Post Spandan 1994
I arrive, a bag in hand, to find a campus soaked in doom and gloom. Some evidence of a recently concluded Spandan is strewn about in the form of scattered chairs, sofas, rubbish, makeshift sports stands all being viewed by students with dull, vacant and mildly panicky expressions.
The end of Spandan, of course also signals the end of a 2-3 month long relative break from the rigours of medical college life and most batches have University Exams in 3 months. This includes me and I am more than a little panicky. In this semester, the stakes in an exam are raised higher since failure will mean that I drop 6 months and move on to an "Additional Batch".
Also happening is the NeuroAnat test which of course, I am bunking. The syllabus and reading is not particularly tough and I quite like NeuroAnat but it feels "different" and slighty rebellious to bunk it. This gambit will work only if I do well in the Send-Ups so I've just given myself another unnecessary reason to raise my already escalating tension levels.
On the afternoon of the test, I give Ash a "good luck" send-off, listen to his "Bas****, come man, write it.. or "Come da, what can happen, anyway we're gonna fail" pleas for me to change my mind, close the door and drift off into dreamland. I sleep for about an hour before Rahul comes back from class, kicks the door (standard, no one knocks) and drags me to Snappy for an extended session of tea and rolls.
Snappy opens by 4 PM and we are the first to arrive. Slowly, I see my classmates arrive, trooping back from the test and other classes. Some ask if I was OK since I didn't come for the test, some don't bother, some carry on striaght pass Snappy and into their respective rooms.
A funny feeling grips me. I'm feeling very left out. I can feel eyes on me and I imagine people saying "That as**ole bunked it, he won't pass Univs" or thoughts to that effect. Everyone is talking about the test, what questions came, how easy/murderous they were and how there's never enough time to answer anything. I can't contribute to this at all. I feel like a bit of a pariah, not a bravado filled test bunker.
In the first few days after my bunked test, I still feel that all the lecturers are looking at me like I'm some sort of a pariah. Of course, I realize soon enough that nothing of the sort is happening and they have many more students to worry about.
I, on the other hand, have a court case on my hands. Rahul and Shom are the other invitees in this debut court drama for all of us and we are supposed to go in about 2 weeks time. We spend a few evenings sitting in Shom's room discussing what we should say, since even though we are going to say the 'whole truth and nothing but the truth', we need to be consistent. The first thing we decide is that if and when asked what we were up to in the room at the time of the incident, we shall say we were discussing medical subjects. And being medical students with not much of a life outside medicine, that's indeed what we were doing. We recall the events of that fateful day, have a laugh about my "dosa" dreams when attempts at "gouging eyes' and "poking knives in stomachs" were taking place, mutter collective curses at Mr Lal, and a few good whiskies later, retire for the night. Shom, being in Final Year, abstains from whiskies and retires to reading Medicine, Surgery and Obs/Gyn.
As usual, every morning I troop in at 8 AM for the Anatomy Lecture Class. Held on the ground floor in Hunter Theatre, these tend to be rather boring but I need to attend them since I'm teetering on the brink of an attendance disaster yet again.
Anatomy is a bit like wine, it gets better with age. I find that it's getting easier to understand and remember stuff and a uniquely Indian book called "Chaurasia" helps to translate this new found confidence into writable information. The main book for Anatomy is an encylopaedic book called "Gray's Anatomy" and this is entirely unreadable. Written in ultra fine print with breathtaking detail, it has it's devoted followers in my class but I've given up on Gray's long ago. This is where Mr Chaurasia (or Chauri as the book is called) steps in perfectly. A distilled version of Grey's, with thoroughly reproducible line drawings, this is a godsend. It's in 3 volumes and I've finished 2 last semester.
Chauri of course, is not the end of Anatomy. We need to learn Embryology and Langman is the book for that. There is an Indian version called IB Singh but I prefer Langman because it's a faster read. (And time is short). Then there is a book for Osteology but everyone reads Gray's for this. All of us have various bones stocked in our rooms and spend hours poring over ridges, holes and other miscellaneous features on them. Most of the confusion revolves around whether a particular bone is Left or Right.
These bones also form part of our Anatomy Records and we need to draw them seriously accurately or face a re-drawing. Naturally, the most accurate form of reproduction is tracing and this where I find a unique method of tracing without getting caught.
I sit on a chair and a "board" (a 2 foot square piece of wood used to support books when reading on said chair) is placed on it. A naked light bulb is placed on the chair and the book to be traced is put on the board. A transparent sheet is put over this and finally the record is put over the sheet. It's perfect and does not leave carbon paper smudges. The best book for tracing drawings from is Snell's.
Sometimes, inexplicably, it backfires. A perfectly traced humerus was sent back for redrawing last semester because one of the borders was "too straight". Most of the time, however, it's a perfect system.
Histology Lab is on the Ground Floor and it's door is guarded by a water cooler where we all stop to get a splash before poring over tissue slides, all of which look exactly the same. They're all pink and blue splotches and I have no idea how I identified any of them in the last exam and what I'm going to do now.
Next to this Lab and bordering a lovely piece of grass called Vesalius Square is the Dissection Hall. Full of disembodied arms, legs and pelvis last semester, it's now full of brains preserved beautifully and removed from their now dead previous owners. The stench of formalin is strong and it soaks into our white (but fast yellowing) lab coats. It's also got hearts and lungs which we study in detail and heads removed from their bodies. I've got used to all of this by now and even the smell doesn't really bother anyone anymore.
There is a book called "Cunningham" which details how to go about doing a dissection but I've never really bothered too much with it. I should have, because although Anatomy in general is becoming easier, I'm far away from being confident in passing it.
There is a door leading to a Photography Dark Room in one of the corridors bordering Vesalius Square. This has this peculiar sign typed on it..."Do not Open or all the Darkness will Leak Out...." I've never opened that door.....
The Department is populated by Senior and Junior faculty alike. Top of the chain is Prof L who is a dear. He's the prime reason people passed Anatomy last semester and I'm hoping to God he comes again this time. He's generous with marks, takes a good viva and is a brilliant teacher.
Also sharing 2 of the above 3 qualities is Prof B. He's taking our Head and Neck lectures and his classes are rarely boring. One can't even sleep in his class. Dressed always in a tie, a french beard and a flowing white coat, he cuts an impressive figure.
Prof BM is a genius. He can draw with both hands simultaneously, a feat I can't comprehend since I can't even draw with one. He's our favourite co-examiner with Prof L and indeed this pair came for our 1st semester exams. I've always seen him with a white coat on top of a white vest. Hope he comes again....
And that's why I'm panicky. Anatomy. The subject that might be my graveyard. 6 or 7 different books to read, 7 vivas to answer in rapid sequence and a theory paper that can test even the best read.
Rahul, I see, is also in panic mode. More than me perhaps since he has 3 subjects to somehow pass. Pathology, Microbiology and Pharmacology (which I shall soon learn, is like the Anatomy of 2nd year in that no one passes any tests). But, it seems, he's going home again for Diwali!!!! Ba**s of steel he must have.
The Final Year Boys are visibly agitated. No time to chat, have tea or booze. It's non stop reading here. Shom, Vikrant , Mishra, Plaha etc. have gone underground. Their last exam of MBBS is round the corner and everything that's been covered in the last 4 years is fair game for the exams.
And four of us-me in second year, Rahul, a year senior, Shom, 2 years senior to him and Manoj-2 years senior to Shom-we are united by a court case. That is now looming very near.
I arrive, a bag in hand, to find a campus soaked in doom and gloom. Some evidence of a recently concluded Spandan is strewn about in the form of scattered chairs, sofas, rubbish, makeshift sports stands all being viewed by students with dull, vacant and mildly panicky expressions.
The end of Spandan, of course also signals the end of a 2-3 month long relative break from the rigours of medical college life and most batches have University Exams in 3 months. This includes me and I am more than a little panicky. In this semester, the stakes in an exam are raised higher since failure will mean that I drop 6 months and move on to an "Additional Batch".
Also happening is the NeuroAnat test which of course, I am bunking. The syllabus and reading is not particularly tough and I quite like NeuroAnat but it feels "different" and slighty rebellious to bunk it. This gambit will work only if I do well in the Send-Ups so I've just given myself another unnecessary reason to raise my already escalating tension levels.
On the afternoon of the test, I give Ash a "good luck" send-off, listen to his "Bas****, come man, write it.. or "Come da, what can happen, anyway we're gonna fail" pleas for me to change my mind, close the door and drift off into dreamland. I sleep for about an hour before Rahul comes back from class, kicks the door (standard, no one knocks) and drags me to Snappy for an extended session of tea and rolls.
Snappy opens by 4 PM and we are the first to arrive. Slowly, I see my classmates arrive, trooping back from the test and other classes. Some ask if I was OK since I didn't come for the test, some don't bother, some carry on striaght pass Snappy and into their respective rooms.
A funny feeling grips me. I'm feeling very left out. I can feel eyes on me and I imagine people saying "That as**ole bunked it, he won't pass Univs" or thoughts to that effect. Everyone is talking about the test, what questions came, how easy/murderous they were and how there's never enough time to answer anything. I can't contribute to this at all. I feel like a bit of a pariah, not a bravado filled test bunker.
In the first few days after my bunked test, I still feel that all the lecturers are looking at me like I'm some sort of a pariah. Of course, I realize soon enough that nothing of the sort is happening and they have many more students to worry about.
I, on the other hand, have a court case on my hands. Rahul and Shom are the other invitees in this debut court drama for all of us and we are supposed to go in about 2 weeks time. We spend a few evenings sitting in Shom's room discussing what we should say, since even though we are going to say the 'whole truth and nothing but the truth', we need to be consistent. The first thing we decide is that if and when asked what we were up to in the room at the time of the incident, we shall say we were discussing medical subjects. And being medical students with not much of a life outside medicine, that's indeed what we were doing. We recall the events of that fateful day, have a laugh about my "dosa" dreams when attempts at "gouging eyes' and "poking knives in stomachs" were taking place, mutter collective curses at Mr Lal, and a few good whiskies later, retire for the night. Shom, being in Final Year, abstains from whiskies and retires to reading Medicine, Surgery and Obs/Gyn.
As usual, every morning I troop in at 8 AM for the Anatomy Lecture Class. Held on the ground floor in Hunter Theatre, these tend to be rather boring but I need to attend them since I'm teetering on the brink of an attendance disaster yet again.
Anatomy is a bit like wine, it gets better with age. I find that it's getting easier to understand and remember stuff and a uniquely Indian book called "Chaurasia" helps to translate this new found confidence into writable information. The main book for Anatomy is an encylopaedic book called "Gray's Anatomy" and this is entirely unreadable. Written in ultra fine print with breathtaking detail, it has it's devoted followers in my class but I've given up on Gray's long ago. This is where Mr Chaurasia (or Chauri as the book is called) steps in perfectly. A distilled version of Grey's, with thoroughly reproducible line drawings, this is a godsend. It's in 3 volumes and I've finished 2 last semester.
Chauri of course, is not the end of Anatomy. We need to learn Embryology and Langman is the book for that. There is an Indian version called IB Singh but I prefer Langman because it's a faster read. (And time is short). Then there is a book for Osteology but everyone reads Gray's for this. All of us have various bones stocked in our rooms and spend hours poring over ridges, holes and other miscellaneous features on them. Most of the confusion revolves around whether a particular bone is Left or Right.
These bones also form part of our Anatomy Records and we need to draw them seriously accurately or face a re-drawing. Naturally, the most accurate form of reproduction is tracing and this where I find a unique method of tracing without getting caught.
I sit on a chair and a "board" (a 2 foot square piece of wood used to support books when reading on said chair) is placed on it. A naked light bulb is placed on the chair and the book to be traced is put on the board. A transparent sheet is put over this and finally the record is put over the sheet. It's perfect and does not leave carbon paper smudges. The best book for tracing drawings from is Snell's.
Sometimes, inexplicably, it backfires. A perfectly traced humerus was sent back for redrawing last semester because one of the borders was "too straight". Most of the time, however, it's a perfect system.
Histology Lab is on the Ground Floor and it's door is guarded by a water cooler where we all stop to get a splash before poring over tissue slides, all of which look exactly the same. They're all pink and blue splotches and I have no idea how I identified any of them in the last exam and what I'm going to do now.
Next to this Lab and bordering a lovely piece of grass called Vesalius Square is the Dissection Hall. Full of disembodied arms, legs and pelvis last semester, it's now full of brains preserved beautifully and removed from their now dead previous owners. The stench of formalin is strong and it soaks into our white (but fast yellowing) lab coats. It's also got hearts and lungs which we study in detail and heads removed from their bodies. I've got used to all of this by now and even the smell doesn't really bother anyone anymore.
There is a book called "Cunningham" which details how to go about doing a dissection but I've never really bothered too much with it. I should have, because although Anatomy in general is becoming easier, I'm far away from being confident in passing it.
There is a door leading to a Photography Dark Room in one of the corridors bordering Vesalius Square. This has this peculiar sign typed on it..."Do not Open or all the Darkness will Leak Out...." I've never opened that door.....
The Department is populated by Senior and Junior faculty alike. Top of the chain is Prof L who is a dear. He's the prime reason people passed Anatomy last semester and I'm hoping to God he comes again this time. He's generous with marks, takes a good viva and is a brilliant teacher.
Also sharing 2 of the above 3 qualities is Prof B. He's taking our Head and Neck lectures and his classes are rarely boring. One can't even sleep in his class. Dressed always in a tie, a french beard and a flowing white coat, he cuts an impressive figure.
Prof BM is a genius. He can draw with both hands simultaneously, a feat I can't comprehend since I can't even draw with one. He's our favourite co-examiner with Prof L and indeed this pair came for our 1st semester exams. I've always seen him with a white coat on top of a white vest. Hope he comes again....
And that's why I'm panicky. Anatomy. The subject that might be my graveyard. 6 or 7 different books to read, 7 vivas to answer in rapid sequence and a theory paper that can test even the best read.
Rahul, I see, is also in panic mode. More than me perhaps since he has 3 subjects to somehow pass. Pathology, Microbiology and Pharmacology (which I shall soon learn, is like the Anatomy of 2nd year in that no one passes any tests). But, it seems, he's going home again for Diwali!!!! Ba**s of steel he must have.
The Final Year Boys are visibly agitated. No time to chat, have tea or booze. It's non stop reading here. Shom, Vikrant , Mishra, Plaha etc. have gone underground. Their last exam of MBBS is round the corner and everything that's been covered in the last 4 years is fair game for the exams.
And four of us-me in second year, Rahul, a year senior, Shom, 2 years senior to him and Manoj-2 years senior to Shom-we are united by a court case. That is now looming very near.
Grey's Anatomy is the American tv show.
ReplyDeleteGray's Anatomy is the giant book used as a sedative and exercise dumbell by MBBS students.
Oh dear....of course it is.
ReplyDeleteI've changed the spelling...to A
ReplyDelete