THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO TRIVANDRUM MEDICAL COLLEGE

[The story is entirely fictional and has no resemb to…blah blah]

[No blah : The names of characters have absolutely nothing to do with the two poor guys in my unit. I started writing with their names. I’m too lazy to change now. Don’t go ask them anything. They’ll reverse roundhouse kick u.]

10.40 pm

“what are u guys here for anyway?. U should have slept at MH.”,

he looked really serious this time. Shankar and me looked at each other, blinked in unison and started laughing. It was always funny, when one of us said anything like that; we three being the weakest links of a chain that formed the surgery unit. It was a good joke for the other two, however genuine he looked while delivering it. The rest of the unit dint care. They dint exist. But I think Sarath had been itching to put that scalp suture since 2^nd year; for it was why he had been turning up at 6 pm to casualty all this week. And the nice guy that he was, the females were walking all over him and he couldn’t reach anywhere near the patient, let alone suture him. Shankar had put one - 1^st day of second year; and me one vigilantly on a sleeping drunk last week. U can’t trust drunks these days. [Two years back u could. I don’t know what happened]. Coming to think of it, I never checked if he woke up.

Today was the last day of surgery casualty posting. But we were starving and wouldn’t let stupid sutures come in the way.

Sarath scratched his head. He was confused. He couldn’t afford to piss off the gang. A solitary weak link is a dangerous thing. He looked at the females on the other side who pretended to read bailey, each silently gearing up for the moment any sorry soul would land in casualty; when they would scream “attack” and start shoving for a place near the perplexed patient. I swear most MI’s reporting at casualty are actually fever cases who pass out when they see the incoming horde. We 3 moving out would mean 3 less people to shove and I hated to think they would be pretty happy about it. But one look into the desolate surgery casualty with flies swooning over the M.O’s mouth was all that was needed to convince sarath. “screw this, lets scoot”

11.15 pm

“man, can u imagine we’re final years now-the senior most batch. We should be getting some respect.” Omelette was first served to this bespectacled junior nearby which prompted Shankar to say this. ”now when did this happen - I cant imagine we’ve finished 4 years in this hell hole.” Chewing on the stone hard paratta, Sarath pretty much looked like a cow while saying this. I smiled. Poor Sarath. He was a terrific guy who had got into JIPMER, CMC and many other abbreviated places before joining here. His dad was an alumnus and he thought it would be pretty cool to follow in his footsteps. He regretted this ever since the first week when this biochem ma’am had insulted him in front of all the batch girls he had arduously impressed over the week. The reason - not stating the chemistry of molisch test convincingly enough. Turns out the ma’am when she was in 2^nd yr, was ditched by his nice father in final year, for his mother while she was in 1^st year. The maam’s hated 1^st years ever since. Sarath quit stating his full name ever since, just in case his dad had made some other friends too.

“I should write about this” I said.

“What”

“About me being the senior and all. I should give some advice to the juniors -about things to do before u pass out, things I wished I had known and so on”

“Yeah right! -one person they need advice is from the biggest screw up in college.”

I’m no masochist but I always liked it when he said that. Sarath was still gnawing on the paratta, so I thought I would cheer him up.

“Man, think this way- At least this place is better than the canteen behind the library. The fans there don’t work cos they dint pay the electricity bill. The tea looks like milk, the milk looks like water, the water‘s got saliva of the ever smiling dude there, who gets even with u for blaming the food”

“True, true, I heard there’s this really cool canteen for staff inside SAT hospital near the O.T, which serves steaming meat rolls and sandwiches. The time is 10.30 morning.”

“Hmmm, We’ll go der tomorrow then before Umesh sir’s afternoon class”

Umesh sir never took the attendance. He never believed in it. Sirs like him restore your lost faith in humanity.

“No way, I’m taking chances with the ward attendance. U guys go wherever u want. Count me out.”

Shankar the pessimist. But maybe he was right. The guy who said size, attitude etc matters, obviously never went to college. Attendance is all that matters. Sarath n I had shortage last year for SPM and ENT which we finally got through, thanks to some groveling, boot-licking, and ass-kissing in the last minute. Shankar had a 99.9%.

We talked about proxy, which loser we could trust, who we could not, when finally Sarath announced he could live without a sutured scalp and didn’t want to go back. Nobody wanted to sit in the canteen anyway. It stank of day before’s sambar, which they were heating up for tomorrow. We thought of walking towards the college for no apparent reason.

12.00 midnight

“Shouldn’t we inform the girls? Maybe they’re missing us”

“They’re frigid man. They wont!”

Shankar was pretty pissed off over the week and I knew why. The surgery PG, on the pretext of teaching suturing was getting extra friendly to our girls, and they were unabashedly playing along too, especially Shankar’s crush. Poor Shankar. He was going crazy, coming to casualty 5 mins before she came, going 5 mins after, and standing by the corner, watching them chat every time in between. The PG was on leave tonight; else Shankar wouldn’t have dared to come with us tonight.

We laughed at a lot of inside jokes about the ladies, and were thoroughly enjoying ourselves now. Then I got reminded of this hilarious ad in TV about new spiritual channels creating awareness among youth. Then for no apparent reason, I thought about karma. Then I thought about my exams.

“Does anybody know when the results will be out?”

“No idea man. Everyone will pass. Don’t u worry”

“I’m not worried, I’m just asking.” I said.

I was worried. I was worried to death about my SPM results...I wish I had more internal marks. You'll never get to know how they calculate your internals. If u get to know, u will never understand it! One fine afternoon in 4^th year, when u hear u got a 6/15 on all three subjects, u’ll set out hopping mad, determined to find out all about internals; but halfway through the understanding process, you will collapse in the complexity of it all. All this if u can get through the mob, who’re there to protest against the injustices of a 14.9 becoming a 14.8. It’s a huge mathematical formula involved which they mess up during calculation anyways. It’s not worth it.

“Ever wondered why this junction is called NMJ?” Sarath asked when we reached NMJ.

“No. Why?”

“I dunno. That’s y I asked”

“Maybe its because there’s SCT neuro department on one side and muscular people playing in the ground on the other end.”

“Naah it might be cos, this is the place where muscular guys of MH, and neurotic girls of LH split to goto their respective hostels”

“I like umbilical cord .its so aptly named. obstetric dept on one side and pediatrics dept on the other”. Shankar put in. I dint know where umbilical cord was. I dint dare ask. If u were in final year and u still dint know the local vernacular, they’ll walk all over u. There was a big list of things I dint know and dint dare ask. One in them was cards. If by chance, u happen to enter the men’s common room, never ever [repeat twice] have a look in your face like u know shit about cards. U just need to make noise and look happy when everyone else is looking so. That’s it! You’re in the group! Half of them don’t know cards anyway.

Sarath was getting a couple of misscalls, blank calls and messages and looked pretty happy now. I looked at my phone. It hadn’t come alive since the ‘mytoday’ msg which woke me up in the morning. Maybe there is some problem with it.

“Which one is it now?” Shankar teased Sarath, punishing himself in the process.

”oh just this girl I met the other day.”

“what happened to the one u were in love with last week?”

“oh, we’re just friends now”

I smiled. Sarath had made like a million friends since 1^st year, while I was busy wondering who in college I would best have a crush on. I had made a million crushes too. Your crushes will grow up even if u wont. By 3^rd year they’ll start marrying. U’ll goto their weddings, happily pose next to the groom, even frame a pair of horns behind him, and return home listening to some depressing breakup song. Life sucks. We continued walking.

1.30 am

“my college is better than yours. my college is better than yours. my college is better than yours” shankar was chanting.

“dude,we in the same college! U feeling sleepy?”

“oh sorry, its this method I learnt to treat depression. It’s called affirmation therapy. I think I have depression”,

“really, where did u learn it from?”

“I learnt it from orkut. U should repeat the opposite of the root cause again and again.”

Sarath n me laughed our asses off. This social networking site had captured the imagination of all youth in the country. Everyone now believes they can get laid through orkut. It just takes a little time to figure out u cant, when u’ll quit sadly cursing the months wasted in front of it, like when I quit last week.

We were sitting in front of the dissection hall. We had come here half an hour ago, kept ears to the door, checked for voices inside, had imagined some, talked about ghosts, got afraid and had finally got bored when Sarath had started chanting.

“Dude did u see the guy that hanged inside MH gym, last year”

“Nope, I saw this guy though in 1^st yr, in a tree close to the quarters behind the library”

“Oh, damn, I missed that”

I did not speak. I had seen the frail hanging bodies of both. What is it with dead guys and me? They were both people from outside the campus. I wondered why they came inside the campus to hang themselves. We talked about death, how people move on, and how u’re a fool if you wonder how people have moved on.

“I wish I was in labour room” I suddenly announced to change the topic, being pretty scared and depressed with it.

“Yeah. It was way better than surgery casualty anyway” Shankar replied, suddenly nostalgic, and fed up of casualty for obvious reasons. Of course there were horny house surgeons everywhere in labour room, but they never counted when compared to the emotional security a PG could give to our girls.

“By the way, did u find out Hitler’s name?” sarath asked me smiling.

As long as u don’t let the opposite sex take advantage of u, labour room and surgery casualty are the most awesome postings ever. If you don’t like them, u should probably drop out of med school. Seriously! I missed Hitler nurse. Hitler nurse was this horrid looking nurse, single handedly responsible for the smooth functioning of the labour room. She’s not the nurse who runs to the bed when the pg screams ”chechi,trolley” nor she’s the one who scrubs and makes the baby cry; she’ll come once everything is set [lithotomy position, the lights, the pgs] and just meditate by the side of the mother. She takes charge only when the mother is either making a big fuss and noise about things, or if she is taking too long, when she’ll come close to the patient inches from her eyes and ears and then holler, ”daii kochene,pettanu presavichittu,veetil ponendo illeyo?;namukku okke poyittu pala paniyum ulletha”. I swear babies shoot out like geysers when hitler nurse is in control,and PG’s - a metre away from the bed to catch them. One night during posting, while she was waiting to scare the uterus out of a delivering patient, I gathered courage and crept upto her, and asked her her name. She gave me a weird look, eyed me from top to bottom and said ”Shantha, ente peru Shantha”, much to the laughter of the pgs and ma’ams there. Little did I know “Shantha” was supposed to be the female counterpart of our own “shashi, pappu etc”. She thought I was going to complain about her.

“Shantha, shantha is her name.” I answered.

3.30 am

Our asses had hurt sitting there for 2 hours and we were walking around college for some time now. None of us had spoken for a long time. We were not sleepy though. It was one of those serene silent walks- where no one talks but everyone’s just glad they’re together. Each of us lost in our own thoughts. I silently wished this would continue forever.

3.35 am

Maybe it was some poisonous vapor in the air near B Pharm College or something, we got paranoid. Each of us had started to wonder what the other would be thinking about. The silence soon began to get pretty weird then. Suddenly everyone feared to break the silence, and wished someone else would. When we reached close to the pharmacy campus, a black stylish Zen with spoilers, blue neons, extra brake lights, etc materialized from apparently nowhere and whisked past us in a fury.

“Dai, what’s that car doing here at 3 o clock in the morning”

“I wouldn’t know” Sarath was grinning broadly.”I’ve heard stories of a lot of cars in the college after midnight.”

I said “hey Shankar, do u remember the time we set out to explore the path from respiratory medicine to the college ground during second year”

“Happiest moment in my college life man, how can I forget?”

“There’s a path from Pulayinarkotta to the college ground and I dint even know?” sarath’s grin had a guilt tinge to it now.

“that was when u were counting the ribs in chest x-rays to impress those girls, u idiot“ ,while Shankar explained everything about the trip, I thought about that day. There’s this long forgotten short cut across fields, trenches, streams, barbed fences etc that every guy should take someday. A compass could help. The feeling when u finally reach the ground is breath taking. U’ll know its close when u jump a wall and land in a ‘broad smiling, newspaper reading, lungi clad middle aged’ man’s courtyard, who’ll sprint down to you as if he had been looking forward to your visit, and show u the rest of the way. Make sure u have your steth with u though.

3.45am

Of all the places, Sarath wanted to go to pulayinarkota from the college ground now. We tried to bring some sense to him.

4.00am

We had reached the broad smiling man’s home, had seen and heard the big dog there, panicked, ran and was now tired and resting somewhere near the middle of the cricket ground. Sarath had been the first to run and we were now slaughtering him.

“I should write about this” I said seeing the hilarious look on sarath’s face.

“What”

“Everything that happened this night”

“You and your stupid writing-it sucks anyway” Sarath shot back.

That hurt. I desperately searched for a comeback. But recalling something I had taught myself over the years, I smiled. Never care to defend yourself. It’s not worth it. Take everything lightly. Just keep smiling. They never mean anything they say anyway. They’ll criticize u, laugh at u, ridicule u, walk all over u. it’s an inverted bell shaped [v shaped?] curve plotted against ‘how well you’re doing’. Just play along.

“what is that u are drawing?”

I had unintentionally drawn a V in the cricket pitch. I tried hard to remember one among the million V graphs learnt over the 4 years, cursed my stupid memory and said, ”its nothing, just an underwear”

4.15 AM

Someone wanted to walk the road in front of LH. Someone said no. Someone was very sad. Then someone came up with the topic of shooting stars.

4.45 AM

We had been scouting the night sky for half an hour now, looking for the first shooting star of our lives-4 dumb medicos who wouldn’t realize a constellation, if it was thrust into their faces. My neck hurt then. My legs were itching and something was biting somewhere around my crotch. I stood up and stretched.

“To hell with shooting stars, I’ll still live”

Sarath said,” Don’t lose hope man. NASA says u can see 12/hour.”

I said, “I had enough anyway.eda just remembered, its Ameena’s wedding tomorrow. u going?”

“Today”

“Who’s Ameena?”, Shankar asked

“It’s the girl in our class with horn rimmed glasses and black hood. I talked to her for the first time last week when she gave me the card. I’m not going. I hardly know her.”

“Same here, then I’ll not go too.”I said.

“Dude, I can’t even figure out who Ameena is!!” As Sarath helped Shankar remember, I itched my crotch, wondered whether it’s the same state in junior batches and silently wished I had talked more to more people.

“There it is!”Sarath screamed.

“What?”

“Look up you dumbo”

I looked up to the empty starry sky; then looked down. Both of them were on their feet now, making a hell lot of noise, hugging each other, with the widest smile I’ve seen on their faces since passing 1^st year. I choked in my misery. They started describing it, where it came from, where it ended, how big it was and finally ended with the notes “It definitely did live up to the hype”, “You are one big stupid person” and “You should get a life”.

“The story of my life” .I screamed as I jumped to the ground swearing I won’t rise until I saw one tonight, while both of them in high spirits took a wish together:

“we wish we’ll pass final year”.

Now I was desperate. They sat down again, laughing at my big round eyes frantically scanning the skies, and continued chatting. I could hear them but I brought myself back each time. “There’s got to be more.12/hr” I thought.

8.00 am

“Thump”

I woke up with a simmering pain in my forehead, a throbbing neck, a sore back and mosquito bites all over my body; waking up from a nightmare, where I was spread-eagled on the labour room table with hitler nurse by my side. I looked around with the confused eyes of a newborn getting a whole body scrub. There was a tennis ball 2 meters away from me, close to where Sarath and Shankar lay. A lot of kids were laughing in the distance-the ground almost full with morning joggers, footballers, kids of all ages, and cricketers practicing in the pitch by the side. Sarath’s phone was ringing. I looked at mine. No misscalls. One “mytoday message” was all that there was. Then I noticed the time.

“holy shit”

I guess Sarath noticed it too. We kicked Shankar up and was running to 8 am surgery class in no time, him leading the way.

“We should do this some other time”, Sarath yelled, out of breath, scratching his whole body at the same time.

“Not in my life. I hope Umesh sir is taking morning class too” Shankar screamed back. I barely heard them. I was saying to myself,

”Waking up in the grass and going to class. I will write about this someday”.

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