Monday, August 20, 2007

A date with the past..


A date with the past..!

Tomorrow I will meet faces long forgotten..

The Friends..The enemies.. The bullies.. The buffoons… The snobs..

I’ll be hugged and pulled back to the past..

We will share what we were, those days.

We will also celebrate what we have become..

But most of all I will meet her.

After a long long time..

A tall skinny girl wearing a starched cotton sari and a white coat. Her huge eyes are lined with kajal.. There is a huge red bindhi on her forehead..

She is walking into the medical college with wonder and pride..

She is to become a doc..!

I can see her rushing from one lecture hall to the next. Chatting and giggling with her friends

Sharing the lower half of a female body with five others.. To cut open , dissect and study the human body, in and out..

Making friends with a bag of bones, the grinning skull given permanent space on her study table.. and wondering if the whole set belongs to the same person..

Recording the action potentials on a rotating drum as the pithed frog convulses desperately..

There she is.. walking to the hostel in the hot sun, blushing as she hears the cat calls from the Male House Surgeon’s quarters..

Sitting and reading in the hostel verandah late into the night..

Walking into the ward and examining a patient.. Embarrassed as the rest of the ward sits and watches her..

Watching the autopsy of a nine year old.. And running out of the autopsy room to retch her guts out..

Walking alone through the dark, sleeping ward to a patient gasping his last breath. Then waiting for ten minutes after the pupils are fully dialated and fixed.. to be sure.. before certifying the death..

Watching the bloodshed and trauma of a normal delivery for the first time and wanting to see mom immediately..

Walking out of the medical college thinking that she owns the medical field only to realize that she has to start from the scratch. Carve out her own path..

That only experience will teach her that the patient’s trust is the greatest compliment and her greatest responsibility.. That the way she talks to the patient is as important as the drugs she prescribes..

That she has to fix her priorities. Find out her own definition of success..

Her own definition of happiness..

I will hug and kiss that skinny girl with the huge bindhi..

I will hug her tight and pat her on her back..

Tell her to move ahead with smiles..

With hope in her heart and love in her soul..

Counting her blessing..


With grit, perseverance and wisdom..

With the confidence that..

Whatever happens she will emerge a winner..!






28 comments:

Dhanya said...

I have no doubt that the girl will be a winner :) Nice post..

Di said...

That was beautiful! Hugs to her.. :)

mayenfeld said...

looks like you have already reunited with the past:-). wishing you all the best for tomorrow.

abc said...

I wish you were my tutor... After two years of lecture after lecture, hearing "That only experience will teach her that the patient’s trust is the greatest compliment and her greatest responsibility.. " strikes a chord within me, a poignant harmony that humbles me, the same that called me to this vocation; the title that you achieve with pride but wear with humility. With tingling and jittering inside thinking of the years ahead, I hope and pray to expose those same truths for myself.

Anonymous said...

Nice post, Angel!

silverine said...

"A tall skinny girl wearing a starched cotton sari and a white coat"

So you are not skinny anymore? :p Revisits is just the thing the doc ordered. You never cease to amaze me with your writing :)

Alexis said...

This is a wonderful post. A date with the past... I am sure you will enjoy meeting your old friends... Have a great time...

Sarah said...

each day when I write blog, I see my life through my own eyes.. and today I saw it through your eyes.. I too ran out 5 minutes in to my first autopsy..mine a was a drowning victim..and it was horrible..
I remembered the first death certificate I had to sign..how I checked, rechecked, verfied, re verified that the patient is really dead!

Nice post..

hope and love said...

dhanya, di,
txs.
mayenfield.. hmm it was a beautiful experience... we sat in the old lecture hall and attendance was taken like old time. also we went round the campus in the college bus..
abc, i wish u were my student..!!
:)).ya.. practising medicine is very diff from what u expect when u study in medical college..
anon, txs :))
silvie,
hmm... i used to be skinny.. now (i pref to beleve that) im pleasantly plump ..!!
:))
we used to imitate shoba of 'ulkadal' and 'shalini ente kootukari' fame.. skinny.. cotton sari ..red bindhi..
wonder if u kids know her..!
alexis,
txs. and i met your cousin too..!
sarah.. hmm... only when i wrote this post i realised how much our training affects our emotions and the way we see life..

Adorable Pancreas said...

If it weren't for the sari and the bindi, I would've thought you were talking about me. :P

Pithed frog... God, kariology lab! Dissection... I hated first year. Relived the last couple of years when I read this. How did you handle the pressure? People around me starting to chant the PG mantra, while others telling me to focus on the here-and-now... I'm so confused.

Thank you so much, Ma'am.

Shahrzad said...

hellooooo,

A very nice post. Hopeful people always win.
Wish you the best.

P.S. Sometimes blogger is so messed up and I can't leave any comment!

hope and love said...

adorable pancreas,
later when you look back.. the first MB will be the best.. we all felt like when we met after o many years..
well the pressure wa always there..is still there.. i think prayers help me a lot..
follow your heart.. fix your priorities.. and decide for yourself the path you should follow.. realise that you cant satisfy everybody.. be true to yourself..

Shahrzad ,
txs :))

Aashi said...

wow Anu!! u have described the life of a medico with such perfection!!! ...feeling nostalgic now ya!

venuss66 said...

A wonderful post. Thanks for sharing. God Bless.

Jo said...

Wishing you and your family a happy and prosperous Onam!

Unknown said...

Poetry or regurgitated mind matter?
Loved it!

Emmanuel said...

beautiful...really beautiful...... :)

cafm said...

beautiful :)

Ajith Prasad Balakrishnan said...

I've heard lot about this first yr horrifying experience of medicos.. Nice post :)

wanderlust said...

That was nostalgia at its best. Beautiful post, as always. Reminded me of my 'skinny' old collefe days too....

hope and love said...

af,
ya i knew you would like it..
:))
venus66, jo, akhil, ajith, emmanuel, cool alien from mars, wanderlust,
txs a lot..!!
:))

Movie Mazaa said...

Wonderfully penned, Doc!
:)

mathew said...

you know your writings are very much like prose..

I have always been fascinated with how doctors live coz the job u folks do is really awesome..except for a few of the ilk who made it pure business I admire the basic idea of service which I find it truly noble...

Rakesh said...

Very beautiful post...
My great wishes to her..

Geets said...

hey, lovely post. it took me back in time to those good old campus days.

btw, if u r in tvm, my book is available at MBC (modern book centre, amman kovil road)

hope and love said...

mm, txs.
mathew,
its not so simple.. we are not caring and loving docs always. sad but true..
rakesh,
txs.
geets,
txs il get it sure..

Movie Mazaa said...

Long time, no post... doc!
:)

Sekhar said...

"A tall skinny girl ... bindhi on her forehead." Hmm. as I read this description of yours, the first girl that entered my mind was actress Shoba. She was a very beautiful, and fine actress. But sad, she ended her life at the peak of her career. I treasure the memories of seeing her in "Salini Ente Koottukaari".
Visit http://sekhar2007.blogspot.com/search?q=shoba for more