usually!
To bear this all, one had to cut off one’s sensory system from the brain, i mean, one needs to be totally insensitive and inhuman. NO one could see such cruelty except under fear of exam!
There was one experiment to show us normal heart activity and effects of different drugs on heart muscle. We had to cut open the thorax of the frog, insert a pointed hook at the tip of the frog’s beating heart and then to attach that hook to a drum assembly to take a graph.
There was a special place, a smoking zone, in the lab where special papers were given smoke so that a graph could be recorded on them. I felt such obsolete experiments required more such 18th century technique for recording graph.
Apart from mercilessly killing the frog, we were not required to handle other animals.
(Not mentioning some of the teachers!). I do not remember any of my classmates enjoying such experiments. Almost all of us hated cruelty on frogs.when i saw this very first time, i really felt deep pain through my heart. i could not stand in front of the tutor demonstrating our batch so i left the lab and went to the chamber of the head of the department of physiology. Dr. Mazoomdar was in his chair.
"may i come in sir?" I asked in low voice.
"yess. Khomme in" sir replied in his deep typical voice." yess neha, why do you appear so disturbed?"
my face was perhaps enough gloomy to be read.
"Sir...I wanted to ask.." I was squeezing all my strength to speak up. i paused.
"Ask what?" Sir had to speak after 10 seconds pause.
"Sir.. can't we stop killing frogs?" At last i was able to speak.
Sir looked in my eyes and probably read them well.
"See neha, this is part of your physiology learning. In any science, no one can believe whatever is written in books. One has to see that all directly, keenly observe it and most importantly re prove it... So here you see whatever is written in your physiology textbook...you understand?" sir was really sympathetic and truthful on his side.
"Sir but many facts are established since decades now. Till how long we need to repeat and reprove and reprove again?" i had my own argument.
Sir smiled " Might be some student may find something new from these experiments some day and may change our understanding of old facts.." He explained the ideal certificate to kill the frogs and other animals mercilessly in as humane voice as possible.
I wanted to ask how may students in his career did he see which revealed something new in his MBBS practical killer classes. But there was no point in argument.
" Any way neha...you go to hostel and rest well" Looking at my bitter face ,sir ultimately suggested.
i do not remember what i did on that day but Some of my friends became very sensitive to the issue. I remember, especially kapil, vimal, vivek, jayesh, were really furious on this issue. They explained their feelings to the whole batch. We were further disturbed by the fact told by a servant in the physio deptt. He told our HOD of physio deptt wanted him to catch dogs of our campus so that experiments could be carried out personally by the HOD.
So, our batch decided to boycott the practical classes. This movement lasted for a few weeks. Some of the students of our batch, as I remember, wrote slogans on pillars of the physio deptt expressing their anger on the cruelty.
I do not remember whether we were successful in stopping such practical but I do not remember giving exams of similar practical.
Afterwards, as we all know, because of efforts of maneka Gandhi, such experiments were stopped all over the India. Our batch tried to do the same long before maneka Gandhi did!
(I would be glad if any one can add to this event)
While practical classes of anatomy were full of excitement initially, practical classes of physiology were much like our 12th standard laboratory classes. Our physiology laboratory initially was in the old college building.
We were, in the beginning, taught usual blood counts, how to recognize different cells in the blood in microscope and principles behind such tests.
All this was done manually. But from where did the blood sample come? Naturally we had to do the tests on our own blood! This was a bit painful procedure.
“Today, we are to perform total white cell count. We will tell you how many micro liters of blood are needed, how to see them under the microscope and how to count the white cells. But first of all, you ask your friend to get your blood sample from your ring finger.” Looking at our herd, our tutor announced.
They made such a big college. Could not they arrange a few blood samples for the tests? Oh man, thought of getting pricked was painful. But there was no escape. Kamlesh,one of the thinnest boy of our class was my partner in first practical in physio lab.
as we sat down to our table, kamlesh took the lancet. i unwillingly extended my hand. he looked at my hand for a moment and then got strong hold of my ring finger. I looked helplessly to him. He smiled. Though kamlesh was very lean and thin, he looked like demon to me at that moment! Ouch! He gave a nice deep merciless prick to tip of my ring finger. Was it really that painful? probably my pre conceived fear made me feel enhanced pain. i could not say. Tip of my finger became red with blood. I felt as if kamlesh got the blood deep down from my bone! I could count my heartbeats at the pricked tip of finger due to pain. (Though, this was not the part of practical learning!) I picked the pipette and draw required blood in it.
Same event was probably repeated at each table. Some boys rendered such ‘gentle’ services to girls. Pragnesh was notoriously very well known for this.
the pain ful experience was worth because It was really amazing to see one’s own white cells under the microscope. I really forgot the prick. i saw my own amazing cells. the world under the microscope was very exciting.
When the main new building of our college was ready, like other departments, the physio deptt soon was shifted to the new building. We had luxury of two labs there. One was for human physiology and the other was an animal experiment lab. the animal lab was mainly used to show us practical physiology on frogs.
In our 12th class also we were forced to study live frogs. That was really very cruel. The frogs were dumped in chloroform and were cut open inhumanely to study and finally they were left to die. Students were supposed to see the different live systems of the dying poor creature. I really still do not understand the logic of doing such a cruel exercise in name of science. Honestly, those lab experiments neither contributed to increase my knowledge of biology nor they helped in slightest way to understand human machinery. But that was in the syllabus. We had to do that.
Here in physiology, such experiments went a step further. The deptt had a separately maintained animal house outside the college. Different types of animals were kept there to be slaughtered in name of research and science.
Since chloroform had bad effect on nervous system, the frogs were required to be ‘pithed’, keeping their nervous system intact for study. Can you guess how cruel the procedure was? Prof harsoda used to do that. He would hold a live frog in his left hand firmly and then would take an instrument that looked like ice cutter in right hand. The sharp point was pushed between the eyes of the frog and then the instrument was rotated destructing the connection of brain with the spinal cord, keeping the poor animal ‘intact’ for study. Just compare this with the fear of small prick we humans fear usually!
To bear this all, one had to cut off one’s sensory system from the brain, i mean, one needs to be totally insensitive and inhuman. NO one could see such cruelty except under fear of exam!
There was one experiment to show us normal heart activity and effects of different drugs on heart muscle. We had to cut open the thorax of the frog, insert a pointed hook at the tip of the frog’s beating heart and then to attach that hook to a drum assembly to take a graph.
There was a special place, a smoking zone, in the lab where special papers were given smoke so that a graph could be recorded on them. I felt such obsolete experiments required more such 18th century technique for recording graph.
Apart from mercilessly killing the frog, we were not required to handle other animals.
(Not mentioning some of the teachers!). I do not remember any of my classmates enjoying such experiments. Almost all of us hated cruelty on frogs.when i saw this very first time, i really felt deep pain through my heart. i could not stand in front of the tutor demonstrating our batch so i left the lab and went to the chamber of the head of the department of physiology. Dr. Mazoomdar was in his chair.
"may i come in sir?" I asked in low voice.
"yess. Khomme in" sir replied in his deep typical voice." yess neha, why do you appear so disturbed?"
my face was perhaps enough gloomy to be read.
"Sir...I wanted to ask.." I was squeezing all my strength to speak up. i paused.
"Ask what?" Sir had to speak after 10 seconds pause.
"Sir.. can't we stop killing frogs?" At last i was able to speak.
Sir looked in my eyes and probably read them well.
"See neha, this is part of your physiology learning. In any science, no one can believe whatever is written in books. One has to see that all directly, keenly observe it and most importantly re prove it... So here you see whatever is written in your physiology textbook...you understand?" sir was really sympathetic and truthful on his side.
"Sir but many facts are established since decades now. Till how long we need to repeat and reprove and reprove again?" i had my own argument.
Sir smiled " Might be some student may find something new from these experiments some day and may change our understanding of old facts.." He explained the ideal certificate to kill the frogs and other animals mercilessly in as humane voice as possible.
I wanted to ask how may students in his career did he see which revealed something new in his MBBS practical killer classes. But there was no point in argument.
" Any way neha...you go to hostel and rest well" Looking at my bitter face ,sir ultimately suggested.
i do not remember what i did on that day but Some of my friends became very sensitive to the issue. I remember, especially kapil, vimal, vivek, jayesh, were really furious on this issue. They explained their feelings to the whole batch. We were further disturbed by the fact told by a servant in the physio deptt. He told our HOD of physio deptt wanted him to catch dogs of our campus so that experiments could be carried out personally by the HOD.
So, our batch decided to boycott the practical classes. This movement lasted for a few weeks. Some of the students of our batch, as I remember, wrote slogans on pillars of the physio deptt expressing their anger on the cruelty.
I do not remember whether we were successful in stopping such practical but I do not remember giving exams of similar practical.
Afterwards, as we all know, because of efforts of maneka Gandhi, such experiments were stopped all over the India. Our batch tried to do the same long before maneka Gandhi did!
(I would be glad if any one can add to this event)
CHAPTER TEN:THE MESSY MESS
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.
CHAPTER NINE : OUR PROFESSORS
“Do you know? you feel like a doctor only three times in your entire life ”explained dr.hemang acharya professor of medicine and my jijaji, when I got admission to PSMC “first, when it is your first day in your college, second, when you wear stethoscope in 2nd MBBS and third when you join internship!”
True. Really, how can you continually feel like a doctor when you are continuously and mercilessly bombarded by professors, tutors, exams and vivas? I mean, they just blast off your head with loads of information, that too when it is simply too hard for you to understand it. For instance, I remember dr. arya from deptt of psm tried to teach us clamydia, an organism somewhere between the bacterial and viral world, when no one from us even properly knew difference between virus and bacteria. that too, of course, in the very first lecture from deptt of preventive and social medicine!
Most of us were from gujarati medium and that too was the one of the problem. However I learnt English well before my entry to medical college. A bit proud about it, I remember, first time when I searched to tapavi’s home in ahmedabad, i asked about his address to a local young boy in English .he seemed annoyed, asked from where I came, and gave me proper guidance. After walking about a kilometer, ultimately I found out tapasvi’s place.
After a few days, in our hostel room, we were talking about gujarati angreji.
“You know neh, those who know little English behave like a fool some times. A few days back, one gujarati boy asked address of my house un necessarily in English to my younger brother Nimitt. I do not know who that comedian was!” not knowing the incident, tapasvi expressed his genuine views.
Oops! That boy i asked the address happened to be tapasvi’s brother! and comedian? Naturally-me!
“You are right” I said avoiding eye contact!
Most of the teacher professed in English as it was the language of instruction. However, every one had some peculiarity about their speech. For instance. Dr. mazoomdar, prof. of physiology, used to speak English keeping his lips tightly pursed. Initially for us, it was difficult to find from which part of body the sound was produced! He was fond of asking questions.
“Yes neha! (As he used to call me in the classroom)” and “kkhommon sense!” still ring in my ears
Dr haridas was teaching biochemistry. he was one of the best teacher i ever have met. No student could sleep in his lecture even at last bench.his speech was very much pressured one and he used the speak like a popcorn machine! –Phossphofrrructokhi nase……!
From anatomy, we had dr. danger wala, she had very good habit of going to root of medical terminology, explaining how easy the terms were. (umbo..etle shu?gada na paida na ara jya wachche bhega thayne, e upselo bhaag! Now you compare the central part of ear drum...). she used to teach histology and in journal she used to check the position of nuclei in the cell also, apart from other details. Naturally most of the students had to re draw the figures. From her teachings it became clear, English, as medical terminology was perfect. The Sanskrit professors, in fanatic try to convert these words for gujarati medium student made the same words more clumsy, messy and beyond reach for students to understand .I remember a name of a bone from my 12th std text book as parshwa pashcha kapali purkarnasthi! !
“Underline thousand times!” were the words heard thousand times from anatomist dr bhatiya. In viva, he used to ask the student to hold the specimen not only in anatomical position but also at the same height of the part in question in the student’s body. So one had to hold lungs near his/her lungs, kidney near his /her kidney and so on…!
Dr. raibaghkar from deptt of anatomy was a kind of good audio tape player. He had good collection of many tapes on the subject which routinely started at the start of his lecture and ended without any interaction at the end of the lecture. Occasionally, he used to stop the tape and asked question to us, may be because he might be suddenly realizing the whole herd of students sitting in front of him or to get some time to re arrange the tapes. Usually it was difficult to satisfy him with the answer.when no one could give answer he used to ask his favorite second question:
“Any one from senior batch?” this to usually followed by eternal silence from the audience made up of dumb students like me. most of the times he used to give the answer and sometimes not. but his tape would start exactly where he stopped!
How can I forget dr Nishith? Tall, fair, handsome speaking only needed words in the class, never giving more than 50%- 40% in vivas. Usually his lecture followed that of dr mazoom’s . mazoom sir never used to clean the black board at the end of his lecture.
Annoyed, dr nishith used to comment “this is like not flushing the toilet after using it!"
CHAPTER EIGHT : SECRETS OF THE BOYS’ HOSTEL
SECRETS OF THE BOYS’ HOSTEL
In spite of being small and helpless, for all offspring of any species, a day comes when they start facing the world on their own. When birds start flying, they suddenly see the whole world beneath their small wings. As they fly, they see they can control their own journey.
Same happens to students like us, when suddenly we find ourselves in hostel environment, far away from protected world back at home. The freedom and sovereignty comes sudden and abrupt.
How would you feel when you find only yourself from your school entering a new college? What would you do when you find yourself being complete stranger to whole herd of new boys and girls of your batch? There were many students like me, which faced challenges of suddenly starting new friendships and relations. But as we all have experienced, any new stress helps in building new relation quicker. I was lucky enough to have room partners like tapasvi and biren. to my fortune, they were my good friends from day one. Hemant, jasmine shah, samir, bhargav, biju, prakash were other angel sent friends for me. There were two hostels and we were in the main boys’ hostel. Since the main hostel was c shaped small hostel at that time, many of my batch mates were provided accommodation in the old nursing hostel.
Free man! To our delight, we found, We were free to roam and no one was there to check when we were coming back to hostel- may it be 10at night 12 mid night or even later than that! No one was to ask weather were we studying in the library or busy in an open air movie theatre at karamsad
or eating at some dhaba near vallabh vidya nagar. We had full control on our own world.
The hostel was kept pretty clean by the management. To take bath was a real joy. We had many bathrooms and bathroom singers. My name was amongst the worst cacophonics. I remember, I had habit of singing gazals at top of my maximum possible volume in our ground floor bathroom. At one such good afternoon shower, setu, a ranker from our senior batch, had to come leaving his reading from top floor to appeal - “hey neh ! May I request to please cut down your volume?”
Setu also had habit of murmuring English songs in the bath. He was a good singer. His songs were simply beyond my comprehension. “pa ra pa pa pa” were the only words which I understood from his songs, I guess.
Many of my friends used to enjoy banging the bath door from out side just for fun.
“Hey man, cant you hurry?” they would shout “get out or I will screw you!!” My good friend like samir would throw cold water from above the open wall in the bath, only to get the same back from inside! Thus the cold water war would begin! Joy fight lasted till the time for college!
(Fortunately, latrines were enough and I do not remember any one shouting for his bowel’s sake!)
A happy day would start. Some would go to mess for the breakfast and tea but most of us ate at hostel room.
Our technique of heating the milk in the plastic pouch of amul was one of its kinds. We used to use coil to boil water in bucket. The milk was ready as soon as the water. How? We just immersed the pouch in the water bucket at the time of starting the heater coil.
When we returned from the college, entire world looked tired and hungry. At that time, we had very limited choices. There was no kaveri hotel and mess used to give breakfast only in the morning. Also, it was costly for our pocket to buy the breakfast every day! So again some dry eatable or occasionally,as a luxury, we could buy a puff or a costlier cake from a kaka which used to come from karamsad to serve us the extravagance. One cheaper choice was to buy tomatoes and cucumber from a kaki usually sitting at the door of the ladies hostel.
Studious would go to library immediately after the college while average students like me would find some excuse for not reading and doing some more important work – discussing ‘studies’ with friends or going to karamsad to buy some important and useful item!
the Night of the campus was beautiful. Since our campus was surrounded by farms on one side and vast plantations of eucalyptus on the other, we had luxury of having eternal silence around the hostel. Since we were far away from polluting city environment, our sky was always bright and stars were shiny.
However the silence would perish in hostel. Sounds of chatting boys, noise of tape recorders playing fast English songs at their full volume would make your ears feel – oh! this was a boys’ hostel!
Once or twice in a month, some of our seniors had attacks of banging the hostel furniture to make maximum possible clatter. One boy would start it and soon others would join. Some would enjoy the orchestra shouting maximum possible absurd words (gaalis) along with! The friendly exchange of such words would occur from one floor of the hostel to the other. The episodes usually ended with either breakage of the furniture or a small quarrel. can you believe? i do not remember any one stopping this or even making an inquiry as to who broke the furniture!
There were some other funny things happening in the hostel at nights.
“tapasvi, can you hear this sound??” I heard a mysterious sound one night.
“Trrrrrrrrrrrr…………”
“Probably some one is pouring water from the top floor.” Tapasvi guessed. Meanwhile, the sound stopped.
“But why at mid night?” I still was not convinced.
“ha ha ha..” biren laughed “what water,chaps? Some one was having luxury of releasing his pressure from top floor directly to ground floor!” he cleared all the doubts!
One of my good friends had habit of doing ‘pressure release’ just in front of our room’s door to tease us. He was specially coming for the process from his room at mid night. This was repeated again and again despite our opposition.
“aah, I simply enjoy this! Tapasveeee… are you listening? I enjoy this!” one night my good friend shouted to irritate us.
That day he got tapasvi’s nerves. Tapasvi rapidly opened the door, rushed out side and immediately gave a kick at a specific place when he was half a way completing his ‘pressure release’.
“Abe yaar!!” my good friend was forced to jump because of the sudden unexpected kick from behind. Not only he had to save himself from falling in the dirt created by him, he also had to pull his trouser to save his shame, not mentioning the pain of stopping the pressure process in between!
Expectedly, that was the last time he attempted ‘pressure release’ in front of our room door!
In spite of being small and helpless, for all offspring of any species, a day comes when they start facing the world on their own. When birds start flying, they suddenly see the whole world beneath their small wings. As they fly, they see they can control their own journey.
Same happens to students like us, when suddenly we find ourselves in hostel environment, far away from protected world back at home. The freedom and sovereignty comes sudden and abrupt.
How would you feel when you find only yourself from your school entering a new college? What would you do when you find yourself being complete stranger to whole herd of new boys and girls of your batch? There were many students like me, which faced challenges of suddenly starting new friendships and relations. But as we all have experienced, any new stress helps in building new relation quicker. I was lucky enough to have room partners like tapasvi and biren. to my fortune, they were my good friends from day one. Hemant, jasmine shah, samir, bhargav, biju, prakash were other angel sent friends for me. There were two hostels and we were in the main boys’ hostel. Since the main hostel was c shaped small hostel at that time, many of my batch mates were provided accommodation in the old nursing hostel.
Free man! To our delight, we found, We were free to roam and no one was there to check when we were coming back to hostel- may it be 10at night 12 mid night or even later than that! No one was to ask weather were we studying in the library or busy in an open air movie theatre at karamsad
or eating at some dhaba near vallabh vidya nagar. We had full control on our own world.
The hostel was kept pretty clean by the management. To take bath was a real joy. We had many bathrooms and bathroom singers. My name was amongst the worst cacophonics. I remember, I had habit of singing gazals at top of my maximum possible volume in our ground floor bathroom. At one such good afternoon shower, setu, a ranker from our senior batch, had to come leaving his reading from top floor to appeal - “hey neh ! May I request to please cut down your volume?”
Setu also had habit of murmuring English songs in the bath. He was a good singer. His songs were simply beyond my comprehension. “pa ra pa pa pa” were the only words which I understood from his songs, I guess.
Many of my friends used to enjoy banging the bath door from out side just for fun.
“Hey man, cant you hurry?” they would shout “get out or I will screw you!!” My good friend like samir would throw cold water from above the open wall in the bath, only to get the same back from inside! Thus the cold water war would begin! Joy fight lasted till the time for college!
(Fortunately, latrines were enough and I do not remember any one shouting for his bowel’s sake!)
A happy day would start. Some would go to mess for the breakfast and tea but most of us ate at hostel room.
Our technique of heating the milk in the plastic pouch of amul was one of its kinds. We used to use coil to boil water in bucket. The milk was ready as soon as the water. How? We just immersed the pouch in the water bucket at the time of starting the heater coil.
When we returned from the college, entire world looked tired and hungry. At that time, we had very limited choices. There was no kaveri hotel and mess used to give breakfast only in the morning. Also, it was costly for our pocket to buy the breakfast every day! So again some dry eatable or occasionally,as a luxury, we could buy a puff or a costlier cake from a kaka which used to come from karamsad to serve us the extravagance. One cheaper choice was to buy tomatoes and cucumber from a kaki usually sitting at the door of the ladies hostel.
Studious would go to library immediately after the college while average students like me would find some excuse for not reading and doing some more important work – discussing ‘studies’ with friends or going to karamsad to buy some important and useful item!
the Night of the campus was beautiful. Since our campus was surrounded by farms on one side and vast plantations of eucalyptus on the other, we had luxury of having eternal silence around the hostel. Since we were far away from polluting city environment, our sky was always bright and stars were shiny.
However the silence would perish in hostel. Sounds of chatting boys, noise of tape recorders playing fast English songs at their full volume would make your ears feel – oh! this was a boys’ hostel!
Once or twice in a month, some of our seniors had attacks of banging the hostel furniture to make maximum possible clatter. One boy would start it and soon others would join. Some would enjoy the orchestra shouting maximum possible absurd words (gaalis) along with! The friendly exchange of such words would occur from one floor of the hostel to the other. The episodes usually ended with either breakage of the furniture or a small quarrel. can you believe? i do not remember any one stopping this or even making an inquiry as to who broke the furniture!
There were some other funny things happening in the hostel at nights.
“tapasvi, can you hear this sound??” I heard a mysterious sound one night.
“Trrrrrrrrrrrr…………”
“Probably some one is pouring water from the top floor.” Tapasvi guessed. Meanwhile, the sound stopped.
“But why at mid night?” I still was not convinced.
“ha ha ha..” biren laughed “what water,chaps? Some one was having luxury of releasing his pressure from top floor directly to ground floor!” he cleared all the doubts!
One of my good friends had habit of doing ‘pressure release’ just in front of our room’s door to tease us. He was specially coming for the process from his room at mid night. This was repeated again and again despite our opposition.
“aah, I simply enjoy this! Tapasveeee… are you listening? I enjoy this!” one night my good friend shouted to irritate us.
That day he got tapasvi’s nerves. Tapasvi rapidly opened the door, rushed out side and immediately gave a kick at a specific place when he was half a way completing his ‘pressure release’.
“Abe yaar!!” my good friend was forced to jump because of the sudden unexpected kick from behind. Not only he had to save himself from falling in the dirt created by him, he also had to pull his trouser to save his shame, not mentioning the pain of stopping the pressure process in between!
Expectedly, that was the last time he attempted ‘pressure release’ in front of our room door!
CHAPTER SEVEN : !st GIRL I MET IN THE COLLEGE...
[This chapter should have been written probably at the beginning of my series of blog. Since the matter is very personal to me, I took some time to finally make it public. It is my humble effort to show tender emotions of a teen- myself. Till date the true story was hidden from even some of my best friends.
You go to college and on very first day you meet a cute girl. She comes near you just to give you a nice slap for the way you looked at her. At the end, same girl would fall terribly in love with you and ultimately you have to win her rescuing her from villain. Such goody goody stories are for Hindi masala movies. Real college life is, naturally, very different and it unfolds itself on its own. Following true story is about me and the first ever girl I met in my college. Name of the girl is to remain a secret!]
When I was traveling all the eleven and half hour journey from bhuj to anand by ST bus for the first time, I felt my body was not left with a single painless bone and muscle before I reached! Still, after reaching anand, I had to search for bus to karamsad.
The bus was about to reach and I was looking for help.
Just about 2-3 seats from my seat there was a girl talking something about psmc that made me attentive like a street dog!
‘Should I ask her how to reach psmc?’ I thought. She was completely unknown to me. If she was going to psmc, she could be from my senior batch or she could be my own batch mate. It was not that I was shy but still it needed good amount of courage to initiate talk! Reasons for that were very obvious.
Back at home, in my home town bhuj, I had quite a few girls as playmates in my childhood. However, after reaching teens, unfortunately, there was no good friendship with any of the girls because there were no girls around me! It was not surprising because from 5th std onwards till the 12th std, I studied in exclusive boys schools.
Let me open up a secret... some of my school friends, shanti, premal, chintan, chande used to sit on a bench near jubilee ground in the evenings just for bird watching! Naturally, there were many birds in bhuj which liked them to be watched. My friends used to sit on the bench and I used to sit on my grandfather’s bicycle (my bike- you know!!) keeping my back towards the road where the birds used to pass. Kalpesh, my dearest friend of school days (and even till today) used to give me genuine company by keeping his back also towards the road.
As any bird passed, I could see turning of heads of my friends 180 degree en masse! However, I kept myself away from this sacred activity, (which probably our ancestors did for centuries with equal zeal!) for some strange reasons. Firstly, I feared, a girl could drive me mad if by chance I start liking any! Secondly, I never wanted to be cheated by good looks. And lastly, I had label of “good boy”! (So I do not know any popular names of the birds of our times at bhuj.) I was sometimes targeted by my friends for the same reason. However same friends used to put me forward if some communication was to be done with any girl. (“Tara man ma paap na hoyne! Tu barabar wat kari shakish...”). At occasional school science fairs, I used to ask many questions to all contestants including the girls amongst them. To my queries, most of the girls used to get confused. My friends used to enjoy that. Apart from these sporadic communications, there was total blackout.
But the situation turned different as I passed 12th std and entered a medical college. As I felt, good looks could no longer deceive me and “good boy” should have good girls as friends, I decided to have good friendship with the girls of my class. And now, probably, it was the time!
Again, let me talk about the girl in the bus. she was not a beauty queen but She looked an average college girl with boy cut hair and spects. Her looks made it sure she was from a decent family. This all gave me courage to speak with her.
“hello! Are you by chance going to psmc?” I directly inquired.
“oh yes… I recently got admission.” Her reply fuelled my confidence.
“so we probably belong to same batch. I also am going to psmc. I am from bhuj. My name is neh”I introduced myself.
“nice to meet you” she said honestly. I really felt happy inside as I could talk nicely with her.
“ I do not know how to reach karamsad. Can you tell me?” I put my query as we got down from the bus.
“oh sure. Come with us. there is separate bus station for vallabh vidyanagar and we may get connection to psmc from there.” She happily guided me to the destination and I followed.
I thought I really was successful in communicating and creating base for friendship. Nothing more was expected. I was happy. No one can imagine how a “virgin” boy like me would feel from such a small incident. It was like starting of new journey of life, first breeze of self confidence.
If this happened to my friends like jasmine shah or tapasvi, it was nothing very special. They had very good capacity not only to communicate but also to befriend the girls. But I never was like them and the small meeting took a special place within me.
I never had any more expectation from the little communication I did with that girl. I only expected a good beginning of friendship giving me confidence and opportunity to communicate more with the other girls of my batch. Wasn’t that quite legible?
Within a day or so, I saw that girl again! She was going somewhere and incidentally I was on the same way behind her. She probably, as faintly I remember, had some of her friends with her. I felt I should talk. Rather, I was eager to initiate talk!
“Hello…!”Sure of response, I said over confidently.
She was few steps away from me. However, she was walking silently with her friends. But she did not respond. I lost a bit of my confidence but the very next moment, I felt probably she might have not heard me well.
“Hello there…!” now I spoke with some anxiety. Again there was no response. She did not even look back! She kept walking. I felt she wanted to neglect me. Was that really true? Was she avoiding me? Such questions mounted in my mind and wiped away all of my confidence to talk with the first girl I met in my college.
I do not know what happened afterwards. But I was hurt. The blow was severe. The severity was such that I never took any chance to talk with any girl of my class again. I kept myself away from the girls. My mind was full of fear of rejection. It was not that I did not talk with the girls at all, but I talked only whatever was extremely needed. I never tried to befriend with any of the girls. College world became somewhat gloomy for me for those initial few months. Though there was a big dent on my heart I was otherwise normal and even I could hide this fact from my best friends like tapasvi and hemant. So no one probably ever noticed what happened to me!
Was that fair to not to talk with me even after my brief introduction and repeated attempts to talk with her by me? How could one be so rude? She could at least have told me hi or could have given me a smile. Or she should not have talked with me at the first occasion at the bus station only.
However, some angles had to come to rescue me! Notably, one of them, Margi, one of my dissection partners in anatomy classes unknowingly did that job. She was a very talkative (and still is!) girl. She would not stop talking till you respond. Then there was namrata-Cool calm and gentle girl sure of her goals. Shilpa was not our dissection partner but she used to come now and then on our table to chat with our team in name of seeing “good dissection” and used to talk with all. i also can not forget manisha, a girl that joined dissection batch late as she got transfer to medical college from a dental college. she was very frank and friendly.
As time passed, I met beji, naughty and a bit narcissist, very conscious of her. Jasmine, studious and innocent, anu, looked and behaved more like a school than a college girl. I can not forget my good friend heena, himani, jayshree and ripple. All of them treated me normally.
Gradually, like the river water smoothes all the dents of the stones as it passes gently shaping the stones over the time, my wound healed by all the angels I met afterwards.
Years later, the lady that met me in the bus became good friend of ours. Jasmine told her my story. She really was surprised. She did not even notice the small incident that took place a few years back that gave me a scar. Her behavior was purely unintentional. She never wanted to hurt any one. She was really sorry for whatever happened that day and afterwards.
After these many years, above story is just to smile about.
You go to college and on very first day you meet a cute girl. She comes near you just to give you a nice slap for the way you looked at her. At the end, same girl would fall terribly in love with you and ultimately you have to win her rescuing her from villain. Such goody goody stories are for Hindi masala movies. Real college life is, naturally, very different and it unfolds itself on its own. Following true story is about me and the first ever girl I met in my college. Name of the girl is to remain a secret!]
When I was traveling all the eleven and half hour journey from bhuj to anand by ST bus for the first time, I felt my body was not left with a single painless bone and muscle before I reached! Still, after reaching anand, I had to search for bus to karamsad.
The bus was about to reach and I was looking for help.
Just about 2-3 seats from my seat there was a girl talking something about psmc that made me attentive like a street dog!
‘Should I ask her how to reach psmc?’ I thought. She was completely unknown to me. If she was going to psmc, she could be from my senior batch or she could be my own batch mate. It was not that I was shy but still it needed good amount of courage to initiate talk! Reasons for that were very obvious.
Back at home, in my home town bhuj, I had quite a few girls as playmates in my childhood. However, after reaching teens, unfortunately, there was no good friendship with any of the girls because there were no girls around me! It was not surprising because from 5th std onwards till the 12th std, I studied in exclusive boys schools.
Let me open up a secret... some of my school friends, shanti, premal, chintan, chande used to sit on a bench near jubilee ground in the evenings just for bird watching! Naturally, there were many birds in bhuj which liked them to be watched. My friends used to sit on the bench and I used to sit on my grandfather’s bicycle (my bike- you know!!) keeping my back towards the road where the birds used to pass. Kalpesh, my dearest friend of school days (and even till today) used to give me genuine company by keeping his back also towards the road.
As any bird passed, I could see turning of heads of my friends 180 degree en masse! However, I kept myself away from this sacred activity, (which probably our ancestors did for centuries with equal zeal!) for some strange reasons. Firstly, I feared, a girl could drive me mad if by chance I start liking any! Secondly, I never wanted to be cheated by good looks. And lastly, I had label of “good boy”! (So I do not know any popular names of the birds of our times at bhuj.) I was sometimes targeted by my friends for the same reason. However same friends used to put me forward if some communication was to be done with any girl. (“Tara man ma paap na hoyne! Tu barabar wat kari shakish...”). At occasional school science fairs, I used to ask many questions to all contestants including the girls amongst them. To my queries, most of the girls used to get confused. My friends used to enjoy that. Apart from these sporadic communications, there was total blackout.
But the situation turned different as I passed 12th std and entered a medical college. As I felt, good looks could no longer deceive me and “good boy” should have good girls as friends, I decided to have good friendship with the girls of my class. And now, probably, it was the time!
Again, let me talk about the girl in the bus. she was not a beauty queen but She looked an average college girl with boy cut hair and spects. Her looks made it sure she was from a decent family. This all gave me courage to speak with her.
“hello! Are you by chance going to psmc?” I directly inquired.
“oh yes… I recently got admission.” Her reply fuelled my confidence.
“so we probably belong to same batch. I also am going to psmc. I am from bhuj. My name is neh”I introduced myself.
“nice to meet you” she said honestly. I really felt happy inside as I could talk nicely with her.
“ I do not know how to reach karamsad. Can you tell me?” I put my query as we got down from the bus.
“oh sure. Come with us. there is separate bus station for vallabh vidyanagar and we may get connection to psmc from there.” She happily guided me to the destination and I followed.
I thought I really was successful in communicating and creating base for friendship. Nothing more was expected. I was happy. No one can imagine how a “virgin” boy like me would feel from such a small incident. It was like starting of new journey of life, first breeze of self confidence.
If this happened to my friends like jasmine shah or tapasvi, it was nothing very special. They had very good capacity not only to communicate but also to befriend the girls. But I never was like them and the small meeting took a special place within me.
I never had any more expectation from the little communication I did with that girl. I only expected a good beginning of friendship giving me confidence and opportunity to communicate more with the other girls of my batch. Wasn’t that quite legible?
Within a day or so, I saw that girl again! She was going somewhere and incidentally I was on the same way behind her. She probably, as faintly I remember, had some of her friends with her. I felt I should talk. Rather, I was eager to initiate talk!
“Hello…!”Sure of response, I said over confidently.
She was few steps away from me. However, she was walking silently with her friends. But she did not respond. I lost a bit of my confidence but the very next moment, I felt probably she might have not heard me well.
“Hello there…!” now I spoke with some anxiety. Again there was no response. She did not even look back! She kept walking. I felt she wanted to neglect me. Was that really true? Was she avoiding me? Such questions mounted in my mind and wiped away all of my confidence to talk with the first girl I met in my college.
I do not know what happened afterwards. But I was hurt. The blow was severe. The severity was such that I never took any chance to talk with any girl of my class again. I kept myself away from the girls. My mind was full of fear of rejection. It was not that I did not talk with the girls at all, but I talked only whatever was extremely needed. I never tried to befriend with any of the girls. College world became somewhat gloomy for me for those initial few months. Though there was a big dent on my heart I was otherwise normal and even I could hide this fact from my best friends like tapasvi and hemant. So no one probably ever noticed what happened to me!
Was that fair to not to talk with me even after my brief introduction and repeated attempts to talk with her by me? How could one be so rude? She could at least have told me hi or could have given me a smile. Or she should not have talked with me at the first occasion at the bus station only.
However, some angles had to come to rescue me! Notably, one of them, Margi, one of my dissection partners in anatomy classes unknowingly did that job. She was a very talkative (and still is!) girl. She would not stop talking till you respond. Then there was namrata-Cool calm and gentle girl sure of her goals. Shilpa was not our dissection partner but she used to come now and then on our table to chat with our team in name of seeing “good dissection” and used to talk with all. i also can not forget manisha, a girl that joined dissection batch late as she got transfer to medical college from a dental college. she was very frank and friendly.
As time passed, I met beji, naughty and a bit narcissist, very conscious of her. Jasmine, studious and innocent, anu, looked and behaved more like a school than a college girl. I can not forget my good friend heena, himani, jayshree and ripple. All of them treated me normally.
Gradually, like the river water smoothes all the dents of the stones as it passes gently shaping the stones over the time, my wound healed by all the angels I met afterwards.
Years later, the lady that met me in the bus became good friend of ours. Jasmine told her my story. She really was surprised. She did not even notice the small incident that took place a few years back that gave me a scar. Her behavior was purely unintentional. She never wanted to hurt any one. She was really sorry for whatever happened that day and afterwards.
After these many years, above story is just to smile about.
CHAPTER SIX : DISSECTING RELATIONS AND WOW
DISSECTING RELATIONS AND WOW
Curiosity, fear, doubt, hesitation, joy of doing something forbidden are some of the many strange feelings associated with dissection of human bodies. That still remains a unique experience as a medical student.
can you believe a human dissection hall in a guest house? this was because when we entered the college the main college building was under final phase of construction. our dissection hall was on the top floor of old three storied building actually made to be a guest house.
on one end of our beautiful campus, there were hostels, mess and the new college building, the other end about 3kms away, had staff quarters and a guest house converted in our temporary college.
since my sister neha studied MBBS in MP shah medical college jamnagar, i had some idea of the dissection hall. still, i never had seen it with my own eyes. we were taken to dissection hall on our first anatomy day. as soon as we entered the hall,I remember one of my batch mate fell down! immediately he was taken care of by our instructors. The hall was emanating a typical smell of carcasses and formalin. Some of the bodies were covered with white clothes while others were open for work. The skin had lost the natural color and looked blackish brown. The faces of the bodies looked horrible at first sight.
All human machinery was intact with help of formalin but no activity, no thoughts, no feelings. such sight naturally would trigger chain of thoughts. the first thing which came to mind was We all would be like these bodies one day… and no one was an exception. the bodies were silent but what they might have thought at the time of their death? what experience they would have undergone which we still are to face? scary? horrible? or just like deep sleep after painful bodily suffering? How they might have decided about their own body’s donation leaving all the religious beliefs like moksha, heaven, hell and especially avgat(soul not resting in peace after death) in absence of religious rituals after death? what about their near and dear ones? what would they feel if they see their loved one's half cut body in our hall?
the instructor guided our batch in the hall.the hall was damn big.we were told to keep silence. the batch was further divided in small groups of about 5-6 students. we were allotted different tables for dissection of human body.
on our table, there was a body covered with white cloth like all others. it looked something scary under the cloth. suppose if we removed the cloth and the the body waked up? an irrational thought! but i tell you , humans are basically irrational and first thought they have for any new experience is usually deep from their minds without a drop of rationale! our brain starts working after getting irrational jolts from naked mind!
after listening to to instructor one of my batch mate removed the cloth gracefully. ouch! the horrifying body was of a female about 50-60 yrs old. her eyes were closed and her face looked in deep sleep. the skin was dark because of effect of the preservatives.
the first day was just for the orientation purpose.we were to start our dissection from the parts of upper limb. we were told about our instruments to be used for dissection like scalpel, bone cutter, toothed and tissue forceps etc.
the hall was big and there were about 6-8 tables for dissection. on each table, there was a dead body. as i looked around, There was one big tank at the terrace. That was the store, i mean, store for dead bodies!with a bit of fear, i went near it just to have a look. it was partially covered. still i could peek in that scary tank. damn it! The sight was not less than any Hollywood horror film.i saw All the bodies in that store tank were immersed in the preservative chemical. Lifeless, dumped on one another like wood. Their hairs were floating in the chemical and the eyes were staring beyond life. can you imagine your own body in such situation?
We were told that all the bodies were donated. The people donated their bodies for noble cause to help medical students to study human machine and use their knowledge for humanity.
.
The workers handling the dead bodies under the guidance of the tutors and prof.s were completely indifferent for the bodies as it was their daily work. They were moving the dead bodies like any other inanimate object.
“Do you have bone set?” a dead body like looking man asked when i was just looking around. Apart from doing dissection of the human bodies we had to study the skeletal structure. For that we had to have a whole real human skeletal set. The man who asked the question was a pune in deptt of anatomy running bone business along with. “come to me after the class.I have a few sets. You can select one” his name was Josef probably.
We went for selection of the set and I chose one fine sturdy bone set for me. Since the skull had to be studied from inside also, the seller cut the skull vault for student’s benefit. It was around 1500 Rs. At that time As I remember.
Back at the dissection hall, we had dr rakesh Gandhi, dr gedia and one more lady tutor her name was probably mrs dalwadiya and she used to pronounce “budi” in place of “body” while teaching.
Dr. Gandhi was finest possible tutor. He not only had good knowledge of the subject but was also very much empathetic for the students. Dr. Gandhi was a good dissector and used to show us difficult parts.
For students from gujarati medium the questions were many. How anterior is different than ventral? Why dorsal is not posterior? Why anterior remained anterior and posterior remained posterior even after turning the body on the abdomen? How could “cephalic” be pronounced? Some teachers were pronouncing as “sefelic” while others “kephalic”! Why anatomical position for penis is erect even if it is not the usual position?
We felt the Gujarat secondary board should have taught us human body in spite of frog if they really wished to help us study medicine or biology. I felt they should have been shown at least one volume of our dissection manual by Cunningham, if not textbook of anatomy- gray.
The dissection manual had amazing pictures of human structures. We were supposed to dissect and see those structures. Our batch was to start with the dissection of human upper limb. The batch further was divided in group of 5 to 6 students. We had to perform the dissection at each session till a given point.
The feel of the dead skin was quite hard than expected. It required good amount of force to cut it open. There was no bleeding as blood was replaced with formalin, a very sticky chemical. We had to rub our hands very hard in attempt to get its smell off the hands before going for lunch or dinner.
I really still do not understand why we were not allowed to wear gloves while performing dissection. In fact, as our seniors told their experience, our professors would get angry if they saw any one using gloves in the dissection hall.
when i was in bhuj, some of my friends had a few queries.
-how can you take food immediately after a session of dissection of human body? Do not you feel ugly?
-are all the structure inside same for all the bodies?
-how human brain looks?
While others had irrational but real fears
-do you see any ghosts near your anatomy deptt?
-do the dead bodies come in your dreams to warn you?
-how can you sleep keeping human skull near your bed?
-do the professors perform any yagna or hanuman chalisa to keep ghosts away from them? In their opinion - They must be- might be doing that secretly.
Some were curious for other reasons.
-do they give you naked bodies? Even of females?
-do the girls and boys dissect such bodies in one group? Even the private parts?
-do you really discuss such parts with the girls? Do not they feel awkward?
There was one popular story connecting ragging and dissection told by my friends at bhuj-
When juniors join the college, the seniors, for ragging, would ask them to go to the dissection hall at night along with seniors. While seniors would stay outside, the junior would be forced to go inside the hall to put lollypop in mouth of each of the dead bodies. The junior, frightened but finding no other way would do the dreadful job. He would plant the lollypop one by one. After placing the last, he would try to dart out the hall but the last dead body being one of the mischievous senior, sit up and speak “oh, very nice lollypop! May I get another one??”
Back In the hall the scenes were very different. Almost all the students got comfortable with the dissection within a week or so. All the feelings attached with the dead bodies gradually perished as we got deeper in the technicalities and as it became a daily routine job. you forget what you did just 10 min back when you are hungry and when that becomes your routine. i do not remember any one from our batch not eating or vomiting after lunch.
none of our professors or tutors or even the seniors told any superstitious stories about the dissection.
since there was no distinction between girls and boys, The hall was a good place to interact with all.naturally the human bodies were given naked for dissection.but when you are burdened with so much of academic technicality, you hardly can think anything else than to complete your work on the body. it was natural to dissect and discuss all parts amongst boys and girls. thus the interaction of boys and girls was very close and so The process of “coupling” started right from the hall for many of the successful couples of our batch. For example, sameer – margee from our table.
Some of the students, especially boys, learned the job of finely dissecting the anatomical structures quite well and used it to impress the girl members of the team.We were free to go to any table to see the dissected structures.sometimes even our tutors used to ask us to go to a particular table to see a finely dissected structure there.
“Now I can show you greater and lesser sac! Come this side please!” and the girl would go to his side to all his pleasure to study the part! Not only that, she would screech “my goodness! How beautiful!” her words would attract more honey bees to his advantage from other groups also.
Some of the boys were real boys.
“Guys, what I do you know?” one of my friends said revealing his secret “I do not waste time in digging up the deep structures” he smiled and looked into our eyes as if he was to reveal ultimate knowledge on the earth. “I go to any pretty girl’s table and request her to show the deepest structure dissected. She would bend down to show it….. And what you see…! WOW!”
Curiosity, fear, doubt, hesitation, joy of doing something forbidden are some of the many strange feelings associated with dissection of human bodies. That still remains a unique experience as a medical student.
can you believe a human dissection hall in a guest house? this was because when we entered the college the main college building was under final phase of construction. our dissection hall was on the top floor of old three storied building actually made to be a guest house.
on one end of our beautiful campus, there were hostels, mess and the new college building, the other end about 3kms away, had staff quarters and a guest house converted in our temporary college.
since my sister neha studied MBBS in MP shah medical college jamnagar, i had some idea of the dissection hall. still, i never had seen it with my own eyes. we were taken to dissection hall on our first anatomy day. as soon as we entered the hall,I remember one of my batch mate fell down! immediately he was taken care of by our instructors. The hall was emanating a typical smell of carcasses and formalin. Some of the bodies were covered with white clothes while others were open for work. The skin had lost the natural color and looked blackish brown. The faces of the bodies looked horrible at first sight.
All human machinery was intact with help of formalin but no activity, no thoughts, no feelings. such sight naturally would trigger chain of thoughts. the first thing which came to mind was We all would be like these bodies one day… and no one was an exception. the bodies were silent but what they might have thought at the time of their death? what experience they would have undergone which we still are to face? scary? horrible? or just like deep sleep after painful bodily suffering? How they might have decided about their own body’s donation leaving all the religious beliefs like moksha, heaven, hell and especially avgat(soul not resting in peace after death) in absence of religious rituals after death? what about their near and dear ones? what would they feel if they see their loved one's half cut body in our hall?
the instructor guided our batch in the hall.the hall was damn big.we were told to keep silence. the batch was further divided in small groups of about 5-6 students. we were allotted different tables for dissection of human body.
on our table, there was a body covered with white cloth like all others. it looked something scary under the cloth. suppose if we removed the cloth and the the body waked up? an irrational thought! but i tell you , humans are basically irrational and first thought they have for any new experience is usually deep from their minds without a drop of rationale! our brain starts working after getting irrational jolts from naked mind!
after listening to to instructor one of my batch mate removed the cloth gracefully. ouch! the horrifying body was of a female about 50-60 yrs old. her eyes were closed and her face looked in deep sleep. the skin was dark because of effect of the preservatives.
the first day was just for the orientation purpose.we were to start our dissection from the parts of upper limb. we were told about our instruments to be used for dissection like scalpel, bone cutter, toothed and tissue forceps etc.
the hall was big and there were about 6-8 tables for dissection. on each table, there was a dead body. as i looked around, There was one big tank at the terrace. That was the store, i mean, store for dead bodies!with a bit of fear, i went near it just to have a look. it was partially covered. still i could peek in that scary tank. damn it! The sight was not less than any Hollywood horror film.i saw All the bodies in that store tank were immersed in the preservative chemical. Lifeless, dumped on one another like wood. Their hairs were floating in the chemical and the eyes were staring beyond life. can you imagine your own body in such situation?
We were told that all the bodies were donated. The people donated their bodies for noble cause to help medical students to study human machine and use their knowledge for humanity.
.
The workers handling the dead bodies under the guidance of the tutors and prof.s were completely indifferent for the bodies as it was their daily work. They were moving the dead bodies like any other inanimate object.
“Do you have bone set?” a dead body like looking man asked when i was just looking around. Apart from doing dissection of the human bodies we had to study the skeletal structure. For that we had to have a whole real human skeletal set. The man who asked the question was a pune in deptt of anatomy running bone business along with. “come to me after the class.I have a few sets. You can select one” his name was Josef probably.
We went for selection of the set and I chose one fine sturdy bone set for me. Since the skull had to be studied from inside also, the seller cut the skull vault for student’s benefit. It was around 1500 Rs. At that time As I remember.
Back at the dissection hall, we had dr rakesh Gandhi, dr gedia and one more lady tutor her name was probably mrs dalwadiya and she used to pronounce “budi” in place of “body” while teaching.
Dr. Gandhi was finest possible tutor. He not only had good knowledge of the subject but was also very much empathetic for the students. Dr. Gandhi was a good dissector and used to show us difficult parts.
For students from gujarati medium the questions were many. How anterior is different than ventral? Why dorsal is not posterior? Why anterior remained anterior and posterior remained posterior even after turning the body on the abdomen? How could “cephalic” be pronounced? Some teachers were pronouncing as “sefelic” while others “kephalic”! Why anatomical position for penis is erect even if it is not the usual position?
We felt the Gujarat secondary board should have taught us human body in spite of frog if they really wished to help us study medicine or biology. I felt they should have been shown at least one volume of our dissection manual by Cunningham, if not textbook of anatomy- gray.
The dissection manual had amazing pictures of human structures. We were supposed to dissect and see those structures. Our batch was to start with the dissection of human upper limb. The batch further was divided in group of 5 to 6 students. We had to perform the dissection at each session till a given point.
The feel of the dead skin was quite hard than expected. It required good amount of force to cut it open. There was no bleeding as blood was replaced with formalin, a very sticky chemical. We had to rub our hands very hard in attempt to get its smell off the hands before going for lunch or dinner.
I really still do not understand why we were not allowed to wear gloves while performing dissection. In fact, as our seniors told their experience, our professors would get angry if they saw any one using gloves in the dissection hall.
when i was in bhuj, some of my friends had a few queries.
-how can you take food immediately after a session of dissection of human body? Do not you feel ugly?
-are all the structure inside same for all the bodies?
-how human brain looks?
While others had irrational but real fears
-do you see any ghosts near your anatomy deptt?
-do the dead bodies come in your dreams to warn you?
-how can you sleep keeping human skull near your bed?
-do the professors perform any yagna or hanuman chalisa to keep ghosts away from them? In their opinion - They must be- might be doing that secretly.
Some were curious for other reasons.
-do they give you naked bodies? Even of females?
-do the girls and boys dissect such bodies in one group? Even the private parts?
-do you really discuss such parts with the girls? Do not they feel awkward?
There was one popular story connecting ragging and dissection told by my friends at bhuj-
When juniors join the college, the seniors, for ragging, would ask them to go to the dissection hall at night along with seniors. While seniors would stay outside, the junior would be forced to go inside the hall to put lollypop in mouth of each of the dead bodies. The junior, frightened but finding no other way would do the dreadful job. He would plant the lollypop one by one. After placing the last, he would try to dart out the hall but the last dead body being one of the mischievous senior, sit up and speak “oh, very nice lollypop! May I get another one??”
Back In the hall the scenes were very different. Almost all the students got comfortable with the dissection within a week or so. All the feelings attached with the dead bodies gradually perished as we got deeper in the technicalities and as it became a daily routine job. you forget what you did just 10 min back when you are hungry and when that becomes your routine. i do not remember any one from our batch not eating or vomiting after lunch.
none of our professors or tutors or even the seniors told any superstitious stories about the dissection.
since there was no distinction between girls and boys, The hall was a good place to interact with all.naturally the human bodies were given naked for dissection.but when you are burdened with so much of academic technicality, you hardly can think anything else than to complete your work on the body. it was natural to dissect and discuss all parts amongst boys and girls. thus the interaction of boys and girls was very close and so The process of “coupling” started right from the hall for many of the successful couples of our batch. For example, sameer – margee from our table.
Some of the students, especially boys, learned the job of finely dissecting the anatomical structures quite well and used it to impress the girl members of the team.We were free to go to any table to see the dissected structures.sometimes even our tutors used to ask us to go to a particular table to see a finely dissected structure there.
“Now I can show you greater and lesser sac! Come this side please!” and the girl would go to his side to all his pleasure to study the part! Not only that, she would screech “my goodness! How beautiful!” her words would attract more honey bees to his advantage from other groups also.
Some of the boys were real boys.
“Guys, what I do you know?” one of my friends said revealing his secret “I do not waste time in digging up the deep structures” he smiled and looked into our eyes as if he was to reveal ultimate knowledge on the earth. “I go to any pretty girl’s table and request her to show the deepest structure dissected. She would bend down to show it….. And what you see…! WOW!”
CHAPTER FIVE : BAD BOYS OF OUR HOSTEL
See? My mind is still so occupied with our experience of ragging in the college, I altogether have forgotten to write about our introductory lecture at the college. It was so un impressive, I remember that event only faintly.
The introductory lecture was arranged in our big lecture hall. All my batch mates filled the hall. I hardly knew anyone! The stage was not decorated. The chairs on the stage remained empty for some time. First person, who appeared like a pune to me, climbed the stage and to my surprise, sat gently in one of the chairs!
The dean of the college was dr gulati, a pharmacologist and a very serious looking man. He sat in the centre. He welcomed us in extra serious speech unlike any hindi film to which all of us listened very silently. Then he introduced the heads of different departments of the first MBBS. dr haridas was head of the deptt of biochemistry. Dr shrivastav head of the dept of anatomy , for whom my eyes were searching, was absent. The man that looked like pune was the head of the dept of physiology. Ouch!
All The heads delivered small speech about their subject. The heads were known as eminent personalities of their own field. However, I remember nothing from their speeches!
It was difficult for me to understand why no one spoke about the burning issue of recognition process of our college by the MCI. But because of hon. shree h.m. patel, that issue was not perceived at all.
H.M. patel was probably sick and could not welcome us in very first lecture.
Our curriculum was to start immediately. For me, it was like a sudden sprint from lazy sleep of grand vacation after 12th std. Naturally no teacher or the dean spoke about the ragging going on in our lives. Every one offered us unconditional help for “everything”. I really do not believe they were un aware of what was going on in the hostel. it was not a big issue for them and mostly was perceived as a part of the culture of the medical college!
The game was simple for all. it was nothing to be bothered about.
But the worst part of this senior junior game was yet to come on us.
One evening we were asked to go to a room in ground floor.we were not grossly tense since this was now a routine. again, it was me and tapasvi. the ragger's room was just a few steps away from our hostel room. the door opened silently. it was full of smoke, yelling about the nature of the occupants. As I and tapasvi made entry through the smoke, we saw a fair skinned man awaiting us.he looked like an ugly fox to us.he was sitting on his cot, supporting himself with both of the hands behind.his eyes were blue.he looked at us to probably decide what best could be brought out from dumbs like us.
From his appearance it was clear that he had cooked some great idea for us. There were few others also. though it was not new, but our hosts had extra grip on bullying.the welcome speech was full of some new bad words we ever had heard.
Looking down to floor, we helplessly stood in front of them trying to block our ears form their welcome words.after that we told our names on inquiry.
“ so...neh and tapasvi... do you know how to dance?” playing with smoke and cigarette, fair skinned man asked. Some one had told us, he was amongst the worst chronics of the college.
dance? i never attempted in my life ! even not at navaratri times at bhuj. while some of my friends were champions, i had a great hesitation in doing garba in public. this was one of the similarity between me and shanti, my best friend and claasmate at bhuj. both of us used to remain spectators at garba.
“NO. I never ever have danced before” i replied. tapasvi did not say anything but from his facial expressions, it was clear that he also never had danced before in his life!
“Good. Then boys! Let us teach you!” they laughed. If you remember, tapasvi was very tall RAAJPUT and I was hardly 5.5’ft. i looked at tapasvi. he seemed grossly stressed like me.
"what you fools are waiting for? hold your hands like just married couple !" the order was out. damn ! i wished i could oppose. but many a times in life, you find yourself weaker than a hero you think you are ! tapasvi took his big hand on my back and held my one hand loosely.i also put my other hand on tapasvi's back. our seniors started clapping to give us rhythm. we really danced hating each of the steps of dance. laughing and bullying was going on as a routine.
All of them really enjoyed two obedient juniors at their command. Both of us were sweating and our hearts were beating fast in attempt to sustain the humiliation and agony.soon the dance was over.
“Speak some good Gaali yaar! Don’t you speak any?” asked the fair skinned fox throwing his ciggerete on the floor. this was shocking demand for both of us. while vulgarity and bad words are part of routine boys and gentlemen, it might sound strange to many but i never speak any bad word even in company of my best friends till today. tapasvi also is like me though being true raajput !
“No I never have spoken such kind of word in my life” said i hesitantly.
“ so what are you waiting for? start speaking now!” applause and laugh from small audience. Probably they thought they were doing us a great favor by making us speak gaali - an essential tool of communication especially in college! It was kind of baptism in college life.
We were silent. searching our souls for power to resist. but miserably, both of us simply had given up.
“What do you think of your self? some kind of saints? Speak up NOW!” the group got angry.
Neither mentally nor physically it was possible for us to resist them. We felt like killing our souls. But no way….we had to speak at least a single word of their desire. That was first and last time for both of us in life.
For me,a student from small town like bhuj, this was a completely head blowing experience. How can one feel good making the fellow beings pitiable? How can one enjoy other’s helplessness and agony?
After this episode, we heard of a hero…amim kadri.. he did something that we could not !He refused to speak any gaali at any cost at the time of his ragging. he was from our senior batch…a real RANCHO!
The introductory lecture was arranged in our big lecture hall. All my batch mates filled the hall. I hardly knew anyone! The stage was not decorated. The chairs on the stage remained empty for some time. First person, who appeared like a pune to me, climbed the stage and to my surprise, sat gently in one of the chairs!
The dean of the college was dr gulati, a pharmacologist and a very serious looking man. He sat in the centre. He welcomed us in extra serious speech unlike any hindi film to which all of us listened very silently. Then he introduced the heads of different departments of the first MBBS. dr haridas was head of the deptt of biochemistry. Dr shrivastav head of the dept of anatomy , for whom my eyes were searching, was absent. The man that looked like pune was the head of the dept of physiology. Ouch!
All The heads delivered small speech about their subject. The heads were known as eminent personalities of their own field. However, I remember nothing from their speeches!
It was difficult for me to understand why no one spoke about the burning issue of recognition process of our college by the MCI. But because of hon. shree h.m. patel, that issue was not perceived at all.
H.M. patel was probably sick and could not welcome us in very first lecture.
Our curriculum was to start immediately. For me, it was like a sudden sprint from lazy sleep of grand vacation after 12th std. Naturally no teacher or the dean spoke about the ragging going on in our lives. Every one offered us unconditional help for “everything”. I really do not believe they were un aware of what was going on in the hostel. it was not a big issue for them and mostly was perceived as a part of the culture of the medical college!
The game was simple for all. it was nothing to be bothered about.
But the worst part of this senior junior game was yet to come on us.
One evening we were asked to go to a room in ground floor.we were not grossly tense since this was now a routine. again, it was me and tapasvi. the ragger's room was just a few steps away from our hostel room. the door opened silently. it was full of smoke, yelling about the nature of the occupants. As I and tapasvi made entry through the smoke, we saw a fair skinned man awaiting us.he looked like an ugly fox to us.he was sitting on his cot, supporting himself with both of the hands behind.his eyes were blue.he looked at us to probably decide what best could be brought out from dumbs like us.
From his appearance it was clear that he had cooked some great idea for us. There were few others also. though it was not new, but our hosts had extra grip on bullying.the welcome speech was full of some new bad words we ever had heard.
Looking down to floor, we helplessly stood in front of them trying to block our ears form their welcome words.after that we told our names on inquiry.
“ so...neh and tapasvi... do you know how to dance?” playing with smoke and cigarette, fair skinned man asked. Some one had told us, he was amongst the worst chronics of the college.
dance? i never attempted in my life ! even not at navaratri times at bhuj. while some of my friends were champions, i had a great hesitation in doing garba in public. this was one of the similarity between me and shanti, my best friend and claasmate at bhuj. both of us used to remain spectators at garba.
“NO. I never ever have danced before” i replied. tapasvi did not say anything but from his facial expressions, it was clear that he also never had danced before in his life!
“Good. Then boys! Let us teach you!” they laughed. If you remember, tapasvi was very tall RAAJPUT and I was hardly 5.5’ft. i looked at tapasvi. he seemed grossly stressed like me.
"what you fools are waiting for? hold your hands like just married couple !" the order was out. damn ! i wished i could oppose. but many a times in life, you find yourself weaker than a hero you think you are ! tapasvi took his big hand on my back and held my one hand loosely.i also put my other hand on tapasvi's back. our seniors started clapping to give us rhythm. we really danced hating each of the steps of dance. laughing and bullying was going on as a routine.
All of them really enjoyed two obedient juniors at their command. Both of us were sweating and our hearts were beating fast in attempt to sustain the humiliation and agony.soon the dance was over.
“Speak some good Gaali yaar! Don’t you speak any?” asked the fair skinned fox throwing his ciggerete on the floor. this was shocking demand for both of us. while vulgarity and bad words are part of routine boys and gentlemen, it might sound strange to many but i never speak any bad word even in company of my best friends till today. tapasvi also is like me though being true raajput !
“No I never have spoken such kind of word in my life” said i hesitantly.
“ so what are you waiting for? start speaking now!” applause and laugh from small audience. Probably they thought they were doing us a great favor by making us speak gaali - an essential tool of communication especially in college! It was kind of baptism in college life.
We were silent. searching our souls for power to resist. but miserably, both of us simply had given up.
“What do you think of your self? some kind of saints? Speak up NOW!” the group got angry.
Neither mentally nor physically it was possible for us to resist them. We felt like killing our souls. But no way….we had to speak at least a single word of their desire. That was first and last time for both of us in life.
For me,a student from small town like bhuj, this was a completely head blowing experience. How can one feel good making the fellow beings pitiable? How can one enjoy other’s helplessness and agony?
After this episode, we heard of a hero…amim kadri.. he did something that we could not !He refused to speak any gaali at any cost at the time of his ragging. he was from our senior batch…a real RANCHO!
CHAPTER FOUR: RAGGED?
CHAPTER FOUR : RAGGED?
It was about 8 pm when we, I tapasvi and biren, were called by some seniors for introduction . the hostel looked normal from outside. We climbed the stairs to reach the room where we were summoned. No one amongst us was in mood to say anything.when you are expecting hell to fall on you from the blue surely you would be in no mood to discuss it. We completed our robotic walk within five minutes.
The room was closed. Some one opened it as soon as we reached.as we entered, We saw a group of seniors awaiting us eagerly. Some were sitting on the cot, some were standing and some were in their chairs. The crowd was ready for the circus-us! most of the seniors looked more like us in height body and no one was scary by looks.we stopped just a few steps near the door and the door was closed with a bang.we vacantly stood in front of all the senior boys in the room.
“hello boys!” we were greeted by their leader. we hated but said ‘good evening sir’ in salvos as was taught to us the whole day. Naturally we were not offered to seat. We stood in front of the crowd with flat expression.
“ hey are you all sick? Why cant you stand straight like men?” the leader started speaking. one very interesting thing i noted was - Probably he was trying to be harsh. He was so sober it seemed to take great effort on his part to act ruthless to us. “hey you three! stand straight and listen carefully what i say." he paused a bit, looked to his friends probably for silent approval and looked to us to continue " you know boys, We are to stay in this campus for about next four years.this is a peculiar situation. if you wish to live nicely in this campus, You ought to learn to respect your seniors. Ultimately seniors will guide you for your exams and viva voce.seniors will help you out in your day to day problems also. You must behave properly to have good relations with all” we listened to him standing still. The group was awaiting some fun but the leader was concerned about giving us proper instructions. He elaborated further “ at the time of our exams, you will give us preference in the library and will vacate seats on your own. You all will use the bathrooms only after we have used. You will not make noise in hostel when we are reading. Our turn will be first in the mess. Do you understand?” he spoke last two words aloud again to look unkind to us. it was clear, either he was doing this job first time or he was forced by his group to take our introduction. However, what he said was really genuine. We nodded.
“ now tell us your names and from where you are..”
“ my name is tapasvi from ahmedabad” responded tapasvi in flat voice.
“ I am biren from gandhinagar.”
“ neh.. from bhuj”
“ speak loudly you morons! We hardly can listen.” One other boy said and the crowd shouted along. We probably expected such language for us. though it was first time in our lives we heard such low words for us, it did not feel abnormal to us. few moments passed in the clatter.
“ ok tell us your hobbies.” finally Said the leader.
We spoke one by one as all paid due attention to us.
“ I like gazals” I said on my turn.
“ oh great ! can you sing one for us?” it would have been my pleasure otherwise, but charred in the situation, I found it difficult to sing one. Still I had to attempt one. I remember singing a gazal by ibn – e- insha sung by my favorite singer gulam ali.
Ye bate juthi bate hai , ye logo ne failaee hai, tum inshaji ka naam n lo kya inshaji saudai hai!
All clapped generously as I completed. It really flattered me! It brought my tension down. I felt our fear of ragging was really unfound and they were really good boys. We took so much tension on our head for nothing!
“what is you name? neh? you sing nicely.” the leader appreciated officially.
“ oh thank you sir.” I said.
Our turn with that group was over. We were dismissed. But before we could enjoy our release, on the way back to our room we heard a voice from the darkness.
“hey you rascals!” a boy with big spects ordered us. “ come here”. Something new was awaiting. my beats increased. To my surprise, he was the same senior boy whom we met before when shanti , my best friend from my school, and his friends from kachchh mitra vartul vallabh vidya nagar came to meet me. Ironically, they requested this same mr big spects to take care of me! Now he was here to bully me!
Door of another room was opened and we were forced in slamming the door. the seniors seemed ready to take on us. they did not look artificial in handling us rudely like the first group.rather, they seemed pioneer of this activity in the campus! They were bigger in body frame and looked like demons that night.
Mr big spects appeared happy as he caught us for fun.
“you come with me idiot!” he ordered me. “while I screw this lad ,can you please take care of these two?” my friends tapasvi and biren were given to the other big boys while mr big spects took me to balcony of the hostel room. He Looked at me, as if he is looking to some waste material. Expecting again some more hurting words, I stood in front of mr big spects in the balconey. “what is your name?” he inquired loudly.
As per my 10 std mark sheet my name was nehalkumar dilipbhai Vaidya-but I never liked that big name and so I had chance to correct it in the college.
“neh” I replied promptly with my voice trembling.
“so what hell are you for here?”he leaned toward me. his eyes looked bigger and scary.
“to study medicine” my voice trembled abit more out of fear.
“ what is your father’s name?”his voice deepened like an interrogating officer. He looked bigger and demonic than he really was.
“dilip”
“what?”
“dilip” I said fearing some harsh action from him.
“hey boy don’t you have any respect for you father? Why cant you say dilipbhai?” he shouted. I had no answer. I stood like a statue. Looking at me, he walked making circle around me. “ I am so sorry our medical college admitted a fool like you. You know, you not only appear like an idiot but you also behave like one! It is our great responsibility to make you something like a medico.” A few seconds passed in silence as he tried to figure out what next should be done. Finally, he gestured me to enter the room and told his friends as I entered the room “friends we have an item here which does not have any respect for his father…!”he laughed as if he caught me red handed for some offence.
“Leave him for me” another big boy came forward. damn! he probably had better idea as to what to do with low creature like me.
“you rascal! Your parents fed you, spent a lot on you to make you a good doctor. all in vain? now come here and take this pencil” he gave me a small piece of used pencil “measure length and breadth of this room with this. If you make any mistake, I tell you , I will create a hell here for you right now ! Understand you bloody fool?” he used many more such words which are out of the dictionary.
I saw my friends doing the same kind of exercise with different measuring tools.probably that was the sole great demonic idea liked by our seniors that night to rag us. We had no power to resist. How could we? All of us did the assigned work quietly. the big boys in the room kept bullying us. We were reminded our low existence on the earth repeatedly with some special offensive words in between. Within few minutes we completed the work. We stood in a corner awaiting questions. No one asked us the measurement of the room which probably all of us did very honestly despite the tension.
“now listen you all bunch of crap! Whenever you see any of us in the campus just stand up and wish us.is that Clear?” the big boy ordered . “now get lost!”
Just listening to some low words and measuring length of a room with a small piece of pencil – is that something very bad that can happen in ragging? Obviously not. More over
nobody hurt us physically or asked to remove our clothes. But definitely it dented our self respect and that was what pained.
Such introduction became a routine for initial few days.All the new creatures like me really feared introduction or better, ragging. It was only few like jasmin and biju were frank enough to admit that. We were asked to go to groups of seniors for getting so called introduced or better,ragged .nope, no one was like rancho from 3 idiots!!. We were pitiable and feeling very low.
As I, tapasvi and biren were room mates, our turn was usually together. There was one big group of students headed by a senior boy called GD. Other was upstairs 2nd floor headed by achal and co. there were still some other smaller groups which were demanding us to their room for introduction.
So then there was turn at GD’s group. We were taken there. we already had now some idea about the introduction.
The room was full of seniors. we felt like entering a stage.Gd appeared big, authoritarian and handsome.he had square spects with plus glasses making his eyes look bigger than it were.
“so boys tell your names..” demanded GD as a routine. His next question came out without any bullying.
“what are your hobbies?”
they were more like taking real introduction and looked less like police party taking remand. they asked me to sing a gazal. i sung one which i do not remember presently.
“ so neh, what have you leant in you physics class?” that was setu, a fair boy, coming from the same street of bhuj where I lived, from same our nagar community. “you know Newtonian rules?” he further inquired.
“oh yes sir” I replied, now fully trained to use ‘sir’ for any senior.
“so go ahead and speak all of them.”
we started speaking the rules one by one wondering the purpose of the exercise.
“These are only three. Don’t you know the fourth one?” he asked. fourth? we looked at each other. there was no such thing.
“NO sir”we said ultimately.
“so your study is not complete.”
Big laugh in audience! .we were confused. We looked at each other with big question mark on the face.
Finally,Then whole group of seniors described the fourth rule in chorus to our advantage.
“is this clear?’ they said “now mug this up and answer us whenever you are asked.”
Pretty cool nitro. (If any one is interested right now in the fourth rule of Newton, kindly ask setu in personal email!!)
It was about 8 pm when we, I tapasvi and biren, were called by some seniors for introduction . the hostel looked normal from outside. We climbed the stairs to reach the room where we were summoned. No one amongst us was in mood to say anything.when you are expecting hell to fall on you from the blue surely you would be in no mood to discuss it. We completed our robotic walk within five minutes.
The room was closed. Some one opened it as soon as we reached.as we entered, We saw a group of seniors awaiting us eagerly. Some were sitting on the cot, some were standing and some were in their chairs. The crowd was ready for the circus-us! most of the seniors looked more like us in height body and no one was scary by looks.we stopped just a few steps near the door and the door was closed with a bang.we vacantly stood in front of all the senior boys in the room.
“hello boys!” we were greeted by their leader. we hated but said ‘good evening sir’ in salvos as was taught to us the whole day. Naturally we were not offered to seat. We stood in front of the crowd with flat expression.
“ hey are you all sick? Why cant you stand straight like men?” the leader started speaking. one very interesting thing i noted was - Probably he was trying to be harsh. He was so sober it seemed to take great effort on his part to act ruthless to us. “hey you three! stand straight and listen carefully what i say." he paused a bit, looked to his friends probably for silent approval and looked to us to continue " you know boys, We are to stay in this campus for about next four years.this is a peculiar situation. if you wish to live nicely in this campus, You ought to learn to respect your seniors. Ultimately seniors will guide you for your exams and viva voce.seniors will help you out in your day to day problems also. You must behave properly to have good relations with all” we listened to him standing still. The group was awaiting some fun but the leader was concerned about giving us proper instructions. He elaborated further “ at the time of our exams, you will give us preference in the library and will vacate seats on your own. You all will use the bathrooms only after we have used. You will not make noise in hostel when we are reading. Our turn will be first in the mess. Do you understand?” he spoke last two words aloud again to look unkind to us. it was clear, either he was doing this job first time or he was forced by his group to take our introduction. However, what he said was really genuine. We nodded.
“ now tell us your names and from where you are..”
“ my name is tapasvi from ahmedabad” responded tapasvi in flat voice.
“ I am biren from gandhinagar.”
“ neh.. from bhuj”
“ speak loudly you morons! We hardly can listen.” One other boy said and the crowd shouted along. We probably expected such language for us. though it was first time in our lives we heard such low words for us, it did not feel abnormal to us. few moments passed in the clatter.
“ ok tell us your hobbies.” finally Said the leader.
We spoke one by one as all paid due attention to us.
“ I like gazals” I said on my turn.
“ oh great ! can you sing one for us?” it would have been my pleasure otherwise, but charred in the situation, I found it difficult to sing one. Still I had to attempt one. I remember singing a gazal by ibn – e- insha sung by my favorite singer gulam ali.
Ye bate juthi bate hai , ye logo ne failaee hai, tum inshaji ka naam n lo kya inshaji saudai hai!
All clapped generously as I completed. It really flattered me! It brought my tension down. I felt our fear of ragging was really unfound and they were really good boys. We took so much tension on our head for nothing!
“what is you name? neh? you sing nicely.” the leader appreciated officially.
“ oh thank you sir.” I said.
Our turn with that group was over. We were dismissed. But before we could enjoy our release, on the way back to our room we heard a voice from the darkness.
“hey you rascals!” a boy with big spects ordered us. “ come here”. Something new was awaiting. my beats increased. To my surprise, he was the same senior boy whom we met before when shanti , my best friend from my school, and his friends from kachchh mitra vartul vallabh vidya nagar came to meet me. Ironically, they requested this same mr big spects to take care of me! Now he was here to bully me!
Door of another room was opened and we were forced in slamming the door. the seniors seemed ready to take on us. they did not look artificial in handling us rudely like the first group.rather, they seemed pioneer of this activity in the campus! They were bigger in body frame and looked like demons that night.
Mr big spects appeared happy as he caught us for fun.
“you come with me idiot!” he ordered me. “while I screw this lad ,can you please take care of these two?” my friends tapasvi and biren were given to the other big boys while mr big spects took me to balcony of the hostel room. He Looked at me, as if he is looking to some waste material. Expecting again some more hurting words, I stood in front of mr big spects in the balconey. “what is your name?” he inquired loudly.
As per my 10 std mark sheet my name was nehalkumar dilipbhai Vaidya-but I never liked that big name and so I had chance to correct it in the college.
“neh” I replied promptly with my voice trembling.
“so what hell are you for here?”he leaned toward me. his eyes looked bigger and scary.
“to study medicine” my voice trembled abit more out of fear.
“ what is your father’s name?”his voice deepened like an interrogating officer. He looked bigger and demonic than he really was.
“dilip”
“what?”
“dilip” I said fearing some harsh action from him.
“hey boy don’t you have any respect for you father? Why cant you say dilipbhai?” he shouted. I had no answer. I stood like a statue. Looking at me, he walked making circle around me. “ I am so sorry our medical college admitted a fool like you. You know, you not only appear like an idiot but you also behave like one! It is our great responsibility to make you something like a medico.” A few seconds passed in silence as he tried to figure out what next should be done. Finally, he gestured me to enter the room and told his friends as I entered the room “friends we have an item here which does not have any respect for his father…!”he laughed as if he caught me red handed for some offence.
“Leave him for me” another big boy came forward. damn! he probably had better idea as to what to do with low creature like me.
“you rascal! Your parents fed you, spent a lot on you to make you a good doctor. all in vain? now come here and take this pencil” he gave me a small piece of used pencil “measure length and breadth of this room with this. If you make any mistake, I tell you , I will create a hell here for you right now ! Understand you bloody fool?” he used many more such words which are out of the dictionary.
I saw my friends doing the same kind of exercise with different measuring tools.probably that was the sole great demonic idea liked by our seniors that night to rag us. We had no power to resist. How could we? All of us did the assigned work quietly. the big boys in the room kept bullying us. We were reminded our low existence on the earth repeatedly with some special offensive words in between. Within few minutes we completed the work. We stood in a corner awaiting questions. No one asked us the measurement of the room which probably all of us did very honestly despite the tension.
“now listen you all bunch of crap! Whenever you see any of us in the campus just stand up and wish us.is that Clear?” the big boy ordered . “now get lost!”
Just listening to some low words and measuring length of a room with a small piece of pencil – is that something very bad that can happen in ragging? Obviously not. More over
nobody hurt us physically or asked to remove our clothes. But definitely it dented our self respect and that was what pained.
Such introduction became a routine for initial few days.All the new creatures like me really feared introduction or better, ragging. It was only few like jasmin and biju were frank enough to admit that. We were asked to go to groups of seniors for getting so called introduced or better,ragged .nope, no one was like rancho from 3 idiots!!. We were pitiable and feeling very low.
As I, tapasvi and biren were room mates, our turn was usually together. There was one big group of students headed by a senior boy called GD. Other was upstairs 2nd floor headed by achal and co. there were still some other smaller groups which were demanding us to their room for introduction.
So then there was turn at GD’s group. We were taken there. we already had now some idea about the introduction.
The room was full of seniors. we felt like entering a stage.Gd appeared big, authoritarian and handsome.he had square spects with plus glasses making his eyes look bigger than it were.
“so boys tell your names..” demanded GD as a routine. His next question came out without any bullying.
“what are your hobbies?”
they were more like taking real introduction and looked less like police party taking remand. they asked me to sing a gazal. i sung one which i do not remember presently.
“ so neh, what have you leant in you physics class?” that was setu, a fair boy, coming from the same street of bhuj where I lived, from same our nagar community. “you know Newtonian rules?” he further inquired.
“oh yes sir” I replied, now fully trained to use ‘sir’ for any senior.
“so go ahead and speak all of them.”
we started speaking the rules one by one wondering the purpose of the exercise.
“These are only three. Don’t you know the fourth one?” he asked. fourth? we looked at each other. there was no such thing.
“NO sir”we said ultimately.
“so your study is not complete.”
Big laugh in audience! .we were confused. We looked at each other with big question mark on the face.
Finally,Then whole group of seniors described the fourth rule in chorus to our advantage.
“is this clear?’ they said “now mug this up and answer us whenever you are asked.”
Pretty cool nitro. (If any one is interested right now in the fourth rule of Newton, kindly ask setu in personal email!!)
CHAPTER THREE : THE RAGGERS
Would you like to be ragged? Or rather, let me ask more relevant question – would you like your son or daughter be ragged ? Imagine a herd of senior students ordering weirdest possible commands to a few helpless fresher. Most of us would agree against it but when given chance to rag any one, it would be hard to step back !
On very first day, I happened to meet setu just at the entrance of the boys’ hostel. He looked a nice handsome fair guy like some hero of English movie.
‘hello setu bhai..” I was behind him and my words made hin turn around.
“oh, hi ! are you nehal?” he had soft voice. “from bhuj?”
“yes..” I was happy as he recognized me. “ I like to be called neh”
“ okay neh, is everything fine?”
“ fine. Just got my room allotted.” I said
“ so?” he paused a bit “ let me tell you there will be introduction by seniors but no one would harm you. I mean, just customary…” he smiled and continued “this things are for few days. Everything will be normal there after…okay? Not to worry..” -but what abnormal will remain till then? a question just went back from my lips. I could not ask. Probably my confidence was that low or may be I feared facing truth. Setu looked at me as I nodded my head.
“ nice meeting you setubhai” I said.
“nice meeting” he said.
Just after entering college, we heard there would be some kind of introduction of all of the fresher. my talk with setu confirmed it. Might it be ragging or whatever, we had to face it. When you are not left with any choice, just enjoy the situation.
We had two boys’ hostel. I was given accommodation in the new main hostel while most of the boys of our batch were accommodated in a small hostel just near the nursing hostel. We were very few at new boys’ hostel. All the new comers were given rooms at the ground floor of the big 4 storied hostel building. All the other rooms were occupied by our seniors.
Our immediate neighbors were samir , prakash and bhargav from room no 14. just at the entrance of the hostel a room was allotted to jasmine, biju and hemant of our batch. Remaining boys were given rooms at the small hostel near the nursing hostel.
You know, Stress makes friends faster. So was with us. we were stressed with the new environment and within no time, we became good friends. There were groups amongst the students. One was group of students from north Gujarat, one from saurashtra,one was probably headed by achal and one was headed by gaurang desai or GD as all called him.
Some of the my batch mates were lucky as enrollment to a group was automatic from the place the belonged. They at least enjoyed some mental immunity for ‘introduction’. For us, tapasvi, me and biren, there was no such group.
However, there was big group of kachchhi students at vallabh vidya nagar – india’s city of colleges. But physically it was about 5 kms away. There no kachchhi students in our college.
Shanti, my best friend from bhuj, had taken admission to BVM eng. College vallabh vidya nagar. Some how, he smelled issue of ragging in our college and when i was going to mess for lunch on very first afternoon, he and some of his friends arrived on bicycle from vvn. At that tine, the college was functioning at the guest house near the quarters of the hospital staff.
“ hey nehal, hows going?” he rushed his bicycle to me and stopped scratching both of his legs on the ground.
“ oh man, you?” I exclaimed “ I never expected you at this time” he was perspiring
“ any problem?” he asked hurriedly. “ hey friends! Come here! He is my friend nehal I told you about. Tell his seniors to keep away from him.” Shanti turned to his friends and shouted. His new friends came near me. They parked the cycles.
One of my seniors that probably shanti’s friend knew, happened to pass by.
“hello there!” one boy waved hand to him. He stopped.
Shanti and his friends took me to him. He was a full sized man with very big spects add to that soda bottle thick glasses and broad plastic frame.
“ hi! How are you?” said my friend.
“ oh fine. Whats up?” he looked at all of us and probably understood why I was presented to him.
“ he is our friend nehal. he has Just entered your college. Can you please take care of him?” he gave a wry smile and looked at me as if I was a worth less worm.
“ that is ok.’ He said in dry voice. From his body language, it was clear he disliked the request. Who would like to ruin all the fun of ragging by swearing protection of an unknown worthless lad?
“its nothing like this here.” he said keeping his eye purposefully away from me. “ but ask him to wish his seniors.” – wish? What wish? What did he mean by that? “ tell him to wish good morning sir, good afternoon sir, good night sir whenever he encounters any senior.” He elaborated for my benefit and emphasized word ‘sir’.
It was okay saying good afternoon to any senior of any one-but Sir? Like Indian and Africans used to call their English bosses ? how insane? But I had no guts to argue that to my mr big spects senior. I hated but I nodded my head.
“ that is ok. How is everything?” shanti’s friend probably could see that they could not help the situation and so cut short the conversation.
“fine. Anything more from my side?” mr big spects shook hands with shanti’s friends. Perhaps shanti could also read the situation and so turned to me immediately as soon as my senior was gone.
“ hey nehal, tell me if anything goes wrong with you. I will bang these rascals.” I knew him very well. He really meant it. (even today, if something goes wrong me I know he will be there to bang the world with his own capacity!). I told him I could handle my life here and asked him to not to worry. They were in hurry and so went like a storm as they came.
As the day passed, campus was increasingly filled by words “ good evening SIR…! Good afternoon SIRRRRR…..!” etc. while some of the seniors responded with an arrogant smile but some even not felt it necessary to respond at all. for most of juniors, it was more like practical joke on them. For me it was something I disliked to do but I had my own version while sating it- I used to do namaste along with! Just to add Indian tinge to it ! I could see irritation in eyes of some Yankee seniors as I folded my hands to them.
But the real work of seniors started after the sunset.
“ some one is calling us on the first floor for intro.” One of my friends informed.
What would they do? Would just Ask our names and places we belong? ask Hobbies? It did not look that simple. Probably they would bully us as well. Or might be , they order us to do something funny. Or worst, they might command us to smoke or drink as seen in films I thought. We all probably hated the situation but when you are a fresher, you are not left with any choice but to obey orders of the seniors.
We forced ourselves to walk toward the room of the seniors.
On very first day, I happened to meet setu just at the entrance of the boys’ hostel. He looked a nice handsome fair guy like some hero of English movie.
‘hello setu bhai..” I was behind him and my words made hin turn around.
“oh, hi ! are you nehal?” he had soft voice. “from bhuj?”
“yes..” I was happy as he recognized me. “ I like to be called neh”
“ okay neh, is everything fine?”
“ fine. Just got my room allotted.” I said
“ so?” he paused a bit “ let me tell you there will be introduction by seniors but no one would harm you. I mean, just customary…” he smiled and continued “this things are for few days. Everything will be normal there after…okay? Not to worry..” -but what abnormal will remain till then? a question just went back from my lips. I could not ask. Probably my confidence was that low or may be I feared facing truth. Setu looked at me as I nodded my head.
“ nice meeting you setubhai” I said.
“nice meeting” he said.
Just after entering college, we heard there would be some kind of introduction of all of the fresher. my talk with setu confirmed it. Might it be ragging or whatever, we had to face it. When you are not left with any choice, just enjoy the situation.
We had two boys’ hostel. I was given accommodation in the new main hostel while most of the boys of our batch were accommodated in a small hostel just near the nursing hostel. We were very few at new boys’ hostel. All the new comers were given rooms at the ground floor of the big 4 storied hostel building. All the other rooms were occupied by our seniors.
Our immediate neighbors were samir , prakash and bhargav from room no 14. just at the entrance of the hostel a room was allotted to jasmine, biju and hemant of our batch. Remaining boys were given rooms at the small hostel near the nursing hostel.
You know, Stress makes friends faster. So was with us. we were stressed with the new environment and within no time, we became good friends. There were groups amongst the students. One was group of students from north Gujarat, one from saurashtra,one was probably headed by achal and one was headed by gaurang desai or GD as all called him.
Some of the my batch mates were lucky as enrollment to a group was automatic from the place the belonged. They at least enjoyed some mental immunity for ‘introduction’. For us, tapasvi, me and biren, there was no such group.
However, there was big group of kachchhi students at vallabh vidya nagar – india’s city of colleges. But physically it was about 5 kms away. There no kachchhi students in our college.
Shanti, my best friend from bhuj, had taken admission to BVM eng. College vallabh vidya nagar. Some how, he smelled issue of ragging in our college and when i was going to mess for lunch on very first afternoon, he and some of his friends arrived on bicycle from vvn. At that tine, the college was functioning at the guest house near the quarters of the hospital staff.
“ hey nehal, hows going?” he rushed his bicycle to me and stopped scratching both of his legs on the ground.
“ oh man, you?” I exclaimed “ I never expected you at this time” he was perspiring
“ any problem?” he asked hurriedly. “ hey friends! Come here! He is my friend nehal I told you about. Tell his seniors to keep away from him.” Shanti turned to his friends and shouted. His new friends came near me. They parked the cycles.
One of my seniors that probably shanti’s friend knew, happened to pass by.
“hello there!” one boy waved hand to him. He stopped.
Shanti and his friends took me to him. He was a full sized man with very big spects add to that soda bottle thick glasses and broad plastic frame.
“ hi! How are you?” said my friend.
“ oh fine. Whats up?” he looked at all of us and probably understood why I was presented to him.
“ he is our friend nehal. he has Just entered your college. Can you please take care of him?” he gave a wry smile and looked at me as if I was a worth less worm.
“ that is ok.’ He said in dry voice. From his body language, it was clear he disliked the request. Who would like to ruin all the fun of ragging by swearing protection of an unknown worthless lad?
“its nothing like this here.” he said keeping his eye purposefully away from me. “ but ask him to wish his seniors.” – wish? What wish? What did he mean by that? “ tell him to wish good morning sir, good afternoon sir, good night sir whenever he encounters any senior.” He elaborated for my benefit and emphasized word ‘sir’.
It was okay saying good afternoon to any senior of any one-but Sir? Like Indian and Africans used to call their English bosses ? how insane? But I had no guts to argue that to my mr big spects senior. I hated but I nodded my head.
“ that is ok. How is everything?” shanti’s friend probably could see that they could not help the situation and so cut short the conversation.
“fine. Anything more from my side?” mr big spects shook hands with shanti’s friends. Perhaps shanti could also read the situation and so turned to me immediately as soon as my senior was gone.
“ hey nehal, tell me if anything goes wrong with you. I will bang these rascals.” I knew him very well. He really meant it. (even today, if something goes wrong me I know he will be there to bang the world with his own capacity!). I told him I could handle my life here and asked him to not to worry. They were in hurry and so went like a storm as they came.
As the day passed, campus was increasingly filled by words “ good evening SIR…! Good afternoon SIRRRRR…..!” etc. while some of the seniors responded with an arrogant smile but some even not felt it necessary to respond at all. for most of juniors, it was more like practical joke on them. For me it was something I disliked to do but I had my own version while sating it- I used to do namaste along with! Just to add Indian tinge to it ! I could see irritation in eyes of some Yankee seniors as I folded my hands to them.
But the real work of seniors started after the sunset.
“ some one is calling us on the first floor for intro.” One of my friends informed.
What would they do? Would just Ask our names and places we belong? ask Hobbies? It did not look that simple. Probably they would bully us as well. Or might be , they order us to do something funny. Or worst, they might command us to smoke or drink as seen in films I thought. We all probably hated the situation but when you are a fresher, you are not left with any choice but to obey orders of the seniors.
We forced ourselves to walk toward the room of the seniors.
CHAPTER TWO: A GIRL AS MY ROOM MATE!
the milk city of india,birth place of amul the taste of india, anand is situated about two hours journey from ahmedabad and about 12 long hours from my home town bhuj. if somehow you missed the rail reservation, the bus route from bhuj to anand was very bad.it could break all your bones and could tear your muscles apart!on top of it,after arriving at anand you needed to catch a rikshaw or something to reach to psmc campus, gokul nagar,karamsad. still about 10 kms from anand. karamsad is famous as the birth place of iron man of india and my hero, sardar patel.
when i started from anand to karamsad in a rikshaw, i saw a big statue of sardar just at the entrance of karamsad village, touching main highway.the campus was roughly 3 kms away from karamsad so my journey continued further on the highway. on the way, first, i noticed a a typical ugly slum on my left side followed by a pond with dirty water( presently, there is sardar patel memorial at the place of the pond).
the wall of the campus started after the pond.soon apartments of the campus were visible. there were two big gates for entry. there was an official bus stop at the gate typically surrounded by tea-laaris and bhajia-wala stalls. there were few small shops on the other side of the highway selling things like paan and biscuits. when i entered the campus, wow, it was a huge one! just after the entry i could see a big four storied cement colored shree krishna hospital right in front of me. there was a small poorly maintained garden just in front of the entry of the hospital(presently, there is shree h.m. patel memorial at this garden).the hospital entry was marked by a big life size statue of lord shree krishna typically holding flute with both of his hands, touching his lips. the hospital was so named because, as someone told me, the donor wanted to keep himself anonymous.donating keeping your name anonymous is considered of highest virtue in hinduism.
by heart beats increased as my rikshaw entered the campus.since i was the only student from kachchh to get admission in psmc, all the batch mates were alien to me.even amongst the seniors, i knew only a few names. one name was setu, originally a nagar from bhuj whose parents lived in our neighborhood when i was 3-4 yr old. the other name i knew was viren, son of iconic pediatrician of kachchh, dr jagdish mehta. that was all.to put it in simple words, it was a whole new world for me. how would i get friends? how would i get adjusted to new environment? i had left a whole world of loving friends in bhuj- shanti, divyang, suresh, mitesh, nilesh to mention a few. how could i forget my first love kalpesh? i loved him so much.in fact, whatever i read in my 12 std, i did it in hope of getting a rank near him and to be with him in the college years! but that could not happen. he got admission somewhere else in some other branch. i really missed him so much.
and what about girls? can you believe this,apart from my early childhood play mates, i never had any girl friend in bhuj! i studied in boys' school throughout except up to 4th std. so practically girls in the class was something causing mixed feelings of apprehension and excitement for me.how would i talk with them? would i be able to win some good girl friends? a question that can perspire any young boy!
would we freshers be ragged? some one told me ragging was more common in medical colleges.what kind of ragging would be? a thought of it passed through my spine. was something horrible to happen with me? i hated ragging like almost all freshers. what would i do when i was all alone? was a hell waiting for me out there?
my father believed i was very fussy for food.i had strong likes and dislikes.what kind of mess would i have? i hoped at least it to be reasonably clean. i was like, if i wanted to live and to study, i had to eat whatever was available.i never was in search of heaven.
my thoughts were interrupted as the riksaw progressed in. after about half a kilometer, i could see a big building still under construction. that was supposedly the college building.the rikshaw passed by the building. the campus was green.a big play ground was seen on the way to the boys' hostel.the road was passing between the college building and the playground.there were lots of mango trees marking the periphery of the ground. the college building was very big. i was thrilled. it was my dream college! how could it be unrecognized by the MCI?
some one told me psmc had good teachers.when you are from a small town like bhuj, you automatically become a pet student of your teachers if you are a bit brighter than your counter parts! the status is suddenly lost when you enter a medical college.my situation same way, became up side down as naturally all my co students had scored more than me in 12th std and so i was second last to get admission in whole of my new class. what would happen to my academics?would it be possible for me to pass mbbs? i heard of some prof shrivastav headed the deptt of anatomy and was very strict.
my medium of teaching was to change from gujarati to english all of sudden.though that was not a concern for me as i learnt spoken English well before entering the medical college by reading news papers and listening to BBc radio when i was in 11th std.my concern was, how would i read big thick books of 1st mbbs? i hated reading.
the main donor of the college was the akshar purushottam sect of shree swaminarayan sub sect of hinduism.pramukhswani was the name of the head of the sect and so the name of the college- pramukhswami medical college. although i never was a devotte, rather a critic of some of the techings of bhagwan swaminarayan, he somehow indirectly played a vital role in my education! my school in bhuj was run by the local swaminarayan mandir(and was a boys' school only) and now this was my college erected with huge sum of donation by akshar purushottam sanstha! probably i never would have been a doctor without them! it was managed by shree charuttar arogya mandal then headed by respected shree h. m.patel. he was sardar patel's right hand at the time of partition of india and pakistan. there after, he also remained finance minister in janata govt of morarjee desai. he was known for his administrative capacity and principled politics.when he was there, i was assured, we never would need to worry for the recognition of our college by the MCI.
my rikshaw headed further and i saw a big decent building at the other end of the playground.wow!that was the ladies hostel.a few tiny dolls were seen from that far! the road further entered in tall thick jungle of eukeliptus trees. lastly, we reached the boys' hostel- amidst the tall trees,it was four storied cement colored building.it was to be my new home for next four and half years at least!
i took my luggage out and paid the rikshaw wala. as i looked around, there were few bikes parked at the entrance. must be belonging to students whose parents had a lot of money. to my surprise, the entry to the hostel had no gate that could be locked! even, i did not find any chowkidaar. as i entered inside,i saw farms on the open side of c shaped hostel building.( c was closed afterwards to make present building).
the hostel room cost some hard earned 1200 bucks per month to my middle class parents. they were happy as i got my seat on my own merit and not on donation. i also believed whatever i do i should do it on my own merit and not on donation.to this expense, add my mess bill and routine expenses including costly STD phone calls to home.that was quite an amount.
i was allotted room no 15 on the ground floor.this was very first time, i met tapasvi, one of my room partners. he was a tall guy with spects and nascent mustache then! his hairs were curly.
"hello, i am neh from bhuj" i extended my hand to him "we are to be room mates.."i added as i shake hands.
"we are to be good friends.."he welcomed me with big smile showing dimples on his cheeks.
"oh sure!" and a contract was unknowingly signed for lifetime! you never know when you get best friends in your life.believe it or not, there are hardly any reasons to be best friends. it just happens so.
the hostel room was a big one about 20x14ft. there ware three cots and three study tables put alongside the cots. we had a big balcony facing the jungle of trees.we were provided with three cupboards- one for each student. the hostel was built afresh and we were probably the first occupants of the room no 15. the cleaning was done before the allotment.
the partner i met afterwards was biren. he was from gandhinagar, capital of gujarat, near ahmedabad. he was last to get the admission to our mbbs class.
our college was truly a village medical college, far away from city. the campus was very big and green, spanning roughly 4 kilometers from one end to the other.
before telling the story further, let me ask you:can you imagine a world without mobiles? we have lived in such a world then! in fact, it was era of prime minister rajeev gandhi's dream of communication revolution just growing fruits. it was because of efforts of sam pitroda, a great gujarati technocrat, we had luxury of public telephone booths allowing us to make costly long distance calls to our homes! but the nearest such booth, believe me, when i joined the college, was about 5 kms away from the hostel in karamsad village.
how weird the world was! after reaching the booth,one needed to be a part of a long queue.it was really so!
in the evening, i called on my parents from such a booth. i also called my elder sister neha, at m. p shah medical college, jamnagar. she cared a lot for me and was worried about me as i was all alone to this alien medical college from bhuj.
" so what are names of your room mates?" she asked after some routine talk.
" biren and tapasvi." i said
"tapasveee....you mean a girl is your room mate?" she almost screamed on the phone!
" no! no!" i laughed." his name is tapasvi. it might sound like a girl's name because of 'vee' but he is a boy!"
when i started from anand to karamsad in a rikshaw, i saw a big statue of sardar just at the entrance of karamsad village, touching main highway.the campus was roughly 3 kms away from karamsad so my journey continued further on the highway. on the way, first, i noticed a a typical ugly slum on my left side followed by a pond with dirty water( presently, there is sardar patel memorial at the place of the pond).
the wall of the campus started after the pond.soon apartments of the campus were visible. there were two big gates for entry. there was an official bus stop at the gate typically surrounded by tea-laaris and bhajia-wala stalls. there were few small shops on the other side of the highway selling things like paan and biscuits. when i entered the campus, wow, it was a huge one! just after the entry i could see a big four storied cement colored shree krishna hospital right in front of me. there was a small poorly maintained garden just in front of the entry of the hospital(presently, there is shree h.m. patel memorial at this garden).the hospital entry was marked by a big life size statue of lord shree krishna typically holding flute with both of his hands, touching his lips. the hospital was so named because, as someone told me, the donor wanted to keep himself anonymous.donating keeping your name anonymous is considered of highest virtue in hinduism.
by heart beats increased as my rikshaw entered the campus.since i was the only student from kachchh to get admission in psmc, all the batch mates were alien to me.even amongst the seniors, i knew only a few names. one name was setu, originally a nagar from bhuj whose parents lived in our neighborhood when i was 3-4 yr old. the other name i knew was viren, son of iconic pediatrician of kachchh, dr jagdish mehta. that was all.to put it in simple words, it was a whole new world for me. how would i get friends? how would i get adjusted to new environment? i had left a whole world of loving friends in bhuj- shanti, divyang, suresh, mitesh, nilesh to mention a few. how could i forget my first love kalpesh? i loved him so much.in fact, whatever i read in my 12 std, i did it in hope of getting a rank near him and to be with him in the college years! but that could not happen. he got admission somewhere else in some other branch. i really missed him so much.
and what about girls? can you believe this,apart from my early childhood play mates, i never had any girl friend in bhuj! i studied in boys' school throughout except up to 4th std. so practically girls in the class was something causing mixed feelings of apprehension and excitement for me.how would i talk with them? would i be able to win some good girl friends? a question that can perspire any young boy!
would we freshers be ragged? some one told me ragging was more common in medical colleges.what kind of ragging would be? a thought of it passed through my spine. was something horrible to happen with me? i hated ragging like almost all freshers. what would i do when i was all alone? was a hell waiting for me out there?
my father believed i was very fussy for food.i had strong likes and dislikes.what kind of mess would i have? i hoped at least it to be reasonably clean. i was like, if i wanted to live and to study, i had to eat whatever was available.i never was in search of heaven.
my thoughts were interrupted as the riksaw progressed in. after about half a kilometer, i could see a big building still under construction. that was supposedly the college building.the rikshaw passed by the building. the campus was green.a big play ground was seen on the way to the boys' hostel.the road was passing between the college building and the playground.there were lots of mango trees marking the periphery of the ground. the college building was very big. i was thrilled. it was my dream college! how could it be unrecognized by the MCI?
some one told me psmc had good teachers.when you are from a small town like bhuj, you automatically become a pet student of your teachers if you are a bit brighter than your counter parts! the status is suddenly lost when you enter a medical college.my situation same way, became up side down as naturally all my co students had scored more than me in 12th std and so i was second last to get admission in whole of my new class. what would happen to my academics?would it be possible for me to pass mbbs? i heard of some prof shrivastav headed the deptt of anatomy and was very strict.
my medium of teaching was to change from gujarati to english all of sudden.though that was not a concern for me as i learnt spoken English well before entering the medical college by reading news papers and listening to BBc radio when i was in 11th std.my concern was, how would i read big thick books of 1st mbbs? i hated reading.
the main donor of the college was the akshar purushottam sect of shree swaminarayan sub sect of hinduism.pramukhswani was the name of the head of the sect and so the name of the college- pramukhswami medical college. although i never was a devotte, rather a critic of some of the techings of bhagwan swaminarayan, he somehow indirectly played a vital role in my education! my school in bhuj was run by the local swaminarayan mandir(and was a boys' school only) and now this was my college erected with huge sum of donation by akshar purushottam sanstha! probably i never would have been a doctor without them! it was managed by shree charuttar arogya mandal then headed by respected shree h. m.patel. he was sardar patel's right hand at the time of partition of india and pakistan. there after, he also remained finance minister in janata govt of morarjee desai. he was known for his administrative capacity and principled politics.when he was there, i was assured, we never would need to worry for the recognition of our college by the MCI.
my rikshaw headed further and i saw a big decent building at the other end of the playground.wow!that was the ladies hostel.a few tiny dolls were seen from that far! the road further entered in tall thick jungle of eukeliptus trees. lastly, we reached the boys' hostel- amidst the tall trees,it was four storied cement colored building.it was to be my new home for next four and half years at least!
i took my luggage out and paid the rikshaw wala. as i looked around, there were few bikes parked at the entrance. must be belonging to students whose parents had a lot of money. to my surprise, the entry to the hostel had no gate that could be locked! even, i did not find any chowkidaar. as i entered inside,i saw farms on the open side of c shaped hostel building.( c was closed afterwards to make present building).
the hostel room cost some hard earned 1200 bucks per month to my middle class parents. they were happy as i got my seat on my own merit and not on donation. i also believed whatever i do i should do it on my own merit and not on donation.to this expense, add my mess bill and routine expenses including costly STD phone calls to home.that was quite an amount.
i was allotted room no 15 on the ground floor.this was very first time, i met tapasvi, one of my room partners. he was a tall guy with spects and nascent mustache then! his hairs were curly.
"hello, i am neh from bhuj" i extended my hand to him "we are to be room mates.."i added as i shake hands.
"we are to be good friends.."he welcomed me with big smile showing dimples on his cheeks.
"oh sure!" and a contract was unknowingly signed for lifetime! you never know when you get best friends in your life.believe it or not, there are hardly any reasons to be best friends. it just happens so.
the hostel room was a big one about 20x14ft. there ware three cots and three study tables put alongside the cots. we had a big balcony facing the jungle of trees.we were provided with three cupboards- one for each student. the hostel was built afresh and we were probably the first occupants of the room no 15. the cleaning was done before the allotment.
the partner i met afterwards was biren. he was from gandhinagar, capital of gujarat, near ahmedabad. he was last to get the admission to our mbbs class.
our college was truly a village medical college, far away from city. the campus was very big and green, spanning roughly 4 kilometers from one end to the other.
before telling the story further, let me ask you:can you imagine a world without mobiles? we have lived in such a world then! in fact, it was era of prime minister rajeev gandhi's dream of communication revolution just growing fruits. it was because of efforts of sam pitroda, a great gujarati technocrat, we had luxury of public telephone booths allowing us to make costly long distance calls to our homes! but the nearest such booth, believe me, when i joined the college, was about 5 kms away from the hostel in karamsad village.
how weird the world was! after reaching the booth,one needed to be a part of a long queue.it was really so!
in the evening, i called on my parents from such a booth. i also called my elder sister neha, at m. p shah medical college, jamnagar. she cared a lot for me and was worried about me as i was all alone to this alien medical college from bhuj.
" so what are names of your room mates?" she asked after some routine talk.
" biren and tapasvi." i said
"tapasveee....you mean a girl is your room mate?" she almost screamed on the phone!
" no! no!" i laughed." his name is tapasvi. it might sound like a girl's name because of 'vee' but he is a boy!"
CHAPTER ONE: TRAIN TO PSMC
For me, it was very first chance to do everything all alone. i mean, i never had gone any where alone till that day. The challenge was not only to go but rather to stay and study MBBS at shree pramukhswami medical college for five long years ! the college was said to be a rural medical college, still to get recognized by the medical council of india. today, when i look back, it looks like a dream for me. how did i get in the MBBS?
though firstly,I never wanted to be a doctor because i hated mugging up biology as a subject. secondly, Physics always fascinated me. it was my first love.my childhood memories are full of play with magnets, lenses and paper airplanes. my dream was to be a physicist or an aeronautical engineer.can you really believe? i wanted to be part of indian space research program! but after my result of 12th std,things turned such way, i got an option of becoming a doctor. tinted with feelings of patriotism, i and my best friend shanti often had hot discussions as to what to choose and why.i remember standing on the road to our tuition class early morning spending hours in such discussions! believe it or not, my parents never even suggested as to what should i become in life.. they wanted me to choose a career whatever i liked.
from the discussions, i felt, deeper down in me, there was an urge to work directly with the people,to help them in their daily lives. i was always moved and fascinated with teachings and life of mahatma gandhi. mahatma was an unbeatable hero for me.(and he is even today). surely, he played his part to make me a doctor!
an engineer can work wonders for the people but could he ever have chance to touch the hearts of people directly? i guessed, it was only a doctor that could do so. i knew, a physicist could save and enrich lives of thousands by designing remote sensing satellite. but he would remain in office for most of the time away from the masses. so if i really wished to be helpful to the masses directly and to touch their hearts i ought to be a doctor. to be a doctor to save life was like becoming an angel.
i also remember some emotional, lonely and tearful moments thinking about people in need of medical help.there are only a few times in whole of your life when you are left alone with yourself.people say whenever you want to make any big decision of your life, follow your heart more than your brain. boys usually do not cry but imagination of people dying without medical help made me forget my gender during those moments.
thus, gradually my heart changed my mind in favor of becoming a doctor.of course, to get in the medical college was not sure for me! despite all my emotions, there was a trap. that was because, my merit number in merit list of gujarat state was near about 1000. there was no any pre medical test at that time. students, based on their merit of 12th std were given choice to choose either medical or engineering.My rank was a tricky one because total medical seats in the state were around 1000 at that time. so, it was not sure whether would i get admission in a medical college.
for admission process to be transparent,there was central admission committees- one for medical, other for engineering. students were asked to come of counseling on different dates according to their rank. after 12th std, when you know you were to get a good branch, definitely, you would feel something special.
when we reached the L D engg. college ahmedabad for counseling, there was huge crowd of parents and students. fate of all of us was to be decided that morning. we were taken to a big class room and were made to sit in front of a big black board showing details of seats already filled up and remaining in different medical and engg colleges of the state.the data was updated after each counseling.this was very helpful for all the parents and the students.
for me, as my elder sister neha studied mbbs at m p shah medical college jamnagar, it was my first choice. but damn! the college was full far before my turn! there was only one college that showed vacancy when i studied the black board - the pramukh swami medical college karamsad- a new medical college still to be recognized by medical council of india. technically, it meant, if you do mbbs from that college, you were just a medical graduate and would not be allowed to practice as a doctor out side gujarat. but who wanted to go out side gujarat? me? never. also, there was no facility of doing post graduation there. so what great difference would it make? i would remain an mbbs doctor only. fine. still, i would be a doctor at least!
my tension and heart beat increased as i saw last 2 mbbs seats remaining at psmc and some 50 odd students to go before my counseling! beat it, my dream seemed shattered! my next choice was mechanical engineering at shree birla vishvakarma maha vidyalay vallabh vidya nagar. i would at least be an enggg.i thought. there was tension.each passing minute appeared an hour to me! any of two students would choose to be doctor and the game would be over. but as the counseling progressed, those 2 magical seats remained untouched.probably no one from those 50 odd students wanted to take risk of joining a medical college that still was to be recognized by the medical council of india. if i wanted to be a doctor that was the only choice left for me.
lastly, my merit number was announced. 2 seats in psmc remained as it were before! my dream finally was to become a reality. i stood up.i was in zabba and pajamas. i was taken where the committees were sitting.I was warmly welcomed by the admission process team. the head of the committeemen was dr mankad, as some one told me. he had big spects and was looking at the list when i entered. i had not seen him before, but i could make him out because he was sitting at the centre.
"Yess young man!" he looked at me from his spects and gave me a huge smile." you are getting a medical sear at karamsad and a mech engg. seat at BVM vallabh vidya nagar. what is your choice?"
i really was so happy.without thinking for a second, i replied " medical sir!"
‘A doctor will never wear zabba pajamas..!”dr mankad smiled again.“you are getting seat at psmc karamsad is that ok?” i nodded yes. i never would forget dr mankad. any one could see love for students in his eyes.he was so caring even in that meeting of a few minutes.
soon the paper work was over and confirmation letter was given to me. bingo!i rushed outside to show it to my parents.
as I said, I was the second to board the train to medical, last was biren Gandhi…later on to be biru dada..! However I did not know, a whole batch, so called engg. Batch was to board the train after re shuffle.
So, there came the rainy day and I was stubborn enough to stop my parents to come with me to psmc as I wanted to face it all alone...
My train from bhuj to anand stuck up somewhere near nadiyad because of heavy rain. After a few hrs of disturbed journey I ultimately reached anand and karamsad.
After some clerical work, I went to doctors’ qtrs. Dr . nishith was the rector..a tall hansome military figure! He told that I had been given room in the big hostel[other than nursing] and names of my room mates were
Biren Gandhi
Tapasvi puwar..
though firstly,I never wanted to be a doctor because i hated mugging up biology as a subject. secondly, Physics always fascinated me. it was my first love.my childhood memories are full of play with magnets, lenses and paper airplanes. my dream was to be a physicist or an aeronautical engineer.can you really believe? i wanted to be part of indian space research program! but after my result of 12th std,things turned such way, i got an option of becoming a doctor. tinted with feelings of patriotism, i and my best friend shanti often had hot discussions as to what to choose and why.i remember standing on the road to our tuition class early morning spending hours in such discussions! believe it or not, my parents never even suggested as to what should i become in life.. they wanted me to choose a career whatever i liked.
from the discussions, i felt, deeper down in me, there was an urge to work directly with the people,to help them in their daily lives. i was always moved and fascinated with teachings and life of mahatma gandhi. mahatma was an unbeatable hero for me.(and he is even today). surely, he played his part to make me a doctor!
an engineer can work wonders for the people but could he ever have chance to touch the hearts of people directly? i guessed, it was only a doctor that could do so. i knew, a physicist could save and enrich lives of thousands by designing remote sensing satellite. but he would remain in office for most of the time away from the masses. so if i really wished to be helpful to the masses directly and to touch their hearts i ought to be a doctor. to be a doctor to save life was like becoming an angel.
i also remember some emotional, lonely and tearful moments thinking about people in need of medical help.there are only a few times in whole of your life when you are left alone with yourself.people say whenever you want to make any big decision of your life, follow your heart more than your brain. boys usually do not cry but imagination of people dying without medical help made me forget my gender during those moments.
thus, gradually my heart changed my mind in favor of becoming a doctor.of course, to get in the medical college was not sure for me! despite all my emotions, there was a trap. that was because, my merit number in merit list of gujarat state was near about 1000. there was no any pre medical test at that time. students, based on their merit of 12th std were given choice to choose either medical or engineering.My rank was a tricky one because total medical seats in the state were around 1000 at that time. so, it was not sure whether would i get admission in a medical college.
for admission process to be transparent,there was central admission committees- one for medical, other for engineering. students were asked to come of counseling on different dates according to their rank. after 12th std, when you know you were to get a good branch, definitely, you would feel something special.
when we reached the L D engg. college ahmedabad for counseling, there was huge crowd of parents and students. fate of all of us was to be decided that morning. we were taken to a big class room and were made to sit in front of a big black board showing details of seats already filled up and remaining in different medical and engg colleges of the state.the data was updated after each counseling.this was very helpful for all the parents and the students.
for me, as my elder sister neha studied mbbs at m p shah medical college jamnagar, it was my first choice. but damn! the college was full far before my turn! there was only one college that showed vacancy when i studied the black board - the pramukh swami medical college karamsad- a new medical college still to be recognized by medical council of india. technically, it meant, if you do mbbs from that college, you were just a medical graduate and would not be allowed to practice as a doctor out side gujarat. but who wanted to go out side gujarat? me? never. also, there was no facility of doing post graduation there. so what great difference would it make? i would remain an mbbs doctor only. fine. still, i would be a doctor at least!
my tension and heart beat increased as i saw last 2 mbbs seats remaining at psmc and some 50 odd students to go before my counseling! beat it, my dream seemed shattered! my next choice was mechanical engineering at shree birla vishvakarma maha vidyalay vallabh vidya nagar. i would at least be an enggg.i thought. there was tension.each passing minute appeared an hour to me! any of two students would choose to be doctor and the game would be over. but as the counseling progressed, those 2 magical seats remained untouched.probably no one from those 50 odd students wanted to take risk of joining a medical college that still was to be recognized by the medical council of india. if i wanted to be a doctor that was the only choice left for me.
lastly, my merit number was announced. 2 seats in psmc remained as it were before! my dream finally was to become a reality. i stood up.i was in zabba and pajamas. i was taken where the committees were sitting.I was warmly welcomed by the admission process team. the head of the committeemen was dr mankad, as some one told me. he had big spects and was looking at the list when i entered. i had not seen him before, but i could make him out because he was sitting at the centre.
"Yess young man!" he looked at me from his spects and gave me a huge smile." you are getting a medical sear at karamsad and a mech engg. seat at BVM vallabh vidya nagar. what is your choice?"
i really was so happy.without thinking for a second, i replied " medical sir!"
‘A doctor will never wear zabba pajamas..!”dr mankad smiled again.“you are getting seat at psmc karamsad is that ok?” i nodded yes. i never would forget dr mankad. any one could see love for students in his eyes.he was so caring even in that meeting of a few minutes.
soon the paper work was over and confirmation letter was given to me. bingo!i rushed outside to show it to my parents.
as I said, I was the second to board the train to medical, last was biren Gandhi…later on to be biru dada..! However I did not know, a whole batch, so called engg. Batch was to board the train after re shuffle.
So, there came the rainy day and I was stubborn enough to stop my parents to come with me to psmc as I wanted to face it all alone...
My train from bhuj to anand stuck up somewhere near nadiyad because of heavy rain. After a few hrs of disturbed journey I ultimately reached anand and karamsad.
After some clerical work, I went to doctors’ qtrs. Dr . nishith was the rector..a tall hansome military figure! He told that I had been given room in the big hostel[other than nursing] and names of my room mates were
Biren Gandhi
Tapasvi puwar..
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)