A New Beginning

It is so pleasant when you resume to writing after being inactive for a very long time...more than 7 years.
Now I am a full fledged doctor working with a government organization and now I believe is the best time I shall resort to the most favorite thing of mine, that is, narration.
My central idea in this blog would be the same, My College Stories. But now I have many more tales to tell. When I started this blog I was a third year undergraduate student. And now I am done with my postgraduation too.
So, much more to talk, much more to cherish.

P.S. I may sound immature with my English. But my stories are all from the heart.

So, lets begin it once again...

Regards,
Now Dr. Abhishek Bachhotiya

The First Wedding...

Lagta hai jaise saare sansaar ki shadi hai...Aaj mere yaar ki shadi hai...


I kept on singing it for long, the day I heard about this good news. My friend Rahul has got his relation being tied up with a cute girl. I was (kindly don't wonder why) so excited hearing this for the very first time that I congratulated him with a very long text message. He cleared this to me that the wedding was going to be after two more years of study. So it may or may not be the first wedding among the friends. But I replied that since this was for the very first time that I had heard such news about a male friend of mine, it had to be special. Though many of my female friends have been engaged and some of them even married, but for the first time I felt the craze of imagining myself dancing at a friend's baraat.


Ophthalmology exam...I messed up everything for him by repeatedly turning back and singing some or the other wedding song. I enjoyed each and every time when he said, 'Yaar Abhishek Bhaiya, kyun meri band baja rahe ho. Chupchap exam dene do na yaar. Uski yaad mat dilao...plz'. But since nothing can stop me from using my mouth, he had to finish up the paper soon and I followed him out of the examination hall.


Well, readers may or may not understand how glad I am. But one thing is clear. The wedding is definitely not Begaani and I am definitely not Abdullah. As I write this post, am sending him another text...Lag ja gale yaar mere Maine dil se dua di hai...Mere yaar ki shadi hai...


God bless the wonderful couple (especially my dear friend Rahul, for I am gonna keep singing and dancing for the next two years until he bags Bhabhi home).
I guess no one would be able to feel what I am feeling writing this stuff. But what I am feeling (in a nutshell) is...Lagta hai jaise saare sansaar ki shadi hai.....

The First Surgery...

Recently I finished up with my postings in Paediatrics Department. Another month full of experiences. But this time, our actual teachers were those little flowers who sometimes made us smile at their worth-seeing activities and on the other hand rendered us with aching hearts seeing them in pain. I wondered every time how does a doctor understand what is going wrong with the child. But gradually I learnt that nature has made no problem without a solution. And that is how we make out what lies at the root of the cries, shrills or grunts of those babies. Of course my favourite section was the Neonatal ICU where I spent the most adorable moments of my life. When last year I was posted in the same department, I wrote the first prescription of my life, for a newborn baby. I clicked a photograph of that document.

Clinical postings make you so strong that you start doing those things which you are afraid of. But the fact is, as soon as you abstain from clinics, you go back to the first step again. During my postings, I myself have felt the confidence of intervening in almost every medical problem that comes into my way. This reminds me of yet another adventure I did with my friends at hostel. According to my diary, it was 30^th January 2009, when Ishan rushed to my room at around 10pm and showed me the thorn stuck to the dorsum of his foot. He sustained that thorn prick while playing football barefoot. He never followed instructions to wear shoes while playing. And I remember that football which I used to call as ‘iron-ball’ since it was damn heavy and hard.

Every time someone got injured, he used to come to me for proper cleaning and dressing of the wound since my room is the nearest to every place one can play at. So, Ishan also came to me finding it difficult to take the thorn out. First I felt that he had come to me merely out of habit of showing injuries, but when we attempted removing the thorn, I felt it was no easy task. The thorn, probably of rose plant, seemed to be angular and had followed a curved path across the skin. So it was not coming out easily. I heat sterilised my forceps, took out a fresh scalpel blade and started on his foot with a great fear in my heart. But he encouraged me to go ahead and told me that it would not give him pain even if I cut his whole foot off. I knew that sounded filmy but yet I started trying with great care. He encouraged me to keep confidence reminding me of how good I had been at dissections. And thus I went ahead.

The real challenge was yet to follow. I had earlier cut dead bodies with no blood in them. But this was a live stuff and as soon as I pricked my blade on his skin, there was blood all around. A large amount of blood coming out of just a ‘next to pin-prick’ cut, and I felt like running away. I kept on cleaning the blood with antiseptic solution and kept working with the other hand. Ultimately I succeeded in taking the pretty big thorn out. It was really from rose plant, curved at its middle portion that made it difficult to come out. I dressed the wound and gave him a hug for showing such faith in me. He regarded that day as my first ever surgery and I regarded him as my first (and fortunately, a courageous) patient…

The Day Out With Hardik...

Ever since I entered college, I expected life to give me moments to roam with friends. But as I already narrated somewhere before, I never got such a chance until one night Hardik came and told that he had to go home for his parents’ 25^th wedding anniversary and that before going, he wanted me and him to enjoy the whole day in the city. That was Sunday, 18^th of January 2009. We got up early and got ready to go out to the city. It was a sunny but cold day.

We first stopped to eat my favourite cheese patties. Then moved ahead to one of our favourite eating destinations, Chhappan Dukan. There we had so many snacks, we drank coconut to its fullest, clicked each other and in order to have a photograph together, Hardik requested the coconut-seller to click it for us. We walked and walked, talking and talking. Then we reached another famous eating desination of Indore, the Sarafa (the jewellery market), where you would wish you had another spare tummy to absorb all those delicious items available. I don’t remember what foodstuff we left from eating. Then we walked across the narrow streets of the city market whereby small temporary shops set up every Sunday in front of the closed big shops. We bought some posters from a small child and Hardik insisted paying him an extra ten rupees for him being so gentle and poor. Hardik had always shown pity over the poor and the needy (his greatest asset being his generous nature).

It was around 2pm. We were walking through the streets where I would have been as a child with my parents. But for a large part, they seemed to be so new to me. We came in front of Jankinaath temple where Ramayan-paath was going on. Seeing my expressions, Hardik suggested to go inside. (I always wondered how did he know what I wanted) There were around 60-70 middle to old aged people having the divine pleasure of Ramcharitmanas. People singing devotional phrases with good music instruments have always been a charm for me.

I saw a harmonium kept at the centre with nobody around it and the bhajan was still going. I asked a man, probably as old as my grandpa, if they minded me playing that instrument. He agreed and I sat infront of the singing group. I bowed my head to the harmonium and played it for them. After the song was over, one of them asked me whether I do sing or not and they all insisted me to sing something when I played the instrument such nicely.

“Ram naam ras pee le pyare, Pyas teri mit jayegi” (meaning to quench one’s divine thirst with the name of Lord Ram). My bhajan rendered some of them quite nostalgic and so was I. I took their kind permission to leave since I had to leave Hardik to the bus depot and I had to return back to hostel. They all showered numerous words of blessings and asked me to keep visiting. We both came out. I bursted out crying while wearing shoes. He just let me cry, knowing that I miss my granny at such instances.

We moved towards the place where he had to catch his bus. But he asked the auto rickshaw driver to take us from a different way. It was through Chaawni where in a single minute he ran and fetched delicious Mirchi-bada, Kachoris and tasty tea for both of us. We slurped the whole stuff in minutes and we reached the bus depot. I was quite heavy hearted while seeing him off but was happy to have him in my life. I sent him a text, “U are actually wat ur name means…hapy jrny bro..God bles u ever”

I once again read what all I just wrote and am again full of enthusiasm, being reminded of those precious moments of life. I wish everyone gets to experience such lovely instances…

The Whole Night Discussions...

It has been long since I wrote last. The reason being my return to the hostel where I do not frequently go online. Today I got quite some time to resume my favourite activity, that is, writing.

We, at hostel, usually do not talk serious things. But when we do so, we go beyond our characters and images. Yes, we sometimes do talk serious matters that touch our hearts. Like today, I don’t know from where Priyesh and I started talking about some very serious sad stuff that I had to just hide the pain on my face. He remembered his recently passed away grandpa and I did the same about my late grandma. But at the same time, I would always feel lucky to have such buddies with whom I can share those very painful things that I usually don’t share with anyone.

I remember once we started talking about Indian politics. It was around 11 pm and a chilling night of January 2009. The discussion kept on running and all of us kept poking our nose at each other’s views. Ultimately we all got on to our nerves and the discussion went so loud that the night watchman had to peep into our room to see whether we were actually talking or fighting. The discussion ceased for some time. And suddenly I asked, “Who the hell started this discussion?” And another discussion started on the question, on whom to curse for wasting the whole night over a discussion that people at least twice our age talk about.

It was 5 am and we all laughed together at the silly time pass we adopted for the whole night. I am sure my friends would not remember this stuff. But I do so because such moments only make me feel that friends are a real gem of one’s life.

Another discussion about ‘ghosts’; I would narrate some other day…

The Dissection Hall...

I don't exactly remember when did we have our first dissection session. But it was quite exciting for us. We were damn enthusiastic as well as a bit doubtful of whether we would be able to stand that feeling of cutting a dead body or not. The dissection was scheduled post-lunch and we all were advised to have a full-stomach meal in order to stand in the dissection hall for two hours together. Well, we all reached the dissection hall with all the required material. Since ours was the very first batch, we saw the cleanest possible dissection hall in a medical college. And thus we could not imagine what all was there to follow.

Finally, the first cadaver was being brought, then the second, the third and so on. Dark dead bodies preserved in formaline solution. All cadavers were being placed on the respective tables. I remembered the Almighty and touched my scalpel and forceps to my head as a sign of respect to the pretty instruments. Rubber gloves, scalpel in one hand and forceps in the other, it was a damn good feeling. Somebody somewhere deep inside me felt proud of being a medical student, rather a would-be doctor.

Our instructor showed us how to make an incision on the skin of the cadaver. As I saw the instructor's scalpel running over the dark wet skin, all my enthusiasm turned into smoke. I immediately retracted my hands and folded them at my back pretending nothing happened. The view of that first incision and what I exactly felt that time is still inside me. I was afraid how would I make a cut to someone's body. Further, I didn't want to make my scalpel and forceps dirty in order to avoid washing them. (I know it sounds silly, but yes, it was what I felt) But the instructor would not let us go like this. Out of the fifteen students standing around the dissection table, he had to choose poor me for the very first time. I cursed the moment in mind and hesitantly touched the head of  scalpel with the skin of the upper back taking care not to spoil it much.

That day, I made only a few incisions and nothing else. But the next day had something worse for me. The instructor told me to demonstrate the previous day's method of incision to those who didn't come that day. I abused the damn previous day's absentees and held my instruments in hand, a bit more firm this time. Gradually I started making finer movements on the old man who measured around six feet long (not tall of course, the body was lying on the table) The next day still had something worse for me. The instructor taught us how to detach the back muscles from the spine and again it was poor me who had to do all this. But I thank that moment since it was the day I left all my fear and worries regarding dissection and attained a good command over anatomy.

The not-so-good part during dissection was the foul, pungent, tearing, throat-choking smell of formaline that would sometimes make us feel nauseated, specially at times lacking electricity. The worst thing happened when we were ordered to break the thoracic cage and take out the heart and the lungs. The instructor had given us full liberty to dissect out in our own way and enjoy as much as we could. Girls, definitely resorted to talking (they only start to talk when it comes to enjoying) and one by one left the table asking us to call them back when we were finished taking out the organs. As they left, it was only Hardik and me who were left with a bone-saw to cut the ribs out. We did a lot of hard work in cutting the ribs with immense patience. We were left with a single rib to be cut and so we decided not to cut, but to break it. Katack!! And it all happened at once. Both of us were sprayed with formaline everywhere on us and each tasted the bits of muscles that flew into our mouths...yuck!! I felt so screwed up that I didn't even bother to realise that also my hand was injured a lot by the broken bone.

That was quite bad a feeling of having human flesh in mouth (neither did that taste good) I felt much more pity for Hardik, since he never tasted non-veg being a Jain (though I was also not into eating a dead man!!)

The First Come-Back-Home

It was this day when three years ago we set to return home for the first vacations being declared on the occasion of Diwali. Around fifteen days and we all felt as if we spent years together in the hostel. With a bit of heaviness somewhere in the corner of heart, we all packed up. 1st November, 2007. It was a very special day for me since it was the housewarming ceremony of our new duplex and I was supposed to reach as early as possible.

As I already told somewhere in previous posts that our college was quiet far from the main city and so it took us almost an hour and a half in reaching the place where we could get a bus for our home, Bhopal. The taxi cabs charged us anything they wanted for taking us those 25-30 kilometers and we had to pay whatever they demanded. Finally, we came to the bus stand only to find no AC buses being scheduled up till the noon. It was around 8 am and I couldn't afford waiting in order to reach the holy 'Vaastu-Pooja' ceremony at my home. So I decided to set for the journey alone in the non-AC bus and leave Manu and other friends to take the girls later in the AC bus. But ultimately all of us set in the same non-AC bus thinking it would be fine when we all were together.

One of my pretty HS (High Society) friends sat beside me in the 2x2 seater bus. I wondered why she offered me to sit with her. The journey started with all sorts of nuisance created by the vendors both inside and outside the bus. I don't know how people tolerate those shrills that sound both comic and tragic. On the other hand I wonder how much would those vendors earn by selling a few 5-rupee items per day. Only God knows how they feed their families. Here, by my side, she put on her expensive-looking goggles and took out 'Femina' from her bag to read. I had seen people applying glasses for reading, but never the goggle-ones. I controlled my laughter by suppressing it into an idiotic grin. In between turning the magazine pages, she kept on making weird faces looking at the other passengers of the bus. (I tried to make out what made her make those faces, was that the journey or the magazine that contained models more prettier than her...?)

I was too tired of packing up the luggage and setting things quiet right and safe in the room the whole night before the journey. There I found the answer of  how do people sleep in such buses? I fell fast asleep hugging the tiny soft toy, a small cow or something, that Hardik handed me up when we left from the hostel (Hardik had told me to bring it back to him from home as it was just to remind me of him in the vacations that followed.) I would have woken up around an hour later to see the bus over-packed with passengers. Manu told me that they were the passengers of some other bus that failed somehow on the way and so we all were left together to choke and boil in the same bus on that pink cold day. I felt like jumping away out of the bus. But I kept calm in order to pretend as if it mattered the least to me. My co-passenger was apparently annoyed by my comfortable naps I was able to manage in such adversities, but I couldn't help it. (Probably because she had kept on telling me just before the journey that she had never travelled in a non-AC bus and had taken some medicine for motion-sickness due to which she could fall asleep any time, and it was me, not her, who was sleeping like a monster who had never ever slept for the past 200 years together). The journey that started from our hostel, boys and girls all singing, travelling together for the very first time, ended up like being fried up in a non-stick pan.

Finally, we got down at Bhopal in around five hours and Manu's father took us to my new home so that all of us attended the final part of the ceremony, the 'Poornahuti'. The first journey seemed to be average, in terms of adventure, until one of my friends called me up to ask for the travel agency's contact number, since he had left his briefcase in the overcrowded bus that contained all his original academic documents. I thanked God for I didn't throw the ticket before his call, to forget that messy journey.

Thereafter, I threw that ticket and forgot all the discomfort we experienced that day. But still I remember those goggles 'on' to read Femina and that anti-motion sickness drug taken by my co-passenger, as a side effect of which, I slept cozy...