I have to learn hacking. There is a lot to learn to use this awesome machine called PubMed. This doesnt have an interface like Google where even a tot can type Tchaichovsky and get results. Using Pub Med requires brains...and patience. And I am desperately in search of someone who knows how to use it, and abuse it. Not that I will pirate stuff out the way I am doing in other aspects of my learning ( enriching the Third World, one person at a time, spoken in third person..) but I want to know it so I can see my patients better, make better diagnosis and treat them with the best of the available diagnosis.
As an aside, was happy with the fact that my diagnosis of cutaneous tuberculosis/ papulonecrotic tuberculide was bang-on....They will just take the biopsy for the apple jelly nodules.
And oh boy!! I did find Dubin 6th edition and downed it...Gotta gotta gotta gotta get into this more. And I will be the biggest e-bandit queen of northern skies.....Invisigoth...I want to believe this.
Calls for celebration. Only those who know it can know what I am saying.
Yippeeee....
Friday, April 9, 2010
BADAM SINGH
I got bitten by a dog 3 days back, who is flexing his Pterygoids thanks to the kind hearted souls of PGIMS Girls Hostel who throw him scraps with unfailing regularity. Trouble is, this testosterone racked canine mostly has a field day in our hostel premises doing this with no one to stop him post Maneka Gandhi's campaign to sterilize animals and not kill them. Although for me, this happened as a consequence of trying to help a Pathology Co-PostGraduate's mother with her over weighted water jugs when I accidentally stepped on God knows what part of his body. At least as much as the others have told me, he bites unprovoked. But for me, I provoked him. He spun around with an injured ego tantamounting to anger and snipped my Gastrocnemius, and mildly abrading the other part of my calf as would befit a set of canines and set of incisors his size. I had 2 big sets of briuses and one canine that dug deep. Thank god my Olive 'war dress' saved me further injury.
It was not the pain, or the bite marks. It was the apprehension. The dog is semi rabid. I am almost as scared about it as one would normally expect to be post needle stick with a seropositive. More trouble is the set of ATS and the Anti Rabies Vaccine that came after it ( the immunization sister first gave the rabies shot on my left arm, the ATS shot in my right, and solemnly declared.."your arm is gonna hurt for 2 days doc..ATS hurts". I would have taken it in my butt if she could be a little early..). Plus my viral fever or whatever it was along with the snot came up to clog my sense of smell and balance badly. I was having a major headache and my Professor was the dearest person on earth to see beyond my silence that I was not feeling well ( my wellness quotient inversely proportional to my temper and my voice in the ward, as well as the purpose of my walk, if not necessarily the pace of it). I was given a off post afternoon round on Emergency day, post Post Emergency day and Post Emergency Night. I will be very grateful to Prof H for this. We may work endlessly but he knows. And he gives us the room. We don't work like dogs; literally, like some of my Co-Pgs are having to do. A good atmosphere can pummel or plummet the ergonomic quotient in an institute like a hospital, where efficiency and emotions are the key words for success. And I know this because unlike P, my co-PG who is either summarily dismissed or looked upon with sympathy, I am looked upon with either fun, or amusement, or appraisal. I want to insist that despite my sense of humor I am a very serious person. But seems no one is intrested to understand that I always appreciate that I should have a sense of gravity about me. Guess I cant have that. People just end up seeing me as angry and benign. I want to be snaky and diplomatic. But circumstances don't allow me. I laugh too much. And I still take them to my eyes. Kept me alive through everything. and I was granted 15 odd hours of full recovery, during which I saw Shutter Island, read Revolutionary Road and slept and slept and woke up not worrying about going to ward for once.
In any case, Prof H finally came to know of my Curious Encounter with the Dog and called up Badam Singh, the Chief Security Officer ( name preceding reputation or vice versa I do not know, as you will know later) and he readily agreed to take this dog to his destiny ( not revealing what it is...) I was happy, especially after my written complaint was met with the Matron deciding that the dog would not be found inside the hostel ( it has bitten me, my SR, Dr J, Dr P, and three or four others outside the hostel and in the hostel premises in every instance). I reiterated that fact. To no avail. The female sweepers were summoned and told to find the dog wherever it was and to drive it outside the hostel. They all went about in every directions. I went to the washroom beside the Matron's office and he lay there, in all his glory, casually inspecting me. I walked back and told the Matron the dog was right under her nose. To this she summoned the nearest sweepress who was running about nearby, handed her a bed post and asked her to drive the dog out of the hostel. And she did..the dog nimbled along out of one hostel into another of the five. My written request of a 'potential health hazard, subsequent to its repeated unprovoked attacks on the inmates of the hostel' had this fate.
Badam Singh's goons ( read our ablest security officers) made a fatal mistake. Whereas they come with the unfailing regularity and timing of the Police in Bollywood movies when doctors call them in an hour of need, they rose to precrime levels in Rohtak's Minority Report and huddled up few of our own. Having beaten up the Class Three workers is like chugging a Lead ball up the sewage system of the Hospital and the stench was smelled almost immediately. To add to this, like a true captain of the sinking ship, Badam Singh did not back down from his co-worker's stance and went on insisting that the 3rd Class workers were at fault. And as a result of this all Class 3 and Class 4 workers of our hospital are on strike. Badam Singh's days are supposedly counted. We have no water, no reports, no ECGs and no support.
I met my old canine friend again as I walked back to the hostel and it was standing jaw pointing to air. His other cowardly-peppered-neither-here-nor-there female bitches stood flanking him. They smelled the air and casually turned their behinds to me to show what they had done to my written complaint, my Professor's request, the bedpost chase, and Badam Singh's cutting the ticket for them. Basically this time, they ignored me.I walked back to my room with my tail between my legs. I can only pray they find people like me so insignificant as to forget our existence and we will be ever willing to step on their shit and not complain to anyone, give them food before we take ours, and say amen every time we are bitten by them.
And tomorrow is time for the second shot of Equirab. ( 4 doses remaining)
It was not the pain, or the bite marks. It was the apprehension. The dog is semi rabid. I am almost as scared about it as one would normally expect to be post needle stick with a seropositive. More trouble is the set of ATS and the Anti Rabies Vaccine that came after it ( the immunization sister first gave the rabies shot on my left arm, the ATS shot in my right, and solemnly declared.."your arm is gonna hurt for 2 days doc..ATS hurts". I would have taken it in my butt if she could be a little early..). Plus my viral fever or whatever it was along with the snot came up to clog my sense of smell and balance badly. I was having a major headache and my Professor was the dearest person on earth to see beyond my silence that I was not feeling well ( my wellness quotient inversely proportional to my temper and my voice in the ward, as well as the purpose of my walk, if not necessarily the pace of it). I was given a off post afternoon round on Emergency day, post Post Emergency day and Post Emergency Night. I will be very grateful to Prof H for this. We may work endlessly but he knows. And he gives us the room. We don't work like dogs; literally, like some of my Co-Pgs are having to do. A good atmosphere can pummel or plummet the ergonomic quotient in an institute like a hospital, where efficiency and emotions are the key words for success. And I know this because unlike P, my co-PG who is either summarily dismissed or looked upon with sympathy, I am looked upon with either fun, or amusement, or appraisal. I want to insist that despite my sense of humor I am a very serious person. But seems no one is intrested to understand that I always appreciate that I should have a sense of gravity about me. Guess I cant have that. People just end up seeing me as angry and benign. I want to be snaky and diplomatic. But circumstances don't allow me. I laugh too much. And I still take them to my eyes. Kept me alive through everything. and I was granted 15 odd hours of full recovery, during which I saw Shutter Island, read Revolutionary Road and slept and slept and woke up not worrying about going to ward for once.
In any case, Prof H finally came to know of my Curious Encounter with the Dog and called up Badam Singh, the Chief Security Officer ( name preceding reputation or vice versa I do not know, as you will know later) and he readily agreed to take this dog to his destiny ( not revealing what it is...) I was happy, especially after my written complaint was met with the Matron deciding that the dog would not be found inside the hostel ( it has bitten me, my SR, Dr J, Dr P, and three or four others outside the hostel and in the hostel premises in every instance). I reiterated that fact. To no avail. The female sweepers were summoned and told to find the dog wherever it was and to drive it outside the hostel. They all went about in every directions. I went to the washroom beside the Matron's office and he lay there, in all his glory, casually inspecting me. I walked back and told the Matron the dog was right under her nose. To this she summoned the nearest sweepress who was running about nearby, handed her a bed post and asked her to drive the dog out of the hostel. And she did..the dog nimbled along out of one hostel into another of the five. My written request of a 'potential health hazard, subsequent to its repeated unprovoked attacks on the inmates of the hostel' had this fate.
Badam Singh's goons ( read our ablest security officers) made a fatal mistake. Whereas they come with the unfailing regularity and timing of the Police in Bollywood movies when doctors call them in an hour of need, they rose to precrime levels in Rohtak's Minority Report and huddled up few of our own. Having beaten up the Class Three workers is like chugging a Lead ball up the sewage system of the Hospital and the stench was smelled almost immediately. To add to this, like a true captain of the sinking ship, Badam Singh did not back down from his co-worker's stance and went on insisting that the 3rd Class workers were at fault. And as a result of this all Class 3 and Class 4 workers of our hospital are on strike. Badam Singh's days are supposedly counted. We have no water, no reports, no ECGs and no support.
I met my old canine friend again as I walked back to the hostel and it was standing jaw pointing to air. His other cowardly-peppered-neither-here-nor-there female bitches stood flanking him. They smelled the air and casually turned their behinds to me to show what they had done to my written complaint, my Professor's request, the bedpost chase, and Badam Singh's cutting the ticket for them. Basically this time, they ignored me.I walked back to my room with my tail between my legs. I can only pray they find people like me so insignificant as to forget our existence and we will be ever willing to step on their shit and not complain to anyone, give them food before we take ours, and say amen every time we are bitten by them.
And tomorrow is time for the second shot of Equirab. ( 4 doses remaining)
Monday, April 5, 2010
UNLOADING
Did away with half my clothes gathered from my Delhi days. Feels like undergraduate days when I would get a whole new wardrobe all at once, and splurge on these excesses, and give away all the clothes I used to discard all at once. And I have decided the only way I can keep my room clean is to get rid of the excesses is to throw away everything that is not needed. I have already taken about the dozen micropore that were present in my room and the equal number of heparin vials. The heparin I have kept to give to CKD patients who cannot afford. The micropore I have given to the junior sister, I do not know how so many needles came into my room but probably filling my pockets with syringes and heparin and needles got them there permanently and they finally came to my room. Anyways, tomorrow they will go to Ram Phal..
Been keeping terribly busy even though ward has been kinda light. All at once, we are writing papers, studying cases ( leave me out...I am not doing that..) and doing OPDs and Casualties and started with Rheumatology Clinics too. I have been appointed the official typist which means that everytime I dont have some work in the ward I am supposed to be free. Well sometimes its okay, but at times its too much, because I cannot complete my movies nor finish my Revolutionary Road...
And most importantly, the fan of my laptop has perhaps stopped working which means that bittorrent will stop working. S is coming to India in June and I have implored him to get a good one for me from US. But knowing my impulses I might just as well take off to a shop in Delhi and get a new one just like that. People crib about about their favorite things to be this and that but for me I am dead if my Bittorrent stops working....And right now I am downing a lot of good books and novels. Just did in the Britannica's Encyclopedia of Literature....
Rest of life is as usual..limited in scope and presence. And I am keeping busy which helps a lot. Just hope I learn ECGs well and learn to intubate fast. And read something about Computer Security and the like.
Been keeping terribly busy even though ward has been kinda light. All at once, we are writing papers, studying cases ( leave me out...I am not doing that..) and doing OPDs and Casualties and started with Rheumatology Clinics too. I have been appointed the official typist which means that everytime I dont have some work in the ward I am supposed to be free. Well sometimes its okay, but at times its too much, because I cannot complete my movies nor finish my Revolutionary Road...
And most importantly, the fan of my laptop has perhaps stopped working which means that bittorrent will stop working. S is coming to India in June and I have implored him to get a good one for me from US. But knowing my impulses I might just as well take off to a shop in Delhi and get a new one just like that. People crib about about their favorite things to be this and that but for me I am dead if my Bittorrent stops working....And right now I am downing a lot of good books and novels. Just did in the Britannica's Encyclopedia of Literature....
Rest of life is as usual..limited in scope and presence. And I am keeping busy which helps a lot. Just hope I learn ECGs well and learn to intubate fast. And read something about Computer Security and the like.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
2nd April 2 15 am...
Since I promise to write about nice things in this blog I will not mention how things have been going for me after one accidental discovery on the internet...and weirdly too this was yet again a consequence of following my gut feeling after a dream. Since then, I have been thankful of how the perspective really shaped itself out. Sometimes I think I have a notoriety for overestimating people and having more faith in them than they really deserve. And doing just the opposite for me. In any case, I am grateful the consequence of it all is that it has made it easier on my part not to repose anymore faith on any person to the extent that your vulnerability is taken advantage of. Now since a lot of the soul is a wasteland, I am trying to make my job bloom some flowers in it...and mercifully, thanks to some people, it has....Besides, I have become so independent over the last 3 odd years that things don't affect me anymore, ( or so I thought...but a recent discovery made me physically puke before I regained composure...so I don't know if I am any more mature than what I claim to be and know I am not) and thankfully I have a lot more important people in my life who bestow their living seconds in my hands. To these at least, if not the others who have done the splendid job of taking the word 'faith' out of my life and turning a caricature of it, I have more important things to do. The rest is upto God.
I have turned strangely irreligious here. Its a sharp contrast from those days in Cuttack when I used to bow down before God at every turning, carry conversations presumably in lieu of soul searching during some of my most trying periods of life; here, strangely I do not feel like bowing my head in front of any temple, except when I am thinking of some patient I desperately want to survive ( who usually doesn't survive...its usually too late before my enthusiasm matches my capacity to do that running around....) I feel irreligious because of a personal void that I cannot fill in because life is all about work, work and work, and there is hardly any conversation, any education, and any soul searching...even with myself if not with company...There is just no time...I haven't touched books for quite some time now, with the promise that I wont be doing so till my First Year gets over in June...because all my life I have done nothing else except live with them....Thanks to Dr S and Dr P, two wonderful women and fantastic doctors, I have managed to gain back some perspective, especially from the former, on how to go on with nothing in hand. So the result is that some work is to be done, in order for some dreams to be fulfilled, and I need to say a few goodbyes to some people who have stayed as very important portions of my life and thoughts for some time now. And that will be done soon. And after that, I begin my life...a trip to Ladakh, or any place up here...And I go alone if no one else comes along. And then my life and how I want to be as a doctor once I am done with these ward duties, and how I choose to be with whatever time is left over.
First year came and went like a jiffy...Now I know the way the Health Machinery of this state works, including the tweaks and fixes. I have given my best, in terms of sincerity and that old bad habit of not going back on my word...Someone asked me the other day if my Professor was happy with me. I have pondered over it. You know, at no point in time have I ever thought of doing something because I want to please some faculty member. My urges have been purely patient driven and clinically oriented. I love typing PowerPoint slides for my boss because I enjoy working with computers... I have opposed vehemently to some developments here, and then it was not because an ego was involved, but rather, because I did not think there was anything clinically to be done. Nor have I the capacity or charm or sweetness to sweet talk the VVIPs that get admitted here. I talk tough. The other day, I sounded off the CM's PSO whose mother ( who looked fit enough to be the PSO of Sonia Gandhi...in terms of attitude at least) was admitted for Chronic UTI; I made it amply clear that neither did I appreciate nor did the disease of the person appreciate that ceaseless smoking of cigarettes should occur in a 10 by 10 room. And contrary to what I thought about the 6 feet 4 guy throwing me off, the room had a freshener on the next morning I went to visit her. Here, as a hospital, and the only one in the entire state, with vigilance, uninterrupted attention, moolah and Paybacks in terms of references ranging from Hooda to Gandhi, we delegate tertiary care to a few, secondary care to most, and primary care to a considerable chunk of our inflow. Thing is, even with the circumstances existing, even minor attention to details, despite the daggerended cooperation between various units, a little work can dramatically improve the morbidity and mortality indices of this hospital, and the state. We just need some people who have the spine to push through the idea that nothing is more important to know than the illness, and nothing is more important to achieve than the cure of this illness.
On a personal level, I finally got an independent cupboard of my own so that I don't have to run with toothpaste, bed sheet, mosquito coils every alternate day to the ward, the providence will make me much more comfortable in the ward....Though the lack of a proper loo makes it very difficult for my precision timed bowel and bladder habits...And I hate to check BP of patients with a full bladder and anguishing bowel in the morning with a smile on my face. God forbid if anyone does the cardinal scene of calling me 'sister' then....And with morning covering casualties beginning this week, the real day has arrived. We will be all out..in the open...and alone, and we have to prove it. Thanks to my SR, I have made some headway in distinguishing ICMP with LVF/CHF from COPD with CHF and the different management in both...What scares me is ECG...I am pathetic in it...except gross changes that can be interpreted by an ant...And I hate myself for being so bad in this. My unit is hectic with work that goes on 24/7...With file work and countless other things and with my room that looks like the pit of a pig any day with all the books and stuff I have got piled in one room, life is a mess from sanitation point of view. Even if I am reading Revolutionary Road, I find it irritating and want to slap April Wheeler sometimes for being such a cold, heartless bitch. Some women never understand the meaning of love. (As an afterthought, what about the men who are made like that? I have no words for them)
Rohtak is on its way to the oven. Life is good. My left leg is markedly swollen both perhaps as a result of obesity and also postural...I haven't been able to start a lot of things I promised to, but I am glad I have taken some good decisions and have stuck to them.
Going home last week of June. And coming back after the final goodbye to start the justification process thereof. Enough has been spent from life so that now the wastelands are on the verge of frutification for all times to come
I have turned strangely irreligious here. Its a sharp contrast from those days in Cuttack when I used to bow down before God at every turning, carry conversations presumably in lieu of soul searching during some of my most trying periods of life; here, strangely I do not feel like bowing my head in front of any temple, except when I am thinking of some patient I desperately want to survive ( who usually doesn't survive...its usually too late before my enthusiasm matches my capacity to do that running around....) I feel irreligious because of a personal void that I cannot fill in because life is all about work, work and work, and there is hardly any conversation, any education, and any soul searching...even with myself if not with company...There is just no time...I haven't touched books for quite some time now, with the promise that I wont be doing so till my First Year gets over in June...because all my life I have done nothing else except live with them....Thanks to Dr S and Dr P, two wonderful women and fantastic doctors, I have managed to gain back some perspective, especially from the former, on how to go on with nothing in hand. So the result is that some work is to be done, in order for some dreams to be fulfilled, and I need to say a few goodbyes to some people who have stayed as very important portions of my life and thoughts for some time now. And that will be done soon. And after that, I begin my life...a trip to Ladakh, or any place up here...And I go alone if no one else comes along. And then my life and how I want to be as a doctor once I am done with these ward duties, and how I choose to be with whatever time is left over.
First year came and went like a jiffy...Now I know the way the Health Machinery of this state works, including the tweaks and fixes. I have given my best, in terms of sincerity and that old bad habit of not going back on my word...Someone asked me the other day if my Professor was happy with me. I have pondered over it. You know, at no point in time have I ever thought of doing something because I want to please some faculty member. My urges have been purely patient driven and clinically oriented. I love typing PowerPoint slides for my boss because I enjoy working with computers... I have opposed vehemently to some developments here, and then it was not because an ego was involved, but rather, because I did not think there was anything clinically to be done. Nor have I the capacity or charm or sweetness to sweet talk the VVIPs that get admitted here. I talk tough. The other day, I sounded off the CM's PSO whose mother ( who looked fit enough to be the PSO of Sonia Gandhi...in terms of attitude at least) was admitted for Chronic UTI; I made it amply clear that neither did I appreciate nor did the disease of the person appreciate that ceaseless smoking of cigarettes should occur in a 10 by 10 room. And contrary to what I thought about the 6 feet 4 guy throwing me off, the room had a freshener on the next morning I went to visit her. Here, as a hospital, and the only one in the entire state, with vigilance, uninterrupted attention, moolah and Paybacks in terms of references ranging from Hooda to Gandhi, we delegate tertiary care to a few, secondary care to most, and primary care to a considerable chunk of our inflow. Thing is, even with the circumstances existing, even minor attention to details, despite the daggerended cooperation between various units, a little work can dramatically improve the morbidity and mortality indices of this hospital, and the state. We just need some people who have the spine to push through the idea that nothing is more important to know than the illness, and nothing is more important to achieve than the cure of this illness.
On a personal level, I finally got an independent cupboard of my own so that I don't have to run with toothpaste, bed sheet, mosquito coils every alternate day to the ward, the providence will make me much more comfortable in the ward....Though the lack of a proper loo makes it very difficult for my precision timed bowel and bladder habits...And I hate to check BP of patients with a full bladder and anguishing bowel in the morning with a smile on my face. God forbid if anyone does the cardinal scene of calling me 'sister' then....And with morning covering casualties beginning this week, the real day has arrived. We will be all out..in the open...and alone, and we have to prove it. Thanks to my SR, I have made some headway in distinguishing ICMP with LVF/CHF from COPD with CHF and the different management in both...What scares me is ECG...I am pathetic in it...except gross changes that can be interpreted by an ant...And I hate myself for being so bad in this. My unit is hectic with work that goes on 24/7...With file work and countless other things and with my room that looks like the pit of a pig any day with all the books and stuff I have got piled in one room, life is a mess from sanitation point of view. Even if I am reading Revolutionary Road, I find it irritating and want to slap April Wheeler sometimes for being such a cold, heartless bitch. Some women never understand the meaning of love. (As an afterthought, what about the men who are made like that? I have no words for them)
Rohtak is on its way to the oven. Life is good. My left leg is markedly swollen both perhaps as a result of obesity and also postural...I haven't been able to start a lot of things I promised to, but I am glad I have taken some good decisions and have stuck to them.
Going home last week of June. And coming back after the final goodbye to start the justification process thereof. Enough has been spent from life so that now the wastelands are on the verge of frutification for all times to come
:(
Tired of listening to Beautiful World by Coldplay...Cannot wait to change my ringtone...Trouble and The Scientist lasted longer...
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
PB....and Anger Management...
You need mad people to bring about change. Mad people like PB....who was the Unknown Indian I met in my first year of connectivity. My first and last e-guru. My educator in ' Big, bad and dad world of Internet'. PB is a doctor, and a very angry one at that. And a very successful one at that if it counts. Fighting for a cause still I believe. A Khalsa who is not good looking, ( Unlike what he told me), and who does not wear a pagdi or hold a kirpan. PB is not my father figure, though he is aged rightly to fit into that slot. And his anger has made him run from a number of Esteemed Institutes and throw the resignation letter in the face of some of the most powerful figures in India. I met him during my earliest days on Internet, when I was addicted to chatting. ( Unless specified, when I mention the word 'meet' it usually means to meet over the Net) . And his opening lines were the " I am an Unknown Indian, from Dilli. Not Dilli as in the capital of East Timor silly, but Dilli as in the Capital of India". And the ubiquitous " I know all that needs to be known....." dialogue he kept on telling until he finally revealed his identity months later to me. Don't know why he took to a 18 year old girl then. I would have learnt about Interntet anyways.....I was addicted to the computer to this extent that my computer teacher had asked me if I had done the Revolving Cube in BASIC...a 3-D figure I had done by putting 8 points in 8 circles arranged vertically and running in a loop alternated by 8 dark points in the same position so that the point appeared to shift in 3-D space as the formula took sine-cosine values. He probably took me to guide me through the ' Bad world of Internet Daddies...' , and he did...and a year later, in my 2nd MBBS days, we were chatting like old friends, 19 year old with a 45 year old. He taught me perhaps what I will teach kids, if I ever take up chatting again...Thing is, I am speaking bout his anger now, and my anger, which is the common point I find in us, and some doctors I see around me, who I immediately identify with. I want to tell is the purpose of anger....and how it can be used to build something creative. The chance of meeting one such person early in life is a mere conjecture. His being famous or anything has nothing to do with the story. And its not important to me either. I hardly know a lot of famous people. But what Thats the purpose of internet....You might be Tom Cruise acting as a gay activist talking to a 12 year old in Vietnam, asking him about bombs lying on his backyard, and no one will have a clue. This of, course, excludes the 'Big Bad world on the net....the landmines you should avoid when you walk acros the e-fields...But its necessary to know that there are landmines. And I know them now, to the extent that I will be similarly telling some kid who I might e-educate in the future with his lines..." I know all that needs to be known..." Very corny. And undeniably complacent.
Anyhow the topic is the anger potential that people like him and me carry. My anger that erupts in phases...when my voice slurs, my alae flare and if situation so demands, I cannot rule out a physical reaction...despite being a woman and being fully aware that I am not physically strong or well trained. Its a very very bad situation...for people like us who cannot speak anything but the truth, and worse, cannot stay silent either. I have suffered because of this...Especially in situations when other people have taken me behind screens and asked me why I should bother about certain issues and not let the affected people handle it themselves. More commonly people like me will mostly be laughed at, be scorned and in all probabilities opposed tooth and nail when they want to carry out their ideas, and ridiculed openly when they scorn an idea for some reason.... n most cases, hospitals, industries, states, republics, the faces of these and several others entities have been changed by people who have run them as dictators...with a lot of anger which they channelized positively...creatively, passionately...I am not justifying them who took it to extreme ends...And its also not a fact that continuation of functionality and consolidation and improvisation of gains is done by such people alone....But almost always it takes a mad man to start something that becomes eternal..In setting up anything, anger is a necessary tool...as is jealousy and insecurity...The difference is that it should always point towards the sublime, towards creating something...Crime is almost always involved as well. And dictators don't take much time to turn into despots. Thats when the fall starts..Fuhrer turning Hitler..Neverthless, the face of that enterprise, state, nation or industry is changed like never before. I can vouch that these group of people must have been very sad, very misunderstood, very lonely. Trouble is, they deserve to be. And thats not a presentiment that I try to justify because I identify with these with the worst and most basic of my emotions.... I compare myself ceaselessly with my Senior Resident I adore. I have a voice which when shaken with the temper matches the anger I carry in my genes that had once sent my mother crashing a chair on a table, I manage to send a gang of Jats out of the ward when they have been creating nuisance for a hysterical female. I feel happy to have restored order there. The mob was avoided. there was a reason. But at times I also feel scared that I don't have energy to back it up...And scared i might turn into a martinet. Situations have not gone that out of hand...But there is an underlying component of the realization that I am not soft, or sensitive...the Melanie Ashley kind of woman...I am not the Scarlett type of woman either...I am more like the Ellen O' Hara type of woman..And the Arundhati Roy type of woman who speakes despite being ridiculed...mixed with the Kiran Bedi style....I adoreboth of them. But only upto a point. I don't want to be anyway like them. Period. I carry a lot of anger in my blood..which I hope I will channelize in a good way and do something good for people...I will never be that smart to keep quiet and cover my ass when no one turns up to speak against the system....And I know I will always land in trouble for this..Anyways. Remembering PB of the old days when he used to say he had a lot of it too, when the Hindus ran after him in 1984, and he decided to cut off his beard and hair for good. I saw him years later on a TV channel, fighting against female foeticide, taking on Hinduja and Kamte. I saw the same anger and impertinence we read about...and it was reassuring to know that even higher up, people like us exist...So we are not that abnormal. We belong to that race of people. Its dangerous. And probably harmful in the long term if not matched by physical fitness and mental acuity. But I hope I dont turn out to be that dumb either... To bring about change. And to assure equality of health providence...Someone predicted I will end up being a dictator and will run my family the same way I will run my enterprise. That has subconsciously made me decide I should remain a Unwed Black Widow Spider. Women like us are just professional success stories I guess, if at all. You need additional qualification to be more than just a great friend, excellent conversationalist, travel companion good doctor, administrator etc...Being a homemaker is a very different thing. You cannot run it with everything else and other people on your mind...We don't fit in that category. And perhaps we should best try not to fit. And going by the possibility of the gene I carry from Tiger Mama ( My very handsome late brother of my mother, with blue eyes and an intelligence I have found in very few men till date), I swear I feel threatened at times that my own nerves will give way. Especially with Morning Casualties coming from next week where we will handle them solely on our own. And I will have the added disadvantage of being ECG illiterate, because I plan to stick to my target of not touching a book till my 1st year ends.
Mellowed was the word PB said he had become post Delhi riots and nearly 2 decades of pvt practice...and championing the cause of fight against female foeticide in India. I only sometimes wish I stayed in touch with him, just like AB...my earliest mentors in life. But their success was the key deterrent. I wish to stay anonymous. And since my net awareness made me know these people and I interacted with them to come to a point when I started believing in what they believed in, I have the habit of withdrawing on to myself, and lose people who matter in my life. And I did it then too. To PB, after my computer teacher, I owe my internet sense, and to some extent now, competence. And I plan to take it further as the only hobby I will have. Crashing my computers and building them anew, once the affordability doesn't remain a problem. To PB I also owe the fact that I was never swayed by my academic scores...But that perhaps acted in a wrong way ( My scores are best left unmentioned..all I can say is they were pretty commendable..) Ultimately the disinterest made me commit a fatal error which took me nearly 4 years to recover from, but in any case I am not guilty of any thing. Only one feeling perhaps that had I continued to take my career seriously then when I did not take it, life would perhaps have been be different. My scores needed to be taken seriously. Someone else might have made a gold mine out of them...And I have still not bothered to collect the gold plated ones..Necessarily happier or more fulfilling I cannot tell. But whatever shape my life took on from then, whatever people I chose to be with, whatever emotions I experienced, I became a totally different person than was predicted of me....To the point that now I have a thriving electronic existence beyond my professional life i have nothing else to do or no one else to meet, whats worse, I do not miss the lack....I have lost the power to appreciate normal fun filled movies..or read light romance novels....I am not Kafkaesque, not Ayn Randish....Not Marquezed, or Rushdied.....I am Me. A curious pot pourri of everything with a dollop of confusion. I want to be happy in life...but there are far too may options that make me pleased that it become a problem which one to accord the highest priority to...The movies I see or the books I end up appreciating these days are morose, dark critically acclaimed stuff that do not make any body happier. And while it may be called a certain class in choosing them so it doesn't necessarily enrich life ( Or does it? I do not know it yet) And most of all, it makes you accept and remain undecided about most things in life and not have a definite stand about anything in life....
In any case, I wrote about PB because he will remain one guy who taught me a lesson when we were talking about the Delhi riots..." You will never know what it means to belong to a minority community...So stop theorizing about idealism" I was too young then. He was my counselor in MBBS days, slots my sister or parents could not take, he filled with a lot of ease. And a lot of how I feel today when I cry against the system reminds me of sentences he used to tell then which I did not understand. Though my promise to be able to hack systems still remains a distant dream, may be I will do it someday. And I don't know how to use my anger, especially when my professor is a Gandhibadi who keeps folding hands and giving in to peoples even when they abuse him on the face... when I and a like minded Final Year and Second year are sitting on our haunches to be just summoned to bring back the errant behaviour to a justified end....We are basically the people who run to cover other's asses to get our own feet in mud. And who cannot remain silent and diplomatic but speak at the cost of our reputation ( which almost always gets noted as ugly...because most people do not have the capacity to handle ugly truths about the system about status quo and the need for change.....And in the end, whether we stay Dictators or wisely choose to 'Mellow'...( which I will...I prefer a yellow Mellow to a Fascist, it is a more successful career option...), we are always misinterpreted and misunderstood.
Doesn't make a lot of difference. I will write about it here. And someone who is like me will read and understand what I want to say.
Anyhow the topic is the anger potential that people like him and me carry. My anger that erupts in phases...when my voice slurs, my alae flare and if situation so demands, I cannot rule out a physical reaction...despite being a woman and being fully aware that I am not physically strong or well trained. Its a very very bad situation...for people like us who cannot speak anything but the truth, and worse, cannot stay silent either. I have suffered because of this...Especially in situations when other people have taken me behind screens and asked me why I should bother about certain issues and not let the affected people handle it themselves. More commonly people like me will mostly be laughed at, be scorned and in all probabilities opposed tooth and nail when they want to carry out their ideas, and ridiculed openly when they scorn an idea for some reason.... n most cases, hospitals, industries, states, republics, the faces of these and several others entities have been changed by people who have run them as dictators...with a lot of anger which they channelized positively...creatively, passionately...I am not justifying them who took it to extreme ends...And its also not a fact that continuation of functionality and consolidation and improvisation of gains is done by such people alone....But almost always it takes a mad man to start something that becomes eternal..In setting up anything, anger is a necessary tool...as is jealousy and insecurity...The difference is that it should always point towards the sublime, towards creating something...Crime is almost always involved as well. And dictators don't take much time to turn into despots. Thats when the fall starts..Fuhrer turning Hitler..Neverthless, the face of that enterprise, state, nation or industry is changed like never before. I can vouch that these group of people must have been very sad, very misunderstood, very lonely. Trouble is, they deserve to be. And thats not a presentiment that I try to justify because I identify with these with the worst and most basic of my emotions.... I compare myself ceaselessly with my Senior Resident I adore. I have a voice which when shaken with the temper matches the anger I carry in my genes that had once sent my mother crashing a chair on a table, I manage to send a gang of Jats out of the ward when they have been creating nuisance for a hysterical female. I feel happy to have restored order there. The mob was avoided. there was a reason. But at times I also feel scared that I don't have energy to back it up...And scared i might turn into a martinet. Situations have not gone that out of hand...But there is an underlying component of the realization that I am not soft, or sensitive...the Melanie Ashley kind of woman...I am not the Scarlett type of woman either...I am more like the Ellen O' Hara type of woman..And the Arundhati Roy type of woman who speakes despite being ridiculed...mixed with the Kiran Bedi style....I adoreboth of them. But only upto a point. I don't want to be anyway like them. Period. I carry a lot of anger in my blood..which I hope I will channelize in a good way and do something good for people...I will never be that smart to keep quiet and cover my ass when no one turns up to speak against the system....And I know I will always land in trouble for this..Anyways. Remembering PB of the old days when he used to say he had a lot of it too, when the Hindus ran after him in 1984, and he decided to cut off his beard and hair for good. I saw him years later on a TV channel, fighting against female foeticide, taking on Hinduja and Kamte. I saw the same anger and impertinence we read about...and it was reassuring to know that even higher up, people like us exist...So we are not that abnormal. We belong to that race of people. Its dangerous. And probably harmful in the long term if not matched by physical fitness and mental acuity. But I hope I dont turn out to be that dumb either... To bring about change. And to assure equality of health providence...Someone predicted I will end up being a dictator and will run my family the same way I will run my enterprise. That has subconsciously made me decide I should remain a Unwed Black Widow Spider. Women like us are just professional success stories I guess, if at all. You need additional qualification to be more than just a great friend, excellent conversationalist, travel companion good doctor, administrator etc...Being a homemaker is a very different thing. You cannot run it with everything else and other people on your mind...We don't fit in that category. And perhaps we should best try not to fit. And going by the possibility of the gene I carry from Tiger Mama ( My very handsome late brother of my mother, with blue eyes and an intelligence I have found in very few men till date), I swear I feel threatened at times that my own nerves will give way. Especially with Morning Casualties coming from next week where we will handle them solely on our own. And I will have the added disadvantage of being ECG illiterate, because I plan to stick to my target of not touching a book till my 1st year ends.
Mellowed was the word PB said he had become post Delhi riots and nearly 2 decades of pvt practice...and championing the cause of fight against female foeticide in India. I only sometimes wish I stayed in touch with him, just like AB...my earliest mentors in life. But their success was the key deterrent. I wish to stay anonymous. And since my net awareness made me know these people and I interacted with them to come to a point when I started believing in what they believed in, I have the habit of withdrawing on to myself, and lose people who matter in my life. And I did it then too. To PB, after my computer teacher, I owe my internet sense, and to some extent now, competence. And I plan to take it further as the only hobby I will have. Crashing my computers and building them anew, once the affordability doesn't remain a problem. To PB I also owe the fact that I was never swayed by my academic scores...But that perhaps acted in a wrong way ( My scores are best left unmentioned..all I can say is they were pretty commendable..) Ultimately the disinterest made me commit a fatal error which took me nearly 4 years to recover from, but in any case I am not guilty of any thing. Only one feeling perhaps that had I continued to take my career seriously then when I did not take it, life would perhaps have been be different. My scores needed to be taken seriously. Someone else might have made a gold mine out of them...And I have still not bothered to collect the gold plated ones..Necessarily happier or more fulfilling I cannot tell. But whatever shape my life took on from then, whatever people I chose to be with, whatever emotions I experienced, I became a totally different person than was predicted of me....To the point that now I have a thriving electronic existence beyond my professional life i have nothing else to do or no one else to meet, whats worse, I do not miss the lack....I have lost the power to appreciate normal fun filled movies..or read light romance novels....I am not Kafkaesque, not Ayn Randish....Not Marquezed, or Rushdied.....I am Me. A curious pot pourri of everything with a dollop of confusion. I want to be happy in life...but there are far too may options that make me pleased that it become a problem which one to accord the highest priority to...The movies I see or the books I end up appreciating these days are morose, dark critically acclaimed stuff that do not make any body happier. And while it may be called a certain class in choosing them so it doesn't necessarily enrich life ( Or does it? I do not know it yet) And most of all, it makes you accept and remain undecided about most things in life and not have a definite stand about anything in life....
In any case, I wrote about PB because he will remain one guy who taught me a lesson when we were talking about the Delhi riots..." You will never know what it means to belong to a minority community...So stop theorizing about idealism" I was too young then. He was my counselor in MBBS days, slots my sister or parents could not take, he filled with a lot of ease. And a lot of how I feel today when I cry against the system reminds me of sentences he used to tell then which I did not understand. Though my promise to be able to hack systems still remains a distant dream, may be I will do it someday. And I don't know how to use my anger, especially when my professor is a Gandhibadi who keeps folding hands and giving in to peoples even when they abuse him on the face... when I and a like minded Final Year and Second year are sitting on our haunches to be just summoned to bring back the errant behaviour to a justified end....We are basically the people who run to cover other's asses to get our own feet in mud. And who cannot remain silent and diplomatic but speak at the cost of our reputation ( which almost always gets noted as ugly...because most people do not have the capacity to handle ugly truths about the system about status quo and the need for change.....And in the end, whether we stay Dictators or wisely choose to 'Mellow'...( which I will...I prefer a yellow Mellow to a Fascist, it is a more successful career option...), we are always misinterpreted and misunderstood.
Doesn't make a lot of difference. I will write about it here. And someone who is like me will read and understand what I want to say.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
......R...a..Nd.......o.M
I have a 70 year old man father to a diabetic who we recently amputated because his uncontrolled Diabetes had eaten half his Calcaneum away and the tarsal Osteomyelitis was causing him severe and repeated febrile episodes with nausea and vomiting . This man, a very humble old grampa is always folding his hands despite my repeated reprimands not to do it. You have to see him standing over his 45 year old son as he runs to and fro, sending investigations, receiving them, getting drugs, checking blood sugar, asking me for insulin. The son got the disease despite being educated and having a near respectable job in the State Sugar Mills of Haryana because his 5 daughters meant he had to do overtime and the Government declaring all free medications in the OPD regardless of the disease did not think it was important that his growing Diabetic foot needed some treatment. He was not allowed leave. The rest is the " All izz Well" phenomenon so rampantly bound to the Indian middle class whose only way to confront a tough situation is to reassure their hearts that nothing would go wrong. Well it did.
I never pressed them to go for the amputation. I cannot imagine how hard it must be for a man to decide to let go of one foot. I knew they were sensible enough not to take a LAMA and try desi dawai so eventually they had to come to this. Thats not the point. What is more important is how his father stood by him and worked for him when his temperature was soaring at 104, and he puked anything he took in. When he came around from the anaesthesia, and I was feeling guilty to walk upto them and reassure them that letting go of the foot was the best decision they took under the circumstances, thinking that they would somehow hold me responsible for making him a cripple, the father came with folded hands and started crying. I take some time to interpret emotions these days. I was puzzled whether he was going to accuse me of something but he bent down and was actually going to touch my feet. That made me guiltier than before. I caught him before he could and gave him a big hug. When I walked upto the man he was in his bed and he did the same. I still cannot see anybody cry without tears stinging my own eyes. I know I cannot afford to be this emotional but somehow this does not stop. And I do not know if its double standards because when I have my mood swing days of the month, I am unnecessarily short tempered and erupt like a volcano. In any case, leaving aside my doubtful credentials, I just want to say that I made it a point for the son to know he has such a father who works ceaselessly for him. I compare this to those Ultra VVIPS I sometimes go to treat and I am puzzled why they have to close their eyes and purse their lips before they give an answer to a question. I find nothing intelligent, sensible, wise or knowledgeable in that. More or less, I am trying to find weird idiosyncrasies that strike me as hilarious. Genuineness flows from the eyes of this man I now tease if he forgets to fold his hands before me. and he cringes each time I semi hug him because I am still certain its not a state where affection is interpreted sans gender bias. I remember each time I blast anyone who makes the unfortunate mistake of calling me sister...and I know I can never speak loud to this old man who is a father very few men can be. God be with him. I feel proud to know him.
.............................................................................................................................................................
Revolutionary Road is just the book that tells you how and when things go wrong. I wonder if writers choose to go through this experience so that they can put it down. I hate writers with insight. They make you feel guilty of everything and make you want to turn back the clocks of time. Especially the ones who dont obsess about themselves. Its not the likes of Ayn Rand, whose only example I find in that scene in Dirty Dancing when the heroine stashes the book that her sister's boyfriend gives her when she talks to him about the girl he dumped to get her sister. Self deceit at its highest bizarre best. Richard Yates is brazenly truthful. And you have to have experienced life to know what he is talking about. The other is the dilemma the protagonist faces in My Name is Red. Awesome book. A mother having to choose between two men. She despises one for his weakness but he is a good soul, the other is a criminal but she forces to rethink because he has the resources to bring up her children well. Superbly traces the evolutionary ideas embedded in every woman's psyche. About her not feeling the guilt about calculating up two men and using her charms to match best the guy she thinks can take care of her kids. That every woman has a little bit of a gold digger in her. And worse, that she should have.
.............................................................................................................................................................
I never pressed them to go for the amputation. I cannot imagine how hard it must be for a man to decide to let go of one foot. I knew they were sensible enough not to take a LAMA and try desi dawai so eventually they had to come to this. Thats not the point. What is more important is how his father stood by him and worked for him when his temperature was soaring at 104, and he puked anything he took in. When he came around from the anaesthesia, and I was feeling guilty to walk upto them and reassure them that letting go of the foot was the best decision they took under the circumstances, thinking that they would somehow hold me responsible for making him a cripple, the father came with folded hands and started crying. I take some time to interpret emotions these days. I was puzzled whether he was going to accuse me of something but he bent down and was actually going to touch my feet. That made me guiltier than before. I caught him before he could and gave him a big hug. When I walked upto the man he was in his bed and he did the same. I still cannot see anybody cry without tears stinging my own eyes. I know I cannot afford to be this emotional but somehow this does not stop. And I do not know if its double standards because when I have my mood swing days of the month, I am unnecessarily short tempered and erupt like a volcano. In any case, leaving aside my doubtful credentials, I just want to say that I made it a point for the son to know he has such a father who works ceaselessly for him. I compare this to those Ultra VVIPS I sometimes go to treat and I am puzzled why they have to close their eyes and purse their lips before they give an answer to a question. I find nothing intelligent, sensible, wise or knowledgeable in that. More or less, I am trying to find weird idiosyncrasies that strike me as hilarious. Genuineness flows from the eyes of this man I now tease if he forgets to fold his hands before me. and he cringes each time I semi hug him because I am still certain its not a state where affection is interpreted sans gender bias. I remember each time I blast anyone who makes the unfortunate mistake of calling me sister...and I know I can never speak loud to this old man who is a father very few men can be. God be with him. I feel proud to know him.
.............................................................................................................................................................
Revolutionary Road is just the book that tells you how and when things go wrong. I wonder if writers choose to go through this experience so that they can put it down. I hate writers with insight. They make you feel guilty of everything and make you want to turn back the clocks of time. Especially the ones who dont obsess about themselves. Its not the likes of Ayn Rand, whose only example I find in that scene in Dirty Dancing when the heroine stashes the book that her sister's boyfriend gives her when she talks to him about the girl he dumped to get her sister. Self deceit at its highest bizarre best. Richard Yates is brazenly truthful. And you have to have experienced life to know what he is talking about. The other is the dilemma the protagonist faces in My Name is Red. Awesome book. A mother having to choose between two men. She despises one for his weakness but he is a good soul, the other is a criminal but she forces to rethink because he has the resources to bring up her children well. Superbly traces the evolutionary ideas embedded in every woman's psyche. About her not feeling the guilt about calculating up two men and using her charms to match best the guy she thinks can take care of her kids. That every woman has a little bit of a gold digger in her. And worse, that she should have.
.............................................................................................................................................................
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