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…….

 

Following your dreams and all that crap...

“I want to retire early” I announce as I slam the toilet door shut after another cathartic soul cleansing session sitting on the pot. Sitting on the pot often presents me with inspirational and philosophical thoughts…”Mein or meri tanhai” and all that stuff. I am sure that if I sit for longer durations I may end up winning a noble prize or something and at least nobody will accuse me of not straining for success. (Incidentally I am sure Rodin’s ‘thinker’ was doing exactly this when he was posing for the sculpture thing). Wife and kid roll their respective eyes at my comments, which in local sign language means “There he goes again”. Kid goes back to her crayons and coloring books. Wife goes back to her cooking. Life is normal. “ No really…I’ve had enough of this ‘normal’ mundane life” I insist in a slightly louder voice, giving extra stress on the ‘normal’ bit. I wanted to suffix the word ‘married’ somewhere after the ‘normal’ or the ‘mundane’, but getting physically injured was not on my immediate agenda today. “Seeing all sorts of itchy people everyday…yeh bhi koi zindagi hain…zindagi na milegi dobara..you know?” etc. etc. I purposely keep my glare fixed on my wife. My wife ups the ante with a more threatening and wee-bit more convincing glare . “The patients I mean…itchy ,scratchy patients with skin rashes…not you” I submit meekly.The female glare always wins (old junglee saying). This time the kid does not bother to lift her head. Wife gives a condescending nod to her head and says a very eloquent “OK”, and goes back to her cooking. “It’s OK…people thought Socrates was mad. Only later did they realize that he was just a bit ahead of his times” I continue, not willing to give up easily. “Hmmmph.OK Socrates dear, what exactly do you have in mind” My wife finally takes the bait. “I want to retire early” I announce grandly , waving my hands around for effect “Follow my dreams…live my passion. It’s really the in-thing you know. Try something more adventurous. I want to travel to exotic , dangerous locations. ….maybe try my hand at wild life and nature photography. Maybe start a restaurant of my own….or write a book.….” I ramble on. The thing is that you take any ‘follow your dream’ themed movie, you tend to have the very same job descriptions repeated…the hero always decides to chuck his million dollar per annum job, stock options and penthouse to become a wild-life photographer, start his own restaurant or write a book. I mean the hero never has other simple hobbies like stamp collection, coin collection, rock collection and embroidery/cross-stitching, which were in vogue when we were kids. “If you want to leave me, just say it. Don’t give me the early retirement nonsense” Wives always have this inherently irritating tendency of boiling everything down to the “If you want to leave me” emotional blackmail thing. The 6 year old by-product /collateral damage of our marriage meanwhile looks up suddenly interested and enquires sincerely “ Mama, can I also think of taking early retirement from school?” She sees mama’s furious exophthalmic eyes and meekly returns to her coloring. That’s one lady who wouldn’t be thinking of early retirement for quite some time…and incidentally now you know who really makes the big decisions in this family. “Hmmph” Wifey continues her monologue “ Dangerous places indeed. You are sooo lazy when it comes to travelling…when was the last time you visited my parents? Your in-laws?” My wife was getting into the mood. I also don’t get it why she has to always specifically clarify that her parents are my in-laws? “Not that dangerous….moderately dangerous, but habitable places” I mutter under my breath. “I heard that Mr. Husband…..and restaurant? The last time you tried cooking you burnt the food and almost managed to annihilate my kitchen” Now, though heavily tinged with female exaggeration , this was kinda technically true, but to misquote Edison “'I had not failed. I had just found a few ways that won't quite work to make chicken manchurian” Also please note the point : For the wife its always “my” kitchen , but when we try to completely respect their territorial integrity and don’t bother to enter the kitchen at all they give you all kinds of hell about not helping out in ‘our’ kitchen. “And wild-life photography…you lug around your junk camera everywhere. Let me ask you how many photos of mine are there in that contraption. You ever feel like taking pics of your dear wife?” Her voice was rising like the dollar vs. rupee thing. I wanted to agree with her…I mean with such rare and exotic specimens of wild life in the house, maybe I could have started practicing right here, but maybe I was looking at something a little bit less wild like lions, jaguars and African elephants. Well the big boss had effectively argued with a point-by-point rebuttal and of course won. So my early retirement plans were prematurely retired. All the same, just to spite her and show that you can follow your passions even without retiring, I travelled all alone to a not-so-near pathetic supermarket , bought some not-so-fresh pathetic eggs and tomatoes, took some pics of some pathetic looking stray camels on the way back, came back and made a pathetic double omelet and then set about writing this pathetic blog. So there. On a more serious note, it has become kind of trendy to talk about leaving your ‘normal’ routine and go flitting after more grandiose schemes. It’s all very good if you really have the passion, talent and more importantly some financial back-up for you and your family before you jump into the one of the “follow your dream” scams. There are very, very few people who actually succeed significantly after mid-life career switches. Though these success stories are highlighted and bandied around by the media, there are a hundred failures for every success that never get a mention. You can always follow your passion as a hobby on the side….till you are really ready for the big-switch. To quote from a recent FB post from the very talented wildlife photographer Jayanth Sharma ( who incidentally switched from a ‘mundane’ IT job to full time photography “Learn photography so that you can click better pictures first. Please don’t treat that learning similar to a Java or .Net course after working hours that can help you change your job from being a C++ programmer. The idea of a job change has to occur when you are really good in something else that you’d like to do forever. Not quit your job to learn something new that you think you would like to do. Give yourself time and don’t rush to be an idiot”

The dummy medical student’s guide to the oral examination (viva)

The medical viva exams can be interesting, amusing, out- rightly funny, ridiculous, frightening , horrible, terrible or digustlng….all depends on which side of the table you are on. If you happen to be on the ‘unprivileged’ wrong side of the table (read’ examinee’’), then you really need some special tricks up your sleeves to survive some of the more ominous examiners. There is of course a very simple way to ace your viva exams….study….but studying beyond a point is really ‘uncool’ right? So that’s why you need a lot of plan Bs. Coming up are some golden tips I have learnt from some masters of the viva exams (These are a breed of special creatures who often end up either flunking most of their exams, but somehow come through the viva smelling like roses…while the more educated ones end up smelling like assorted varieties of excrement….human or bull) 1.Empty your bowels, bladders and any other area bodily waste depots before the viva. It helps you relax better. The only bull-shit that you want to extrude should be from your mouth. 2.Dress well, shave/ cut your hair, brush your teeth, take a shower, use a comb, use a deodorant and an anti-perspirant…..I know that doing all these things on a daily basis is very cumbersome and asking too much from a medical student, but what the heck? You’ve got to do most of these things at least once in a blue moon, so you may as well do it on the day of the exam. Subjecting the unsuspecting examiners to the full glorious panorama of your appearance, and bodily odours combine with the over-activity of your autonomic nervous system may just unfavorably tilt that gentle balance between a ‘pass’ and a ‘fail’. I call it the ‘whiff between the cup and the lip!’. Almost every other examiner has this fetish for a white coat, so always wear a well washed and ironed white coat …if you can find something like that in your cupboard. If not steal it from the nerd in the next room who lives in a stupid utopian world where apparently medical school requires discipline, hardwork and white coats . Start with a greeting and a smile….you can even try commending the examiners choice of dress, even if the examiner is dressed like a mutated cross between Govinda , Bappi Lahiri and Lady Gaga. 3.Act knowledgeable – This is the key…from the examiner’s side the logic goes a bit like – “If he looks like an idiot, talks like an idiot and moves like an idiot…he must be an idiot”. So try not to be your true self as much as possible. Wearing a spectacle helps often. Most medical students these days spend more time on the internet and video games than medical texts. So there’s a good chance that you are already blessed by myopia ……If not you can always go for a zero- power spectacle. For every question hesitate a bit, filling the gaps with a few ‘hmms’ and intelligent-looking head nods – the up-down type, not the side-to-side ones (Imagine you are Manmohan Singh giving a press conference., but don’t get too much into the role coz you may end up remaining absolutely mute even if a Richter 9 earthquake strikes the examination hall) . Of course you also have to follow up the ‘hmms’ and ‘err’ with some kind of legible words, otherwise the examiner will identify that you are ‘borderline’ dumb (which you probably are…. but then not getting caught is what we’re talking about right?Capisce?) 4.Learn a few big words and try to introduce those words into whatever answers you are giving. For example for a dermatology viva – learn a few terms like ‘Dermatitis cruris pustulosa et atrophicans’ and always say this instead of saying something simple like ‘epilating folliculitis’ ,even though they essentially mean the same thing. So if you are asked to talk about say acne…you could say something like “ Acne is a very common disease, the lesions are similar to Dermatitis cruris pustulosa et atrophicans, but there are differences, for example Dermatitis cruris pustulosa et atrophicans looks different, because Dermatitis cruris pustulosa et atrophicans is somewhat different and acne is not exactly like Dermatitis cruris pustulosa et atrophicans. Sometimes Dermatitis cruris pustulosa et atrophicans and Acne can occur in the same person and sometimes Dermatitis cruris pustulosa et atrophicans and acne can occur in different persons also” 5.Steer the examiner towards what you know……the whole funda of the exam as far as you are concerned is to get the examiner to hear what you know not know what you don’t know. So the moment you get a question on some area you know even vaguely, wax eloquently till kingdom comes and if you get a question not even remotely near the little bit you have studied, still try to connect it to the part you know. For example, imagine that the only thing you’re really comfortable with in dermatology is ‘acne’ and the nutty examiner ends up asking some totally stupid question like “ Tell me the etiopathogenesis of psoriasis” ;your answer should proceed on the lines of something like: “Psoriasis is a very common disease- it affects the skin – there is inflammation in the skin- there are lot of conditions with inflammation in the skin – one of the commonest of this is acne – acne is characterized by a block in the sebaceous apparatus …blah , blah, blah”……..rant and rave like a possessed madman for about 3-5 minutes (incorporate all the minute, irrelevant and outright ridiculous details regarding acne that you know) …. at the end of this severe verbal diarrhea, most examiners end up forgetting that the original question was about psoriasis and not acne…and they also end up believing that they’ve just met a future Nobel prize winner in acne . Incidentally make it a point to speak as slowly and clearly as possible, when you’re talking about something you know and speak fast and unintelligibly, like unadulterated gibberish, when you’re in unfamiliar turf 6.Last ditch salvage attempts if things go horribly wrong – cry, bawl,howl, wail (Kind of more effective if you are a girl, but worth trying across genders)..tell the examiner that the previous day you had a life threatening bout of fungal infection of the left groin (be specific and inventive..the old ‘I had fever’ kinda things are too lame nowdays. Don’t say that even if you actually had a fever)…..the sympathy thing sometimes works if the examiner is a bigger idiot than you. 7.Learn to answer some of the trick questions which usually come up when things are not looking so good for you– The examiner may ask you things like “ How much time do you spend daily of facebook and twitter”…don’t jump and shoot something like “Less than 16 hours hours Sir” or complain of invasion of privacy.The best answer would be something on the lines of “ ‘Facebook’…duh….what is that sir?” or “Facebook…is that a medical book? Who’s the author?” DISCLAIMER: All the previous mentioned skill sets have been tried and tested by professionals, I urge you not to try out these stunts in the exam hall if you can do something more simpler, sensible and much more effective….like STUDYING. On a more serious note, it is rightly said that ‘assessment drives learning’. If the assessment process is not valid or reliable, the whole learning process also becomes undone. Medical teachers need to ask realistic and relevant questions – sampled over a wide range of topics within the subject, with the majority of questions being of a moderate difficulty. They should also try to ensure that the marking is realistic. Giving marks too liberally or too stingily really doesn’t serve any purpose. On the other side student have to understand that medicine is a really difficult course and examiners can have their own special peculiarities and idiosyncrasies. You can’ t realistically go around expecting to score a 100% on each exam and neither can you go on cribbing about each exam/ examiner. If you consistently put in really good effort, you will definitely get good scores.

The doctor's dress code

Recently I was leafing through an interesting article in a medical journal which dealt with patients’ perceptions regarding the dressing styles of their doctors. The study was of course in a European context and the important question addressed was what kind of dressers did patients prefer? The classic white coated type, the formal suit and tie type or the casual dressing type? Well, at least no prizes for guessing which type was least preferred.
The article reminded me of some of the ‘dressing’ issues of my own undergraduate days in medical college. Looking back I realize that some of the really good doctors that taught me weren’t the snazziest of dressers and neither did most of them give a damn about what we wore or didn’t wear. There were on the other hand quite a few professors who were obsessed with the way we budding doctors dressed. The most famous was of course was the one and only Dr FM of the surgery department. Dr FM was known for his antipathy towards any female medical student not wearing a sari (i.e. wearing something else other than a sari, not what you were thinking of you perv!). Many a female student has been castigated in the hallowed hallways of the surgical ward in the Trivandrum medical college for choosing to dress in a salwar/churidar (Still have not really figured out the exact difference between a churidar and a salwar. Only thing I know is that 1) Females are never really satisfied with the ones they have 2) They are costly 3) You are supposed to buy or at least facilitate the buying of truckloads of them for having a healthy and pleasant marriage).
Surprisingly though most of the ‘liberated’ gals in our class would comply with this unwritten FM commandment…at least during their surgical rotations. This, in spite of the practical and logistical difficulties of getting oneself rolled up in six yards of cloth every hectic morning. Stumbling into Dr FM while you’re in non-sari attire was always a pretty unpleasant affair for the females. Dr FM wouldn’t say much…. just walk away before you could even utter ‘Sari Sir’ (pun intended), but the look in his eyes would be of someone subjected to the most extreme form of betrayal. Would remind you of some of the bollywood movies where the ditched hero/heroine would emotionally say “ Nahi!!Key do ki yeh jhoot hai!”. Some wore the sari out of fear, some out of respect….and maybe some because they actually thought that they looked better in a sari! (We males definitely agree that some of these creatures did appear to be more eye-friendly in a sari…kind of an optical illusion thing I suppose).
Times have changed however. Nowadays for medical students (or for that matter any student) saris are strictly for special occasions only. So you have a party or some college festival, out comes your mother’s silk sari collection…smell of mothballs and all.
FM had a few lines in his rule book for the guys too. White coats with light colored shirts tucked into formal dark trousers, polished shoes…..the works. Jeans and other such informal trash were absolute no-nos. Compliance was on the lower side with the guys though. I mean we guys had our own limitations, especially those of us staying in the hostel. A pair of jeans would be good for a month or two without any kind of even remote contact with detergents and water…and maybe a couple of months more with the right perfume (actually some of us even tried the same ‘no detergent-no water’ trick for our dearest undies also…but then there are limitations to what even a good perfume can do!). White coats we did have, even though our ‘white’ coats were perpetually blessed with very interesting mixtures of shades from off-white to yellow to brown…….well, at least it matched with the color of our teeth. As for polished shoes…well the lil issue is that you need socks to wear shoes and our socks were kind of like our undies -classic examples of ‘toxic sock syndrome’….one whiff and you’re out cold (definitely more relevant and useful for our anesthesia rotations I think). So keeping in mind one of the most important parts of the ‘Hippocratic oath’ –the ‘first do no harm’ thing, we diligently used to forego the socks and shoes routine. And there was a definite patriotic angle too, I mean even Mahatma Gandhi didn’t wear shoes did he?
So do the patients’ really care how you dress? Yes and no I suppose….and it depends quite a lot on your local cultural context. We mallus unfortunately still live in a very male chauvinistic society where quite a few patients would still not bat an eyelid while addressing the younger female doctors as ‘sister’, assuming that they are nurses and not actual doctors. Not sure, but maybe in our mallu context, the amount of respect for a sari clad female doc is just a little bit more than the churidar clad one….my humble personal opinion that is…but then ultimately though it is how you carry yourself and of course the quality of your care and compassion that really matter!

N: All said and done, I have the deepest respect for Dr FM; he really was a person quite ahead of his times in many ways and quite a genuine human being and doctor.

The dummy’s guide to handling -“You forgot our anniversary!”

N:
1. Dummy by default is equivalent to Hubby
2. The female partner might be a mummy and at times can be quite crummy, but never as a rule, is a dummy…that honor is exclusively for the male half of the marriage.
3. If my wife happens to read this -all loony characters in this story are completely fictious, any resemblance to actual human beings is because you are thinking too much.

Last month (I forget the date), I had a nightmare. What was special about the nightmare was that it was after I woke up. I was still in bed, leisurely completing my big quota of waking-up yawns and stretches, when my eyes fell on my wife’s not so pleasant looking face. Warning bells were ringing, but I really couldn’t remember what I had done wrong. The good thing about wives though is that they’re a bit like Amitabh Bachchan on KBC…. they’ll always give you a clue before you finally lose the plot.
“Do you know what today is?”
The warning bells were building to a crescendo now. Now if it was a little later in the day, with some caffeine in my blood, my brains might have actually worked and I might have at least figured out the date and then tried to analyze if the date had any significance. ….but obviously she had picked her timing carefully.
Now when you get a question like “Do you know what today is?” or any one of its variants, you are definitely looking at either YOUR anniversary or HER birthday (never your birthday…because that is something you have absolute liberty to forget). Once you get this kind of ominous question out of the blue, there are three things you should absolutely do…
1) Buy yourself some time…and think
2) Buy yourself some time…and think
3) Buy yourself some time…and think
And there are some things you should never ever do, irrespective of the level of your consciousness…even if you are in deep coma –
1) Take the bait and reply “No….what?”
2) Keep a puzzled expression (kind of difficult for most people to do that when you’re in coma)
3) Walk away without answering the question….even if you are in need of an emergency trip to the loo.
4) Answer to the point with something like “Today is Friday, the 7th of January, 2012”

“Of course sweetheart….you think I would forget?” I don’t act really well….especially not when my minimalist grey cell network is working hard, concurrently trying to figure out what exactly is happening.
It was January, my wife is an Arian, so it was not her Birthday….so that left our anniversary…now that was definitely somewhere around this time of the year I thought. I had to take the risk. No point in being afraid….. after all, like the wise men say “Darr ke age jeet hai” (No I did not have a can of ‘mountain dew’ with me to help….. the only thing similar I have at present actually are a ‘mountain of dues’……now that’s what I call taking puns to a new low!)
“Happy anniversary darling!” I ventured hesitantly.. I even managed a smile while mouthing out the greeting.
Now the Missus had an amused, but happy expression on her face…..did I make a mistake??. If it turned out to be her birthday I could always argue that a birthday is also kind of an anniversary.
The Missus leans over and gives me a sweet little peck on the cheek. I passed the exam. I breathe.
“Time flies…feels like yesterday…..do you know how many years it has been…..time really flies right?”
Uh oh… now I wanted to fly away. Trick question. I stop breathing again…..as a model husband you are supposed to not only know your exact anniversary date, but also remember the whole chronological details. It’s a bit like your 4th standard hindi exam – kisne kaha, kab kaha, kyon kaha, kahaan kaha, kis liye kaha………..
Now I ‘m sure I’ve not been married for more than ten years (though it inevitably feels longer)…..My daughter is 5 years old ….so 6-8 years would have been a good guess, but unfortunately I doubt if an answer in a range was acceptable.
“I know sweetheart…..but you still look just as young and pretty as on our wedding day”
N: Flattery always works…. even in the middle of an inquisition, especially if you don’t have the right answers.
“I love you darling” I get smothered with another half a dozen kisses. I breathe.
Nadia my 5 year old, wakes in the middle of this emotional drama …takes a curious glance through squinted, bleary eyes and then immediately plops back to sleep. …She must have thought she’s having a nightmare.
“So what did you get for me?” She asks sweetly.
I stop breathing again. My lungs must be thinking that I’ve gone nuts.
The inquisition I realize is still very much on.
“Just a second sweetheart” I ramble out of the bed .My wife watches my exit with an extremely puzzled look.
N: When in the middle of a spousal inquisition, be very liberal with yucky words like sweetheart, sugar, honey etc. At least helps you buy some time.
Five minutes later I present myself in front of my better half with a huge smile plastered on my mug and a small gift wrapped package in my hand…red ribbons……..the works.
The huge smile thing seems to be infectious, as now the missus can’t stop beaming….the beaming gets worse as she opens the wrapping to reveal a cute little bottle of a Calvin Klein ‘Eternity’ perfume…..the name seemed to go well with my present situation too.
Its kisses and hugs part 2.
I breathe.
End of inquisition (for now).
Now for all those curious hubbies who are wondering how I managed the ‘All’s well that ends well’ thing……its simple actually…all you have to do is always keep a little gift (properly wrapped and ribboned of course) hidden away in some luggage. Whenever you have an emergency “did you forget our anniversary” kind of thing…Voila! Pull out the magic present…..and get ready for free hugs and kisses. The most important thing is to replenish the emergency gift stock….and of course to keep it well hidden.


PS: Now if any of you guys are thinking “Oh what a brave guy this is to write and put this stuff in public domain”, thing is that my wife is back home in India for now, and it’s kind of difficult to actually get subjected to physical abuse through Skype.

Dead sea strolls - Jordan

One of the recent fads hyped up as a panacea for skin diseases are skin care products derived from ‘dead sea salts’. The mud derived from the Dead Sea apparently has an amazing variety of minerals and is being increasing promoted for anything from the treatment of psoriasis and allergic disease to skin aging. So if you are a self /publically proclaimed old hag, just jump into the Dead Sea, roll around a bit in the blackish mud and voila! You come out with glowing skin a la Mama Aiswarya Rai! It’s not really an apt place for suffering husbands who are planning to dispose their ‘bitter’ half by the good ol’ ‘death by drowning thing’….not only will these wives remain floating on the surface, they might actually come back looking unrecognizable!
A couple of weeks back I too had the grand honor of dipping/floating in the Dead Sea (from the Jordanian side of course). Unfortunately no ‘ugly duckling to beautiful swan’ thing for me….my skin remained pretty much the same…extraordinarily thick and itchy. Besides, if this Dead Sea thing actually improved itchy conditions you would have expected that the Arabs and the Israelis would have a less scratchy attitude towards each other by now……but I suppose even nature’s cures have their own limits.




The Dead Sea


We visited Jordan in early November (We, as in my family and my friend with his family). The weather was great, the food was great and the people were great. We drove into Jordan from the Eastern end of Saudi Arabia and as expected the long drive was an experience in itself. It is about 1700 km from Hofuf to Amman , virtually a criss-cross across the breadth of Saudi Arabia. Major cities on the way were Hafr- Al Batein, Arar, Rafah and Turaif .We broke the journey and spent the night at Turaif. The ‘Omari’ border crossing is from the Saudi town of Qurayat. This time the Saudi side took just about half and hour (surprisingly!), while the Jordanian side took a good two hours, mainly for the visa on arrival thing and the car insurance (Visa is around 20 jordanian dinars per person and car insurance works out to about 50JD for a month). Most Jordanians speak at least a smattering of English, so conversation is not as difficult as in Saudi. Amman is around 2 hours from the Omari border and our first impression of Jordan en route to Amman was quite disappointing….mostly desert stretches for at least 150 km…I mean if you wanted to see deserts we have absolutely no shortage in Saudi! The other very interesting and mysterious thing is that every few kilometers you find a ‘police training center’. The Jordanian police apparently is a very professional unit, but so many training centers? I was half expecting to see some ‘Bad guy training centers’ ahead so that these cops would be kept occupied!






























Things started picking up when we approached Amman. The desert started giving rise to more greenery and then we started experiencing the typical ups and downs of Amman. Amman is basically built around hills and it shows in the roads…it’s a bit like a marriage..Up-down, up- down with few level stretches!

We’re traditionally not very much into the planning thing, so we were cute enough to reach Amman and then search for a hotel instead of booking in advance as level-headed mere mortals would do. As expected (and as that guy Murphy found out) , we were going in circles and we had no idea where we were exactly (It felt a bit like my life story…going around in circles and not reaching anywhere..but apparently the others claimed to be more normal so they apparently felt uncomfortable). Finally we decided to trouble Dr Radi , one of our former Jordanian colleagues in Saudi, who is now settled in Amman. Poor Dr Radi went out of his way to help us. He found us a furnished apartment, invited us for breakfast and lunch the next day ( we were sweet enough to extend that to tea and dinner too!) and also gave us a little guided tour to one of major the attractions near Amman - the roman ruins in Jarash, around 65 km from Amman. We spent almost the whole of the next day at Dr Radi’s ancestral home in the village of Naimah, which is near the major town of Irbid (quite close to the Syrian border).The whole area has beautiful hilly landscapes.Besides the omnipresent olive trees and the lovely people we were treated to great food. Breakfast was ‘Khubuz’ (Arabic bread, something like a more obese cousin of our Indian roti), with hummus (made of chick peas…it’s another things which the whole middle east fights over …as to who has original patent rights – the Lebanese, the other Arabs and the now the Israelis are all laying claim to hummus….as though these dummies didn’t already have enough on their plate to fight about!) .We also had Felafel with a very tasty sauce made of vinegar and spices. In the afternoon we had Ouzi….essentially rice and chicken with lots of nuts and interesting flavours ( although Ouzi I think has more of a Lebanese slant compared to ‘Mansaf’ which is more typically Jordanian…who cares…generally if you put rice over a murdered chicken and rub salt into its wounds and cook it, it tastes good!). Anyway I’m sure we upheld the glorious image of our country in Jordan…Dr Radi will henceforth think twice (at least) before inviting Indians over again!




























Amman city is more or less similar to most Arab capitals. What strikes you most is the almost monotonous white limestone buildings everywhere. This particularly white stone is very imaginatively called ‘Hajr al Abyad’ which means ‘white stone’ in Arabic (Ok…I’ll cut down the sarcasm next time……you think!) .Otherwise its typical congested roads, government buildings, malls and lot fly-overs, fly-unders and fly between over and unders. The people seem to be generally very well dressed (my wife though is convinced that even Bappi Lahiri is better dressed than yours truly, so maybe that’s just a relative thing).
Sometimes we sorely missed the luxury of talking in Hindi or Malayalam to every other person (like in the other Gulf countries).Indians generally seemed to be in short supply around here…till we bumped into a jovial mallu from Kannur who was in charge of the play area in Mecca mall, one of the largest malls in Amman. He was ‘simbly’ overjoyed and even gave free game passes to the children who were also ‘simbly’ overjoyed. The other major attractions within the city include the majestic blue mosque and the Roman theatre…but you should definitely not miss the “Citadel” on a hill in the center of downtown Amman…an area which has remains an ruins from half a dozen civilizations and is considered to be one of the world’s oldest inhabited places. So here you have the ‘pillars of Hercules’ and an ‘Umayyad mosque’ all jostling each other in the same space. The citadel also gives an absolutely grand 360 degree view of the whole Amman city around it.




Citadel, Amman and
The Pillars of Hercules














The two must-see things in Jordan of course are –Petra and the Dead Sea. Petra is around 400 km from Amman, while the Dead Sea is around 100 km. ideally you should do Petra and Wadi Rum together, but our schedule was a bit tight, so we skipped Wadi Rum. Wadi Rum is apparently famous for eco-tourism – things to do include desert drives, rock-climbing and horse-riding. The area is famous because of its association with T E Lawrence, of the ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ fame. The port of Aqaba is another place near Petra- famous for water sports and shopping.
Petra of course is quite magnificent…especially considering that the whole city was virtually carved out of rocks somewhere around the 6th century BC. The admission ticket is priced magnificently too…I’m sure that a lot of the rocks are actually guys who got ‘petrified’ after hearing the admission fees! Maybe that’s why it’s one of the new ‘wonders of the world’….you hear the price and then you ‘wonder’ whether you really want to go in or not! One Jordanian Dinar (JD) is around 1.4 USD .A ticket to Petra costs 50 JD per head..But jokes apart, it’s worth every cent. The ‘rose city’ as it is called needs to be viewed in leisure. The easiest way of course is to walk, but there are other options like horses and horse-driven carts, especially if you’re going with older people or children. The piece-de-resistance of course is the ‘treasury’ building, made famous by the Indiana Jones movie – ‘The last crusade’













Petra

























The USP of the Dead Sea is the floating thing. You can actually lie down and read a book while floating effortlessly on the Dead Sea. Personally though I felt the drive into the area was more breathtaking. The Dead sea is the lowest point on the earth and is surrounded by a fabulous landscape which stuns your visual senses as you descend down the hairpin curves. Many Jordanians believe that it is not good to spend a lot of time here as it is a ‘cursed place’, alluding to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah of the ‘destroyed by fire and brimstone’ fame (The area around the Dead Sea is believed to be site of these ancient cities). There are quite a few historical areas nearby including Bethany along the Jordan river.
There are many areas to actually take a dip into the water, but most recommended is the ‘Amman Beach resort’. You have to leave before sunset though. Our guide mentioned that this restriction had something to do with the ‘not so friendly neighborhood Israelis’ being concerned about their security. The West bank is clearly visible from the Jordanian side. Our guide, an interesting and resourceful motor-mouth named Khalil, a Palestinian –Jordanian, intermittently put in nostalgic comments on his homeland where he was no longer allowed in, whenever his gaze drifted to the West Bank. Seeing the beautiful and serene Dead Sea, it would be hard to fathom the amount of conflict and hate deposited on its banks…..

Floating in the Dead Sea






























Some general tips:
The best accommodation is around the area of the Jordan University. All major hotel chains are present. You can get a pretty good room starting from 50-60 JD a night. However if you’re going with a larger group getting a furnished apartment would also be a good option. A three bedroom furnished apartment comes for about 60-70 JD a day.
For moving around Jordan, it is better to catch hold of a taxi (even if you have your own car, the route can be confusing).The yellow taxis charge by the meter and seem the best option. For longer trips (like to Petra) you try a taxi, take one of the Jordanian Express Transport (JET) buses or rent-a-car. There are plenty of car rental outlets – a standard sedan like a Toyota corolla goes for about 200 JD a week (most places don’t rent for less than a week)
Prepaid sim cards are easily available at most company outlets. One of the best options is the Zain card which is available for around 10 JD
Petrol ( or benzene, like the Jordanians call it) is pretty expensive here, so if you’re driving in from Saudi, make sure you fill up your tank at the border.

ATMS are surprisingly scarce in Jordan, so keep some cash handy.



Nadia and gang at the Treasury in Petra

Please feel free to use the photos with permission.Thanks!

Going Dutch! (Groningen, Netherlands)

My association with the city of Groningen apparently went back quite a few years. One of my arch enemies was from Groningen (only I didn’t know it until recently…that too courtesy good ol’ Wikipedia)….now if you are thinking that I was some medieval Spanish king with a more than passing interest in capturing Groningen, I was actually talking about Mr. Daniel Bernoulli….one of those multitalented creatures that were quite a plenty in renaissance affected Europe. Never quite understood his crazy principles of aerodynamics and fluid motion. Unfortunately my high school physics teacher Mr RK did understand, and was apparently enamored of the guy and he also understood that I didn’t understand much about Bernoulli ji and his musings, so as expected things weren’t quite ‘uplifting’ when he got down to business to discuss how an aero plane takes off in-spite of its heavy butt. I of course tried to convince him that we should not be bothered about explaining things that are already known…we should be looking to the future etc etc. Mr RK apparently was not the ‘great vision’ kind of guy…so he just gave me very unflattering marks. Period. That was the first time Mr Bernoulli pissed me off…not the last though. Apparently this guy’s fantastically unbelievable super duper principle had some crazy implication in the blood flow in the human body. Obviously I couldn’t care less with my great vision of sticking to the future etc. Dr S my examiner in my medical school physiology viva however turned out to be another great fan of Bernoulli ji. So it was déjà vu with Dr S with her psychotic eyes replacing Mr RK with his invisible eye ( because of the -15 lenses he wore…..fitting in with my theory of him not having great vision).The rest of the event was pretty mundane and predictable….I think the marks were also pretty much on same low scale. We parted on good terms after though; I even asked Dr S if she had a brother who was teaching in high school….which she apparently didn’t.
Well the whole flash-back about my depressingly glorious past was basically because I was in Groningen for a couple of weeks as part of a training thing in the medical school of the University of Groningen, and while looking up Wikipedia before I left, I was struck with the revelation that sweet ol’ Bernoulli ji was one of the many famous sons of the Groningen soil. It kind of a put a bad taste in my mouth and an odd sense of foreboding.

I could not have been more wrong though! Groningen was a wonderful place with a capital W. By the way the pronunciation of Groningen according to Wikipedia is 'ɣroːnɪŋə(n)’….which I’m sure literally seems Greek to you (and me), but the simple idea is that the ‘G’ is pronounced something like an odd mixture of k, h and c when you have a bad cold. The advantage is that if you have something struck in your throat just say ‘Groningen’ and voila! Throat clear!
The moment our vehicle pulled into Groningen (Its around 2 hours from Schiphol airport, Netherlands), the first thing that struck me was the bicycles and the second thing that struck me was the bicycles and the third thing that struck me was….well you get the idea. Groningen is considered the ‘cycling capital’ of the world and it shows. Everybody irrespective of age, sex, caste, creed and species is on a bike. No I didn’t get the species thing wrong……you’ll pretty frequently find canines and felines cosily sitting on wicker baskets while the owner cycles away to glory. Like I often mention I’m really not impressed by the concept of exercise…..but got to hand it to these guys…the cycling probably partly explains the totally pollution free air that you get around there. You save on petrol, you burn calories, and you don’t have to worry about parking….and no oil change every 5000 km! You also don’t have ego clashes of the ‘Mera gaadi tumhare gaadi se chotta kaisa’ type…except for very few almost all the cycles seem to be of a standard issue type.

We were put up at the NH Groningen, one of the famous NH chain. It was a really pleasant place with great facilties and friendly staff. The highlight was a basket of fresh green apples which were always there for you in the lobby…retrospectively I wonder though if it was symbolic…we were a pretty large group of doctors…maybe they thought a bunch of apples a day would keep these doctors away…talk about wishful thinking!!


The not so pleasant thing at times was the weather…it was typically what Obelix (of the Asterix comics fame) would have nonchalantly remarked as “This Dutch weather is crazy!”.Luckily most of the days were pleasant, except when it was raining…which was like always though…and it also seemed that the rain clouds over here are a bit like a lady in a clothes store, finding it really hard to make up their mind on the big ‘to pour or not to pour’ question…so you have these irritating little drizzles in irritating little spurts which can make you more than a little irritated. This was especially an issue in the night which was the only time we had to ourselves as the mornings and afternoon were busy with the training sessions.
There are plenty of canals here too…as in the rest of Netherlands and they make quite a pretty picture. On one of the canals near the medical school there’s a quaint little restaurant in a boat called the ‘Pancake’ ship.






The center of the city is the Martini square with the Martini tower which is probably the most famous landmark in Groningen. Next to it is the major shopping streets and the Grote market. The story goes that this area (too) was apparently pretty badly knocked up by the crazy Nazis during WWII. Groningen is very close to the German border and this was one of the last pockets of German resistance around this area to prevent the allies entering Germany. The Nazis didn’t hold on…but apparently managed to make a mess of the city, especially effectively blowing up a lot of the bridges over the canals…the famed German engineering in reverse!
Shopping can be a pretty expensive affair in Groningen ( in spite of not being with my wife!), however while you are here you should get some souvenirs from the tourist office next to Martini tower (typical ones being small windmills and miniature brightly colored wooden shoes) and also recommended are the typically Dutch ‘Stroopwafel’ (syrup waffles) for those with a sweet tooth. Groningen like the rest of Netherlands is quite into flowers too…you have an interesting flower market near the main square , with a wonderful collection of fresh flowers. There are some great shopping malls like V and D, Hema and C and A…especially good for sweaters and shawls I thought. I was looking for some original made in Holland Phillips products…but it seems even that has been outsourced to our friendly Chinese neighbours!




Being a typical university town there are plenty of small eating joints all around the city and the Indians and Chinese are also amply represented (which is quite natural considering that their biggest contribution to the modern world is human beings) .There are also all the typical junk food outlets in plenty – including McDonalds, KFC and so on. Our group tried out a couple of ‘Indian’ restaurants both of which are de facto run by Bangladeshis and this was pretty evident when the ‘lamb biriyani’ was announced as ‘lomb’ biriyani and the ‘Murgh’ biriyani became ‘Morgh’ biriyani:) , the food was OK, a bit on the expensive side though. There are a slew of Turkish ‘doner’ kebab shops too (a ‘doner’ is basically like a mutated burger heavily stuffed with meat and salads).We had typical European food for dinner on a couple of days….a bit low on the spices these Dutch …if you’re Indian it might help to keep a small sachet of ‘garam masala’ in your pocket which you can drop over the food on the sly! The desserts were fantastic though. There are plenty of small cafés around ….and then there are the ‘coffee shops’ which apparently are not for coffee really but other hot stuff (which we will not discuss further as this blog has or at least claims to have a ‘U’ rating)




On a Saturday we were taken to a place called ‘Bourtange’, which is an interesting ‘star’ shaped fortress near the German border. Apparently like rest of the world and especially us Indians, the Dutch too were not very much into the ‘love thy neighbour’ thing and vice versa ….so at times they were fighting the Spanish , sometimes the Germans and sometimes the British ….they would have fought more, but then there were only so many neighbours around. ‘Bourtange’ was something which helped the Dutch maintain control over Groningen. It also houses a cute lil village and an interesting wind-mill inside with a couple of restaurants and souvenir shops. We were also given a guided tour by a guy dressed in one of the mercenary outfits of yore. Worth a ‘dekho’ as one of our polished bollywood movie reviewers would say.










The other great thing about the Dutch is their appreciation for art.You’ll find sculptures and art galleries in every nook and corner. The University hospital itself is laced with some great creative work….of course with my limited knowledge of fine art I could not appreciate the more abstract of them (but then I was never really into art appreciation….I’m the kind who would always think that Phantom comics is better art than Dali’s surrealism…but that is just poor mentally challenged me!).Incidentally there are a couple of good museums around,including an interesting comic-strip museum.













And last but not the least ( that’s one cliché I’ve not used for a long time!), the highlight of the trip was the group at the University of Groningen who were responsible for our training….and it was an absolute pleasure academically (and socially).I really thank all those involved –including but not limited to – Prof Borleffs , Prof Cohen, Prof Molenaar, Prof Tio, Jan, Remko, Hana, Harry, Hanke,Elaine……….and of course the problem-solver, logistics expert and ‘jack of all trades’ rolled into one –Renzo!



N:If you feel like you using any of my pics please do go ahead, but would really appreciate it if you use it with permission.Thanks!