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…