Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Waiting for monkeys to complain

TOI today reported an incident where some prominent doctors from Nagpur had gone to a reserve forest called Nagzira. In their merry-making, these people got a bit too drunk. The generous people they were, they offerred their drink in steel plates to langoors. As it would happen, some of the monkeys also got drunk.

Then a fight erupted between the doctors and the monkeys. The doctors were abusing the monkeys, pelting stones on them, and even throwing chairs on the monkeys. The monkeys in response were doing what they could.

The forest guides, who are on govt. payroll, were mere spectators. Some of the nature friendly tourists registered a complaint with the forest authorities against those erring doctors. When contacted by TOI, the forest in-charge had this to say - "We did not receive any complaints."

I suppose he is waiting for the monkeys to register a complaint with him.

Monday, April 16, 2007

Oh No! Not again!

Shilpa is in news again, thanks to her, Richard Gere, and the nation's no. 1 news channel - Aajtak.

The not-so-general public, the moral brigade, the guardians of Indian culture - generated a lot of heat because Richard Gere kissed Shilpa Shetty on the cheek.

There were several reactions, and if you are not a cultural-moral policeman - you will find them hillarious.

- Shilpa Shetty defending Richard Gere - "It was an impromptu act he did for the audience’s entertainment."

We were certainly entertained. The credit definitely goes to you and the moral-brigade, and of-course to Aajtak for bringing the issue in prominence.

- Shilpa Shetty criticising the moral brigade - "It is really sad that the issue for which the two of us came together, AIDS, was totally sidelined and this frivolous issue has got prominence."

Good you realized you were indulging in a lot of frivolous acts these days.

- A moral-general - "We are a culture that worships women, we believe in ‘nari shakti (woman power)’. Padmavati, Durgavati and Rani Laxmibai are our ideals."

Oh! Cut the crap man. We all know what you do when you are not morally policing the rest of India.

- The real reason - "We are not bothered about how many times he kisses how many women in Hollywood. We are troubled with Shilpa’s behaviour. When the man was being outrageously indecent before a large gathering, why did she keep giggling?"

Whats the real issue here? Was it the man's indecency before a large gathering, or was it Shilpa's giggling? Decide your problem dear

Wednesday, April 4, 2007

सर्जरी - द्वितीय भाग

Starting where we left off - well that is strictly not possible because as I said previously, you don't have any recollection of what happenned during your surgery.

When your anaesthesia starts wearing down, you can sub-consciously hear a few things. You still can't see anything because you are बेहोश for all practical purposes. I could hear my surgeon say - "सब कुछ ठीक हो गया".

In my opinion, this particular stage is extremely dicy. You are in a state which is similar to what you would be in, when subjected to narco-analysis. You react - w/o any fear, w/o any restraints which the society puts on you, w/o any restraints which you might have put on yourself.

If, at this time, your wife asks you - whom do you love the most, well don't be surprised if she later tells you that you named your ex-girlfriend, or a girl whom you had a big crush on in your college days. Believe me, it is that dicy.

Fortunately for me, my wife did not ask that kind of a question, but I guess, next time she won't spare me. One incident that did occur, as per my wife, was this -

Sub-consciously, I was afraid of the vasofix - yeah - the same vasofix. I had felt a needle going in, but never felt the needle coming out. I was under the impression that the needle is still sitting in my vein, and the axis of the needle and that of my vein are identical. Any disturbance in any axis could lead to my vein getting ruptured. Hence, I was sub-consciously very "conscious" of anybody coming close to the vasofix.

My wife was making me drink water periodically, to prevent my mouth from drying. In this attempt, she was coming close to the vasofix. According to her, I had a raised voice when telling her: क्या बार-बार इधर आके पानी पिलाती है. उस कोने में जाके बैठती क्यों नही?

To this day, I am conscisouly repenting for what I said when I was unconscious.

Tuesday, April 3, 2007

सर्जरी - पहला भाग

For a very long time, I wanted to jot down my tryst with surgery, but could not do so for lack of inclination. Today, I feel like jotting it down.

It all starts with a few scans, a few tests. Your surgeon (your doctor till now) looks at those and says: "Young man, you need a surgery." You then fix the d-day with him, and from that moment onwards, pray that all goes well here-after.

A day before your operation, you need to get what is known as a "fit-for-surgery" certificate. It involves some routine tests like blood-sugar, B.P, and other blood related tests, some X-rays etc. If you pass, you are sure to undergo surgery; if you fail, I guess you are in greater trouble.

On the day of surgery, you tend to be apprehensive. There are a thousand questions that your mind cooks up, which in hindsight I can say are needless. What are they planning to do, has the surgeon done enough homework, is he skillful enough, will he be able to do the job correctly, will I tolerate anaesthesia well, will there be scars on my body, and god-knows how many others.

Once you reach the hospital, the first thing that is done is - recording your B.P. Soon you realize that recording B.P is done every 20 mins. Every 20 mins, a nurse comes over, takes your B.P, blabbers some thing to you - " अब मैं आप्को टेटनस का इन्जेक्शन लगा रहीं हूं." Each time the routine will be the same, only the contents of your bloodstream will be altered in newer and newer ways.

The fun part begins when you meet your anaesthetist. The first thing that they do is - you guessed it right - record your B.P again. I guess they want to be doubly sure that its absolultely right. Next, they start feeling your vein. You then gently ask them - "कोइ और इन्जेक्शन लगने वाला है क्या?" Yes: Vasofix. Vasofix is a prick-once-inject-many-times device. It remains seated in your vein, and acts as a one-way-valve. Anything can injected into your vein through the vasofix. You keep looking at the vasofix, when you should not. You get tense, your veins shrink, the anaesthetist taps at them, and gives up. Gently he/she says: "टेन्शन लेने की कोइ बात नही है. Relax. Don't look at the vasofix. After some time, he/she tries again. This time, you listen to what was told. You look away.

Ouch! Before you realize, the vasofix is inside your vein, and the anaesthetist is seen strapping it up with a sticking-plaster. Some more things are dumped inside your blood-stream, and you are all ready to make it to the big league - getting into the O.T.

The O.T is full of instruments, T.Vs, and some really state-of-the-art equipment. In the center, lies the stretcher on which you are supposed to lie. As soon as you enter, you can't help but look here and there. Soon you are lying on the stretcher, with your arms outstretched. The main surgeon then introduces the team to you. Everybody very politely says "Hi" to you. The anaesthetist then takes over and starts by asking some questions which sound weird to you then. Here is the dialogue which transpired in my case -

प्रश्न: आप किधर काम करते हैं?
उत्तर: PANTA Systems, पुणे
प्रश्न: Software है क्या?
उत्तर: हां
कहीं बाजू से आवाज आती है: आज कल तो Software की भेड चाल है. हा हा हा.
किसी और क प्रश्न: कितना m.l
उत्तर (मेरा नहीं): 6 m.l

Thats the last thing I remember, because as soon as the anaesthesia went into my bloodstream, I was asleep. I don't have any recollection of what happened later. My parents could see the surgery live on TV.

आज कल इस्का भी सीधा प्रसारण होता है.

Monday, April 2, 2007

मजेदार weekend

This weekend was great. It was hectic, but it was great. It all started with me, Richa, and Shyam going to Alistair's place in जयनगर on Friday evening. After some search, फोना-फोनी, and some escorting from Alistair, we managed to reach his place. Apurva and Monica also joined us there and we had a good time yapping and whiling our time away.

The next day, Shyam and Alistair came over to my place. After a lovely dinner, we settled down to play cards. We started with GKB (गरीबों का ब्रिज). Shyam and I were partners, and we managed to beat Alistair and Richa by a handsome margin. The score in the end was - Shyam and Aditya +134, Richa and Alistair -34.

GKB was followed by coffee on the terrace. There was one more group on the terrace - the typical group of सुट्टेबाज and noisy people, whom I dislike very much; so we had to cut our coffee-break a bit short.

We were back to playing cards, and this time we started with Memory, and then followed it up with Judgement. Alistair was new to this game, but being the smart fellow he is, picked it up instantly. After two rounds of judgement, we realized that सुबह के पांच बज चुके हैं. We decided to call it quits for the time being, and all of us went off to sleep.

We all got up lazily, some time around 11 a.m, had breakfast, ate पाव-भाजी in lunch. We then settled down for another round of judgement. However, the best part of the morning was april-fooling our friends. It is something that I haven't really done in my life. Sometimes, it can be real-fun too.

All in all, it was a fun-filled weekend. I am sure there will be many such weekends in future.