Dormant mortal

I wake up in the morning after being shouted for the tenth time. I was born a dormant human, my mother keeps telling me.

11 am is too early for me. I force myself to get up and place my divine feet on the ground. I curse the mosquitoes because they are the reason my dad wants us to use the mosquito net. The one who gets up late will have to fold the net and this is my little sister's order. And she gets up early because she is an early morning reader. And I am a nocturnal creature. I would have just slept for two hours, only to get disturbed by the light she switches on at five in the morning, I see her wide awake, solving those complicated mathematical problems, which I've conveniently forgotten after I've taken up medicine. I cover myself up with the rug and go back to my dreamland, only to get up later and realize its already 11 am. I would have slept back happily, if not for krish, our pug, who licks my face and wakes me up and my mom's usual "this female will never change" comments.

I walk to the hall, slowly and steadily, without even bothering about the mosquito net, only to drop on the sofa. The television's remote control will be lying there, somewhere. If it is in my reach, I switch on the TV. Keep changing channels till I find my usual song channels. If not, I start seeing any movie that’s playing. Kannada, telugu, hindi, english, whatever. I lay there on the sofa, till twelve. My mom's words will be ringing at the background. I'll be too sleepy to listen to it, and answer back. And when I do answer, its "mmmm" or "yes" or "no" or "ok".

Then I start feeling something in my stomach. It takes a while for me to realize that its hunger. I go to washroom to freshen up, only to get scared looking at the scarecrow in the mirror. What the hell! The rough curly frizzy things on my head looks like I've just got an electric shock. I tie those things up, blaming my genes for such horrible hair, and freshen up. I'm almost awake by now. My mother pampers this hostel tortured body with delicious breakfast, and oil massage to my head. She entertains me with interesting family gossips.

When the family news get exhausted, we start speaking about our neighbours and friends. Who got married, who didn’t. Who had boyfriends, who didn’t. We have a debate. She is "for" arranged marriage and am "against" it. We shout at each other. She goes back to the kitchen, angry. And then, I tell her, she needn't have to worry because that’s a problem mothers with beautiful daughters will have to face and she is blessed. She laughs at this and tells me that its not true and then she starts giving me advices about how to reduce my pimples and reduce my waist size. And she starts all over again about how much I resemble my dad and my grand dad and how less I resemble her. She gives me some home remedy for the gall stone which I have nurtured, with cholestrol rich food and which is lying safely inside my gall bladder since about three years. Its something made of banana plant's stem and I hate it. She asks me to follow that aastha tv's hero, ramdev guruji's teachings. I promise her that I'll do it from the next day. And till today am yet to follow it.

I love going back home. This is my morning story. Every time I go back, it’s the same episode, over and over again. Its my idea of a holiday. Reaching heights of dormancy. Am in a completely different "mode" when am at home. I can never be in this mode in mangalore. I call it the "dormant mortal" mode. I automatically get switched on to this mode when I go home. I wish things will never find the need to change.

Mobile Mania

I love it. You might call me crazy. But I love it. I didn't have it for the first 19 years of my life. But when I finally got it, I fell in love with it right away. Yeah, its my mobile. Am addicted to it, like alcohol.

1100 was my first one. I love exploring every single feature in a mobile. Black and white, it was. The best thing about the set was, it had a feature where one could create their own ringtones. The technology was awesome. Being a carnatic singer from my 2nd standard, it was not difficult for me to create ringtones. Latest songs, any songs, I could reproduce it through my fingers right away. But I don't know why, I never kept those ringtones as my caller ringtone. My friends would ask me to create one for them. And when I did, they were thrilled. Am not good at anything else. In studies, am average. In sports, horrible. But anything related to music am good at grasping it. I still remember those days, when I was so excited to send messages till late night and sleep off without my own knowledge, only to wake up in the morning to find out that my message memory was full. And when it was full, deleting previous messages was a misery. I hated deleting messages. Be it a forward, or a joke, or a thought. But I had to. Its something like life, you have to give up the past to explore the future. Though it was monophonic, I liked the tune. I had kept a general ringtone for everybody and special ringtones for special people in my life.

And don't even ask me the number of times I've played "Snakes" in it. I was an expert. And my fingers kept on moving. I could operate my mobile with my eyes closed. I could operate it in front of my professor, through my apron pocket. My relatives wondered how could anybody type so fast. My sister would get annoyed when the rubber keypad would make that noise in the night. So I would use two or three folds of the rug to muffle the sound. But I never gave up messaging. Be it home, college, lab, or even the bathroom, it was always with me. 100 free messages per day were useless for me. I even got a condition called "texting tendonitis".The orthopedicians call it so. It is a new condition found mainly amongst youngsters. The doctor laughed when I explained my symptoms to him. He sent me to a physiotherapist who was doing a thesis on this condtion. It is severe pain in the hand because of excessive messaging. I had to give up messaging, excessively. That was the only treatment for this problem.

The next one my dad got me was a Samsung set. It was a flip one. A colour monitor. Space to store more messages. Metal keypad. New set of games, new technology to explore. I would change the wallpaper everyday. Everytime I changed one, my phone would get a new look. Like trying a new dress on your little baby. I loved it.

The next one I got was a 6681. My dad had got it for himself but he didn't like the look and the size of it. He gave it to me. I was thrilled to the core. 1.2 megapixel camera, bluetooth, a memory card, space to store even more messages, an earphone to listen to songs and talk, it was the best thing that happened to me, I felt. I activated the gprs and had the entire world right in my hand. The first time I activated it, it felt like a miracle. Now I started messaging less and browsing more. I downloaded themes. Good ones, bad ones, sexy ones, cartoons, all kinds. I had to try all of them on my baby. Wanted to see how it looked.

This particular phone even got misplaced in an auto, on one gloomy morning when I had just woken up and was heading to the hospital. I tracked down the fellow with the help of other auto fellows and got this "baby" back. My joy knew no bounds. It is one of the luckiest days of my life.

All these mobiles must have fallen 221 times from my hand, on the road, stairs , and even in the bathroom. But it was healthy and strong as usual. But one day 6681 said " I give up" and for the mildest fall ever, the screen cracked. It was a disaster. But it was fixable. But believe it or not, I used this cracked-screened mobile for over a month. I could see only 1/3rd of the entire screen. But I managed it somehow.

Then later my dad gave me a Samsung slide phone for the time being. It was not as good as 6681. But it had an amazing 2 mp camera. But other than that it was not great. Couldn’t use gprs at all. Some serious problem with the crappy software. But one thing I liked in this phone when compared to 6681 was that when a wallpaper was alloted, it would cover up the entire screen. In 6681 it wasn’t that way. Only 4/5th of the screen would be covered with the wallpaper. But a horrible thing in samsung was there was no option of changing themes. So I was stuck with the same look on my phone for ages.It gets boring after sometime.

April 2008, my dad took me to a mobile shop in Shimoga, and asked me buy anything that pleased me. It is one of my best days ever. My dad is the most awesome dad in the world [ not just because he buys me stuff, but for everything he is ]. I got this amazing Sony Ericsson, aka SE, k770i. Guys. Seriously. If you are planning to change your mobile, go for SE. It is simply the best. Amazing camera, radio, bluetooth, music player. It simply suited me, in the best way ever. Sleek, chocolate brown coloured, sophisticated looking baby. Its been over a year and am still stuck to it. And though there are higher versions available, am satisfied with this. I was always satisfied with what I had, actually. God just gave me opportunities to discover new technologies that’s all.

I've given it for servicing. And since its been over a year after I bought this phone, the service charges are not covered under warrantee. It'll be about Rs.1000, she said. There is some liquid damage itseems. They have to replace something inside. But I don’t mind spending for my baby. Its with me all the time, and am supposed to take care of it.

It entertains me. Kills my boredom. Iti is always with me, in good times and in bad. It connects me to people. It connects me to the world. And everything is just a click away. Stores my memories in visual form. Answers my most difficult questions. Always brings a smile on my face.

The servicing of my mobile isn't over yet. And am using one of my friend's mobile, motorola, for the time being. Its good. A basic model. Only has things that are necessary. Nothing compared to my SE.

Like most people feel, " once you get used to living in a city, it is not easy to live in a village". I miss you SE. Am waiting eagerly for you.  

20 legs

  I was posted in the Department of Surgery, Wenlock Govt Hospital, as an intern, along with two other interns. We had three post graduates in our unit.  The head of the unit of which I was an intern,  was a very disciplined, adept, no-nonsense, 50+ surgeon. There was even a news, which I happened to hear, that he was going to be the next head of the department of surgery of Kasturba Medical College.

      It was a Monday morning. It was my initial few days as an intern. An old lady, of about sixty years,  came with a huge swelling in the calf muscle of her left leg. She was accompanied by her daughter. The size of the swelling was as big as four tennis balls put together. She looked malnourished. Her entire body was filled with small swellings. The condition is called neurofibromatosis, in medical terms. I don’t want to put a lot of complicated words over here, because my non medico friends might start cursing me and stop reading my blog. Well, anyways..

      She was taken up for surgery after ten days. Our professor, one of the greatest surgeons I know, had decided to cut off her leg above the knee. The surgery went on, faultless. The nurse threw the leg in a bin meant to dispose off the waste stuff from the OT. But my professor said that the leg had to be sent to the lab to find out what is the cause for such huge swelling. Sending specimen to the lab and collecting the report is an intern's job in Wenlock. Since there was another surgery which I was supposed to attend, I asked one of the OT annas to drop the leg in the lab for the investigation. "Anna"  of OT is a guy who takes  care of spoilt switches, and other small but important things. They must have completed their 10th standard, maybe.

      A week later, my post graduate asked me collect the report. To my dismay, the specimen hadn't even reached the lab.

      I was having a quiet afternoon that day, when I told my post graduate about it. He started blasting me for misplacing such an important specimen. I was laden with the responsibility of finding the specimen, come what may. It didn’t seem like my other two co-interns were keen on taking this responsibility.

     So I set out to find the specimen on that hot Thursday afternoon. I went to the OT and asked  anna where he had dropped the specimen. He coolly said that he had dropped it in the MORTUARY. He said the corporation people  would have already come and taken it.  In case I find it, then its my luck itseems. Crap..

     I went to the mortuary. One guy opened  the mortuary for me. It was like entering a closed graveyard. The place looked ghostly. Smelled like rotten blood. I was sure about my next nightmare. [maybe like getting locked in this room or someone coming alive from one of the steel compartments].  I could see a lot of huge steel compartments. They were refrigerators to store dead bodies. He opened one. I could see a body, kept there after postmortem, for medico-legal purposes. He opened another door. There were a lot of yellow covers. The guy said, "YOUR  leg must be somewhere amongst all these" . I began searching desperately. A yellow cover was leaking, with god knows what. The other cover was stinking and ants were eating away the last bit of the organ remaining. I was praying that MY leg was safe, somewhere. There were 20 legs in front of me. I had to search MINE.

     Then finally I found it. I was thrilled at my success,  overwhelmed with relief and happiness. I was getting soaked with oil and sweat secreted from my own body. But it didn't matter. I got MY leg, finally. Thanked God for everything.

      I needed someone to sit behind me in the bike and carry the leg for me. I was alone. Someone gave me the idea ofasking the patient's daughter itself. I was tired. I thought that was the best idea ever. It was not. But anyways, she sat behind me, and held it for me. I didn’t tell her what was inside the cover. Imagine carrying your mom's leg in your hand, how would you feel, I asked myself. I just asked her to come with me, and kept the rest of the news to myself. She was a nice lady. She willingly helped without asking any questions.

     I dropped the specimen in the lab. I told about the entire plight to a pathology post graduate. He was nice, good-looking guy. He would update me everyday about the progress of the investigation.

      After 15 days or so, the report was ready. I submitted the report to my PGs.

      I had seen a lot of cases by then. But I never made the mistake of entrusting my responsibility to someone else. The whole experience taught me a lesson. To be self sufficient, vigilant and to only trust oneself, especially in this profession. Being an optimistic, I don’t want to disregard any of my experiences as bad fate . 

Welcome, people

Hi guys, welcome to my blogworld. 

I am actually very nervous to start a blog site of my own, at the same time excited too. It had been a thing, ever since I was in second year of MBBS, to create this. To share my views and experiences and wait for your views and comments [hoping you will]. A few of my friends are excellent bloggers and I really admire their language, patience and wit. There are so many things I want to share  but right now since I just created  this account am a little nervous to write anything. But I promise to keep you guys updated with things of my life.