7. Graduating and Growing

7. Graduating and Growing

The decision of going to Medical College was fathers’ too, as was then the chosen, most suitable considered profession. I had feebly expressed my desire to do English / literature but was of no avail.

It happened in 3 parts;
Hindu, Delhi Univ. for 1 year for premed...
Govt. med college, Patiala for 2 yrs for 1st professional MBBS.
Maulana Azad Med. College, Delhi for 4 yrs for 2nd and final proff, internship and House jobs.

The three parts also consisted of;
The pursuit of serious academic curriculum, the exposure to the ‘male gender onslaught’ and the formation of ‘new significant relationships’.

Hindu college

Delhi transport Bus no. 9 and 21 from Statesman on Barakhamba Rd to the University, beyond Civil lines, took one to another world after QMSchool. St. Stephens stood on the Rt. and Hindu on the left of the Road. ‘They’ were all Boys and ‘we’ a co-ed so they aligned with Miranda House the hub for the elite ‘so to say’.

Bus journey was crowded and we girls started getting our beginning share of body pushes and pinches.

College was wonderful. The Professors were authority on their subjects of Physics, Chemistry and Biology.
My favorite of course was Mr. Desai of English and Literature. Hinduites would go to the ‘Shakespeare theatre’ enacted across the Road. We also were the top Cricket teams and wooed and cheered our heroes on the field.

Vithal Rao and I became the Debating team of our college in Univ. contests.
Vithal talked too much, even without the debate, nevertheless became my first ‘boy-friend’. The friendship was just beginning when Hindu got over and we moved on. He would some times write to me but my conservative warden at Patiala censored our letters and promptly stopped all mail from him. Any how I never saw Vithal after leaving Hindu, not that I even thought I needed to.

I guess my non-interest in Sciences showed up as I did not get Admission to a med School in Delhi.

Patiala the ‘Sikh city’

I got it at Patiala which was Punjabi University. Babuji didn’t like it but had to reconcile.
I still can feel his hand on my right shoulder standing at the Gate of the Hostel at Patiala after all formalities had been taken care of. He didn’t say much but patted me gently as if to instill that energy that it takes to now grow up, away from Home, away from Delhi, so one day I would be that wonderful, strong and self dependent woman, doctor, citizen, and human-being.

They ragged us Delhites no end. Some of the senior Boys were expelled from the Hostel by Dr. Ramjidass only to rent a fancy flat to show off to the girls. But that didn’t last long. Soon the hospitality, sincerity and affection of the Gurumukhi group rubbed off us and the change felt warm and welcome.

After having studied the Biology of the Cockroach, the Frog, the Rat, the Dog, we were ready for ‘The Man’, his Anatomy and Physiology.
Med students that we now were, entered the Dissection Hall to witness bodies lying in the Trendelenburg position on marble slabs. Anju fainted on day one and quit the idea of education to be a doctor right away.
Sandoz, the attendant was like the bodies we were to dissect, dark and dry except for his shiny pearly teeth, scary if one saw him in the dark corridor.
So, the wonders of the body kept opening for us by our Scalpel and Forceps and how it functioned was told by Proff ID Singh in manners so Dramatic that we would not forget.

‘B’ was my room-mate who gradually began to share my bed feigning home-sickness. Her hugs became too physical for my comfort and I shared it with a senior who got my room changed. Retrospectively I think that she actually might have been a beginning ‘sexual identity syndrome’.

Sheela and I were a happy pair always laughing and we formed a quad with Cheenta and Hardayal to have occasional Coffee at the Green or a walk down the Mall lined by Flaming Gulmohurs.
Dr. Ramjidass in spite of a serious countenance, believed in fun and from Patiala we would ride the Bus, whole hoards of us, girls and Boys for picnics to Pinjore and Chandigarh. I got a taste of true Punjabi singing and Bhangra then.
Just as I began to speak in Punjabi to Jasjit and Satinder, and got used to the special Rail Coach that brought us home to Delhi for wk-ends, Sheela and I got migration to MAMC.

Maulana Azad Medical College

Elections were going on. The atmosphere was conducive to induct new ‘Birds’, not only to Pathology, Pharmacology and Biochemistry but also the ‘existing group’.
I was in the batch with Asha, Pasha, Usha, Sheela, but in time it all got split into Co-ed.
We were a happy bunch of 8-10 spending hours in the College Canteen as most Collegiates do, the Dhaba on Mirdard Rd. located ideally between the Girls’ Hostel and main Academic Blocks. Cannaught Place wasn’t far with, Mikado, York’s, Volga’s, Odeon, Plaza, Rivoli---if Money was available.

Besides that, life was also a serious affair. The multiple lectures, long hours of learning, first in the lab. then the room, then the Hospital. From the inanimate to the animate, the wards, medical, Surgical, Gyne, Obstetric, Ortho, Neuro, others--- the rounds, morning, evenings, nights----Pathology infested humans on the Beds, on Floors, on Benches--- The Chaos of the Emergency Room-----learning to heal, learning to experience new life being born, learning to deal with life ebbing away.

During all of this, something else much deeper was happening at a personal level.
My brother came 14 years after me. His little ‘Penis’ was a thing of joy to mother and amazement to us initially but then an un-interesting small blob of flesh which stood up for the act of micturition. It did have its way and often streamed in the wrong direction again to the amusement of my mother and gigglishly, we three sisters would join in the merriment.

The sense of ‘merriment’ dissolved and got replaced by ‘horror’ when one day, X, a friend of the family offered to show off. He unzipped and pulled out a big fat ugly ‘something’ throbbing with its own excitement, me not knowing what ‘I’ had done besides being a spectator of this ‘spectacle’. He laughed with mirth and pushed it inside his ‘fruit of loom’.
It was much later, I realized, the ‘horror’ as an integral part of ‘Male Anatomy, Physiology and Psychology’.

Dr. ‘C’ while performing a Physical exam on me to diagnose the cause of fever, began to palpate the chest rather thoroughly, looking into my eyes said, I had beautiful eyes.
The Swim Coach decided I was ready for the deep end. He held me by the pigtail, dragging me and then cycled holding me from the back.
A man followed me on a busy street, dropped a note in my hand and drove off. My heart ready to burst open,
I rushed to the loo, opened the pink slip and read a funny love poem with shaking hands, tore it to bits and flushed it down the hole, Indian style thank God.
Proff ‘N’ after a demonstration of teaching us the location of the Liver, its edge beneath the rib cage, put his hand over mine brushing against my sleeveless blouse and asked if I could feel it, Liver I presumed.
And it went on----- prowling eyes on one’s ‘Self’, cars following one on a lonely road, windowpane going down, a short horn , and then moving ahead------

These were ‘assaults’, never understood, never dared to discuss, question-----
There grew a deep fear, hatred, uncertainty-----
In every day life ‘this horror’ for me was often dealt with by ‘others’ in jokes, hushed whispers, whilst quiet rebellions of a kind simmered inside.

At the same time one met and studied with Boys, boys who seemed of a nicer breed one hoped, from another planet. One felt good with those one chose as friends----.

Study was over, internship began followed by house jobs bringing responsibility. Responsibility was of ‘Lives’, of ‘Selves’, of making future choices.

Now was only a beginning and not the end.

Veena