June -July 1994
One of the slight drawbacks of having relatively more time in this semester is that I can actually look around me and see the gradual decline of the state of my room. Or, rather, my half of the room. Ashley is beginning to make some noises of changing rooms and about how filthy my half looks. To my eyes, the only difference seems to be the cobwebs hanging down from the ceiling to the floor and the total disarray on my desk. Well, also the long-unwashed clothes lying here and there. And the open can of condensed milk which now has a green fungus growing on the sides.....And my white pillow cover which now is yellowish.....
Maybe he has a point.
We are all eagerly awaiting the arrival of our juniors. Plans are made and Bong, Rahul and Shom etc fondly recall how they got ragged and ragged in turn, how we can improve upon things, how to rag better etc. Most of this nostalgia trip happens in Snappy but sometimes we head off to town where the conversation continues over booze and food.
There are usually 4 of us for these trips-Rahul, Vinay, Bong and me. Only Rahul has a bike so there is a toss-up as to who rides pillion. One Sunday, when I am sleeping off a hangover, Rahul wakes me up and demands that we go inspect his bike's rear tyre. He's not happy for some reason. I find that one of the spokes of his rear tyre is broken and he's blaming me for this! He thinks it's because of my size and the pressure I put on the tyre and looking at his own size, I refrain from pointing out the irony of the sitaution. So from now, unless it's vital, I can't ride pillion. I have to take an auto. That really sucks.
Autos are a pain. There is an auto stand right outside the main gate and they are all driven by bastards. There is a strong union and they will not bargain at all. They also charge stupid prices to get to town or wherever but that's the only reasonable option we have. So we have Rahul and Bong on a bike looking important and Vinay and me in an auto looking like deprived school children, both sets of vehicles heading to a bar.
Our most frequent bar outing is a place called "Urvasi". This is a place located on one of the side roads off the "Ratna' road. To get here, we take the road into town that runs next to the campus (the Tindivanam road that later becomes JN street) but where JN street starts, we take a Right (at Raja theatre) and then another left. Urvasi waiters know us by face and we know the menu by heart. No one really looks at the menu anymore. We sit on dimly lit tables with naked light bulbs hanging from the ceiling almost till the table, grab some chairs, and snap fingers. Drinks are brought. Masala peanuts,Chilly Egg and some chicken. The food orgy continues with Chicken Cecilia and ghee rice. The former dish is a signature of Urvasi and has chicken breast smothered in a cream and cheese gravy. When unavailable, there is much disappointment. Baked Tomato Fish is awesome too.
Sometimes, especially just before a Ratna movie, we go to Tavern for a quick American Chopsuey. In Jaya, its some generic food but good booze.
Then there is SeaGulls.
Some places in Pondy are owned by the Government corporation funnily called PIPDIC. Seagulls is one of them and as is the case with Govt owned places, it occupies a prime location by the sea. This is it's USP. The food is so-so, the booze is the same as everywhere but the location, with a rooftop overlooking the sea is amazing. This is also a favourite place.
One day, Vinay and I go there and order 3 plates of fried rice, 3 plates of chicken, 3 plates of another chicken and some snacks. With the booze of course. The waiter stands around and asks how many more people are joining us. The answer of course, is none. He looks suitably dumbfounded, but he will soon get used to this.
And there is MASS. Apparently it's owned by someone called MAS Subramaninam. It's a biggish place, considered to be one of the more upmarket hotels in Pondy. It's right next to the bus stand and has a decent eating area with awesome Prawn cocktails. When the money from home arrives, we come here. It's not all that expensive anyway. MASS also has one of the two 'floor show' areas in Pondy.
Rendezvous of course, is frequented after our initial mishap. It doesn't have a booze licence yet so serves it's beer in big teapots. The owner is massive, thrice the size of Rahul and hails from Kodaikanal. We come here for breakfast sometimes on Sundays where for Rs 120, we have fried eggs, bacon, sausages, baked beans, toast, coffee, juice and waffles.
When the occasion demands, the party shifts to the roof the hostels. Lots of people, someone's sound system, booze flowing, chicken from the mess and tons of gossiping and dancing. Some people are carried to the room at the end. There are also buckets here and there for the odd emetic accident. Everyone is invited.
Classes are getting a little more intense. In Anatomy, the Thorax is over and we have started NeuroAnatomy. There is lots of 'clinical correlation' which sounds excellent but is fairly useless because we haven't done any medicine yet and know no Clinical stuff to correlate any Anatomy to. This is supposed to be the new way of learning Anatomy but I think it will far more useful to do it the other war round.
The theory classes are for the most part fairly dull but dissection is fun. Brains soaked in formalin are cut and examined. These were someone's actual brains at one time. The brain looks much smaller than I had thought and appears totally innocuous from the outside. But well, it's the goddam brain.
Physiology theory is fun. Some extra-bright (or extra-stupid) guys in my class have decided that the book we read (Ganong) is 'not enough' and 'inadequate' for Respiratory Physiology. They have found a book called Best &Taylor which is supposed to be 'better'. This book is quadruple the size of Ganong and I cannot be bothered to read a brand new book now. The problem is that for this particular topic, Ganong is actually not that great and at the back of my mind is this nagging thought that perhaps I should look at Best &Taylor and see what the fuss is all about. So one day, I do. I look at the book, flip some pages and retire back to Ganong. There is no point kidding myself. Ganong will be a handful by itself.
One of the few joys of theory classes is that they are held in fully A/C lecture halls and apart from getting marked present, this is a major incentive. The sitting area in the lecture halls (Hunter and Bernard theatre for the 1st 1.5 years) is divided into 3 parts with benches going upwards. This arrangement is wonderfully conducive to sleeping in class since one can just lie down flat on one of the upper benches in full A/C comfort and get up just in time to answer attendance. This happens many times with the head count suddenly increasing at attendance time, eyes being rubbed and giggles being suppressed.
Proxies are another matter. Sometimes I am asked to give a proxy. It's important to know in which classes proxies can be safely given. Dr B's classes in Anatomy are a strict no-no. Most of the Physio lecturers are cool. I'm a slightly tense person when it comes to giving a proxy since I usually end up asking people to give them for me and so I don't have too much practice. When the time comes, I answer quick, no raising hands and wait for the next name to be called. Tense times.
Harpreet, the Sardar from Delhi is the only guy for whom a proxy cannot be given. He's pretty noticeable so he is forced to attend most classes in person.
A lot of Physiology practicals is about Lung Capacities and blowing into something which measures your air velocity, flow and volume. One experiment involves doing something to a dog and I skip this because I am a dog lover. In the 1st year, some of us were asked to volunteer for Semen Analysis.....I skipped the class where the volunteers were chosen..
It's all happening. InterClass will start in the next few days. This is serious stuff and some events like sports have already happened or are going on.
The crux of InterClass is the Culturals. Each class has a Cul Sec (among other Secs) and the main guy in charge is the Cul Sec of the Organizing batch. The InterClass is a competition with points for every event and so it's taken seriously. At the end, all points from Sports, Cul and L&D are totalled up, the winners receiving a trophy.
InterClass also coincides with the arrival of the baby juniors and plans are being hatched, Aschoff or no Aschoff. Last Spandan, I heard this song sung by the guys from Christ College Bangalore...
Ar**oles, ar**oles, our soldiers went to fight
To fight for the cu**, to fight for the cu**, to fight for the cu**-a-ry
Fer**ng, fer**ng, for king and the queen
To fight for the cu**, to fight for the cu** to fight for the cu**-a-ry.
This song we will make them sing loud in Snappy. Hopefully lots of lecturers will be there.
I can't wait. This will be an awesome year.
July-August 1994
The last week of July. This is the time we have all been waiting for. One whole year has passed and even though we are 1st MBBS "Seniors", ours is still the juniormost batch on campus. Soon, that will no longer be the case.
A fresh batch into Jipmer usually arrives in stages. The first to arrive is a bunch of babies, fresh, scared and new, through the College Entrance Exam. They join around the last week of July and we easily make them out by their scared 'deer in the floodlights' look, the accompanying parents, loads of books and the sundry Hostel equipment like buckets, mattresses and brooms. There is a small store on the ground floor of Lister House, called the Co-operative Stores (Coops) which sells this stuff (not mattresses) and Vinay, Condom, Rahul and I (and various others) make our way from Snappy to Coops to stare some juniors down. We can't actually do too much since the parents are still there. Just a look is enough at this stage.
Ram is a Gult. This is obvious as he is speaking in Gult to some Gult seniors. He seems to be completely lost at sea and has a slightly shell-shocked expression behind his huge rimmed glasses. His walk suggests that he might be slightly tipsy all the time although he assures me (over a nice bout of ragging) that he does not, in fact, drink. The way his eyeballs seem to get 10 times larger when we try the old "should we inject this talcum powder like heroin' routine is hilarious.
As is his completely clueless expression when we ask " What expands upto 10 times it's normal size when excited"? ...and
" What is long, black, hard and full of se(a)men?"...and
" What is long, hard, has a hole at one end, hair at the other, is used sometimes in the morning and sometimes in the evening (or other times), and produces a white liquid on to and fro motion"?
These are questions we were asked and are considered good enough to ask this year too. We are trying our best to act lean (unsuccessful), mean (successful) and a general nuisance (massive success). Of course, the usual "Where do you think I am from" or "Tell that senior to fu** off" are staples.
Babu is also a Gult. He is nearly my size, so many food jokes are on him. "Lump of lard" is a nice description-this term binds the two of us together. He thinks his English is good and tries to answer in some wordy manner, which sounds a bit arrogant and which is perfect fodder for us raggers.
Then there is Reddi. He's from Delhi but is a Tambi from somewhere in Tamil Nadu so he speaks perfect Hindi and perfect Tamil. Reddi has made the cardinal mistake of telling some Basket Ball team members that he plays the game.
So...
Reddi now has to wake up the team (all the way from Aschoff to Lister) in the morning for practice, then practice with them (which is one of the worst forms of torture I have ever seen) and then get ragged in the evening. He comes across as a bit of a smarty which is a no-no for a junior. One day while he's trying to escape in the evening, we call him over to Snappy where he spends the rest of the day under a table saying "Good Evening Sir" to everyone there. This is done to deflate egos which we think get a bit inflated when one is an elite member of the BasketBall team...
There are others too of course. Like RR, another Gult. He is abt 5'11 and weighs a bit more than me. One boring evening, we ask RR to get under a chair, pretend it's the Calcutta Metro and he's a train and then we sort of forget him while we chat and head off to the shacks. Rangu, to his credit stays where he is when we get back. Trapped under a chair.
One evening, sitting in Snappy, there is a lot of commotion. A biggish group of students is coming down from Osler House towards Lister. There is a junior in the middle who looks like RR. There is also a Senior, (will call him Cap) who is the son of an official in the Administration. Both of them are in the middle of this gang and the gang does not look pleased. Cap is being dragged from Osler to Lister and this looks like the real deal, not ragging.
We get up and go to the stage behind Lister House where this Senior is being physically and verbally hit. The gang of seniors is seriously angry and it turns out that this sicko was trying to burn cigarette butts on RR and had shut him in a cupboard for a while. This kind of stuff is not acceptable here. Cap is at the receiving end of a lot of stuff and I'm thrilled.
The issue is brought to the Admin and he is suspended for 6 months. There is a line here. Rag all you want, but don't cross it.
Since I am perpetually late for class, some of these babies are used as human alarm clocks. So they make the trip from Aschoff to our room at about 7 AM daily, knock on the door, get shouted at (as a matter of routine), and then trudge back hoping they don't miss their own classes. This is a kind of revenge ragging because the know-it-alls moved the babies to a different hostel. I think it's the babies loss because as far as I am concerned, I know all my seniors only through my own ragging.
Concurrent with baby joining is the impending InterClass. This is a competitive event in the true sense of the word and is my first so there is lots to look forward to. Each class is taking part, even the beleagured Final Year for whom it's an excuse to chill out for just a few days (or hours). It's a bit like a Mini-Spandan and in fact, many people treat it as a practice ground for Spandan.
First, there are the Sports events. Footbal, Hockey, Volleyball, Basketball, Badminton and indoor games including Chess. The only sport I can play with any degree of competence is Tennis and that's not happening so I lose interest in the Sports events pretty quickly, although we are there to cheer our class, which it turns out, is losing at everything.
Then there is L&D. Debates, creative writing etc etc. and a nice take on "20 questions" called "90 seconds". In this there are teams of two which take turns to identify a person within 90 seconds. One team member knows the answer and has to take questions from the other guy but can only answer in "Yes, No or Maybe". This is tremendous fun. Major strategies are planned and executed.
The piece-de-resistance-is of course Culturals. My main interest lies in the Skit, the Ad-Zap and Cooking. (the tasting part). There is a lot of leeway to write and act whatever one wants. Lots of inuendoes and double meanings al lof which are taken in the right spirit helped along by the "Right Spirits". Humour gets top marks. Rajini TV, Vinay and I take charge of writing scripts for the skits and Ad-Zaps, a role we will continue to play in later years.
There is total freedom to 'sell' whatever you want in the Ad-Zap so imaginations can run wild.
My class has some talented people. Moa from Nagaland is the best guitarist I have seen play at close quarters. Our class has Chakma and Neeraj as singing talents and Condom volunteers on the bongo. Mark thinks he can play the sax and he does. Our singing team wins hands down.
Some of the dance choreography is impressive and might be used in Spandan.
No inputs from the staff are either asked or offered making this a pure students affair. Attendance at all functions is never enforced but is very impressive. It seems the whole college is there along with lots of staff members sitting right at the front. What is also good is that no one really bothers to modify their skits and Ad-Zaps' language or script to suit the audience and this makes it a real expression of fantastic creativity.
The events are held in the evening on the stage behind Lister House and run from about 6 PM till they end, sometimes midnight or beyond. Even more fun than taking part is getting some beers and sitting at the back cheering our class and jeering the others. The addition of the babies to rag when things get boring adds to the general air of happiness and nirvana.
Cooking happens one day in Curie House. Once the judging is over, we rush over to try to taste the dishes but as it happens with my RasoGollas, I arrive too late. When the results of Interclass are announced, I learn that the race was neck and neck but that Cooking decided the winners eventually. The winners are the Organizing batch and I suspect that perhaps more than the dishes might have been cooked.
Not lost in this whole boozing, partying and singing/dancing is the fact that we are in Medical School after all and the days are still occupied by classes. Tests are still being announced and Anatomy is still screwing us.
Something weird is also happening with Shom. In Final Year now, he is reading a lot more and is usually found in his room. Lately, when I walk in, he is found burning pieces of paper in a flower pot and watching them burn slowly in his balcony. I think he finds this paper burning therapeutic. I join him in this ritual off and on. I can only wonder what Final Year is like one has to resort to this kind of thing for stress relief.
I am also hearing this song called "Creep" by RadioHead coming from his room all the time. It's a nice song and I don't mind hearing it all the time but Shom listens to it because he thinks he's a creep too. Because Final Year does that to you.
I have other worries, other joy. LOHA day is looming and the Semester just gets better.
One of the slight drawbacks of having relatively more time in this semester is that I can actually look around me and see the gradual decline of the state of my room. Or, rather, my half of the room. Ashley is beginning to make some noises of changing rooms and about how filthy my half looks. To my eyes, the only difference seems to be the cobwebs hanging down from the ceiling to the floor and the total disarray on my desk. Well, also the long-unwashed clothes lying here and there. And the open can of condensed milk which now has a green fungus growing on the sides.....And my white pillow cover which now is yellowish.....
Maybe he has a point.
We are all eagerly awaiting the arrival of our juniors. Plans are made and Bong, Rahul and Shom etc fondly recall how they got ragged and ragged in turn, how we can improve upon things, how to rag better etc. Most of this nostalgia trip happens in Snappy but sometimes we head off to town where the conversation continues over booze and food.
There are usually 4 of us for these trips-Rahul, Vinay, Bong and me. Only Rahul has a bike so there is a toss-up as to who rides pillion. One Sunday, when I am sleeping off a hangover, Rahul wakes me up and demands that we go inspect his bike's rear tyre. He's not happy for some reason. I find that one of the spokes of his rear tyre is broken and he's blaming me for this! He thinks it's because of my size and the pressure I put on the tyre and looking at his own size, I refrain from pointing out the irony of the sitaution. So from now, unless it's vital, I can't ride pillion. I have to take an auto. That really sucks.
Autos are a pain. There is an auto stand right outside the main gate and they are all driven by bastards. There is a strong union and they will not bargain at all. They also charge stupid prices to get to town or wherever but that's the only reasonable option we have. So we have Rahul and Bong on a bike looking important and Vinay and me in an auto looking like deprived school children, both sets of vehicles heading to a bar.
Our most frequent bar outing is a place called "Urvasi". This is a place located on one of the side roads off the "Ratna' road. To get here, we take the road into town that runs next to the campus (the Tindivanam road that later becomes JN street) but where JN street starts, we take a Right (at Raja theatre) and then another left. Urvasi waiters know us by face and we know the menu by heart. No one really looks at the menu anymore. We sit on dimly lit tables with naked light bulbs hanging from the ceiling almost till the table, grab some chairs, and snap fingers. Drinks are brought. Masala peanuts,Chilly Egg and some chicken. The food orgy continues with Chicken Cecilia and ghee rice. The former dish is a signature of Urvasi and has chicken breast smothered in a cream and cheese gravy. When unavailable, there is much disappointment. Baked Tomato Fish is awesome too.
Sometimes, especially just before a Ratna movie, we go to Tavern for a quick American Chopsuey. In Jaya, its some generic food but good booze.
Then there is SeaGulls.
Some places in Pondy are owned by the Government corporation funnily called PIPDIC. Seagulls is one of them and as is the case with Govt owned places, it occupies a prime location by the sea. This is it's USP. The food is so-so, the booze is the same as everywhere but the location, with a rooftop overlooking the sea is amazing. This is also a favourite place.
One day, Vinay and I go there and order 3 plates of fried rice, 3 plates of chicken, 3 plates of another chicken and some snacks. With the booze of course. The waiter stands around and asks how many more people are joining us. The answer of course, is none. He looks suitably dumbfounded, but he will soon get used to this.
And there is MASS. Apparently it's owned by someone called MAS Subramaninam. It's a biggish place, considered to be one of the more upmarket hotels in Pondy. It's right next to the bus stand and has a decent eating area with awesome Prawn cocktails. When the money from home arrives, we come here. It's not all that expensive anyway. MASS also has one of the two 'floor show' areas in Pondy.
Rendezvous of course, is frequented after our initial mishap. It doesn't have a booze licence yet so serves it's beer in big teapots. The owner is massive, thrice the size of Rahul and hails from Kodaikanal. We come here for breakfast sometimes on Sundays where for Rs 120, we have fried eggs, bacon, sausages, baked beans, toast, coffee, juice and waffles.
When the occasion demands, the party shifts to the roof the hostels. Lots of people, someone's sound system, booze flowing, chicken from the mess and tons of gossiping and dancing. Some people are carried to the room at the end. There are also buckets here and there for the odd emetic accident. Everyone is invited.
Classes are getting a little more intense. In Anatomy, the Thorax is over and we have started NeuroAnatomy. There is lots of 'clinical correlation' which sounds excellent but is fairly useless because we haven't done any medicine yet and know no Clinical stuff to correlate any Anatomy to. This is supposed to be the new way of learning Anatomy but I think it will far more useful to do it the other war round.
The theory classes are for the most part fairly dull but dissection is fun. Brains soaked in formalin are cut and examined. These were someone's actual brains at one time. The brain looks much smaller than I had thought and appears totally innocuous from the outside. But well, it's the goddam brain.
Physiology theory is fun. Some extra-bright (or extra-stupid) guys in my class have decided that the book we read (Ganong) is 'not enough' and 'inadequate' for Respiratory Physiology. They have found a book called Best &Taylor which is supposed to be 'better'. This book is quadruple the size of Ganong and I cannot be bothered to read a brand new book now. The problem is that for this particular topic, Ganong is actually not that great and at the back of my mind is this nagging thought that perhaps I should look at Best &Taylor and see what the fuss is all about. So one day, I do. I look at the book, flip some pages and retire back to Ganong. There is no point kidding myself. Ganong will be a handful by itself.
One of the few joys of theory classes is that they are held in fully A/C lecture halls and apart from getting marked present, this is a major incentive. The sitting area in the lecture halls (Hunter and Bernard theatre for the 1st 1.5 years) is divided into 3 parts with benches going upwards. This arrangement is wonderfully conducive to sleeping in class since one can just lie down flat on one of the upper benches in full A/C comfort and get up just in time to answer attendance. This happens many times with the head count suddenly increasing at attendance time, eyes being rubbed and giggles being suppressed.
Proxies are another matter. Sometimes I am asked to give a proxy. It's important to know in which classes proxies can be safely given. Dr B's classes in Anatomy are a strict no-no. Most of the Physio lecturers are cool. I'm a slightly tense person when it comes to giving a proxy since I usually end up asking people to give them for me and so I don't have too much practice. When the time comes, I answer quick, no raising hands and wait for the next name to be called. Tense times.
Harpreet, the Sardar from Delhi is the only guy for whom a proxy cannot be given. He's pretty noticeable so he is forced to attend most classes in person.
A lot of Physiology practicals is about Lung Capacities and blowing into something which measures your air velocity, flow and volume. One experiment involves doing something to a dog and I skip this because I am a dog lover. In the 1st year, some of us were asked to volunteer for Semen Analysis.....I skipped the class where the volunteers were chosen..
It's all happening. InterClass will start in the next few days. This is serious stuff and some events like sports have already happened or are going on.
The crux of InterClass is the Culturals. Each class has a Cul Sec (among other Secs) and the main guy in charge is the Cul Sec of the Organizing batch. The InterClass is a competition with points for every event and so it's taken seriously. At the end, all points from Sports, Cul and L&D are totalled up, the winners receiving a trophy.
InterClass also coincides with the arrival of the baby juniors and plans are being hatched, Aschoff or no Aschoff. Last Spandan, I heard this song sung by the guys from Christ College Bangalore...
Ar**oles, ar**oles, our soldiers went to fight
To fight for the cu**, to fight for the cu**, to fight for the cu**-a-ry
Fer**ng, fer**ng, for king and the queen
To fight for the cu**, to fight for the cu** to fight for the cu**-a-ry.
This song we will make them sing loud in Snappy. Hopefully lots of lecturers will be there.
I can't wait. This will be an awesome year.
July-August 1994
The last week of July. This is the time we have all been waiting for. One whole year has passed and even though we are 1st MBBS "Seniors", ours is still the juniormost batch on campus. Soon, that will no longer be the case.
A fresh batch into Jipmer usually arrives in stages. The first to arrive is a bunch of babies, fresh, scared and new, through the College Entrance Exam. They join around the last week of July and we easily make them out by their scared 'deer in the floodlights' look, the accompanying parents, loads of books and the sundry Hostel equipment like buckets, mattresses and brooms. There is a small store on the ground floor of Lister House, called the Co-operative Stores (Coops) which sells this stuff (not mattresses) and Vinay, Condom, Rahul and I (and various others) make our way from Snappy to Coops to stare some juniors down. We can't actually do too much since the parents are still there. Just a look is enough at this stage.
Ram is a Gult. This is obvious as he is speaking in Gult to some Gult seniors. He seems to be completely lost at sea and has a slightly shell-shocked expression behind his huge rimmed glasses. His walk suggests that he might be slightly tipsy all the time although he assures me (over a nice bout of ragging) that he does not, in fact, drink. The way his eyeballs seem to get 10 times larger when we try the old "should we inject this talcum powder like heroin' routine is hilarious.
As is his completely clueless expression when we ask " What expands upto 10 times it's normal size when excited"? ...and
" What is long, black, hard and full of se(a)men?"...and
" What is long, hard, has a hole at one end, hair at the other, is used sometimes in the morning and sometimes in the evening (or other times), and produces a white liquid on to and fro motion"?
These are questions we were asked and are considered good enough to ask this year too. We are trying our best to act lean (unsuccessful), mean (successful) and a general nuisance (massive success). Of course, the usual "Where do you think I am from" or "Tell that senior to fu** off" are staples.
Babu is also a Gult. He is nearly my size, so many food jokes are on him. "Lump of lard" is a nice description-this term binds the two of us together. He thinks his English is good and tries to answer in some wordy manner, which sounds a bit arrogant and which is perfect fodder for us raggers.
Then there is Reddi. He's from Delhi but is a Tambi from somewhere in Tamil Nadu so he speaks perfect Hindi and perfect Tamil. Reddi has made the cardinal mistake of telling some Basket Ball team members that he plays the game.
So...
Reddi now has to wake up the team (all the way from Aschoff to Lister) in the morning for practice, then practice with them (which is one of the worst forms of torture I have ever seen) and then get ragged in the evening. He comes across as a bit of a smarty which is a no-no for a junior. One day while he's trying to escape in the evening, we call him over to Snappy where he spends the rest of the day under a table saying "Good Evening Sir" to everyone there. This is done to deflate egos which we think get a bit inflated when one is an elite member of the BasketBall team...
There are others too of course. Like RR, another Gult. He is abt 5'11 and weighs a bit more than me. One boring evening, we ask RR to get under a chair, pretend it's the Calcutta Metro and he's a train and then we sort of forget him while we chat and head off to the shacks. Rangu, to his credit stays where he is when we get back. Trapped under a chair.
One evening, sitting in Snappy, there is a lot of commotion. A biggish group of students is coming down from Osler House towards Lister. There is a junior in the middle who looks like RR. There is also a Senior, (will call him Cap) who is the son of an official in the Administration. Both of them are in the middle of this gang and the gang does not look pleased. Cap is being dragged from Osler to Lister and this looks like the real deal, not ragging.
We get up and go to the stage behind Lister House where this Senior is being physically and verbally hit. The gang of seniors is seriously angry and it turns out that this sicko was trying to burn cigarette butts on RR and had shut him in a cupboard for a while. This kind of stuff is not acceptable here. Cap is at the receiving end of a lot of stuff and I'm thrilled.
The issue is brought to the Admin and he is suspended for 6 months. There is a line here. Rag all you want, but don't cross it.
Since I am perpetually late for class, some of these babies are used as human alarm clocks. So they make the trip from Aschoff to our room at about 7 AM daily, knock on the door, get shouted at (as a matter of routine), and then trudge back hoping they don't miss their own classes. This is a kind of revenge ragging because the know-it-alls moved the babies to a different hostel. I think it's the babies loss because as far as I am concerned, I know all my seniors only through my own ragging.
Concurrent with baby joining is the impending InterClass. This is a competitive event in the true sense of the word and is my first so there is lots to look forward to. Each class is taking part, even the beleagured Final Year for whom it's an excuse to chill out for just a few days (or hours). It's a bit like a Mini-Spandan and in fact, many people treat it as a practice ground for Spandan.
First, there are the Sports events. Footbal, Hockey, Volleyball, Basketball, Badminton and indoor games including Chess. The only sport I can play with any degree of competence is Tennis and that's not happening so I lose interest in the Sports events pretty quickly, although we are there to cheer our class, which it turns out, is losing at everything.
Then there is L&D. Debates, creative writing etc etc. and a nice take on "20 questions" called "90 seconds". In this there are teams of two which take turns to identify a person within 90 seconds. One team member knows the answer and has to take questions from the other guy but can only answer in "Yes, No or Maybe". This is tremendous fun. Major strategies are planned and executed.
The piece-de-resistance-is of course Culturals. My main interest lies in the Skit, the Ad-Zap and Cooking. (the tasting part). There is a lot of leeway to write and act whatever one wants. Lots of inuendoes and double meanings al lof which are taken in the right spirit helped along by the "Right Spirits". Humour gets top marks. Rajini TV, Vinay and I take charge of writing scripts for the skits and Ad-Zaps, a role we will continue to play in later years.
There is total freedom to 'sell' whatever you want in the Ad-Zap so imaginations can run wild.
My class has some talented people. Moa from Nagaland is the best guitarist I have seen play at close quarters. Our class has Chakma and Neeraj as singing talents and Condom volunteers on the bongo. Mark thinks he can play the sax and he does. Our singing team wins hands down.
Some of the dance choreography is impressive and might be used in Spandan.
No inputs from the staff are either asked or offered making this a pure students affair. Attendance at all functions is never enforced but is very impressive. It seems the whole college is there along with lots of staff members sitting right at the front. What is also good is that no one really bothers to modify their skits and Ad-Zaps' language or script to suit the audience and this makes it a real expression of fantastic creativity.
The events are held in the evening on the stage behind Lister House and run from about 6 PM till they end, sometimes midnight or beyond. Even more fun than taking part is getting some beers and sitting at the back cheering our class and jeering the others. The addition of the babies to rag when things get boring adds to the general air of happiness and nirvana.
Cooking happens one day in Curie House. Once the judging is over, we rush over to try to taste the dishes but as it happens with my RasoGollas, I arrive too late. When the results of Interclass are announced, I learn that the race was neck and neck but that Cooking decided the winners eventually. The winners are the Organizing batch and I suspect that perhaps more than the dishes might have been cooked.
Not lost in this whole boozing, partying and singing/dancing is the fact that we are in Medical School after all and the days are still occupied by classes. Tests are still being announced and Anatomy is still screwing us.
Something weird is also happening with Shom. In Final Year now, he is reading a lot more and is usually found in his room. Lately, when I walk in, he is found burning pieces of paper in a flower pot and watching them burn slowly in his balcony. I think he finds this paper burning therapeutic. I join him in this ritual off and on. I can only wonder what Final Year is like one has to resort to this kind of thing for stress relief.
I am also hearing this song called "Creep" by RadioHead coming from his room all the time. It's a nice song and I don't mind hearing it all the time but Shom listens to it because he thinks he's a creep too. Because Final Year does that to you.
I have other worries, other joy. LOHA day is looming and the Semester just gets better.
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