Reunion diaries 2 – What do you want to become when you grow up?

 “What do you want to become when you grow up?” I remember Ms Jayalekshmy , my 3^rd grade mathematics teacher asking this deeply philosophical  question in our class almost three decades ago.

“Doctor”, “Engineer”, “Cricketer”,“Engineer”, “rich”,“Bigger” (!),“astronaut”, “cosmonaut” (The cold war was very much on those days)“Fire-engine driver”, “Policeman” (I suppose that should be ‘police-person’ in this age of gender equality, but in those uncomplicated days none of the girl students were particularly  interested in this particular profession anyway)……..more or less standard answers you would expect from any bunch of eight year olds, even now.

I believe that when it comes to the ‘“What do you want to become when you grow up?”most  of us grow up with vague, very attractive,  mostly unachievable dreams of being some kind of celebrity in the future –  successful film star, captain of the Indian cricket team who is part-time captain of the football team, who is part-time boyfriend to the latest pretty young thing in Bollywood  also, prime minister of a non-coalition government,  etc. etc….simple and clear concepts.  Later at a certain age when your abstract thinking skills are more developed (i.e ‘you see the light’) you bring down your expectations and start thinking more realistically. This is the first ‘eureka’ moment .Now you start thinking on the lines of the standard job-sets – doctor ,engineer ,lawyer etc. etc. You gradually realize that you (or your parents J) have a preference for one of these standard job types and you work towards ‘becoming’ a doctor or engineer or whatever…..

If you are really lucky  sometimes you have that  second ‘eureka’ moment in life, when you realize what is that you have a  real passion for. It might come before or after you venture into one of the more mundane ‘standard’ jobs .Unfortunately  out of the lucky few who experience this great moment, fewer still have the guts to throw caution to the winds and take flight with  their dreams.

Now if you’re thinking you’re in for a bit of the Arindam Chaudury-  ‘discover the diamond in you’ thing  or some similar  crazy pep psychology thing.....don’t worry…the idea was only to get it across to you that I too had at least one of these ‘eureka’ moments’. The defining moment was   around the tenth grade when I had to reluctantly visit a dermatologist for a very neglected , very scratchy ,very ugly  fungal infection in an unmentionable area. I had to wait a couple of hours  before I could meet a certain Dr B . I being me, divided the time judiciously  to ogle  at 1) The sleak and shiny Mercedes idling away in the garage of his palatial  home cum consulting space 2) More importantly at the impressive line of not –so-bad looking female patients waiting in the reception area. Finally when my turn came, the good doctor took 2 minutes and 200 bucks , gave me a list of medicines, and asked me to come  back after two  weeks ( I assume with another 200 bucks, though it was not mentioned explicitly in his prescription).Anyhow I luckily got better much before the 2 weeks periods, and so skipped a review. However now I knew what to do with my life  - Merc + 200bucks for a 2 minute consult + loads of female patients (many of them pimply maybe, but female all the same) + (best part) I  get  to treat my own ugly  fungal infections by myself –Eureka!!! I wanted to be  a dermatologist – the  small problem was that  apparently you needed  to graduate in medicine before you get to specialize in dermatology……………..and with that  began a rather interesting journey which saw me catapulted into the hallowed hallways of the Government Medical College , Trivandrum.

I was recently going through an old poll – year 2000 vintage on our batch e-groups site, which was basically something vaguely  on the lines of ‘which specialty would you opt for’. We were of course freshly out of our internship ….full time into what we medicos label adoringly as ‘entrance thoyilalism’ (for non-doctors and non-mallus: ‘Thoyilali’ means ‘worker’ or ‘employee’ in Malayalam. This wonderful period entails full time employment involving extensive ‘re-roting’ of all the bulky, highly detested text-books right from day 1 of medical school. The objective is to score well enough in the post-graduate entrance exams so that in time you can get some kind of specialization and add the hallowed MD/MS suffix somewhere behind the not so much hallowed MBBS alone thing)

 Interestingly about 50% of the responders to this pre-historic poll actually did end up doing what they wanted to do……at least in terms of choosing their specialty. Some of them did absolutely fantastic U-turns though…..I know one guy who insisted that he would never be a surgeon coz of some vague tremor while holding surgical instruments. The guy is now a hot-shot  surgeon. Another close friend changed courses around four times to finally reach a stage where he is one of the best in his field.

However when it comes to having long term, specific goals, I can think of two extreme cases in our class.

The first guy happened to be sitting right next to me on the first day of our MBBS course. That was when the deceivingly maternal looking Dr Glorine Gnanathankam, HOD, Physiology entered the classroom flashing a disarming smile  (the ‘maternal’ image got pretty well shredded after our first couple of exams when a lot of  us were initiated into one of the fundamentals of medical education…no study, no marks!) The good lady asked the eager crowd of freshers the ‘what do you want to be in the future’ thing. I was  actually expecting people to come up with  stupid Ms World kinda answers – “Start a charity hospital”, “Serve rural India”….and other such obvious hogwash. All of a sudden the spectacled, moustached, fidgety, Tam- Bram guy next to me jumps up over eagerly and shouts “Neurosurgeon!!”

Duh?! Dude…first day of class and you’ve managed to  award yourself ‘overeager nerd of the year’. I was trying to pull him down so that the damage could be controlled, but if I remember right he also simply had to explain the why’s and the wherefore’s about his ambitions too. Anyway I think  not many believed him of course at that time, but 20 years down the line Dr Gopalakrishan CV happens to be a proud and successful neurosurgeon……..at present in Canada for some kind of hi-fi post-doc fellowship.

At the other extreme is a guy who I believe spent a lot of time getting confused (and successfully  confusing others too!) over the broader question of whether to go for a medical specialty or a surgical specialty (He was confused about a lot of things in general I suppose…right from girlfriends to specialties)…and finally at the end of it all the guy ends up as one of the CAT toppers and goes into IIM Ahmedabad. The last time I met him he was not talking in English or Malayalam, but pure  unadulterated ‘Financialese’…….all about stock options, recession-proofing, fiscal deficits and what not. I obviously didn’t understand the language, but what I did understand that in the near future when we poor souls who stayed on with the Hippocratic oath thing, will be thinking about upgrading our old cars, he is going to be thinking of upgrading his private yacht. Hari G at present happens to be minting money at a very senior post in a famous multinational private equity company.

On the whole I suppose most of us ended up kind of happy, doing what we wanted to do. I don’t have a specific count but I think there are virtually all clinical and non-clinical specialties represented in our batch and almost everybody seems to be doing quite well in his/her chosen field. Basically it means that during the upcoming reunion any medical problem cropping up should not be an issue – whether it is itchy rashes or hemorrhoids. So ultimately as goes the famous statement –“If  people could make penicillin out of stale bread, we could surely make something out of ourselves”

Reunion diaries

Around a decade and a half after passing out of our Alma Mater, Government Medical College, Trivandrum, we are now hopefully all set for another reunion, planned tentatively somewhere in the middle of 2014. Sounds exciting and really looking forward to seeing the old guys and gals. The ‘old’ part being unfortunately both literal and figurative now!

Things have really changed over the last 15 odd years - other than grayer hairs (for those who have hairs remaining) and the varyingly impressive grades of central obesity.
We were a little more than kids back then and more than a handful. Now we have kids of our own who are quite much more than a handful. We were all excited to get a little prefix of Dr. back then….now the Dr. thing is a bit like taken for granted, but the excitement remains. We were elated to finally be doctors, yet a little insecure of our futures …..Now we’re mostly settled and secure, but many have probably starting getting insecure of the future of their children. Back then a stipend of less than 2000 bucks was enough to survive for most of a month…..including the absolute basic essentials like junk food, movies and petrol. Now many of us have added a couple of zeros to the earnings…but our needs seem much more. Back then we didn't mind waiting in line for hours to get a chance to call the ladies’ hostel from the single phone in the hostel, now we have one or two smart phones with ‘full options’, but unfortunately don’t have the option of calling anyone else other than our own ‘bitter-halves’. Back then we were ‘us’ and the faculty/famous practitioners/teachers were the ‘them’….many held in awe and respect, some ridiculed, some hated, some ignored. Now many of us have become the ‘them’ …mostly held in awe and respect I think (and I hope).
Life seems to have come full circle…or at least a good regular semi circle.
Three people will be really missed – Ranesh, Easaw and Pushpalatha. Three good souls who left the stage a bit early. When I sat down to write this piece I was beginning to get a bit uncharacteristically senti….but then I realized that those dudes would probably get nauseated themselves seeing all this overdose of mush. So to hell with the senti…I mean we feel sad about them, but they must be laughing their butts off, wherever they are, seeing us poor haggled idiots –getting up every day to mushy ‘good morning pictures’ or stale, recycled forwarded jokes on Whatsapp, checking Facebook to count the number of likes for our latest stupid irrelevant uploads….running around under stress for that one new house, one new car, one new wife/husband……
I was in a special position to know two of them as I was the only guy who was a room-mate to both of them (Obviously it had to be the two guys I’m talking about, coz for some weird reason males were not given accommodation options in the ladies hostel. This in spite of some males being around thereabouts most of the time. There should seriously be something like a ladies hostel naturalization/ citizenship option for such characters).
Being roomies with Easaw (that was the correct nomenclature by the way, we never used his first name as a rule) and Ranesh were two distinctly different yet equally fun experiences. Being a room-mate is bit like being married- you get to know all the good, bad and ugly and still end up enjoying the togetherness. You can talk about anything from irrelevant things like studies to important stuff like non-existent love lives.
Easaw had been demonized as a ‘difficult’ room-mate. However it didn’t take long to realize that the poor guy was probably one of the most misunderstood persons around. The thing about Easaw was that he was brutally honest. I mean if I had to deal with a difficult idiot, I would go on diplomatically on the lines of something like “ Dear respected and honorable sir, I know you are not understanding what I am saying, but please could you try to understand what I am saying…..” with a combination of honey and sugar dripping from my mouth. On the other hand Easaw’s approach would be something like “ Listen you idiot, do you understand what I am saying….if not…..” accompanied by a not –so-innocent rolling up of his sleeves to expose his massive biceps….and more often than not Easaw’s approach got work done more effectively. The guy could still makes friends damn easily. Wherever you went with him…railway stations, restaurants, cinema theatres, people would recognize him, smile at him and offer little favors.

 

Otherwise he was just another regular guy – hardworking, great at sports and very helpful. As far as girls were concerned Easaw was more into his own type…the slightly more than moderately built and nourished kind…his favorite actresses were Kajol and Kate Winslett. I remember because the guy gave me a pretty solid headache after he kept on waxing eloquent on the leading ladies and not letting me sleep after seeing‘Minsara Kanavu’ and the ‘Titanic’ respectively.

Ranesh of course didn’t have any specific likes as far as girls were concerned. Any XX chromosomal pattern was good enough for him. For that matter the guy wasn’t particular about anything I suppose. He was one of the guys who always seemed to be smiling (even under fire from the artillery of good old Dr Sudha). I still remember the day when we returned from a long vacation to see our whole room – mattresses, undies, books (in that order or importance) all soaked from a leaking roof in the monsoons. I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown but this nut, my room-mate, was laughing away to glory…this in spite of the fact that his side of the room was definitely more devastated.


 

Ranesh was one of those misfits…a high IQ guy, a guy who got into the IIT, but ended up in medicine……but happy all the same. He was a genius with anything electronic and proof of the concept lay in the bedside operated light switches he set up in our room, which were absolutely perfect for lazy bums like us. I really miss the good ol’ days in the hostel when we would go to Nelson chettan’s exclusive ‘kattan chaya+ bull’s eye place’ during exam nights, allegedly in order to get rid of our ever present sleepiness. Of course we would come right back and end up snoring away to glory in a few minutes. Over the course of time we developed a kind of tendency to go have a cuppa tea whenever we were having insomnia. Worked perfectly!

I could go on and on with the memories, but like I said, the way I know them, they would both be a bit nauseated at hearing extreme senti of any sort…especially when it is in their own names. To put it simple it was fun being with you guys….but life goes on….. You’ll miss the reunion but the reunion will definitely miss you more…….

 

Reunion

We had a rather informal get-together of our batch of 94 ,medical college Trivandrum a day before new years eve……8 long years after leaving the hallowed passage ways of our alma mater.8 years is not a long time I guess…but long enough for people to change in so many different ways.
I mean think of it …in times of yore when we guys got together,in a short while the majority would be semiconscious (booze being the appetizer ,main course and dessert) and whatever legible conversation that did take place was mostly about girls,girls and girls ….specifically in that order.This time the only girls we could talk about were our own wives ( which isn’t a very exciting topic for discussion anyway ) and because of the former irritant the latter issue regarding some more interesting liquids didn’t even arise.
Many of the ladies had changed too..from goody –goody types to married goody-goody types.Some remained the woody –woody types and some remained the moody-moody,broody –broody types.
People who would break into song ,invited or otherwise (mostly the latter ) kept blissfully mum for the whole period and people who wouldn’t open up even at gun point were pouring out words like a leaking roof in the monsoons .
The last time we met, making a phone call meant waking up a drowsy Manoharan or Prasad (our hostel caretakers ) and requesting humbly for the key to the phone lock…. A key which would open a long session of unadulterated ‘panjara’ if the dialed number was located in the ladies hostel.Now everybody had mobiles and blackberries….but sadly not a bit of good old ‘panjara’ .
We even called each other by our official first names ,which was strange because we actually had forgotten that some guys had real names on the college record and not just the often superlatively imaginative nick names.

Initially everybody did seem a bit stiff as though being stiff was in fashion.
Ultimately though ,through the thin film of age induced pseudo-maturity our basic instincts shone through (wow…sentences like that make me feel ever so nearer to the literature noble).To put it in layman’s or laywomen’s terms we started gossiping freely.Soon the conversation was drifting comfortably towards….‘You know that guy married a foreigner’ or vice versa and ‘That guy married for money’ to ‘Guess who got divorced’?(I personally thought that the third in the list was the luckiest )and believe me guys are just as good at gossiping ,if not better.

I left a bit early coz little Nadia was getting a bit cranky (think of it… earlier I rarely used to leave college functions early not even if I
felt cranky!!) and we had to drive back all the way to Cochin ,but I really wish I remained till the very end.All said and done things change …..and the changes are sometimes good, sometimes bad…like life itself..but meeting all these people after so long did remind me that there were times when life was definitely much less complicated!!

(dedicated to the batch of 94 ,MCT ,Trivandrum…..whacky,cool…the best!)