La Mer.

   i have always been a water baby.. maybe because i have always lived near the sea all my life.. and even my native ratnagiri for that matter is at seaside. not to mention that my ancestral home is less than even a stone's throw away from the sea. surprisingly though i still haven't managed to learn natation.

   i remember that night.. i had taken my closest friends to ratnagiri for an excursion. it was holi time.. we had all laid down on the exposed rocks by the sea.. it was full moon of course but the moon was behind the hills.. there were actually just the three of us... the dazzling sky, the rhapsodious sea and ... we. god! i still don't believe that we actually spent the whole night just staring at the sky and listening to the waves.. none of us slept.. it was 6AM when someone came looking for us from home.. tea was ready.

   the beach at my native is a gravel one.. of laterite.. but the one in the next hamlet is a sand beach.. sparkling grey.. with a hint of black.. the best way to reach there is through a trail that is accessible only during lowtide.. through the rocks that are witness to thousands of years of the war between earth and water..

   every evening at dusk, the pinnacle of ratnagiri light house shines the path of any that approach it.. it has a particular way though.. three seconds of darkness followed by two flashes in less than a second.. strikes a wierd chord in my mind.. staring at it as it plays hide and seek through the leaves of our fruit trees is something i cherish always. i can hear the sea calling me..

   i consider myself extremely fortunate that i have been able to visit my native whenever i have wanted. unlike goa, ratnagiri is best described as virginal. yes virginal is the word... and to think of it the sea is perhaps the only entity that gets deflorated every single moment and yet it not only survives but also throws back the excesses at the perpetrators from time to time. ironical indeed.

the sea and its fathomless waters.. more so at my native than anywhere else will continue to entrance me for the rest of my life..

GIMME FIVE!




staffy = gossipmonger, wheatsack, vicious, know-it-all, helpful


sion = hopeless, paradise, second home, old oak, pitiable


patient = impatient, unaware, oversmart, traumatised, position of disadvantage


doctor = double standards, elitist, not next to god, human, inhuman


rhapsody = waste, exclusive, worth it, scope, seawaves


train = bhaiyas, adventure, aorta, outdated, track change


congress = the grass, puppet show, progress, divide and rule, future


women = made for beauty, anencephaly, strong, vulnerable, vain


mbbs = accident, too long, torture, opportunity, service


intern = underdog, god's child, deflorated, winner, rebel


houseman = no comments


professor = indifferent, concerned, sea of knowledge, omnipotent, saviours


mobile = luxury, necessity, ecosystem, handicap, VIBGYOR


medicine = financial blackhole, sophisticated, not recommended, plagued, eternal


money = power, magnet, paper, potential, waste


canteen = ?, corruption, mithi, arrogance, pas de choise, where-is-it?


past = closet, teacher, hideous, everybody-has-one, share?

A Case Study.

“Patient Shashikumar Bhalerao, a 59 yr old male is suffering from CA penis involving the glans and shaft of penis with left sided inguinal lymph node metastasis…..”


Do we realize what we talk when we dash off diagnoses like these in one breath to impress the examiner?

“Suffering!” Do we understand what it means “to suffer from CA penis”? – is it as trivial as one of those bad hair days we have?

A woman from an orthodox family, who hasn’t lifted her ghoonghat except for her husband is sitting in the examination room surrounded by 20 piercing stares with 4 stethoscopes on her dignity that are desperate to find a middiastolic murmur. Her embarassment does not affect our thick skins.

Let us think of something less graphic. “God! That patient is so bloody uncooperative; she wouldn’t let me touch her!”

Think and answer... Why should she?

Now put yourself in their shoes and it won’t be that hard to imagine.

Every single day, in one or the other ward, overzealous, half knowledgeable, extra smart and robotic medical students exploit, embarrass, abuse and hurt so many ailing patients who are desperate for a cure. Medicos are proud of their systematic approach, so let us please ourselves.

Where do you think all this begins?

First of all, we are hardly grateful that we have got a chance to study in one of the premier medical institutes of this city. We prefer to sit and complain about how bad the infrastructure is, how disinterested the teachers are, instead of getting our seats up an d making the best of what we have, if not fight for the better.

Another subtle but dreadful belief (I do not know how many of you will realize and how many still would accept it)... Somehow, we subconsciously tell ourselves that we cannot be affected by any of the diseases or the pain we see around us every day. It is so simple – is it not the reason we speak of cancers as we would speak of some latest computer game? We squeeze and wring body parts as though they were hanging in mid air. I mean the lump and the breast in which it is belong to a live, fellow human being, not a mannequin! Isn’t this why we forget that the patient is our equal, that we are not givers and he is not a taker, that we could be in his place tomorrow …

As a result of this, we end up underestimating disease and worse, we end up disrespecting the patient.

Some might say “Patients hi waise hote hai!”.. They sometimes have to be dealt with a little harshly… OK but not by us... But by the doctors who treat them, not by some freak of a medical student who does not understand the pain and trauma which the patient goes through.

Sometimes I wish I had a button at the click of which my overenthusiastic friends would momentarily feel exactly what the patient feels when they torment him.

Come on people! We are medicos – not architects, engineers or accountants. We deal with people not blue prints, money and god knows what! We cannot be so objective when we speak of a patient. It is not just a below knee amputation, it is a lifelong adjustment, burden rather, for a hitherto walking, running boy!

There is another point apart from the objectivity – why are we so keen on observing all fixed signs like glabellar tap.. Tell me, who would like 5 taps each by 15 people on their forehead one after the other? Funny isn’t it? No... It is damn irritating if it were to be done to me! It is both stupid and inhuman to elicit such signs repeatedly.

Now despite all the excrement we throw at the sufferer, he still is forgiving enough thanks to his relative illiteracy, unawareness and sometimes the awe he has for the white coat. And if at all he is plain willing to undergo examination by enthusiastic students, we still manage to disillusion them completely at the end of our case taking farce. There is a lot to this, friends, than I have spoken here. Think and you will realize.

Let us for one moment look within, how sincere are we, how hardworking are we, how smart and efficient are we… how human are we?

Medicine is a chariot that runs on the two wheels of clinical acumen and compassion... if either is smaller than the other; the chariot would run forever in a circle!

The solution to this neo-imperialism lies within us. Yes we have to present more and more cases if we want to improve our clinical skills but let us do that with a little humanness. It will definitely make a sick person feel better and that is precisely we all intend to do all our lives, don’t we?

You can make a difference.

        As clichéd as it might sound, why is it that we only sit and crib about the system rather than take up the responsibility of changing it? A famous Marathi saying goes thus – “Shivajine shejarchya ghari janm ghyava.” - I only want to reap the benefits of the system, but sorry boss – it is not my job to debug it, let someone else do it. I always thought that I would rather do something, at least give it a try, than to scream my voice hoarse about how everyone is corrupt, how things are unfair, and unjust and how useless is the governing system and so on and so forth. But whenever the time came to prove my mettle, I always backed out giving myself one stupid excuse or the other. But that day I told myself, “Nothing doing! You stay put and teach these guys a lesson.” I’m bad at remembering dates – sometime in May, I suppose, BEST had struck down work without prior notice. As usual I was waiting for my 7:12 a.m. Route No. 243 Jankalyan Nagar – Malad Stn. (W.). After about 10min., one of my co passengers got to know about the strike. “Fine!” I said ,”Let’s go to the main road!” (Some 5-7min. away) and I hoped for a lone bus to pass that way. It was then that the drama began. From Marve Road (main road) bus stop called Malad Fire brigade – share ricks charge Rs.5 per seat to Malad Stn. But today I was stunned to hear an almost victorious cry of “dus rupiya seat!” from all the passing ricks. Forever optimist that I am, despite having given up the hopes of a lone Route No. 272, I continued to hope for a Rs.5 per seat rick to pass. And then I got the second shock, “pandhra rupiya seat, malad stn!” An adrenaline rush full of anger and hatred ran through every vessel in me. “How can ‘these’ people or their ‘leaders’ make tall claims about being hardworking and then dare send such ‘haram ki kamai’ back to their wives, kids and families? Rs.15 per seat!” Multiply that by 4 passengers (even 5 sometimes) they will carry, Rs.60, more than twice of what a normal metered ride to Malad Stn. would cost from my place! With fury ruling my head and control ruling my tongue, I knocked at a door that I thought would never turn me away, Malvani PS, beat no. 4, Jankalyan Ngr. The door was opened by a drowsy, half-drunk constable Kamble, “Never mind!” I said – no matter how much you loathe them or joke about them, you just can’t ignore a pandu. (By no means a blasphemy, pandu being an acceptable short form of the name Pandurang, one of ShriVitthal’s names, and of course an ‘affectionate’ way of referring to our Mumbai havaldars) “Kay zale?”, he rubbed his fiery red eyes. “Saheb, baher tey rickshawale 15 rupaye seat magtahet, kay karu, jara sanga na tyana”, I pleaded. “Mi tari kay karu, aho jaude na!”, he said with an air of indifference. “Aho jaude kase?, kahitari karuch shakto apan”. “ Tumchi kay apeksha ahe? Mi chowky sodun tumhala ricksha pakdun det basu ka?”, I was shocked yet again – this time at an appalling rhetoric by a man of law. Completely disillusioned, I gave him a vicious look and turned around, contemplating reporting all this to Malvani PS, main bldg. some 20min. away by walk. “Too far, and useless, I guess!” I told myself. I went back to Marve Road wanting the fire brigade trucks some two blocks away to rush to me and douse the raging inferno within me. It was 8:20a.m. I had missed my lecture for this sheer nonsense. Quite expectedly, I found many irked and murderous co passengers who would crib, crib and then go on to hop in the Rs.15 per seat ‘regal’ ride. I could feel my brain substance boil into a dal ‘jispe tadke pe tadka lag raha tha!’ Just about then, a striped Qualis emerged on Marve Road. I gathered the remnants of my shattered hope and walked towards the halting police vehicle along with my co passengers. Sub inspector Shinde faced the flak. He kept his composure, which he should have, stepped out and led us towards a group of idle rickshaws nearby a hotel across the road. To my utter disbelief, he began talking to them as if they fed him his daily morsels. “Whatever!”, I said. He coaxed the unwilling rickies into charging by the meter, (an uncompromising demand we had made) and carrying only 3 passengers. Finally two other students joined me and our ‘legal’ ride puttered towards the station. Rs.26 was the fare – we split it. I paid Rs.9 and I don’t regret a single rupee of the Rs.4 I paid over and above Rs. 5, because the Rs.5 share rick was illegal any day and Rs.9 was what I ought to have paid – I did it with happiness and pride! I thanked officer Shinde in my mind and without any prejudice I thanked my rickie as I always do. As I was hanging on to dear life, neither inside nor outside the 8:47 Churchgate fast from Malad, I could see many faces – that rickie demanding Rs.15 per seat, constable Kamble, PSI Shinde, my loser of a co passenger, my other justice loving co passengers, and.... my mother – who taught me to break loose all hell on any kind of injustice and to use ‘saam, daam dand, bhed’ to strike hard at it. If you haven’t yourself drawn a conclusion or learnt a moral by now, then this story is not for log heads like you.

Bewitched!

That day when you told me,

“Darling, I am a witch from Ipswich!”

I thought that in this there

Ought to be some hitch.

But now I think I am pretty sure,

For none of your mesmerizing spells

Can be undone by fickle of a cure.

The twinkling sea green eyes of yours,

For the commons, are just a lure,

But when they wink, I see in them,

An innocence that is so pure.

With a mere snap of your finger,

You have changed my life so fast,

I know I have found you, my love,

That goes never and shall always last.

Of this world and all its nuisance,

I would be happy to lose every clue,

So take me to your magic world,

God! I am already bewitched by you...!