FIND THE "X"

Find “X” in the following equation. This was reason enough for me to hate Math.

I could never find X, not just in math class but also in physics and chemistry. One fine day I found not just one X but two! It was in the biology class, and the best part of it was that XX was a part of me! 46XX, and I love it!

Now, this blog is not about algebra, or about chromosomes. It is about the 24^th alphabet X, which signifies everything unknown.

We see so many movies most of which is as unrealistic as unicorns riding on rainbows and there are some movies that are so real and raw that it makes us cringe. And then there are movies like Avatar and Gravity. Let us exclude Avatar, because Pandora does not exist. It is just a fragment of an individual’s wonderful imagination (also Hogwarts!) But Gravity was based on outer space, and it does exist! As I was watching that movie, I kept wondering how it would feel to be in space.. I screamed my head off, and rendered a few people deaf on a giant wheel when I saw the VGP golden beach globe from up there. How would I handle seeing the earth from outer space!??   It becomes another X for me. Something I will never find.

That is not the only X. I will never know how it feels to bungee jump! Because there in no way I will jump off a cliff or bridge or even my own bed with a rope tied to my feet and not die! I will not know how it feels to be on a roller coaster that has a vertical drop of 90 degrees, because I’m pretty sure I will pass out the moment the ride begins. You would possibly say, get over your fears and just do it. But these Xs, I don’t want to find them ever!!!

Apart from the Xs that we will never know because of our fears and inhibitions, there are some Xs that are like non modifiable risk factors. There is simply no way in haven, hell or earth (or Hogwarts: D) that we can find them.

For instance, There is no way i could have known how it feels to be that cute kid with monkey bangs and short bob when I was in 2^nd standard, because at that time I was busy sporting a coconut tree sprouting from the vortex of my head. I could still get a bob and monkey bangs, but I just can’t go back to 2^nd standard unless it is for my future kids PTA meeting. If I do go for that PTA meeting with a bob and monkey fringe, my future kids will be pitied upon by the judgmental teacher! Poor kids that don’t yet exist.  This X is lost in the clause of time.

I will not know it is to be a man and hang out anywhere at any time, not care about looks, have a big tummy and a balding head, drink, smoke, have a poor sense of humor and still have girls in Q for marriage! Because this X is bound by the clause of gender.

And the chances of how it feels to be stuck in a tsunami, hurricane, stuck by a lightening, though weird is still an X, is pretty bleak here in Coimbatore. I am not capable of inducing them as I please for experience sake because it is bound by the clause of nature. However if I could induce them in a controlled manner, I would be the owner of an awesome amusement park with the best and truly one of a kind wave pool!

And there is simply no way I will know how it feels to disappear on Malaysian flight 370. I am not being insensitive here, but that’s an X that is bound with mystery, politics, or aliens. Whatever makes sense to you.

These Xs make all of us the same yet different. Different because you have found or willing to find Xs that I’m not interested in or don’t necessarily prioritize. Same because all of us have Xs that we can never find due to factors like time,gender,nature or because we are never meant to. 

Unsolved Xs is always the human minds biggest thrill.

Our lives are about the size of a pin point. The Xs in this world is about the size of a beet root. One pin prick in a beetroot won’t make a difference. Multiple pricks do! For those of us who believe in karma, rebirth and destiny (all Xs) we have chance of multiple pin pricks, so cheer up! We will find few more Xs in the next life time.

And I chose to prick a beetroot because I detest them. Why??  It’s another X, reserved for another lifetime, maybe.

Smell Fixation

What a beautiful weather! I’m sitting beside an open door, and looking at the gloomy sky and the dull green trees listening to some oddball bird that’s chirping instead of cozying up in its nest.  A really cool breeze presents itself occasionally.  This feels like master Shifus’s inner peace!

But, this inner peace soon becomes more like Po’s inner peace.  I tell my brain that I am enjoying nature and don’t wish to be disturbed and at that precise moment it reminds me of the DD that I have to take in favor of COMEDK.  I tell my brain, no worries! I will take it soon.

 It’s quite for a minute then tells me about all the clothes I have to fold before placing them neatly in the cupboard.  I say so what?? There is sooo much time left. Then my two faced brain sent down a set of instructions that made me turn away from the door and the beauty beyond it, and forced me to look at all the books on the table. It was torture. It hurt me really bad! I argued with my brain. What the hell is your problem??? Can’t you let me enjoy pleasant weather?? Why do you always have to spoil everything for me? Don’t you have a heart? I asked my brain.

That was the question that did the damage. My brain couldn't handle the fact that I asked about heart, my brains on and off friend. My brain came back at me with full vengeance. It reminded me of the new shirt that dint fit, the chicken pox that will leave scars, the application forms that I hadn't yet filled, the tap that was not working in the loo, my friends engagement that I missed, the fast approaching new years eve that will just be another day, the magnum ice-cream that is playing hide and seek, the exams and their results, and all the uncertainties of the future.

 My brain won. I blamed the gloomy sky and dull green trees ad that mental chirping bird for distracting me, wasting my time and making me feel dull and lazy!

Whoever it was who said “stop and smell the roses” was seriously crazy. He/she must be DE cerebrate.

Its impossible to stop and smell anything for that matter, without having a muted conversation with our brain at every step. A thousand thoughts occupy our little heads at any given time. The worries and joys of everyday life , the mistakes of the past, the lies we have told, the people we dislike, the war in Syria, the dirty politics in our country, the price of onions, expectations, the peeling paint on our walls and that new Audi A7. We think about anything and everything. And if we do get to smell the rose, we ask ourselves, isn't’ this a bit too mild?, I think the other rose was better,  oh crap! Its making me sneeze, Am I inhaling pesticides!??

So forget about stopping and smelling the roses. We have our own sweet smelling/ stinking lives to keep us occupied. Enjoy that. When you do it will be a smell to remember!!!

Please me!

I have to change my whats app contact image, so i get hold of a reasonably good pic then just before i make it my DP i have this mind voice "noooo it looks too plain" , "makes me look too dark", öh shit! its the same shirt as in my previous DP!"",...and i finally stick to the old picture. 

 I go to this fancy coffee shop ( oh pardon me! "la cafe" ) for a school reunion, with batch mates who are apparently having very interesting lives...orders are being taken and one wants a mocha, another a frappe, cafe au lait with skimmed milk.... blah blah and now its my turn to order something exotic and foreign and prove my prowess in diction..i stare at the menu card (my mind is screaming FILTER KAPI ) and i order an espresso. Whats that? i don't know either!

Everything I ( can i say we? ) do is subject to scrutiny and judgement. It happens at home, school, housing complex, super markets, internet,.. the whole freaking place!

When i say i am from XYZ school my neighbor is quick to respond "ohhh anda schoolaaa. is it not the one from which a student eloped with some man??"  I have already killed her inside my head but all i can say is "ÿeahh aunty!"

 Even at departmental stores when I go for some mundane purchase looking for good stuff at cheaper rates, there are two or three staff members tailing me like some body guards,shaking their heads every time my hand reaches out for the cheapest (but proven efficient!) stuff on the shelf.

This is just the beginning. Being judgmental is a part of everyday existence. It starts right from when we were at primary school. The kid with the cutest stationary, the tastiest snack box and the chubby cheeks was always more popular than the quite, nose digger out of curiosity  kid.

Then comes the high school where report cards are like paychecks. Higher grade is always a better kid!
Invariably after every exam when we took our report cards home the very first question our parents ask "how much did your friend get??" if its less then wooow its celebration time. But if your friend happens to be a nerd, then all you get is advice cum blackmail. Throughout school its always about out performing the neighbors , our uncles children, great grandmothers sisters family and yeah even the reference student in America!!
Music class? go for it. Dance? yes go!. Karate? why not?? after all this if your tired?? you hear "ïf mala aunties sisters daughter can do it, why cant you???"

Since we grow up midst all this comparison and outperforming crap we evolve to be a highly judgmental group of individuals who care about the image we project to make sure that we are not judged. But hey! its fine to judge others.

The way we project ourselves is now more important that what we actually are. Even in a hospital the patient obviously prefers a doctor who is smart,, with a clean white coat and a smile like how hey show in close up ad.( never mind the fact that he know way less than the other doctor who has been stuck up in the hospital and got no time to shave and looks like a zombie)
 And as a doctor we judge the patients too! If its a well dressed, English speaking patient then our treatment will also involve a lot of fake laughs and nauseating discussions involving everything from sweat to stools. And if the patient happens to be not so aware type, we just quickly examine give the required medications and bye bye.

IM not staying stop judging, dont label people, because its something we all do subconsciously.  Everything from the place we study, work, the friends we make, the enemies we choose, the car we drive to the food we eat is largely dependent on projecting a better image of ourselves. Its all a part of" im up the societies ass strategy "

Least we forget..we often find a well wisher in the strictest of professors, lasting friends in the sickest college, happiness in an exam hall where no one knows the answer and soul satisfying food from a street vendor (hint hint_ Nehru park!)

So next time your at some place like the hilton and have this craving for lemon rice with fries potatoes do ask them. If your shown the door, just wish them a good day, head straight to saravana bhavan or vasanta bhavan and eat your heart out.

What is life if not for such small pleasures ? And yeah dont go anywhere near the hilton again. They wont even let you in!

THE BEST PROFILE FORWARD

 

Im 23, 4 more months and i will be done with college,a seat to a pg course is somewhere in the near future, A horoscope thats is pretty screwed up, cousins younger than me about to be hitched, aunties and uncles who have "my best interest" as their  prime concern who egg my parents further until they finally decide i have to get married!! and to sort it all out and to help my family with the same comes the most savy, Bharath matrimony, and a bunch of other matrimony sites.

I totally hate these online matrimony portals. Some random person expresses interest,  and courtesy demands you do the same..numbers are exchanged (so are badly photoshoped pictures) and somewhere along the line things go off like the fizz in a bottle of cola opened 2 hours back.

Every time im shown some profile of a potential groom, my highly judgmental part of the brain become overactive.  Every single line i read, ends with the same thought "bull shit".

98% of the profiles i come across have almost identical description about the guy in question. "god fearing, soft spoken, homely boy" wait a second! this is where you begin to select a groom based on the principle of exclusion. I most def do not want the god fearing soft spoken homely boy!

First - God fearing??! who fears god? the one who commits sins. so does it imply the prospective groom commits sins on daily basis? or does it mean he does not commit ANY sin just because he is scared of some invisible presence on top of his head keeping a watch over him and his deeds 24/7?? Either way not good! what im actually looking for is someone with a conscience, who does what he does not because its the expected behavior, but because he believes in him and his deeds to do no harm to those around him. Now common thats not too much to ask for?

Second-      homely and soft spoken. sorry!

   how did life come this far? we evolved obviously. we learnt to face the struggles that life throws at us, we fight, we establish territories, we create boundaries and we rule. Had our cavemen remained passive to what fate had in store or them, we probably would still be living in caves and mountains, guarding ourselves from the wild with fire  from the stone. Again is it wrong to look for someone who shows traits of being able to evolve,. and this most commonly used expression hold good for women too.!

 This does not mean im looking for some wandering hooligan who dominates and thinks the world is his head, rather someone who respects fellow human being and their space. who can be considerate and diplomatic but at the same time is not afraid to raise his voice when he is wronged.

After all this description about the guy, comes the demanding part.

Looking for  "Tall, beautiful, slim, fair,homely,well cultured girls from decent families" then my head says, why don't you add, 36-24-36, blond or read head, rai's face, Madhuri's smile, Paris Hilton's brains and can still look like a traditional doll in strategically draped saree??  Never mind the guy looks like the uncle you see around at malls. IF you want a doll go buy one jackass!

some demands go a step further to border on near selfishness when the look for a bride "who can support the groom, make him happy,look after him and his family at the same time help HIM achieve his goals!" well just so you know mister, the girl has a family too, she has her own dreams and whimsical fancies..she is not your "talking ginger" or "talking tom" who you gradually loose interest in just because another app comes around!

My online profile is hilarious too! Describing me in those exact same words i mentioned before. everything that i am not. But why does this have to happen??

Every one lives to fulfill the needs of the other. First you assess what is in demand and then you manufacture goods accordingly, thats basics of business. Business that now also includes matchmaking. If tall, fair, slim ( the magic adjectives) is what you want, then that is what you will get. some how the bride / groom miraculously have to change accordingly, because anything less will become a compromise.

Marriage is no more the sacred, family affair it was ages ago. Its now reduced to choices. This web site or that. this boy or that, giving true meaning to the phrase you choices make you what you are! Of course the old ways might still exist you say, but judging by the success of these online matchmaking sites i doubt that with a biig question mark! 

THE RESULT HORROR

My final year M.B.B.S exams  came to an end. I wanted to scream my lungs out, cry for all those hours of metal torture, sleep myself to death for all those days of induced insomnia, talk endlessly to any one who would listen about any nonsense beyond the subjects, listen to all my favorite songs, take a nice long shower, go to the marina beach, eat roasted corn...the things i wanted to do was endless!
But the day the exams got over, another nagging pain in the rear took over...what about the results?


Every single day the MGR university website replaced the morning paper and ensured that my bowels forgot all about the constipation that accompanied exams! My dream lovers and the happily ever after dreams were replaced by various nightmares about the results and its consequences.


Every single day out with friends, dinner parties with family friends and small picnics were wrapped up with anxiety and plenty of bile in the throat situations. All facebook chats involved in depth discussion about the rumored dates for results arrival and Phone calls were mainly to reconfirm all the information exchanged on facebook or yahoo!


The only page that was open 24/7 on my laptop was the MGR university site. I am very sure my index finger became a millimeter shorter as i kept pressing the refresh button about hundred times a day. Every time the page failed to load i almost convulsed and my lacrymal glands ran out of tears! My family refused to believe i was sane considering the various facial expressions i would display by just staring at the computer screen!


Waiting for an important exams results is probably the most cruel part of the examination process. All the time wasted, the classes that were bunked, teachers who became the butt of jokes come back to haunt you like the ghost of your  Ex.  Finally one fine day when the sun was setting in the west and i was settlling deeper into my corner on the sofa with tea, i saw it. The result.


Convulsions started so did tears! i dint dare enter my roll number into that rectangle box! It took two whole minutes for my dad to convince me to let go of the laptop, and another three minutes for him to get the roll number out of my mouth! Then in about 5 seconds he told me "PASS" !
NOOOO way! I had to see it myself! and it was pretty much there on the screen! 


The holidays of the haunted results thus ended. I did not do a single thing on my list of to do things. Did not celebrate, did not scream, did not freak out like how i had imagined i would during the exams!


I now regret those wasted days. Internship in its first trimester, and im yet to register the fact that i have passed. The moment of glory has passed to never come back.But definetly we are worth more! And being the dreamer i am i still believe that some day in the next one year there will come a day when i celebrate with my besties in such a way that will compensate for all those years of desperation,hopelessness and days where we worked our asses off! 

To that day i say cheers!

Homeostasis meets nemesis!

December 25, 2011. The day Saturn took over my life.


Initially it was the 10th boards, then the 12th, every university exam in college and now THE final year exams of medical school. 


I made elaborate plans with well organised time tables to make sure i complete the portions by January 16th 2012, but like every other TR's movie, my plans turned out to be a big joke. Complete the portions?? what the hell was i even thinking??


When rest of the world was celebrating new year, here i was staring at the books but concentrating on the songs blaring from the stereo outside, regretting every single second for having taken medicine!
My ipod was untouched for a period of 38 days to be exact..the longest ever we have ever been separated.
Conversations with friends involved dialogues like "man! i have so much left" "i have no clue what im gonna do!!" "im definitely gonna flunk!" over and again!...the only thing i had time was for books, and i hated them!


Prayers increased in frequency and duration; nightmares of sitting "vetti" in the exam halls became the norm; It was like having PMS all throughout! Mood swings, oily  head and faces, exam acne( that's my  terminology), relapsing bouts of confidence, and endless worry..a typical Pre-Exam syndrome complex.


This is just the preview..the climax occurs the day before the 1st paper General medicine one. Its humanely impossible to read trough Davidson before the exam, and so came George Mathew to my rescue. Every topic looked important, every unusual name or sign a potential 1 marker, every unmarked page a reminder of the vastness of the untouched portions..now this is what hell should be like. That emotional turmoil, the mental agony is one of a kind.


One paper after the other with no time to sleep or eat, rumors about the possible questions for the next paper,  few annoying batch mates who go around announcing how badly prepared they are( they are usually the toppers!), a few others who swallow microphones and discuss the answers with the wall, the near death experience when you receive the question paper and realize you do not know both the essay questions, last minute revisions(just before being dragged into the hall), "totally screwed" glances with best friends, hoping for a bomb to drop on the examiners head are all inherent to an important theory exam.


Balding patches, over grown beards, bushy eyebrows,fine tremors on inspection; 


Moist sweaty skin, irregular pulse,on palpation;


Changing murmurs, loud s1 and s2,s3 s4 s5 s6 s7 sn!! all over the precordium, unusually loud bowel sounds on auscultation. 


Investigations- CT brain reveals a recently hypertrophied brain with scattered ares of sclerosis( for all the answers that failed to make an appearance in mind's screen during the exams)
These are the pathagnomic features of a student who has just taken a med school exam (any exam for that matter!).


Bungee jumping scary?? my foot!!!!  Try writing a med school exam! 

The perfect past

It was the tenth time i suppressed a yawn! My head hardly registered the anything that was being discussed at the seminar. It was an exam oriented seminar conducted by another college and i overestimated my potential to patiently listen to over 8 hours of lecture with just a 30 minute break in between. I totally lost it when they started  talking about varicose veins at a speed of 3 words per minute!...i was still thinking about the palatable lunch i just ate, the chair that was abusing my spinal cord, the unbelievable eye popping students around who kept nodding for even the breath the professor took!

It was 2 o clock, in a jam packed hot, humid room where the air was completely paralyzed, that's when i spotted a student religiously take notes..like every one else (where is my pen?)  but this smart ass was typing away to oblivion on his laptop! I saw signs of mental disturbance in him for sure! But what really caught my attention was the laptop.

The laptop for some reason reminded me of long forgotten NATRAJ (THE PENCIL), my red and black NATRAJ pencil the most pivotal object  of my childhood.

I would sharpen it every single day before school (prestige problems)..Just for the heck of it i'd sharpen the other end too and show of with my dual ended writing instrument!...It was the only food i got in the exam hall!..i'd chew on the wood and stare blankly at the bent backs right in front.

I remembered  the notebooks, that were neatly covered in brown paper, with a "bata" or "kiwi" label on it. The double margins, the smudged pencil marks that made pages look grey, red marks and even worse "very bad handwriting" remarks and the occasional "neat" or a star.

The eraser, that was the most hardworking stationary in my pencil case. It would assume odd shapes by the end of term and ultimately disappeared as a tiny round thing in my friends braid.

The ever strong wooden ruler,in its yellow glory bearing compass marks and my name in bold letters. It must have definitly waged wars with other scales in class but was never used for the intended purpose.

And obviously, the very 1st led pen.Renolds! .the refill that had pathetic looking ends, and the the ink totally wasted in "correcting" news papers, text books, and dads office stuff(ouch!)

I saw the laptop again...what a shame! its just there, reminds me of nothing except wasted hours, and non productivity  multiplied by guilt.Its no match for the physically deformed and emotionally challenged stationary of my past.

I finally found my pen. That professor is still speaking 3 words per minute...i open my note book and take down an important point "Prof.X, varicose veins, 3 words per minute".

I would love to look back at this sometime in the distant future.