CH 40 : SWEET N SOUR ANATOMY MUSEUM

though anatomy was one of the subject i hated the most, let me tell you nothing was more fascinating than to see human structures in such a detail. when you meet any one, you just see him or her from outside. study of anatomy lets you see any one from inside. you also realize how correct is the old saying 'beauty is skin deep'. i do not mean to say the human structures inside the skin are not beautiful. they have their own beauty. but they look alike in different human beings. anatomy probably tells us whatever way different we look from outside, just go 1 to 2 mm deep in the skin and all look almost same!

though, i was not among the best, i was an average dissector of our batch just like my friend samir. we both were active members of our 6 member group dissecting a female body given to us. we had margi, manisha, namrata and bimal as our partners. one of us would hold our bible for dissection - cunningham- others would read and would try to follow the instructions to dissect the anatomic structures. we had couple of forceps and a knife to explore the wonders behind the human skin. during each session, we were given a target to reach to a structure. it was not easy job. we had to be very cautious in each step. one mistake and it could destroy the anatomic structure. we were needed to identify the different parts and the tissues of human body to be able to follow the dissection manual properly.

during such a session, you get absorbed to the work in such a way, you hardly care about your apron and hands and fingers soiled with the stinking preservative formaline. in fact whole of you would stink like a hell after the anatomy dissection session. the job was tiring and time consuming.
on one day , some how, we finished the dissection a bit early. so i got a chance to wander about. there was a big hall near our dissection hall. some of the finest dissected specimens were kept there preserved in chemical and packed in transparent glass containers. that was the anatomy museum.

as i entered, i saw specimens of different parts of human body arranged and classified on big racks. there were sections like 'upper limb' , 'the brain', 'the heart', ' the abdomen and pelvis' etc. but the most eye catching section was the one showing development of human fetus! it showed tiny babies with tiny fingers toes and even eyes! the specimens were arranged in such a way that showed a small baby  gradually progressing towards a big child in the womb. we all were like those babies one day! how fascinating! there were also some eye catchy specimens of abnormal human fetuses. some had no limbs, some had big heads while some even had open skull without any brain matter.

however, the most mysterious looking part of the museum, i must say, was the section on the human brain! a small whitish organ with wavy surface was the real boss in command ! some 'I' was hidden behind every such specimen ! brain really looked like an ultimate structure.

there were also some horrible looking specimens. i mean, imagine a half cut face with one eye! or a full face with cut open skull without brain to show the base of the skull from inside.
if some one asks me about most ugly part of the human body, i can not remember any one. Even the intestines and the stomach had their own beauty. same can be said about human genitals.

was that over? no..~! apart from tissue specimens, we had 3-4 full human skeletons hanging at one corner of the museum.some bones were arranged in a few showcases. from tiniest to biggest. most attractive naturally was the skull.

in this vast collection of the specimens, i was trying to spot that day's dissection part. just fumbling around, i was probably the only student inside the museum. i saw big pelvic bones and skull bones of buffalo kept for comparative anatomy.It really looked a herculean task to set up such a nice anatomy museum. it must have costed hours and hours of dedicated and skillful dissection. i really saluted the man behind the whole task- resp dr shrivastav whom i still was yet to see.

the fact i was not knowing that time was, in the near future this hall was to serve as a place for revision and reading.  my friend jasmine and me was to use this place to refine knowledge before examination. though i hated reading and examination, and she loved exams, we both liked the museum. she was to prepare exhausting and un ending reading time tables for me in this hall. i never was knowing we would spend hours and hours here for studies. i hated reading and so jasmine was to come in my life to teach me! sometimes you open up a simple door and suddenly you find that door opened new life to you.

"who is there in..?" suddenly a deep authoritative voice struck my head from behind breaking my thoughts. as i turned around i saw an old man which looked like a big professor staring at me with fury. i missed a beat. who was he?
" what are you doing here at this time?" he asked me in punitive tone. my anatomical structures got loose. no one needs deep anatomical knowledge to get loose!
" sir, i was trying to study the specimens.." i said with whatever little voice i could speak.
" at this time? it is time for dissection.." sir scolded.
" we completed today's dissection sir.." said i keeping my head low.
"what? completed? just go to hall and do your work !" that was an order.
i walked to hall with fear of some punitive action. my fifteen minutes passed with big tension but nothing more happened. in the first mbbs, most of the students really fear the  teacher like a kindergarten kid! some how sir did not come to our table. probably my sin was not that big. my beats settled ultimately.
i saw that old professor talking with one other big professor.
"hey look! this is the prof that scolded me.. " i asked my friend " who is he?"
"dont you know?" he said with surprise " he is none other than our head of the department of the anatomy dr shrivastav.."
ouch!

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....!