CH : 39 ANATOMY OF ANATOMY

human machine is far more than perfect. any student can realize this fact by studying human anatomy.  As a student in my childhood, i was always curious about the structures inside us. Now here, At psmc, i was given a chance to see the human body completely from outside to inside. the subject of anatomy was perceived as one of the most difficult one in the entire medical curriculum. however, to make it easy,our deptt of anatomy was having a rainbow of the staff. i mean, it had one of the most renowned anatomist dr shrivastav as the head, [whom i feared the most], associates like dr mehra , dr dangarwala and dr raibarkar, and able tutor dr rakesh gandhi. also, we had others like dr gediya and madam dalwadiya to complete the list.

we had rotation in a week. three days for anatomy and three days for physiology and biochemistry.the anatomy days were a bit unpleasant for me. what would you do with the subject that had nothing but vast information and fine details about human structure? No reasoning - just mugging...!

we had to learn the gross anatomy, surface anatomy, bone anatomy that is osteology, cellular anatomy known as histology apart from systemic and special organ anatomy. add to this embryology and neuro anatomy..!

my relation with anatomy had a bitter beginning. the incident took place when we all were called for a practical. i do not remember what mistake i did but it prompted my professor to speak harsh and hurting words for me in front of all my classmates.i exactly remember his remark till today. he said " pata nahi kaha se aa jate hai aese log medical me!" - [ i do not know how such people - read me!- get admission to a medical college] it really did hurt a lot at that time. sir might have had remarked very casually but a sensitive teen like me could not handle it. what was wrong with me?  wasn't i an honest middle class student? i got my medical seat on merit and not by donation. what big mistake a student like me could commit that amounted such a remark? i felt like standing up and saying " sir my merit has sent me here and not you at all." but that could happen in a dream only.in fact, my self esteem was fragile and so i was hurt badly.

 that evening i could not speak to any one but tapasvi. i told him how i was treated by that old wolf. he listened calmly and said." come on neh! he is a weird man.. how can he know who you are? and how can even you expect from him? come on ..forget it.."

" but he said in front of all"

" so what.. every one knows you in our class..and same way we know him also. just forget." he was able to convince me. sometimes it is vital to forget than to remember. i learnt that.

the other teachers, i mean , most of them, were empathetic and after some time i was perceived as one of the sincere student.our batch was allotted a female body and we started with female lower abdomen. for us, the terms were very new. dr dangar wala was our lady professor and was very good at explaining latin terms.once i remember to have asked her about something from female genitals that no boy probably ever would  have asked.

while reading cunningham, our official book on the dissection of the human body,  i could not understand a few terms. madam was just outside the dissection hall. i thought i should ask her.
"madam , .."
'yes please..?'
" madam could you explain to me what is the meaning of labia minora and labia majora?"madam smiled..probably to my innocence. no other boy would have asked this.
" ok ..let me show you" she said and came to the cadaver we were dissecting. she took a forceps and reached to the female genitals of the cadaver
."you see.." she pinched a part of genital " this is minor lip of the genitals known as labia minora and ..." she pinched another part " this is the major lip that is... labia majora.. is this clear?"
" oh yes madam" i said perspiring at my blunder! my friends laughed at my knowledge.

i still had not seen the professor i feared the most... dr shivastava.. the head known for his deep knowledge of the subject and strict conduct. our seniors said dr shrivastav used to get furious even for a minor mistake. that was enough to create fear in me.but such incident never happened.

  first time i saw him when he came to take our class on human embryology. he used to teach with passion. on that day he taught us formation of digestive system. he explained all the developmental movements with a model.
dr shrivastav, in fact, loved students. but some part of his love was expressed by his anger towards laziness or misconduct of a student. he always applauded good students. tapasvi was one of his favorite.he was very much pleased by my friend jasmine. over the period, jasmine established her as the best student of our batch.she was the same girl which cried in exam hall and sat back only after great persuasion by dr rakesh gandhi- our jr lecturer. soon after, jasmine started scoring in all the exams. and so she became one of the most admired student by dr shrivastav.

for some unknown reason, some people enjoy speaking so called sexy in class. one of our tutor was fond of speaking words with double meaning especially in front of the girls. girls hated his class while some boys enjoyed. one of our professor was also like that. he was none other than the one who remarked on me that day. one day he was taking our class. he was teaching about layers on lungs." you know.." he said " the lungs have two covering layers .. the outer layer is attached with the inside of the chest wall while the inner layer is stuck with the lungs.." he glanced at the class and paused  " let me explain this.." he smiled as if a teen boy looking at a girl." if we assume the breast as the lungs ... the outer layer is the petticoat... and the inner is.....the  bra! "

CH 38 : A STRANGE ANATOMIST

[ NOTE : the professor i am to talk about was a very honest, dedicated to students and a scholar of the subject. but he had atypical behavior. some times far from normal. that had weaved many stories around his personality. i also was one of a curious student about his life.most of the events i have witnessed while some i have heard from others. i have attempted to write something meaningful about this weird man,  naturally changing the real name, mixing and making the story.presently there is no information about where he is. i wish him all the best!]

when you are in 1st mbbs, you like to wish your new professors whenever you see them. it was a gesture of respect and love and a try to nurture the new relationship. boys and girls liked to say 'good morning sir' whenever they encountered any teacher anywhere. to hear such a wish was just like hearing chirping of birds [more so when girls sung it in salvos!].

most of the teachers had their own response. someone would say ' morning-morning' with eyes flashing. others would reply in a rather flat manner. but most of the teachers liked our gesture.
" good morning sir!" i said with all my enthusiasm to a fair handsome professor who was passing by me near the college. it was a cool morning and i expected a warm smile back. but that strange professor just passed by me as if nothing had happened! i was a bit taken aback. why? wasn't i loud enough to reach his ears? he did not care even to glance at me. was he in some hurry? might be. I felt neglected but that was okay. someone may not hear you when he or she is in hurry or lost in own thoughts.

 some one told me he was professor in anatomy.

In the boys hostel, when i met my seniors and lobby partners that day, i told them the incident.

" why a good professor should not respond to a wish by a novice student like me? is he a proud man or was he in that hurry?" i asked
" can you describe him?" one of my seniors asked
i tried to remember how he looked.
"oh yes.. he was a fair, handsome, nicely built man with a thick mustache and wavy hairs. he  was around 40yrs. probably he was in dark blue t shirt. he was walking fast as if he would miss  a train otherwise.. and he had a brief case in his hand.."
" there you are! it is none of your fault neh! you know, we have only one such man in the campus who would not respond to our wish at all! not even to the girls! he just would keep walking and would not look to the student even if wished aloud blowing his head off! "
 "yes exactly that s what happened today. he appeared odd man to me." i exclaimed
" oh really? he might appear as such but i tell you he is not like any ordinary professor." my senior said
" he is a scholar in his subject. he has done his pg from all India institute of medical sciences..."
"wow.." AIIMS was like medical angel's abode to a student like me.
" have you ever seen him anytime talking with any one in the campus? he keeps away from everyone..." told my senior
" from where is he?"
" probably from somewhere around delhi.."

soon there after, i encountered him in the class on our routine anatomy day.

 in the class, he would come with a stick in his hand as a pointer and start his lecture without any other talk. he never asked questions to us. though addicted to ask questions in the class, i do not remember asking a single question to him. his voice was deep and was mixed with hissing sound from the vocal cord. his speech was pressured.


 he used to teach a lot, bombarding the information to our little ill capacitated brains. he used to write furiously on the black board and erase it with double the intensity making noisy sound of the duster[ours was the time when there were no dust less white boards]. he loved to use colored chalks to show us details of the anatomy.he always tried to tell us the important points in his lectures. he would repeat and re repeat same lines when he thought necessary. in between , he would look at our vacant faces and again re teach the line till his fullest ability. he never scolded any one. but sometimes he used to make gestures of frustration. i mean, in between the lecture, he would raise his hands to his head would forcibly close both the eyes grasp his head and murmur something like 'no no' to self. and soon, again he would regain himself and try to make the point clear  to us.

like many of the professors he also had a peculiar tag line- at any important sentence he would pause a bit, point his pointer, move it around the sentence on the black board and would speak "underline thousand times.."

something more about him. he used to stay alone in a room provided by the management. we never  ever saw him talking with anyone like my senior said. and to add to the mystery, some one told he was un married.

think about this.. a scholar from aiims, coming alone all the way from a city like delhi to a rural place like karamsad, handsome fair earning good salary and still living alone at this age. very odd.. no?
His background and behavior probably attracted me towards him. i used to wish him every time i saw him. though my efforts were futile. i never  got a smile back at that time.despite all that,  some how i hoped to talk with him sometime. i noticed many a times he used to change his way when he saw me coming to his way. that was very weird. it triggered more of sense of mystery about him in my mind.

was he alone in his family? or was he left alone? was he having a very painful past to hide? why he was not married? might be, he was a badly heart broken man. sometimes i even wondered if at all it would be possible for me to talk with him ever. but why.. why at all should i force some one to talk with me who never wished to talk with any one? probably there was sense of doing something good for that odd acting professor. i thought if he started talking with a student like me, he might re think about his lonesome life and some miracle might happen that might bring him back to normalcy from his weird nest.

Over the period, i learnt it was not only me who was curious about this mysterious gentle professor. there were many others which tried to break the ice. there were some senior boys and even girls who thought probably the same way which i did.

there was a tall girl in our senior batch. she was one of our category. initially she started wishing the prof despite no reply. then she observed sir changing his way whenever he saw her. so she changed her strategy. she started following him! she would not leave him till confrontation!

one day, as i heard , she started following sir. he walked fast, she walked fast. he changed the way, she changed the way. he tried a lot but she persisted. As a last resort, sir started climbing the stairs. she also went following him. sir literally ran to our college terrace. but she was a fanatic. there was some spirit in her head. she ultimately cornered him on an edge of the college terrace.

" good afternoon sir" she said
"ok ok good afternoon ...you go now" said sir annoyingly.

this was not over. he had to face one more fanatic girl from our junior batch.
" i took it as a challenge. i felt i must get this prof talking with me.." this was how she put cause of her actions in words. " i kept following sir for many days. some times even used to search and find them for the reason. on each encounter, though i wished with all the warmth, he did not speak any thing. i felt, some how, he will give in. and one day, believe me, he came probably searching me and said 'how are you?'.." she recalled with trembling voice " now it was my turn to behave strangely... this was because suddenly i realized i was a girl and i feared if i created a soft corner in his heart.. this could be a big mistake!.. i stepped back and literally ran away from the scene. just before a few minutes when he spoke to me i felt i won the game but soon, it struck to my mind i unknowingly probably was playing with feelings of a gentleman...." she admitted " no one should play with feelings of any one like this... and leave feelings, just think of a girl following you apparently with no reason. how bad he might have felt while encountering me like that daily. no one should behave the way i did, i only wish him to pardon me.

this was not the case with me. i used to just wish him whenever i met him. this was just like with any other teacher. for me, like i said, initially there was no response from sir. then he started nodding head in response.

again, some one told me a new story about this man. i still do not know how far this is correct but it sounded believable to me.

when sir was young, at delhi or somewhere, he fell in love with some one. they said it was a perfect pair. she left sir only because sir had asthma. and that, i guessed, broke this gentleman. so he left delhi and joined this remote medical college.

life takes sudden turns. that happened with my professor. one day, he developed severe breathlessness. it was an acute attack of bronchial asthma. sir was so breathless he was unable to even speak. some doctors residing around him immediately took him to the emergency department of our hospital. he was admitted. started with the oxygen and the drugs. though, he never mixed well with any one around him, at the time of need all the doctors residing around him and the students came to see him and to help him.

he recovered gradually. but during his stay in the hospital, he probably realized how students loved him and cared for him. he really was thankful to all. unfortunately the incident took place when i was not in the campus. the episode definitely helped to break some ice.

sir started answering the wishes! and what about me? i was happy as sir would stop sometime on the way and would ask with big smile 'hey neh, howz going?" . his few words felt like gold medals to me! i salute this unique man and wish him all the best wherever he is presently....!

CH 37 : MY FIRST HOTEL VISIT

as i learnt afterwards, it was beji's idea to form a group with us. as a group, we used to sit and used to talk a lot apart from academic activities like reading book of applied anatomy.one fine day, jasmine and beji came.

" hey neh, how about dining outside this sunday together?" proposed beji. to say no to any one is one of the difficult task of my life.secondly, when something is proposed by one of your first girlfriend how can you say no? more over,the student mess remained closed on sunday evenings and we were forced to manage sunday evening's food outside somewhere.. two decades back, options were limited.there was no any restaurant in the campus. nearby karamsad had a few laari walas to rescue us. there were some fine hotels at vallabh vidya nagar, but that were too fancy and probably costly for a middle class student like me. still, you forget your class when invitation is from some one special.

" okay" i thought for a while " but where should we go?" i hoped she would say to some udipi like place.
"avre" said jasmine enthusiastically. oh! i saw that hotel on the way from anand to karamsad. it appeared one of the costliest hotel i never wished to go in. but i always wondered what type of food they served.

in fact, though as a city, bhuj was not a very small town and also it was not that as a family we never dined outside home, i was exposed to only a few kinds of outside food- gujarati and madrasi. since my mother was a working woman, my father many a times allowed luxury of dining out. mostly we would stop at darbargadh, a place near palace and tower of bhuj where all sorts of outside food was available- dabeli, bhel, ragda petis, bhajia etc. that food was far more tastier to my test buds than what we were preparing at home. or, we would go to bus station where masaladhosa was available on a laari called nityanand. But the greatest luxury for me and my only sister neha was to go to anando, a south indian specialist restaurant near our hamirsar lake. it served best quality of all kinds of dhosas, uttapas and vada idli. i remember as a small kid to have read the prize of dhosa rs 5 only! and as i grew up, anando remained my favourite place to eat. i had voracious appetite then- i could finish three big plates of dhosa, uttapa and bhel! all costing around from rs 10 to 15!

there were some other costlier places also like hotel prince but we never went there. as i grew up, i realized that outside food was very much harmful to our health. our family's outside eating was far more than any other family around us. teenage somehow brings idealism to all of us. i felt we should not eat outside and gradually became staunch fighter that would prefer even khichdi alone over outside food- be it my favorite masala dhosa! i became a staunch proponent of home food.

and here, the girl power -designed to melt almost the convictions you have in life- dragged me! so despite all my beliefs and arguments against outside food. i happily said 

" thik hai...jayenge.."

jasmine looked happier. she had that innocence to not to hide whatever happening in her heart. while beji was on the other pole- she was able to hide or mimic anything. it was not possible to read her.

on the sunday evening, i and tapasvi went to avre. tapasvi had cancelled his routine weekly home visit to be able to join us.

jasmine, beji and anu were waiting there for us. they all were dressed nicely and looked pretty (if not heroines!). to dine with pretty girls is a kind of kick for any teen boy-who would disagree? ( probably my dear friend hemant would!)

the hotel was just on the road. it had a big glass entrance. as we reached the door, the guard sitting at the door stood up and opened the door. he lowered his head and said "welcome..sir.." that was the first ever salute in my life i received for spending money!

as we entered, there was one other guy who guided us to the table.i felt, he was a real useful man since he safely took us to a table situated in one of the side rooms of the main dining hall in horribly dim light.  some instrumental was played from hidden speakers. almost all the tables were full. we appeared lucky enough to get the table. the sound of plates and spoons were adding background music to murmuring voices of the customers. there was strong spicy smell in the atmosphere.

the place appeared far different than our 'desi' anando at bhuj which i thought as a big hotel till now. there were no door keepers who would welcome and salute you. it was properly lit and you easily could see the empty tables to choose from.

we sat down and arranger ourselves on the table. i and tapasvi were on one side while three dolls -beji, jasmine and anu sat in front of us. the dim light was adding beauty to their faces. that must be the reason to keep such lighting sparked in my mind. the hotel was decorated luxuriously. wall paintings, show pieces looked gorgeous.there were no fans. it was centrally air conditioned. i never had dined in such a big decorated ac hotel.

soon, one waiter came and served water (those were not the days when mineral water was offered as a choice to the customers).He also put menu cards. i was curious to know the type of food they served. i picked up one.

the card was full of items i never heard of! there were soups, subjees different kinds of pulaos and rotis. but the most shocking part for me was the cost. each of the dish was about or more than three times the cost of my favorite masala dhosa! though we were to divide the expenses, the rates made me perspire!

jasmine, tapasvi, beji all looked very comfortable. probably for them, this was nothing new. a suited booted polished man appeared from the dark to take the order.my friends ordered many things enthusiastically. jasmine looked expert among all.

it took quite a long to deliver the order. but naturally, we enjoyed talking and sharing with each other during that time. the food was served. each item was new for me. it was first time i saw what they called roti and how a naan looked. i realized all the food was immersed in butter and oil. and it was called punjabi food. was that the daily food the punjabis eat? i think no one would dare to think that question after seeing any tall and healthy sardar!

i do not remember the amount of bill we paid but i enjoyed the company and that was the cost for that.

Nothing is more costlier than a girl! this was the first lesson in my life to justify.

soon, the chocolaty evening got over. with one more paid salute at the exit, we re incarnated to middle class students from 'sirs'!
" oh man, my stomach is full like never before.. i think we need a walk." i said. probably it was true for all of us. To get out everything possible from single paisa spent, we forgot we had limited capacity stomach!
every one agreed. we started walking towards vallabh vidyanagar. 20 years from now, the road was almost free from the traffic and almost lonesome. ideal to walk. it was about 8.30pm  late evening.
--suddenly we heard a man's cry just nearby "save me...save me.." it was horribly loud and was coming from a slum like area just near the railway track. before our brain could deduce anything further, a completely naked  young man appeared from the dark running towards us. we all were shocked.
"save me .. save me.." he was running and crying. like a lightening he passed by us making quick way to the other side of the road and vanished in the dark. soon, a mob of men came rushing from the rail side. all of them appeared furious. they wanted to catch the naked man.they steered to the same direction but the naked man was gone in the dark. vanished to save himself.

everything happened very fast within a couple of minutes. it was simply beyond any ones imagination what happened. was he a thief? but what about his clothes? torn by the mob? but in that case there had to be at least some torn cloth on his body. there was none. he was anatomically completely naked.

probably that guy might had been caught while trying to have sex with some lady. or might be trying for rape? this was the sole reason that could explain whatever happened shocking all of us.

i think we would have witnessed a murder if the naked man was caught in front of us. the horrifying moments left lasting memory.