"There are two things to aim at in life; first to get what you want, and after that to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind has achieved the second."-- Logan Pearsall Smith
It preceded with a desperate attempt to make it into any of the several hundred medical school's in the country. It drags on with strenuous efforts to prevent anyone else repeating the mistake.
"To all those aspiring for a seat in medicine, a golden piece of advice: Turn away, head back, run while you still have the chance."
If I had stayed back, cocky about my determination and perseverance before, I now stand corrected. Plunging head first into the first year, I'm willing to belt the same chorus till my larynx begs for mercy - the way I see it, helping humankind formed the foundation of healthcare.
But, I exaggerate.
One thing that isn't blown out of proportion, though, is the amount of diligence required to make it through the course. Be it through a systematic approach of daily revisions or the stupider, harder alternative I chose - figuring out on spotting the questions ("Hey, c'mon, that needs brains! Not memorizing stuff.")
Funnily enough, the reality often strikes you when you're left with just the second option.
Right at the beginning, I was determined not to let a bruised ego and punctured dreams interfere with my ambitions. Soon as it was time to get our textbooks, I dialed everyone I know with a connection to the field, jotting down which ones to purchase. After receiving several conflicting suggestions, the criterion for selection was crystal: If the author sounded familiar, buy.
Thus arrived B.D. Chaurasia, Ganong and Harper as the first occupants of my bookshelf, Grey's Anatomy missing a spot because of its sheer enormity (Even my madness has a limit, I believe). A Guyton, two more Biochemistry books, several A.K. Duttas & I.B. Singhs, Netter's Atlas and tonnes of slowly-collecting dust completed my collection for the year.
Now, I stink at handling pressure. When stress comes into action, I'm play-doh in the hands of Fate. In class, I stood tongue-tied whenever questions were tossed my way. I sought advice and vetoed the inconvenient ones, religiously following the rest. Wise words of "Visit the library, museum, lab, as often as you can" and "revise daily" got sidelined, while "Take it easy," "College is when you should have the time of your life", "Eat, sleep, relax", didn't.
Mountain-loads of work catch up with you over time. The enormous pile stands in front arresting further progress, till you realize there's no other way but to plough your way right through. Yikes.
To add to the complication, I wanted to gain knowledge and not just score great marks -, the two were exclusive in my head and it never occurred to merge the two. So out went the exam-oriented studying and in with the devil-may-care attitude that threatened to be the end of me.
Till:
"Hey! The time-table for the first internals have been put up"
Confirming that wake-up call was a tiny crowd formed around the notice board. I waited my turn behind a wall of 6-foot tall boys. The minute I saw the schedule, the anticipated tachycardia made way for momentary cardiac arrest.
Pathetic.
Sure, the order of headaches was bearable: Boring biochem, then Physio and finally vast Anatomy with a holiday in between. The proverbial straw was when the white sheet mockingly informed us that we'd also be having practical exams of entirely different subjects the same day. And that break in between? Coincidence, one of the only two festivals Muslims celebrate every year happened to fall on the same day. Goat sacrifice to be substituted with human dissection?
As last resort, a few of us approached the Anatomy Head of the Department requesting her to reschedule so that we had enough time to head home and back. Other than being noted as Keralites in an otherwise homogeneous batch, that bore no fruit.
If you can't beat them, malign them. But bad-mouthing too ran dry as we teamed up to tackle the horror of the first set of exams as college students. Samreen and I timed virtually everything from breakfast to breaks between studies, together. We were still dazed about what books to follow, everyone offering their two-cents' worth, with us expecting bankruptcy in the scoring department.
One minute would see the two of us fighting panic attacks, immediately followed by bursts of mutual consolation, ending in 'what's the worst that could happen' lectures. The omniscient seniors promised it would be easy, we comforted each other. People have faced worse, we proclaimed wisely. Hey, it'll be over before we know it, we reassured, uncertain whether that was a good thing.
Weeks turned into days, days to hours, hours to - you get the picture. Before you could say 'oligosaccharides', it was the weekend before the first exam. Which coincided with the first time either of us picked up the forever-forgotten Biochemistry textbook.
Carbohydrates, Fats, Proteins, Vitamins, Enzymes - it was all too much to digest. We hit each other with questions, doubts, mnemonics, anything to speed the process up. With the internals time bomb ticking, we could sense every bit of hope receding. "Biochemistry is the toughest exam to pass. Kids usually fail cuz of it," kept ringing in our minds the more we tried to focus on the subject. Practical exams lay neglected, Biochem for her, Physio mine - we were pinning on good fortune to smile on us when cross-examined by stone-faced Professors.
The subsequent 96 hours:
Day One -
3:00 - Quits snoozing, grabs Satyanarayan, flips through the 100-odd pages.
8:00 - Forces partially edible breakfast down, simultaneously swallowing formulae, flowcharts and structures.
8:42 - Astoundingly avoids major accidents while walking to college with noses in textbooks.
8:57 - Gives up, wishes everyone within a mile's radius good luck, prays for a miracle or two.
9:02 - After filling in the essentials, musters enough courage to check the questions out.
9:03 - Shock wears off. Pen meets paper. Answers come alive, breathing returns to normal.
10:05 - Surprised - been writing continuously for over an hour.
10:45 - Saturated, with time to spare. Slows down enough to think.
11:00 - One among the first to obey 'Pens down!'. Still too cautious to heave a sigh of relief.
11:05 - Forgets all about the paper, and eavesdrops on batchmates to catch tidbits of revision I pray I'd retain long enough for the viva.
11:30 - Assembles outside the dreadful Physio lab. Echoes everyone else in chanting, "God please don't gimme 'Differential Leucocyte Count'!"
11:34 - Picks a number, walks over to table, sees questions. Would have danced with joy if table wasn't right underneath the Professor's nose.
11:40 - Collects apparatus required for WBC Count, blood group estimation and Bleeding & Clotting times. Sets to work.
12:13 - Almost done. Pricks self at least 6 times. Distressed. Not sure what is viewed under the objective are white blood cells or dust particles.
12: 30 - Gets work checked by Ma'am. Scolded for not recognizing the WBCs for what they are. Asked barely five questions before being written off as a hopeless case.
By lunchtime, I was back in hostel and all set to rush through another Marathon of Blood, Nerve and Muscle Physiology for the next day.
Day Two:
3:00--11:00 - Little different from the previous day.
11:05 - Wishes everyone luck, relieved that own batch hadn't an exam in the afternoon, thanks to the Anatomy Dept. holding their practicals only the following week.
Relaxation coupled with homesickness set in. The next day was Eid-al-Adha, a holiday always spent with family. Last thing on my mind was Anatomy, suddenly the scariest subject on earth.
Day 'break':
7:30 - 8:00 - knowing only too well we'd let festivities come in the way, Sam and I head to the study hall within campus to force ourselves to study.
8:00 - 13:00 - Barely half a chapter and the entire phonebook covered.
13:30 - Decide to treat ourselves to proper lunch, both of us in the mood for some nice, hot, cheese-dripping Pizza.
14:00 - Reach KD Road with the Pizza in full swing in my head, only to realize Ashitha, who tagged along, 'can't stand the stuff'. Settle for biryani silently.
More revision and further sulking were the other highlights of the day. Eid Mubarak.
Day four:
For 99% of the batch, the fine line between Days 3 and 4 was invisible. No one slept that night. Except yours truly, unwilling to sacrifice sleep even on the eve of an exam I was risking failure in. Sneaking in 4 hours,
2:30 - Wakes up, scared of having overslept, seeing everybody buzzing around with their books.
3:00 to right before the exam - An endless cycle of studying, forgetting, hyperventilating, pulling self together.
9:00 - Stunned on seeing questions - couldn't have hoped for anything better (Actually no, but let's not go there) Mechanically answers the entire paper, squeezing in diagrams every chance gotten.
11:00 - Gives paper up, hopeful about passing. Rushes to the biochem lab for Practical exam.
12:00 - Gone beautifully, elated that theory exams were over. Anatomy practical exams light years away, at that point of time.
The atmosphere in the hostel was wild. We were like life-sentenced prisoners pardoned for good. Even sleep could wait, celebrations were called for. That night saw us all huddled together on my bedroom floor, playing everything from Rummy to the Killer, talking about anything but the exam.
Despite having half a week to master the subject, we were in no mood to hit the books. A revision class in the dissection hall soon brought me back underground - that was when realization struck how pathetic my Anatomy paper actually was. I listened eagerly as friends explained everything possible about Upper and Lower limbs, determined to recall them exactly for the exams.
Minutes replaced hours again and it was the eve of the newly-crowned scariest exam. While students of the previous batch assured us it wasn't a nightmare at all, I knew that few people would have gone as unprepared as me. I fought sleep as much as I could, skimming two volumes of BD Chaurasia, scanning the Atlas, and toying with bones to learn each crest, foramen and attachment with total conviction.
The big day:
I felt smaller than the slides in Histology, just wanting to run away, buckling under pressure. Solely depending on everyone's claim that nobody failed Practicals, I somnambulated all the way to the Physiology lecture hall, where we were to attend an hour's class before attempting the exam. After contaminating my meager supply of Anatomy with bits of Physiology, I joined my batchmates in going to the Dissection hall, not at all ready for the exam.
By God's grace, the spotters were all within my range of knowledge and I didn't have to resort to guessing much. When I saw the specimens I was assigned, the dark clouds over my head quickly got buried in bright sunshine: I got the 'humerus' for Osteology and 'Knee joint' for Gross Anatomy, both of which I knew enough to bluff convincingly about.
The icing on the cake was when I got the Professor who went easiest on the questions. I couldn't believe my luck.
My performance was nothing great, but I was just grateful for not having fallen flat on my face. Then realizing I hadn't gone through a single word of Histology all that time, I rushed to a quiet spot to get acquainted with the topic.
Sharp at 14:00, the exam started. We were given a slide each, which we focused while students were called in groups to conclude what spotters were displayed. My slide required no microscopic inspection to be identified - the only one with no Hematoxylin/Eosin stain - without doubt the section of a bone.
The smile didn't last long enough.
The examiner started his viva. Which stain is used here, he asked.
At my wit's end, I blurted, 'Silver stain, Sir.'
I cowered under his piercing stare, unable to answer his next question.
'I don't know, Sir.'
Well then, he informed, that's better than coming up with your own answers. In a disapproving tone he further told me that there was no stain involved in the slide preparation, and followed it with a barrage of several other questions, eventually their answers too, as my voice box and memory conspired against me.
This time, I honestly couldn't believe my luck.
Exams were officially over, but the 'tragic' ending spoiled my mood. Besides, Samreen's exam would be finished only 48 hours later and we still had a lot of studying to do. The next day being a Government holiday, neither of us left her bedroom, incorporating every sentence of the book into our minds. Ironically, it was after my exam that I studied the subject thoroughly enough to pass off as a medical student.
Before long she too was done with hers. It took some time for the sense of liberty to sink in. The tests were ancient history and all we needed was a total change of scene. First thing we did was ensure we paid off that Pizza debt - off we walked all the way to Kalidasa road, twice the normal distance thanks to a wrong turn, drinking in sights of the gorgeous city: the expansive grounds of Mysore University, dotted with graceful pine trees;
the ladder-like railroad viewed from atop a traffic-laden overbridge;
walking parallel to the calm waters of Lake Kukarahalli, along the busy side of the fence;
discovering Café Pascucci, the most delightful Italian place to dine;
a quick dash to Loyal world, entering Big Chicken, only to leave immediately;
excitement that couldn't be suppressed on stepping inside nearby Domino's, to order a small Pizza;
crossing the road to reach Pizza Hut for a second helping;
finally riding a rickshaw back to hostel, where we snuck in a borrowed laptop to spend the night watching movies in Samreen's temporarily empty room.
The perfect ending to reverse a not-so-great beginning.
I'd like to say that after that roller-coaster ride, I turned over a new leaf and into a sincere, responsible, regular student to live medically ever after - if this were a fairy tale. Thankfully, both of us passed all three with above average marks. But more than acting as a driving force, it only encouraged laziness further, in my case, inflating my head with ideas of 'you don't need to work so hard to get what you want'.
Newly-acquired old habits die hard and I am no exception. Soon, I was back to 'eat, sleep, relax' this time with a better justification: I just got done with slogging for a bout of exams, I deserve a break!
And, break time it is.
Till the next post,
Au revoir.
Now, I stink at handling pressure. When stress comes into action, I'm play-doh in the hands of Fate. In class, I stood tongue-tied whenever questions were tossed my way. I sought advice and vetoed the inconvenient ones, religiously following the rest. Wise words of "Visit the library, museum, lab, as often as you can" and "revise daily" got sidelined, while "Take it easy," "College is when you should have the time of your life", "Eat, sleep, relax", didn't.
Mountain-loads of work catch up with you over time. The enormous pile stands in front arresting further progress, till you realize there's no other way but to plough your way right through. Yikes.
To add to the complication, I wanted to gain knowledge and not just score great marks -, the two were exclusive in my head and it never occurred to merge the two. So out went the exam-oriented studying and in with the devil-may-care attitude that threatened to be the end of me.
Till:
"Hey! The time-table for the first internals have been put up"
Confirming that wake-up call was a tiny crowd formed around the notice board. I waited my turn behind a wall of 6-foot tall boys. The minute I saw the schedule, the anticipated tachycardia made way for momentary cardiac arrest.
Pathetic.
Sure, the order of headaches was bearable: Boring biochem, then Physio and finally vast Anatomy with a holiday in between. The proverbial straw was when the white sheet mockingly informed us that we'd also be having practical exams of entirely different subjects the same day. And that break in between? Coincidence, one of the only two festivals Muslims celebrate every year happened to fall on the same day. Goat sacrifice to be substituted with human dissection?
As last resort, a few of us approached the Anatomy Head of the Department requesting her to reschedule so that we had enough time to head home and back. Other than being noted as Keralites in an otherwise homogeneous batch, that bore no fruit.
If you can't beat them, malign them. But bad-mouthing too ran dry as we teamed up to tackle the horror of the first set of exams as college students. Samreen and I timed virtually everything from breakfast to breaks between studies, together. We were still dazed about what books to follow, everyone offering their two-cents' worth, with us expecting bankruptcy in the scoring department.
One minute would see the two of us fighting panic attacks, immediately followed by bursts of mutual consolation, ending in 'what's the worst that could happen' lectures. The omniscient seniors promised it would be easy, we comforted each other. People have faced worse, we proclaimed wisely. Hey, it'll be over before we know it, we reassured, uncertain whether that was a good thing.
Weeks turned into days, days to hours, hours to - you get the picture. Before you could say 'oligosaccharides', it was the weekend before the first exam. Which coincided with the first time either of us picked up the forever-forgotten Biochemistry textbook.
Carbohydrates, Fats, Proteins, Vitamins, Enzymes - it was all too much to digest. We hit each other with questions, doubts, mnemonics, anything to speed the process up. With the internals time bomb ticking, we could sense every bit of hope receding. "Biochemistry is the toughest exam to pass. Kids usually fail cuz of it," kept ringing in our minds the more we tried to focus on the subject. Practical exams lay neglected, Biochem for her, Physio mine - we were pinning on good fortune to smile on us when cross-examined by stone-faced Professors.
The subsequent 96 hours:
Day One -
3:00 - Quits snoozing, grabs Satyanarayan, flips through the 100-odd pages.
8:00 - Forces partially edible breakfast down, simultaneously swallowing formulae, flowcharts and structures.
8:42 - Astoundingly avoids major accidents while walking to college with noses in textbooks.
8:57 - Gives up, wishes everyone within a mile's radius good luck, prays for a miracle or two.
9:02 - After filling in the essentials, musters enough courage to check the questions out.
9:03 - Shock wears off. Pen meets paper. Answers come alive, breathing returns to normal.
10:05 - Surprised - been writing continuously for over an hour.
10:45 - Saturated, with time to spare. Slows down enough to think.
11:00 - One among the first to obey 'Pens down!'. Still too cautious to heave a sigh of relief.
11:05 - Forgets all about the paper, and eavesdrops on batchmates to catch tidbits of revision I pray I'd retain long enough for the viva.
11:30 - Assembles outside the dreadful Physio lab. Echoes everyone else in chanting, "God please don't gimme 'Differential Leucocyte Count'!"
11:34 - Picks a number, walks over to table, sees questions. Would have danced with joy if table wasn't right underneath the Professor's nose.
11:40 - Collects apparatus required for WBC Count, blood group estimation and Bleeding & Clotting times. Sets to work.
12:13 - Almost done. Pricks self at least 6 times. Distressed. Not sure what is viewed under the objective are white blood cells or dust particles.
12: 30 - Gets work checked by Ma'am. Scolded for not recognizing the WBCs for what they are. Asked barely five questions before being written off as a hopeless case.
By lunchtime, I was back in hostel and all set to rush through another Marathon of Blood, Nerve and Muscle Physiology for the next day.
Day Two:
3:00--11:00 - Little different from the previous day.
11:05 - Wishes everyone luck, relieved that own batch hadn't an exam in the afternoon, thanks to the Anatomy Dept. holding their practicals only the following week.
Relaxation coupled with homesickness set in. The next day was Eid-al-Adha, a holiday always spent with family. Last thing on my mind was Anatomy, suddenly the scariest subject on earth.
Day 'break':
7:30 - 8:00 - knowing only too well we'd let festivities come in the way, Sam and I head to the study hall within campus to force ourselves to study.
8:00 - 13:00 - Barely half a chapter and the entire phonebook covered.
13:30 - Decide to treat ourselves to proper lunch, both of us in the mood for some nice, hot, cheese-dripping Pizza.
14:00 - Reach KD Road with the Pizza in full swing in my head, only to realize Ashitha, who tagged along, 'can't stand the stuff'. Settle for biryani silently.
More revision and further sulking were the other highlights of the day. Eid Mubarak.
Day four:
For 99% of the batch, the fine line between Days 3 and 4 was invisible. No one slept that night. Except yours truly, unwilling to sacrifice sleep even on the eve of an exam I was risking failure in. Sneaking in 4 hours,
2:30 - Wakes up, scared of having overslept, seeing everybody buzzing around with their books.
3:00 to right before the exam - An endless cycle of studying, forgetting, hyperventilating, pulling self together.
9:00 - Stunned on seeing questions - couldn't have hoped for anything better (Actually no, but let's not go there) Mechanically answers the entire paper, squeezing in diagrams every chance gotten.
11:00 - Gives paper up, hopeful about passing. Rushes to the biochem lab for Practical exam.
12:00 - Gone beautifully, elated that theory exams were over. Anatomy practical exams light years away, at that point of time.
The atmosphere in the hostel was wild. We were like life-sentenced prisoners pardoned for good. Even sleep could wait, celebrations were called for. That night saw us all huddled together on my bedroom floor, playing everything from Rummy to the Killer, talking about anything but the exam.
Despite having half a week to master the subject, we were in no mood to hit the books. A revision class in the dissection hall soon brought me back underground - that was when realization struck how pathetic my Anatomy paper actually was. I listened eagerly as friends explained everything possible about Upper and Lower limbs, determined to recall them exactly for the exams.
Minutes replaced hours again and it was the eve of the newly-crowned scariest exam. While students of the previous batch assured us it wasn't a nightmare at all, I knew that few people would have gone as unprepared as me. I fought sleep as much as I could, skimming two volumes of BD Chaurasia, scanning the Atlas, and toying with bones to learn each crest, foramen and attachment with total conviction.
The big day:
I felt smaller than the slides in Histology, just wanting to run away, buckling under pressure. Solely depending on everyone's claim that nobody failed Practicals, I somnambulated all the way to the Physiology lecture hall, where we were to attend an hour's class before attempting the exam. After contaminating my meager supply of Anatomy with bits of Physiology, I joined my batchmates in going to the Dissection hall, not at all ready for the exam.
By God's grace, the spotters were all within my range of knowledge and I didn't have to resort to guessing much. When I saw the specimens I was assigned, the dark clouds over my head quickly got buried in bright sunshine: I got the 'humerus' for Osteology and 'Knee joint' for Gross Anatomy, both of which I knew enough to bluff convincingly about.
The icing on the cake was when I got the Professor who went easiest on the questions. I couldn't believe my luck.
My performance was nothing great, but I was just grateful for not having fallen flat on my face. Then realizing I hadn't gone through a single word of Histology all that time, I rushed to a quiet spot to get acquainted with the topic.
Sharp at 14:00, the exam started. We were given a slide each, which we focused while students were called in groups to conclude what spotters were displayed. My slide required no microscopic inspection to be identified - the only one with no Hematoxylin/Eosin stain - without doubt the section of a bone.
The smile didn't last long enough.
The examiner started his viva. Which stain is used here, he asked.
At my wit's end, I blurted, 'Silver stain, Sir.'
I cowered under his piercing stare, unable to answer his next question.
'I don't know, Sir.'
Well then, he informed, that's better than coming up with your own answers. In a disapproving tone he further told me that there was no stain involved in the slide preparation, and followed it with a barrage of several other questions, eventually their answers too, as my voice box and memory conspired against me.
This time, I honestly couldn't believe my luck.
Exams were officially over, but the 'tragic' ending spoiled my mood. Besides, Samreen's exam would be finished only 48 hours later and we still had a lot of studying to do. The next day being a Government holiday, neither of us left her bedroom, incorporating every sentence of the book into our minds. Ironically, it was after my exam that I studied the subject thoroughly enough to pass off as a medical student.
Before long she too was done with hers. It took some time for the sense of liberty to sink in. The tests were ancient history and all we needed was a total change of scene. First thing we did was ensure we paid off that Pizza debt - off we walked all the way to Kalidasa road, twice the normal distance thanks to a wrong turn, drinking in sights of the gorgeous city: the expansive grounds of Mysore University, dotted with graceful pine trees;
the ladder-like railroad viewed from atop a traffic-laden overbridge;
walking parallel to the calm waters of Lake Kukarahalli, along the busy side of the fence;
discovering Café Pascucci, the most delightful Italian place to dine;
a quick dash to Loyal world, entering Big Chicken, only to leave immediately;
excitement that couldn't be suppressed on stepping inside nearby Domino's, to order a small Pizza;
crossing the road to reach Pizza Hut for a second helping;
finally riding a rickshaw back to hostel, where we snuck in a borrowed laptop to spend the night watching movies in Samreen's temporarily empty room.
The perfect ending to reverse a not-so-great beginning.
I'd like to say that after that roller-coaster ride, I turned over a new leaf and into a sincere, responsible, regular student to live medically ever after - if this were a fairy tale. Thankfully, both of us passed all three with above average marks. But more than acting as a driving force, it only encouraged laziness further, in my case, inflating my head with ideas of 'you don't need to work so hard to get what you want'.
Newly-acquired old habits die hard and I am no exception. Soon, I was back to 'eat, sleep, relax' this time with a better justification: I just got done with slogging for a bout of exams, I deserve a break!
And, break time it is.
Till the next post,
Au revoir.
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