Chapter 43-Final Year (Part 1) begins

May-August 1996

I am over the moon with my results. Truly. I have never ever been this close to a Distinction in anything and to be just 3 marks short (with a 6 mark question left blank) is, to me, equal to a Distinction. Which is how I convince myself that I had read enough for a while and deserved a break...

....Which, in a medical course, is a dangerous course of action to take.

6 months of bliss await. I have to cover ENT, Ophthal, Forensic Medicine and Community Medicine (PSM) for the Univs in December. These, apart from PSM, are not particularly taxing and the worst of PSM-the presentation- is behind me. This is the time when we organize the Hostel Days, Spandan and InterClass, and I intend to make the most of this time.

ENT and Ophthal have small books. The problem with Ophthal is that the book is terrible. It's got most of the information one needs, but there is no way to actually "read" it. It has to be mugged, by heart and in order of the points in which it is written. But there is no alternative because it's written by the HOD. So we have to suck it up.

ENT is better. The subject is easier to understand and the book has paragraphs. I can’t underlie points but I can underline paragraphs and I love underlining. I underline so much sometimes that everything is eventually underlined and at the end, it defeats the purpose.

I soon learn that it is not a good idea to put earbuds to remove wax. I am more inclined to put a key in to relieve ear itch and I suppose that's not a great idea either.

Forensic is a different story altogether. There is a book, of course, and class tests will be conducted regularly but Forensic results are often decided by "The Grand viva". This is a 45 minute group viva that is taken by the Head somewhere in October and is usually very intense. A bad performance here may mean disaster and so Forensic has to be read too.

The main focus of lectures and clinical postings is on these 4 subjects. Our main focus is on InterClass and Spandan, work for which has already started. We have had our class elections to decide the Jipmer Student Association Executive Body and the results are out. Radio is the President, a guy who competes with me in size, and is very likeable and very hospitable. I've been to his house in Pondy once where I was fed like crazy (I refuse no food) and sipped my first 10 yr old Laphroiag. He is the man in the hot seat and ultimately is responsible for the conduct and success of everything the Organizing Batch does. It also means he gets to interact a lot with the faculty for various things and that can be a double edged sword.

Being senior, I can now choose exactly which Committee I want to be and Vinay and I decide early that we will be in the Reception Committee.

Sometime later, my parents call and tell me that they will be coming over in August for a brief visit. A trip to Tirupathi is planned. While I look forward to this, a parent trip means that some things, hidden far away from view so far, will be in the spotlight. And my room will be in the forefront of this scrutiny.

We have had many conversations about clean bed sheets, dirty clothes, brooms and buckets and things related to general clean living. I can tell that although I make it sound like I clean my room daily and always sleep on pristine sheets, my mother in particular is not convinced. I am sure a trip to my room will be part of their itinerary.

This year has seen a few of my seniors graduate and join Post Graduate courses here. Shom in ENT of course, but there are a few others, a couple of years his seniors too whom I know by association. Joy is one of them and is a really cool guy. He's chosen to do Ophthal and has shifted into Harvey House like most single PG's do. Manoj is already in Ortho and Sonal is in Surgery.

Manoj , had in fact, been called as a witness also in the Hasmukh Lal case, but after a month of our own court appearance. This delay meant that we had pretty much forgotten about the whole thing and Manoj never bothered to cross check what we had said. So when on the witness stand, he was asked " Were you drinking Beer or Whisky", he thought for a bit and concluding that beer has a lower alcohol content, replied "We were drinking beer"..

This did not go down too well since Shom, Rahul and I had denied that we had been drinking anything at all and Hasmukh's lawyer made a small scene. It was just a show, though, since he had already pled guilty.

Still, Manoj was not happy and an unhappy Manoj is not a pleasant sight.

Joy, on the other hand, is happy all the time. We are happy that we have someone who can sign off our beers from the Harvey House fridge.

Just before the PG Entrance exams, Sirisha, now Shom's wife had come down to Jipmer with some of her friends from Delhi for the exam and I often saw Joy and Manoj sitting with them and Shom and Sirisha under the Snappy trees.

I'm hearing that something may come of that.

Shom has moved out and now lives in a second floor flat about 10 minutes away. I've visited a few times, mostly with about 5 minutes’ notice, or sometimes no notice at all and often stop by for a chat or a meal or both. He's even bought a computer and has just got himself an internet connection, one of the first times I have seen what an internet looks like.

It's amazing...one dials a number, hears some screechy sounds and with one click, we open the Yahoo homepage.

Wow.

One consequence of Shom moving out is that there is no incentive now for me to do anything about my room. It's in urban decay now and progressing quite quickly. During my 5 paper adventure last semester, there was no time to do any cleaning at all and soon enough, there are now lots of books, clothes, sheets, papers and rubbish all over the room. Most days, I just dump all the stuff from my bed on the floor to sleep with the reverse in the morning to make space on the floor. There is no carpet on the floor but not one inch of the grey cement can be seen. It’s all covered.

And then there are cobwebs. Long, thin strands of cobwebs. From the ceiling, floating gently downwards. Their creators don't bother me and I return the favour.

I've been planning to clean my room for a long time but I excel in planning and suck at implementation. So, it's getting increasingly unlivable and the best course of action is to simply shift to another room. I also want to move to Osler House in preparation for the rigours of Final Year because Osler is quieter and has less distractions (for me atleast). The move will have to wait till my parents leave though.

This year, our batch is the Organizing batch for all the festivals and cultural events and work has already started in that direction. The main issue seems to be sponsorship for Spandan, and some of us have started running around town trying to convince people how great Spandan is, and why they need our festival's exposure for their business. Not all of them are convinced.

I have done my bit by helping to get funds from businesses at home, they being quite happy to get their names in the Festival magazine as sponsors of the 'All India Inter-College Cultural Festival" that Spandan is.

While our batch is working at fever pitch trying to get everything ready, Vinay and I are busy in Snappy contemplating life and the slightly off colour sauce accompanying our Egg Chicken Rolls. Vinay has graduated from hard core rap to Jagjit Singh and when we sit in Snappy, under a tree right below his room, strains of Jaggu coming from my partially burnt deck keep us company. My deck now resides in Vinay's room, a remnant from a previous party.  

Around this time, Vinay's parents also arrive for a few days with their dog, Fluffy. Fluffy is a small Apso kind of dog, long hair and all, and keeps us company in Snappy. On the odd occassion when Vinay spots his parents coming back from a trip to town or Auroville, he snaps up and with a "Chal Fluffy" hurries back to the room and pretends to read.

Auroville...now that's a mixed bag. I have heard many stories of this place, from drug parties (surely a exaggeration), good food, peaceful forested evirons and the feeling of being an outsider when one goes there. I have never felt comfortable going there and seldom accompany Plaha or Chetan when they do go. Once, I heard, some guys went on bikes at 1 AM only to be chased by shotguns and dogs.

 It does have a decent eating place called "Roma's Kitchen". Mostly though, I use the Auroville road as a short-cut for getting to the beach.

There's nothing specifically wrong with the place. Maybe my misgivings are partially rooted in a rather unpleasant experience I had with Vikrant and Shom 2 years ago at a place called Satsanga in town. We had gone for dinner there, having heard about the food and the ambience and when we got there, were told by the waiters that "This table is reserved for whites". None of the tables were occupied.

We had a bit of a shouting match and it left a very bad taste. I never went back there.

I am just not an Auroville person. It gives me the creeps frankly.

I have started the ENT Posting. The clinics start at 10, so we duly troop in to a massively crowded OPD and stand there looking clueless. The OPD area is truly awful. Large, jostling crowds outside wait for their turn to be called to one of the rooms inside where I see 2-3 hapless Residents sitting in a small space with 10 people crowding them. It's quite a scene.

The OPD is divided into 2-3 rooms, each of which has 2 chairs for the doctors and the patient. The poor doc sits with the head light on his head trying to focus the light of a 100 W bulb shining right on his face. 100 W bulbs can generate a fair amount of heat and with the crowds and the lack of an A/C, complemented by a fan rotating noisily in slow motion, all add up to a hot, very bothered doctor. And, of course, the patients.

I gather there are 4 things that we, as Undergraduates, must know. In the ear, it's CSOM. In the throat, it's tonsillitis. In the nose, we have Deviated Septums and Nasal Polyps.

With my Tamil still in its infancy, I concentrate on asking where the problem is, rather than what the symptoms are. That way, I can narrow the diagnosis very quickly. Shom is also a resident here, but a first year resident is often hassled and he's mostly running around doing all and sundry.

The Head of ENT is a tall, lean guy with greying hair and a very mild manner. Everyone seems to be a bit scared of him though and I have been warned that when upset, his temper is a sight to behold. So far, we've been lucky.

So this posting is all about discharging ears, blocked noses and painful throats. I quite like it. It's logical and at least, unlike Medicine, most of the stuff is visible, which makes it easier to grasp.

Ophthal is a different story. Located right across the corridor from ENT, it seems, at first glance, more controlled and a bit more orderly. The OPD has about 4-5 rooms for various things like Refraction and Eye syringing, but I find myself getting enormously bored. There's not much to see and not much that one can actually see anyway. It's a small eye and has even smaller lesions. Our main interest lies in diagnosing cataracts and after a few, it's all the same whitish blobs in the eye. I lose interest, lose focus and can't wait to finish this posting. We spend our mornings here being herded from one room to another, catching a glimpse of a cataract here, an eye syringing there and some sundry things like corneal ulcers and ptyregiums. It's a big yawn.

All our classes are held in the OPD, with a poor patient as the guinea pig. These guys have come here from very far away, often after long bus journeys and now have to face a bunch of medical students, simply because they have an "interesting" condition.

I faced this myself when as a kid, I had to visit the Dental Department in PGI, Chandigarh. Apparently, I had phenomenal teeth (from a dental student's point of view) and I spent hours with my mouth open, saliva  filling up slowly, while various students inspected my lovely teeth and made appropriate appreciative noises. This went on for 3 years while I had my braces inserted, inspected, and finally removed. I can empathize with the Muniammals and Govindasamys here.

I have been asking Dad for a bike for a while now, and he seems to be coming around to it. It will make life a lot easier and his main worries are about safety. I promise to get a helmet and he finally relents. I am keen on a Yamaha, the choice of many a hosteler and unfortunately, the RX-100, the bike with the best sound ever, has been discontinued. Yamaha has come out with a new model called the RXG, and that is what I will get. Vinay is also in bike buying mode and he is keen on a Suzuki Samurai.

At the moment, neither of us are too confident with bikes so one day I take Anupam (Condom)'s scooter and proceed to engage the gear with the scooter in full throttle resulting in a lovely wheelie and a slightly banged up front.

Vinay, not wanting to be left behind, borrows Shom's Hero Puch and drives it like a maniac nearly killing everyone in the way.

With Rahul in Final Year and therefore mostly out of bounds and Bong in Internship and always busy, most of our time is spent with the gang from our junior batch. This smallish gang, with whom I'm seen either in Snappy or in each other's rooms, consists of

1. Reddi-Self assured, part of the basketball team, has a steady girlfriend

2. Ram-Slightly unpredictable when sober, completely so when not. Says "Bugger" a lot. Also has a steady girlfriend.

3. Babu-Built like me, shares foodie desires. A Brahmin who eats meat and boozes like anyone. Wishes he had a girlfriend.

4. Siva (aka Gunappu)-Shares boozie tastes.

5. Somani-A Rajasthani from Sikkim. Round, with spectacles, perpetually feels victimized by the profs. When asked "Bugger, how the fuck did you land up in Sikkim from Rajasthan" many many times during ragging, he eventually gave up and told the truth. "On a Donkey".

I am often found with some or all of these guys at various times of the day. A common theme is the late arrival of Reddi at a party because he also has to spend time with Sandhya and it takes him a while to wiggle out and come party with us. Ram, on the other had has it sorted. When there is a party, he's always on time.

Our poison has also changed. Or evolved actually. We started with Bagpiper and moved quickly onto Bagpiper Gold. That stayed for a while before someone got hold of "Gilbey's Green Label" which tasted awful but stayed with us for another short while. In between, "Cariba", the pre-mixed Rum and Coke, made an appearance and finally Aristocrat and Aristocrat Premium happened.

Currently, I am on ACP, as we call it, while the other poisons also float around here and there. Old Monk Rum is a favourite for the Rum guys and a new Vodka called Romanov for the Vodka guys has made an appearance. It seems a poor substitute for Smirnoff but it sounds Russian enough.

Various random events have happened at these impromptu drinking sessions.

Once, I ran full speed and proceeded to try to kick down Shom's door, succeeding in breaking the latch. It just seemed the right thing to do.

Another time, someone drank a full bottle and spent the night on the hostel steps, not even waking up the next morning when people were trying to avoid trampling him on their way down to class.

I have also succeeded in jumping on Rahul's iron bed, denting it nicely in the middle. This did not go down too well with Rahul who had to somehow conjure up another cot.

A new restaurant called Jaya has opened very close to Ranta theatre. It's a standard joint but clean and not very noisy and being close to Ratna Theatre, is perfect for a pre-movie drink (s). The Jaya guys are putting in some money for Spandan and so we often go there to "talk about Spandan" or "see how the place is"...

The standout feature of Jaya is that it has "Forrester" whisky. This is American Bourbon and is fantastic. It's almost the only reason for going to Jaya.

With this month being full of various Hostel Days, the first to arrive is Harvey Day, hosted by the PG Residents. We, as students, can go as someone's guests and we promptly get Joy/Manoj/Sonal to invite us over.

The USP of Harvey Day is the Beer Drinking Competition, something I've never seen before. There are crates upon crates of the stuff in the Mess and one has to drink an entire bottle without a break in the fastest time. The winner gets a whole crate to himself. I do give it a shot, but after 5 seconds, I know it will be futile. Since every participant gets to keep the bottle, I give up and take my time drinking the rest. It's not that good actually, but why give free beer a miss?

There is the usual JAM with the usual songs and the standard "Special Food".

LOHA Day comes around a few days later, in the middle of August, and we put up a Skit, Mark plays the Sax and some guys try to sing. The usual stuff really. The interesting bit is that our rooms are being judged this year and there are 2 awards-"Best Room" and "Worst Room". The prizes for both are full length posters one can stick on the walls. I give my name and then on the day, the judges roll around, inspecting rooms one by one, taking down notes and generally looking important. The guys who think they might have a shot at the Best Room Award stay with the judges, making sure they see every beautifully decorated corner. I, on the other hand, not harbouring any such ambitions, leave my room open and sit in Snappy till the Judges see my room and recover from the shock.

The results are in. Aashik from my senior batch gets the Best Room and I get the Worst Room. It was no contest apparently.

The funny thing is that I am asked what poster I want of the two available. So Aashik is stuck with the one I didn’t want....

Spandan is a few days away and then the parents trip. Its not a bad semester, this.