Almost Unreal

Damn I realised that I'd forgotten I'd had an online presence. The last post was a half-eaten apple. For more reasons than one. So I'm done with my month in emergency and this time around no insensitivity towards boys with toilet brushes or auto drivers with plastic bottles or the usual assortment of patients who come my way. I've realised that it's not a statistically skewed position I hold and my life is not all that left-shifted. Why? Because the net and even my textbooks have a plethora of nethers with an equally varied selection of objects within them.
But that isn't the point is it... Casualty is such a blissful posting. Yeah so your hypothalamus is mijooked and you can barely focus for 15 minutes when the shift is all over, there's this wonderful instant gratification, don't-have-to-care-about-tomorrow emotion that keeps the adrenaline going for a month. Well at least 3 weeks after which it's no longer as cool as it's cracked up to be.
Instant gratification reminds me of Unreal Tournament. Which is not what you miserable little worms are thinking about. Though it can be the name of some sleazy time bound competition that could theoretically happen in the bowels of men's hostels but that isn't the story either.
Unreal tournament is the ultimate instant gratification tool after internet porn. May be in moments of extreme geekdom, it occupies the same pedestal.
An environment (sometimes just a room), a bunch of other characters, an assortment of weaponry, a set number of frags. You die, you respawn, they die they respawn, whoever gets the magic number of kills wins. And if you want you try another room.
No story. No complex map to navigate, no secrets to unravel, no dark, long, anxiety inducing corridors a la Half-life or Doom. I remember when I got some shareware version of Doom and took three nights to finish it and had nightmares for three weeks and walked very slowly and carefully around corners for three months.
But Unreal is the future of gaming for those who don't want to use anything beyond maybe the midbrain. We come home, leave our frontal lobes behind and fire away at bots till the frustration of the day disappears and settle for a good night's sleep. And the good news is that such activity improves hand eye co-ordination.
The bad news is that I need a graphics accelerator.
Worse is that I'm constantly told by residents of The Age of Empires that I'm a Wendol equivalent or by those Baldur's gatekeepers that I'm of the mental capacity of a halfling.
The plan is to get me either a Redeemer or a Flak Cannon and make the best of the five minutes.

Staying Up...

...or how to trick the hypothalamus and make a mockery of your internal clock. After some many consecutive nights of staying up and trying to keep the drunk denizens of this fair city from eradicating themselves I've shifted to the day shift and all I seem to want to be doing is sleeping. As a result of such clock malfunctions I'm up at some insane hour, bathed and dressed and considering I've woken, washed and wasting time, I should be blogging. So here I am.

While I shan't tolerate any jokes about those who can't blog, photoblog, I really like this picture. I call it Sin.

That apart I'm finally listening to music again and sailing the high seas as a pirate of reknown. Though considering I only get to hear the first five or six songs before I drift off and somehow I never remember to start the next listen from track 6 or seven, my reviews of the music that's caught my eye are going to be limited to the first half, Side A, you get the drift...

The Eagles are back. I remember writing a review of their music once and at that point of time we were only stuck with Hole in the World as a taste of things to come and about six new greatest hits compilations that had the same tracks in various permutations and combinations. I remember arguing with Hypolink who used to make an occasional appearance in the comments section about how the song was still Eagles' with it's harmonies and I got thupped at for liking a song that his favourite band had written like it was some boy-band. So we waited and amidst rumors of another break up thanks to Don Felder playing spoilsport we silently wept at the prospect of their demise. But all is good and Long Road Out of Eden did see the light of day. I just realised the connection with the picture above but hey it wasn't intentional. The double album takes time to grow on you and considering it's only the first few songs that I ever hear what little I've heard has grown and taken root.
How Long is the catchiest tune of the album, reminiscent of Take It Easy and Already Gone with the trademark guitar work and almost impossible harmonies. Drive to it if you will and you'll see what I mean. I don't remember the names of any of the other tracks due to many days of missing my multivitamins. But I did feel that some of the songs seemed like solo album material with Don Henley and Glenn Frey hogging the limelight for almost the entire track, but Timothy Schmidt has his moments and Joe Walsh while subdued on the first CD does pull off some neat work in the second album.
Bottom line? It was worth the 13 years for a studio album.

Matchbox 20 I remember from early college when they burst in with Bent, that featured on a Compilation of alternative rock of the same name. Then a friend bought The Mad Season Album and I managed to buy a cheap(very, very cheap) CD of Yourself or Someone like You from Nepal. More Than You Think You Are came in a Torrent as did an assortment of live and acoustic tracks. Rob Thomas' distinctive voice and the magic that he created with Santana in Smooth and a couple of tracks (Streetcorner Symphony, being one of them) in his solo album, Something To Be, albeit guilty of being tainted with pop, had all set the scene for Exile On Mainstream. The Band finally released a Greatest Hits of sorts with 6 new tracks followed by the old hits. Which suits me, as outlined above, perfectly. The new songs, in simple terms, rock! How far we've come is catchy and begs to be covered sometime in life. The video's out on VH1 apparently and all over the web so go forth and enjoy. The assortment of older tracks that form the latter half of this album are, thankfully, a good selection from 3 AM, Push, Bent to Disease, Bright Lights and Unwell. Overall, whether or not you've heard Matchbox Twenty, it's a good album.

I shall confess to have started writing this post a couple of days back and now not knowing how to finish it and running late

Just...

Tragic it is when a comment on the frequency of posts hits you deep inside. True it's turning out to be some monthly affair. And considering I'm on call tonight and in emergency all of next month I'm guessing it's a good thing to try write a post.
My drafts folder has some bastard child paragraph of stuff on the virtues of Centrum, a firang brand of multivitamin that has turned out to be the best in some double blind study (15331331). Incidentally common everyday instances of a double blind study are two orthopedicians reading an ECG or two neurologists reading an MRI. My stand on research unfortunately still stands despite colossal wastes of time and energy such as this and that Ignoble prize winning theory on nose picking.
The other half of the abortus has a glossary of sorts on commonly used terms in the loony bin and what they really mean. I guess after that wonderful reception to mijook, how can one stop?
Neurotic - Loose
Psychotic - orre loose
CT/MRI - Ways of avoiding letting the world know that one doesn't have a clue as to what one is dealing with. Eg : "Sir, what is God's name is that?" "I'm not sure, let's get a CT and then an MRI"
Biopsy - When CT/MRI shed little light and there this gnawing compulsion to KNOW. Eg : "Sir, what in God's name does that MRI show?" "I'm not sure, let's go in and take a small biopsy." Mijook it is.
Then there's the assortment of vegetables, goners and the likes that makes the classification of patients in The World According to Garp seem the most realistic thing in that book. But those of you who haven't read it... do. It's a good book.
My last outpatient for a month today, which means it's my last day to interact with the assortment of patients we get from all over the country. What about next month you say? Next month is Trauma (reminds me that there was someone who thought that a patient with trauma needed to be seen by psychiatrists, till I pointed out that trauma just meant hurt from anything, a blunt object for instance). Which means my patients to a good extent would not talk much and logic states that they'd only be from the immediate vicinity (a 100 km radius is the immediate vicinity).
We seem to get patients from everywhere. While AIIMS seemed inundated with folks from Bihar hopping on the the Garib Rath and dropping by the hospital on their way to the Qutub Minar or the Red Fort, this place seems to attract people from every state. Most commonly West Bengal. We have the dubious distinction of having the second highest patient density from there after CMC, Vellore. And there are plans to add a coach more to every train that's heading this way from Kolkota (kolkata? Calcutta damn it) so the sick can be exported out.
When asked the average bengali answered, "Our government doesn't feed us well so we're all sick." And I couldn't resist the Ayn Rand-esque reply to communism and had to tell him that's the result of expecting a government to feed you as opposed to going forth and getting some food like the rest of us do. And that they were the ones electing the same government for half a century. Another more worldly-wise said, "There is no guarantee in the hospitals there." Again, the question of poor government health care arises and the irony of a communist state having poor state-run health establishments. (Kerala of course is the exception where the government hospitals run almost at par with the private sector). Then there is also the seminal question of what guarantee are we giving. But the point was lost on the man. Anyway these patients are the hardest to deal with. A lot of them do not have valid income certificates and can't afford treatment, we of course are made privy to this fact only at the time of discharge and then a day is spent trying to waive of charges. And they are not satisfied with anything. It's a little unfair because when we try explaining the possible deficits they would have, the language barrier might just interfere with that. But I'm guessing if you want to be treated outside you jolly well understand something outside of what you grew up speaking.
The Tamil patients also come in droves and can be incredibly annoying while giving a history of their ailment. They will invariably dwell on the various doctors they visited and what was done at each hospital and how they now have a lump in their brain and thus have arrived here for the needful. So the question "why are you here" is a bad one. The question "what is your problem" elicits a range of daily troubles like the lack of water in the village to how the crops have failed or the fish aren't biting. They respond to direct leading questions well though and some history can be gleaned.
North Karnataka breaks one's heart. After driving one up the wall. It is possibly the poorest place I've encountered. They would sell all they have and come down here and camp till admission, they're illiterate, ill-informed, have little ability therefore to make an informed decision and constantly reiterate that they are so.
The gults as always will either hunt you down in the canteen to ask you when they're going to be operated and when told firmly not to bother an eating neurosurgeon will pounce on you just outside the canteen or will wail at a moment's notice.
Who's left? The biharis who decide not to go to Delhi will drop in, the mal's are educated but some know way too much. The locals would fit into any category above.
And I'm late so toodle-oo and pip-pip.

Mijook...

... is the buzz word of the day. What is Mijook? you ask...
Turns out that many years ago when the world was young and crack was just a defect on a surface, the unopposed badshah of Bollywood music Bappida in an interview said that his "mijook" was inspired by many different things. As it would happen, in the unlikely-est of ways, a young not yet neurosurgeon (not me, thank you) happened to hear that and figured that this was the jargon discovery of the millennium. He christened the next post operative complication he got as a mijook case. Simply because it was messed up. Then the word, very literally, spread and even preoperative muck ups became mijooks.
A typical conversation would go thus - Chief what's the scene? Orre Mijook man, 2 cases in hypotension post op and one's refusing to respond to even deep pain. - And the initiator of the conversation would then sacrifice his night to the Gods of Complication and hope and pray that his pager died in the middle of the night or something.
So, one drunk night, one realised that there are more uses of mijook than just in the hospital. More alcohol later it started... the Mijook Series. They begin like most grammatically challenged jokes, with Confucius Say - and take full poetic license and humoral immunity. Examples follow...
If you leap and don't look.... your life will be mijook
While drinking and driving if the police doesn't let you off the hook... your life will be mijook
If you are not knowing every cranny and nook... your life will be mijook
If you answer a question correctly in rounds by fluke... your life will be mijook
If at chess you try to castle without a rook (for the more intellectual)... your life will be mijook
If after you pee you don't shook (well there is license isn't there).. your life will be mijook
If you are putting line and she doesn't give second look... your life will be mijook

And so on and so forth. Try it, it can be fun. I know you're thinking we don't have lives and our senses of humor suck.. I agree.

But that apart, life and work go on at their respective paces. More work than life.
Snatches of news that we get to hear, I heard we got trounced at cricket but the firecracker that exploded in close vicinity to the petrol tank of my car sometime ago makes me believe we won one too. Hooray. Now can we tax all those jokers please?

And turns out the rat pack that runs the state decided to pull a fast one on the other rat pack which was beginning to drool at the thought of being at the reins of the golden egg laying goose called Karnataka. While we are all going, "Great, President's rule. Pratibha Patil's in charge now." No seriously what was the BJP thinking? That that many months later the current rats would graciously step down and say, "Go forth my brothers! We have stood on your shoulders for so long, they must be sore. And all you have gotten are tit-bits of our corruption. Now it is your turn. Don't bother throwing us any tit-bits. We've made enough to live through 3 recessions and an Ice Age. Go on. We are sated with our plunder and aren't the kind to deny others a chance. Gentleman's agreement it was, wasn't it?" No it wasn't you lying, two-faced money guzzling bandicoots.
But all said and done we are glad that it's Mrs Patil right now and not either of the two factions.

I'm hoping the Left will get left behind and Mayawati becomes Prime Minister.

But then I also hope to eat three full meals and get eight hours of sleep a day. That ain't working.

Go listen to Alanis' cover of Crazy. Many thanks to the wonderful person who introduced that song to me.

I like.

You?

As usual I promise to write but as of now I can't think of much else to write about.

Finally...

... I'm at the computer again, Desktop as it maybe despite my Dell (yeah I'm cheap so sue me) laptop lying drained of battery from two hours of loading software lying on the side. It's been a wild month. Not like AXN's shows but some rather insane working hours that unfortunately leave little time for pursuits such as blogging. I shall, as promised in some drunk state, attempt to keep this alive if not well.

Work is interesting. It's new and challenging and a constant reminder that I'm not as cool as I thought. There is as it would seem much room for improvement. And that's good. Life had just been too comfortable. It's rare to see an institution that lives and breathes a work ethic that we only read about. That people speak of in hushed tones with wistful expressions while reminiscing a time long gone. While I've always maintained that no one today practices medicine with an altruistic intention and that if we work insane hours and lose sleep and food and gain tuberculosis and a host of infections (and sometimes pass them on) we're doing if because we're nuts. We're nuts enough to be masochistic enough to live that life and block everything and everyone else out. I still think so. It's just rare to see so many people living that life because at least in the majority they want to live it.
This of course means that one can't ask for a lunch break considering everybody over and above you (which is everybody) isn't eating and doesn't even look hungry. Which also means I've finally begun to lose those pounds that I put on eating potato chips and drinking coke whilst preparing for the exam(s). But at the end of the day I sleep easy. Mostly because I'm dead tired but a small part lives happily in the thought or delusion that good work has been done. My salary that due to some insane red tape courtesy the State Bank of Mysore arrived at the appointed date in cash felt earned.
All that apart I'm loving it.
The only regret maybe is the disuse atrophy that my ipod is going through.
And my ink pens that occasionally land up at work unfilled and of little use.
Funny stories do happen... as do the sad ones that medical fiction writes make royalties out of. Which brings me to this really nice book I read on surgery. No it's not Complications, which is a nice book. This one's called When the Air Hits Your Brain: Tales of Neurosurgery by Frank Vertosick (Ordered from Transatlantica by Gangarams). The take home message are a bunch of rules which are holier-than-thou, practical and funny and not all at the same time.
Here are his rules :
1. "You ain't never the same when the air hits your brain."
2. "The only minor operation is one that someone else is doing."
3. "If the patient isn't dead, you can always make him worse if you try hard enough."
4. "One look at the patient is better than a thousand phone calls from the nurse."
5. "Operating on the wrong patient or doing the wrong side of the body makes for a very bad day--always ask the patient what side their pain is on, which leg hurts, which hand is numb."

And the last one is, "Never stand when you can sit, never sit when you can lie down. Never be awake when you can be sleeping. Never take the stairs if there's an elevator. And eat and shit at every first available opportunity."
This apparently is a modification of Suldog's Philosophy of Life.

I also have a pager. Yes that relic of the 1990s that now cannot be repaired since no one knows how and cannot be replaced since it's more expensive than a Nokia 1100 and no one makes those anymore. It's numeric but occasionally due to possession by out worldly beings spews out Chinese. This means that some patient who's anything between coughing in the special wards to dying anywhere is completely dependent on some defunct technology that runs on an AAA battery with a mind of it's own for my or any other resident's attention.
And I looked the net they really aren't making the model we have anymore.

Well going by Suldog and his philosophy it is time to me to shut-eye. I'll leave you with my current desktop backdrop. It's an advertisement I realise but a good one I think...

Obit.

So I started work a week ago... And much as I might have wanted things otherwise this blog is being neglected. Like, perhaps, some many other aspects of my life such as personal hygiene and nutrition. But today, having woken up when most BPO people are winding up for the day and birds and small rodents are poking their sleepy snouts and beaks out to gingerly sniff at the morning air I decided to post for what it was worth.
Funny story of the month began with a friend pointing out that an obituary in the papers may have been of a common acquaintance and a request to dig up more facts. The paper stated that so and so had died in an accident and his last rites would be at Bangalore. A few shocked moments and a few phone calls later we find the story unfolding thus. So and so, as we shall call him for the sake of anonymity, was apparently planning to tie the knot and do the do with the future (now current) Mrs So and so. Which is all fine in the grand scheme of things till the Paterfamilias put his foot down in the manner of the typical patriarch for reasons best known to him and apparently stated in the vernacular, "yeh shaadi nahi hogi!" or over my dead body as the case may as well be. Kids nowadays aren't as efficient at bumping off their folks as Aurangzeb was or as whacked in the head as Romeo and Juliet, so the So and Sos decided to go ahead and take the leap. Or is it Plunge? So it came to pass that the aggrieved father in a fit of rage decided to announce to all and sundry that the So and so was no longer a beating heart. Hence the item in the papers.
What is wrong with the world?
My time to ablute draws nigh.
Toodle-oo and pip-pip.

PilGrim

In a moment of... well I wouldn't call it weakness but let's just say rationally challenged thought, I promised my granddad that I would trudge up the famed seven hills to pay obeisance to the family deity. Actually if I remember correctly he said he'd do the trudging if I made it to the hallowed halls of Neurosurgery and I offered to accompany him. So we left about 36 hours ago on this shady Mysore-Thirupati-Chennai Passenger that stopped on almost every two-bit platform and picked up more despicable people. Why despicable? Let me elucidate. So this large extended family gets on and occupies most of my lower berth, preventing my reclining and drifting off. Then proceeds to consume portions of pomegranate and then tossing the bits unceremoniously, not out the window but on the freaking floor of the compartment. Cursed socialism for a while then just decided to pick the piece up and toss it out hoping that setting an example would help. But nay, the man continues to thup seeds hither and thither. Now the seeds of a pomegranate are meant to be eaten.
On an aside, thup, which is tamil for spit, is the first evidence of vernacular onomatopoeia that I've ever encountered. And how good an example. ThupI, so simple, yet so clear. Any more examples would be received with much gratitude and appreciation.
Anyway in some form cruel justice, one of the extended family who was on the wait-list ended up sleeping on the thupped upon floor.
So we arrived at Thirupati on the Pilgrim express and a short ride later entered the vast halls of "srinivasam" the pilgrim services centre setup by the TTD at around 5 AM. No rooms allotments till six screamed a board and while perusing the sign a man walks up and offers to get a room. For a little more than what is the regular price. Went ahead and gave him the go to do the needful, slowly coming to terms with the fact that this was to be a regular feature.
Wash and breakfast later, we began the trudge up 3,665 steps over 9km. Finished it in about 3 hours and my granddad's my current hero. Unfortunately between getting up and getting to the correct queue we'd gotten too late to make any of the special offering deals that they have up there. So we hobbled along to the above 75 queue and holding up my hobbling granddad got in for the usual 5 second look at the deity before being shoved away by the crowd controlling scouts who are unfortunately ever prepared.
Took a bus back and planned to visit the temple dedicated to the Goddess Padmavati (consort to the God on the hills). There too we found the queues all closed for the next hour and refused to bribe some local tout and entered the temple hoping to get a glimpse. And how we did. The deity was being taken around the temple on a palanquin and a good look ensured that we didn't have to spend the next couple of hours in some queue, which seems to be the way of life in Thirupati.
The town itself is hell. Built around the ten odd temples with nothing outside of a train station, a bus terminus and about a million lodges. And advertisements for Bio beer and Bio whiskey which I did not have the guts to try.
No pictures due to an embargo on cellphones and cameras in the temple complexes.
But it's strange when a temple becomes a business or sorts where one can get ahead in the queue depending on the amount one spends and having spent that much time, energy and money all one gets is a 5 second glimpse. Not that I believe too strongly, but still. Actually it's worse if one doesn't really have the faith. But it's done. I'm aching all over and have a couple of days before I start off my residency so rest it is...

I've discovered a lost passion. The sheer joy of writing. Not on a keyboard as most writing is done nowadays but by hand. And not with a gel, a ball-point or even a Parker roller ball, but with ink. As I write this at close to midnight the only sounds I hear are the gentle scratches of a Lamy on paper and it's slowly becoming a very comforting sound.
The nib glides over the paper leaving behind a trail of waterproof black ink and thoughts are given form and substance. The romance of a pen writing about the emotions it evokes is hard to ignore.
Ink pens, I rediscovered thanks to two people. One, who gave me one before I left Bangalore for my short stint at Delhi and another who shared his passion with me and showed me what joy writing could bring. My collection has grown since then. Foraging through old cupboards to find relics of a lost time and cringing while buying an expensive Sheaffer. And not regretting it one bit after the first stroke it makes.
It's the nibs that fascinate me. How with time the abrasions on paper, which are ironically there to hold and bind ink, burnish the tips to an angle specific to the writer's style. To an extent that the only mark of respect one can give another's ink pen is to allow the pen to write as it it has a will of it's own. To an extent that after a few years the pen itself has a character. To an extent that it belongs, like no other possession, almost exclusively to you.It's a lost passion they say. Who has the time or energy to fill ink nowadays, when at, often, less than a hundredth of the price of a good fountain pen, one can get a gel.
Who has the time to clean nibs and buy good ink, to mourn a bent nib or a cracked body.
But the joy of feeling a pen slide across paper, giving ideas form, leaving a trail of black across white, is one that must be experienced to understand.
I have a new passion. I love it.

How to save a life.

This has been on repeat. This makes sense and is a brilliant song.

How to save a life - The Fray

Step one you say we need to talk
He walks you say sit down it's just a talk
He smiles politely back at you
You stare politely right on through
Some sort of window to your right
As he goes left and you stay right
Between the lines of fear and blame
You begin to wonder why you came

Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

Let him know that you know best
Cause after all you do know best
Try to slip past his defense
Without granting innocence
Lay down a list of what is wrong
The things you've told him all along
And pray to God he hears you
And pray to God he hears you

Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

[How To Save A Life Lyrics on http://www.lyricsmania.com]
As he begins to raise his voice
You lower yours and grant him one last choice
Drive until you lose the road
Or break with the ones you've followed
He will do one of two things
He will admit to everything
Or he'll say he's just not the same
And you'll begin to wonder why you came

Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life
How to save a life
How to save a life

Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

Listen, learn, enjoy.

Vista.

So it comes to pass that my dad got himself a suitcase disguised as a laptop. Or a laptop disguised as a suitcase as the case may be. It said 15 (inches) but looks 17 (like most of the women I meet nowadays, I mean what is it with precociousness(?)) and runs on Vista. While I agree that Vista is pleasing to the eye and when given enough time, space and energy, performs like none other, but who has 40GB of harddisk space and 2GB of RAM to spare. And spare is the key word. If you have 2GB and you have Vista, then even Solitaire, which I strangely cannot find, doesn't move the cards like it should. But it looks good. That I have to give the boys at MS. Clean lines, transparent windows and good hardware intensive animation effects on opening, closing and copying and deleting. But the hyperactive security that apparently makes Vista so much more safer to buy things off of Ebay and the like is the one thing that bugs the life out of me. Any new software, anything deleted, any internet activity is questioned close to 3 times. And I don't yet know how to turn that off. I'm sure some smart ass somewhere is smirking and saying, "Dude, if you turn that off it becomes XP with cool graphics?" And considering I don't really give two hoots for cool graphics I think I'm going to stick to XP for a while. Call me old-fashioned but I think Vista in my life shall wait a while.

In other things, watched Die Hard 4. Full paisa vasool only. Bruce Willis quips and shoots his way through a million bad guys and one bad girl (maggie Q, I like.) and does stuff that would make the Boss (you know which one) look with a raised eyebrow and say, "I want an F35 to jump off a 20 wheeler truck onto whist some freeway all around me in collapsing. And I want it to look good."

Overall I'd give it about 3/5 for decent effects, good screenplay (what soopar whistle evoking dialogues) and bruce willis. Some sentiment gets dished out at random points through the movie which wasn't quite there in the first 3 movies but hell everyody gets old...

Also watched Dogma and came up with the conclusion (again) that Bennifer and Matt are brilliant and that movie in the midst of all the jokes hits a hard lesson home. Watch it if you haven't yet.

And finally the techies at my source of great internet connectivity this north of the Vindhyas set up a hardware firewall to prevent others such as myself from downloading copious quantities of someone else's intellectual property. And like the builders of that labyrinth, they can't bypass it. So many megabits of bandwidth lie unused and underutilized and I bleed...

Picturesque Speechless...

I miss those little comics in readers digest.
So, it's my last week or so in the NCR and what better way to let it all go than with a few pictures. Yeah I'm too lazy to write.
We had a lightning storm a few days ago and here's what a microsecond looked like.


And a few hours previously...Blow it up and desktop it if you will, it really ain't so bad...
And then one night while trolling through the streets of the capital after 4 bottles of Kalyani Black Label, which incidentally I haven't had in six odd years and it's back and just as good as it used to be, in a friend's Alto, I commented that the lack of a car stereo was maybe reducing the quantum of enjoyment a tad. He then proceeded to provide the required music in the following manner. The red rectangle has kind of, sort of been blown up below.
And finally though I think it's a crappy airline, like most of the low budget players this was funny...

Enjoy, ladies and gentlemen. Till I get home, adieu.

National...

... Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences offers 3 seats every year for Super specialization in Neurosurgery.
I join on the 1st of August.
This blog and maybe many patients might die over 3 years. Not because I want them to but because I may not be able to do too much.
But yes I will be a neurosurgeon.

Forked Up

Home. There's no place like it. It maybe Geneva, Mogadishu or even just Bangalore. It's still home. It's where the roots are and somehow comforting. Most things are easier to deal with at home. Being de-homed, so to speak, causes enough stress to make even the slightest disappointment seem like the sky's been doing the whole falling act. And I've had my share. Not to be cribbing the the past month has been a bitch. And while I do not want to crib about my life considering it is primarily due to my own choices that I find myself at these crossroads there are still things that get my goat. Like this.

The take is simple don't fork my dosa. And this isn't a naan-issue.This incidentally is at the Madras Cafe at Green Park where, along with Adyar Ananda Bhavan (A2B, yeah), one can get dosas for Rs 50/- and about 50 ml of Pongal for Rs 40. I'm thinking, "Keep it."

So here springs my alternate profession plan #56. This comes after ambulance driver (hell an MBBS degree and a driving license), quack, and best-selling author of how not to do things right. Open South Indian restaurant in Delhi.And unlike the competition import both cooks and raw material from, say, Chennai. And con Mohayana to DJ the place with gaana-patu. And we're in business. Get the boys to run around in mundus and speak like Mehmood in Padosan and the choms will flock like flies on fresh you-know-what. It beats idea #43 which involves recycling used underwear with sources tell me is a very lucrative business given cheap labour and Surf Excel.

And who is Pratibha Patil? And since when did loyalty to the Gandhi family start being the prime criteria for Presidency? And why do we laugh at Bush when there's enough nonsense in our own backyard.

Too much...

... love can kill you, yeah we know. But this time around it's how too much of anything is bad. No this isn't advice medical or otherwise it's just a bunch of observations.
But before the jist of it all the usual digression commences now spurred by the current misery. The heat. May was a confused month of alternate day rainfall and everyone accusing greenhouse gases and global warming for a midsummer chill in Delhi, but that's gone. Almost as if the weather follows a calender, the past three days of June have been miserable. And yours truly had to go to Mayawati's own Lucknow for an exam. And I've already cracked the let's see how's my luck now joke. So, we got on to the Shatabdi at 6 AM and got a cup of tea and I decided to sleep when I heard that Ghaziabad was going to be next stop for the scheduled 2 minutes with intentions of waking for breakfast. An hour later I woke to find myself still in Ghaziabad because the Gujjars of recent newsmaking had pulled off about half a kilometer of track and were making merry on the train that had left ahead of ours. Four hours later we were given the option of getting our tickets refunded and heading back to Delhi. By which time I'd more or less had enough of Jalebis and bread pakoda and a couple of calls later was on my way back to Delhi to fly out to Lucknow later that evening.
Now which idiot holds an exam in lucknow, in summer, at 11 AM, in a fanless room. And a bad paper at that.
Apparently there are such idiots. And people flock from near and far to go through that torture.
I'm incidentally blogging off a mac. I like. Jokes apart, I like.
Ok then back to basics. Been listening to In Dino from the Life in a Metro soundtrack and loving the song. Except that it would have been so much better without all that extra music. It's got a good tune, decent lyrics and a bad voice but that's ok. Why in god's name is there a distorted guitar blaring away every 3 seconds? And why is it so layered? I can just see Pritham (the music director) with Vegas or Audition, layering track over track to bugger up the song.
Same with Joss Stone (my new love) and her first album. She has such an incredible voice that there is no need to add instruments and a cool rhythm section and a blistering lead to her songs. Thankfully Soul Sessions her second album is produced based on her voice and very little else. Listen to Fell in Love with a Boy, a cover of White Stripes' Fell in Love with a Girl. Actually listen to both. Hilarious it is.
Also been listening to Porcupine Tree and Blackfield. Progressive, but not quite. Interesting.
Three more exams including the ultimate test of tolerance - PGI, Chandigarh.
Adios.

PS haven't bothered with either Pirates or Shrek III. Spidey was bad enough and there are very few things in life that work the third time around.

Just like that...

Oh Joy to the world. Blogger now saves drafts automatically. But that apart this bit of blogger has been neglected by author and audience alike as the weekly updates from sitemeter inform me and the occasional sojourn into Google Analytics reaffirms. Now Google Analytics has a new and hitherto undiscovered version that I need to analyze once I have the time and bandwidth but as of now I know someone in East Anglia read my blog. I thank you, friend.

I wasn't going to post, the way things are going, but when I came to know that people's early morning bowel movements were loosely connected to what I wrote or rather whether I wrote, things change from hobby to moral and intestinal responsibility. At this point I'm tempted to say that those who can blog and those who can't photo blog, but I won't be mean and instead hopefully just generate drool and other such Pavlovian reflexes.
Will probably write when I have something funny to say, till then here's a taste of last week's bruschetta and a little more.

Drool.
Provoloni and Pepperoni on fresh Ciabatta Bread

The aforementioned bread with olives, fresh tomatoes and basil. And a hint of the 70% chocolate.


"All the better to eat them with..."

Adios amigos, till next time where hopefully I'll have a happy review of Pirates III and some news about where I'll be doing my Neurosurgery.

Green?

This was supposed to be a post filled with pictures of great food and a detailed description of each ingredient and the process that ultimately leads to fried mozzarella with salsa, fresh ciabatta bread with olive tapenade, fresh basil, provolone cheese and tomato and pepperoni slices. With the not very dry but still good Jacob's Creek Chardonnay. And the 70% cocoa chocolate.
Needless to say the food and drink got over before I realised that my initial intentions, albeit good were forgotten in the hedonism of atherogenic food.
Then I slept.
Now awake, all I can do is gloat with my cup of coffee and offer little tips.
Buy bread crumbs and frequently practice crumb-frying. It's a skill that can and will come of assistance when all else fails.
The keys to good salsa are coriander (or cilantro if you prefer) and believe it or not Cumin (jeera, you katpadi). But tomatoes being anemic at this time of the year throwing in some prepackaged puree is a good idea if one is mildly anal about the redness of it all.
Olives. Anytime, any place, anywhere. Beware the pre-pressed variety that has the oil and the life has been squeezed out of it. Those aren't worth the brine they're soaked in.
What else? Bread should be fresh and if consumption is contemplated with all the above flavours, stick to a single grain bread. Weird grains, as Calvin has said, sometimes adds a conflicting taste to the food.
I want to leave it all get paid by travel and living (which apparently has a show called Wife-Swap, and which unfortunately is not what I think it is) and do an Oliver's Twist like show for them.
Well, not really but it would be close behind NeuroSurgery in the Grand Scheme of things.

And then some...

It's the end of the world when I've had nearly unlimited access to a keyboard, a monitor and broadband for a few days and I haven't found anything to post about. Or just not posted. Laziness isn't something I want the blog to be a victim of. So here I am wonderfully happy at home albeit my last day. I was here for a short holiday on account of Mr D's taking the big plunge. We wish him and his pretty bride a long fruitful happy married life.
And on that note we also realize that we have little else to say and shall take up valuable screen space with pictures and cartoons as follows.

When wet cement signs should bark...

Birds on wires...


On a movie I wanted to but never could see...


The cartoon is from a vicious online comic site - xkcd. google it. and while at it also take a peek at sinfest and cyanide and happiness.

Peace and back to the grind.

Foodie

I used to be a foodie. Reveling at the thought of a square meal, wondering what dinner would be during lunch and planning lunch during breakfast.
Then hostel happened. In the midst of unidentifiable fried objects and the occasional worm wriggling it's way out of the aforementioned UFOs I lost my appetite, love for sambar, and a distaste for garlic rasam. As I slowly regain my taste buds, oodles of weight and that happy contended look that only comes from eating food that can, in twenty years, give you a heart attack. So chronicled below are some of the gastronomic excesses that I've indulged in over the past couple of months.
The usual disclaimers apply as does a profound regret that I don't take pictures of my food.
In no temporal profile or order, first up - Punjabi by Nature. Gol guppas with Absolut peppar aside this place I think has the best local fare for the worst possible price. While as expensive, if not more than the urban dhabas at Pandara Road, PbN scores over them as it serves alcohol. The Galouti Kabab, which as rumour would have it was created for a Lucknowi Nawab who was either edentulous or had a full set of snappers that he was just to lazy to use, is understandably a dish of the rich and famous of an era gone by. Lamb meat that's been tenderized and then pounded to oblivion to create a kabab that melts in one's mouth. Like swiss chocolate, only richer. The kabab itself is delicately spiced with saffron. Explains the price but also the total satisfaction that follows it's consumption. The Dal Makhani is by far the best I've had. It's a tough call between Bukhara and here but since Bukhara was too long ago and the people who fed me then are too far away I think we'll give PbN an edge. And it's not just the fat that makes it taste good. The butter chicken should be had for the gravy and not the chicken, again wondering if the folks at the Habitat Centre's Dilli-o-Dilli do a better job. Overall, recommended if rich, if not then still recommended once in a lifetime. a
Karim's. If one has to take the metro across Delhi to get paperwork done at the University and the train passes below old Delhi, an urge almost magnetic causes one to hop off on the way back at Chawri Bazaar and follow the mass of humanity to Jama Masjid and thence to Karim's. For those of you who've read Wells' Time Machine, Chawri Bazaar is like the future only flipped. The wendols live above and occasionally saunter down 30 feet or more to the metro station and thankfully haven't yet started kidnapping young nubile things. But that apart a quick rickshaw ride from the station to Karim's and Mutton Biryani and Mutton Korma is the way to go. The prices are reasonable while the quantity appears lacking. But nay, never let the initial sight disappoint you since the end result is the usual sated expression. Any food there floats in a lake of fat. And makes life worth living. The rice itself is heavenly. No added colour, just plain rice and a chunk of meat. Unlike the biryanis down south (Hyderabad included) the major flavour is of the meat itself and something else they add that I haven't been able to identify. Again, worth your while and now that the metro goes close enough it shouldn't be too much of a problem to actually get there.
Finally there's this hole in the wall in RK Puram called Nazeer's delicacies. I haven't been there and till now all transactions have been over the telephone. But that is sufficient for him to send over tangri kababs and sheeks in half an hour. The tangri needs a special mention. A large leg of a bird, or the leg of a large bird miraculously stuffed with kheema and raisins and cashew nuts. And the meat is moist and tender and that special centre just makes the 25 bucks I spend on it worth while. The sheeks too are suspiciously beefy, which so far north is a surprise. Beef or not that too should be tried.
On a quick last one, the Habitat Centre had a bengali food festival the last time I went there and they gave me this steamed fish wrapped in a banana leaf. Don't know what it's called but sure liked it enough to believe that fish can be eaten.
So what's left? I still need to try the Chicken Lababdar at Moti Mahal in the M Block market, I need to try fish at Ploof, non Mughlai UP cuisine at Nand Lal Dhaba and maybe a couple more that I can't quite remember. Till then, bon appetit.

MMM

As life dawdles along at a pace mostly set by forces out of one's control, we attempt to blog again. We'll kick things off with the usual quote from the QDB.
In our anal retentive manner here goes :
So this doctor goes to the bank and when asked to sign a cheque reaches into his pocket and pulls out a rectal thermometer. He begins to attempt a signature when he realises his error and mutters, "Damn! Some asshole's got my pen."

That one done with, a random saunter through the campus in the intolerable heat of this afternoon found yours truly in front of a Littmann stall. The makers of probably the world's best stethoscopes are offering a small discount to buy more such acoustically enhanced devices. Turns out that there's a new one in the market. An electronic one. With noise cancelling. Like the Bose headphones I've spent half my adolescent life drooling over. Noise cancelling stethoscopes had to be the last straw till further perusal of the brochure revealed that one can record up to 6 tracks of heart sounds. Then they can be beamed across using IR or some such sperm immolating radiation to a computer. Then the sounds are converted into a phonocardiogram and played back at half speed or double or just analysed by the software. Of course volume controls are present as are soft ear pieces and the trademark Littmann diaphragm. Just when I was thinking that they couldn't do much more...
Read it all.

That's just about all we have time for but before we go here's the parting quote.
Since the invention of the Internet, the rotation of the earth has been primarily fueled by the spinning of English teachers in their graves.

Adios and kudos to technology.

Darwin Revisited...

I remember many moons ago having dealt extensively on the laws of Darwin and how simple observation of turtles, mutant or otherwise and the fact that de-tailed rats did not beget rats in detail it was decided aboard the Beagle off the coast of the Galapagos that stupid people ensured our survival by killing themselves in the absurdest of manners. The Darwin Awards.
And many moons ago I also remember waxing eloquent on the sorry state of an auto driver who had a bottle stuffed where the sun apparently didn't shine.
In a strange amalgamation of these two we present two absolute cretins who graced the Emergency last night.
Names have been kept confidential since I don't remember them but with all due respect for privacy you pervs don't get to see any pics.
Ladies and Gentlemen, if you've all digested your meals I'd like to present exhibit A.
Moron child of the decade. Was playing at a car repair shop with other moron children of the decade. So these representatives of the not-so-full-decks decided to fool around (like they were capable of anything else) with the high pressure air hose. Threatened, hopefully in jest, the initial moron child, with introduction of the hose where, you got it, the sun don't shine. Now I think it was survival instinct that made the protagonist of this story get into some kind of scuffle, which ended with him developing a rent in his scrotum. Just the skin. Now this bit of the skin is continuous with that of the anterior abdominal wall the deeper layers are not and are attached in and around the groin. So if this layer is inflated at 60 psi, in a matter of a few seconds moron child develops subcutaneous emphysema that freaks everyone in Casualty out before someone decides to take a good history.
So ends story one... nothing exceedingly untoward, the boy recovered and is under observation. but like dealing with the mafia, a slip could have landed the hose in deep shit. And the boy.
Exhibit B is a tad more stupid.
But before we launch into the gory details of this expendable specimen of the race one has to ponder why is it that we as surgeons, and on a broader scale as doctors subjected to events and people who force us to keep a straight face when all we want to be doing is rotfl. Much as I detest that word, it does manage to describe what we'd like to be doing, in the most insensitive manner and thus bringing the hounds of hell on ourselves.
Exhibit B was wheeled in to Casualty and placed in a discreet corner, not 20 minutes after exhibit A's spectacular entry. This one at a glance appeared to be your average peri-pubescent imbecile with two legs, a penis and what appeared to be a toilet brush sticking out of his nether. On closer examination we found he had 2 legs, a penis and a toilet brush (with the handle in the inside) sticking out of his nether. Turns out that his friends told him that it was a fun thing to do. Loosely translated, of course, from "mazaa aaega".
A great mind once said that stupidity is a problem that'll solve itself if we took the safety labels off of everything.
A greater mind said that every new and improved idiot proof product will give rise to an new and improved idiot.
On a complete aside a small voice says that the chom problem is just about beginning to take care of itself.

Dry Spells

No jokes.
Flashes of inspiration apparently come at all times, rather at any time. When least expected. And when there is no paper or pen to jot down the thought in an anal retentive way and speaking into a phone to record the elusive idea is a consummation I haven't devoutly wish'd for yet.
So as I was waiting for an Oncologist friend with a ward full of high profile cancers and thus a rather unpredictable schedule, I found myself seated on a pavement, helmet in hand. Having carefully juxtaposed myself between two dessicated betel stains on the sidewalk, I figured this could be a long and boring wait before we actually got off to watch 300.
Again.
No more movie raving and glorifying what I now call aesthetically appealing violence and bloodshed. I am a surgeon. Gore doesn't disgust me, at least not as much as Bush does. Make what you want of that cruel pun with substantial innuendo (it's bringing up rather disgusting interpretations every time I read it.)
There are things about Delhi I like. The Metro, the food (except when someone tried passing off some buffalo meat as tenderloin), the fact that if one has enough money to run the air-conditioner and refrigerator for 6 months and a heater and electric blanket for another 6, how women are out with summer clothing, the fact that I can get a vascular instrument set at 2AM and an extra ventilator or a contrast CT.
And there are others I dislike. A large percentage of the people, referring patients to SJH due to a lack of beds, fat men in tight flashy clothes, signs that one should not spit here - in English (why?) and hindi (what's the point?) surrounded by the aforementioned dessicated paan stains.
And there's stuff that I'm not sure about such as Dry days. Very ambivalent am I.
Alcohol in any form is only sold via government stores in Delhi. So every gazetted holiday (72 this year I think) there is no booze sold. The Government also randomly assigns dry days where one can't get a beer even at restaurants. Pre-elections is a good example. Delhi was dry from 5PM on the 3rd to 5PM on the 5th. And on Good Friday and today. Today to apparently allow people to count votes in sobriety. So that left 5 hours between 5 and 10 on the 5th where everybody decided to get drunk, fall off an assortment of vehicles, assault each other with a battery of weapons and land up at casualty making my night miserable.
The downside of course is that I can't obviously drink on such days unless I drive to Faridabad, Gurgaon or Noida. The good bit is that there's a statistically significant reduction in the influx of cases on such days.
Have been listening to Shine by Take That. Don't judge me. Listen to the song. Mike (I think) Owen's fronting them this time around. Welcome change.
For a parting bit of entertainment read this. And then this.

Law of the Land

The Blue Billion is thankfully back to square one with it's prodigal eleven sequestered in undisclosed safe houses with black cats and other creatures of voodoo significance prowling the nights around them.
Bob Woolmer was killed by either the mafia, the bookies or a particularly irate fan. Or so the speculations go. Greg Chappell is still alive so it rules out the irate fan. And we have enough of them. The demand for donkeys has sky rocketed in Bihar and it's hard to imagine that they'll ever run out of donkeys. And the coach's existence also brings about the lack of bookie or mafia involvement. Which means what we all have suspected for quite a while is true - that sachin, sehwag and the rest of the nitwits no longer have it in them to play cricket.
Now that we've established that why are their ads still running on TV and in print. Especially that disgusting one where Sachin lends his voice to Reliance to read out the score. Now of all the things about the man, the last thing I want to be exposed to is his voice. And if I were him I wouldn't want my voice to be heard reading out Bangladeshi scores as they plant their flag deep in the arena of international cricket.
Cricket fever is finally gone and the Supreme Court has squashed Arjun Singh's grand plans. Amidst riotous revelry is an irate idiot of a HRD minister and the Left front claiming the SC's questioning of the 1938 demographic statistics was irrelevant.
Our dear Health Minister has been shown a moonie by the courts too. And if there's one thing the Times of India has done right it's that the only thing missing from their file photo of Anbu to complete the picture are a couple of horns and a forked tail. About time. Not that AIIMS is running wonderfully well but the last thing it needs some some cretin like Anbu rushing in with a spanner to throw into the works.
Forseen circumstances are forcing me to stop now and give up control of the laptop. Adios.

Summer is here by the way.

Break....

I detest these long breaks from being able to write. I can often blame them on either the lack of a computer to write on, or wrist pain from trying to sms a post or the unreliable sify connection. Mostly it's because I haven't a thing to write about. Strange, ye all say. Not at all. Considering I'm all through with complaining about both Delhi, AIIMS and the Chom assortment that plagues my life as of now. Now I go back to being amused often loudly and in-their-face.

Night duties have been filled with either Sardars affronted when someone innocently asks if it's finally past 12 o clock in order that a break may be taken, 30 odd students of the KSO (read some newspaper for more information) ordered by court to be treated at AIIMS since they were apparently not given the required attention at RML (another local hospital). And considering they were under police custody after trying to enter the parliament protesting the arrest of their brethren back in Manipur. It was all good till we needed to admit a couple of them (which we actually may not have if there was no court order). Now we needed to keep them nil orally and they wanted to eat pork. From Koopchand at CP which is apparently certified free from tapeworms. Mental note to check the place out. In the end of course the KSO stalwart had to settle for a glucose drip and six policemen to ensure that he didn't take the next bus to pork land.
Speaking of tapeworms I've decided to make it known that I shall avoid Pepsi since the blue billion debacle. In any case, the pesticides in Coke are far superior in ridding the gut of the occasional infestations.
Fort Minor plays in the background and despite many accusations of not growing up and listening to angsty nu metal I still like that music. I can list cutting edge production, incredible recording, nice use of mixers and turntables as reasons but I'm going to stick to simply the fact that the man/men have a neat sense of putting words in rhyme and rhythm and generally getting me in a good mood.
Continuing in my flight of ideas and musical genre, the grandparents left happy due to a cartload of cds that we bought a few days ago and the play list now has Rashid Khan - Brindavani Sarang, Kishore Amonkar - Todi and Ahir Bhairav, Hariprasad Chaurasia - Pilu and Lalit and Brindavani Sarang and finally Gangubai Hanagal - Behag. And the winner is Gangubai. I've never heard her before, live or recordings, and she is simply divine.
As usual posts on classical music come with the disclaimer that prevents (theoretically) commenters from taking my trip about what I think.
Finally in a show of either surprising secularism or insight we find this on a bottle of Jim Beam, Kentucky Bourbon. Now either we acknowledge that Urdu is a secular language and one of the greatest tragedies is associating it with any religion or we acknowledge that alcoholism is a problem that all irrespective of caste, creed, religion and tribe face.

300.

I remember the day Mr D posted, drooling over the fact that they were to make another Frank Miller graphic novel into a movie. And after what they did with/to Sin City it was a just a matter of watchful waiting or waitful watching as the case may have been. Decided at the spur of the moment to make my otherwise pointless life a tad interesting by taking off to the local PVR after a good session at TGIF.
300 is stunning. It's a treat visually. Apparently filmed almost entirely on blue screen with the backdrops being added from the book itself, it also has a sort of sepia filter on all the colours. Blood (oodles of it) is dark red to black and unlike Apocalypto doesn't trigger the wave of nausea that often accompanies such hemorrhage on screen. The fights are beautifully choreographed and the soundtrack kicks in perfectly.
The film has been dogged with controversy with the Iranians screaming murder at the depiction of their erstwhile civilization as barbaric. There is also an undertone of the Greeks fighting for democracy and logic against a vastly barbaric Asian invasion. And then there are others who aren't quite sure whether Xerxes represents George Bush or Terrorism.
The day people stop drawing oblique analogies to real life while trying not to enjoy an otherwise landmark in film making will be a day of joy and feasting for us all. Of course one did have to deal with a hundred odd choms whistling every time a decapitation occurred or a bare breast appeared and some even when the obviously androgynous Xerxes came along.
The only disappointment was that Lena Heady who plays the Queen of Sparta was seen with a spear and shield and copious blood in some picture I got of the net, but didn't actually do any fighting. Like I often say, there is something about women with weapons as long as a) they're on screen b) they aren't Jennifer Garner or Halle Berry and c) they aren't after me. Before some smart alec decides to brandish ol' Mrs Bobbit to my... face.
In other interesting bits and pieces, Bacardi has this dark dark rum called Bacardi Black and the TGIF here in Delhi kindly stocks it. A large of that drink on the rocks is heaven. Makes one wonder why the old casks, monks, smugglers etc even exist.

Rant.

Aborted a post. Then wrote one. On paper with a pen. Tossed around with the idea of transcribing it and ditched that too. Read about Stephen Fry on wikipedia off my phone. Which I must say continues to surprise me. Mostly by vibrating in my pocket when I least expect it but occasionally by allowing me to check where some errant courier is (en route apparently) and also reading bash.org every morning on the pot. Though I know and feel deep down that there are many whose lives would go on just as before and maybe even a tad better if they didn't know that detail it is still cool. I recently found that this blog had replaced a newspaper as someone's crap-read so to speak. Now again I know and feel that there maybe some who think a crap read is one that would have been better if not read at all and that I too should feel chagrin that my opus-es are relegated to lavatories. But nay, I think I shall stay happy that what I write eases someone's morning. Again I was going to say passage but then that's way to graphic for even me.

Maybe I'll GPRS his blog in the midst of my sojourns.

Applications for the next set of exams are out. The good part is that seems to be my only ticket out of this place. The bad part is that this time around there are only 5 seats on the bus. And one's in CMC which may just decide to go ahead and give it to a believer. No qualms about that considering they mention it very boldly in their bulletin. They also allow one to apply online, which due to some inadvertent press of an enter key I've botched up so now I eagerly wait their reply to tell me how I may redeem myself from eternal purgatory. Nimhans is up as is PGI within a couple of days of each other hinting at travel at the speed of anxiety. AIIMS has no seats which makes me occasionaly feel like a jackass but then my paycheck comes and I shut up and sink into my prostitution without complaint.

This post has gotten too ranty for my liking but nothing funny's been happening. My apologies.

Swank.

Not Hillary of the Boys don't Cry but I can make 'em by knocking their teeth out in the second round 'cos I'm worth a Million Dollars Baby, fame. Just the root of the word 'swanky'. It's 2 pm and I'm reeling from the effects of a reasonably bad night at work and way too much caffeine but this is the one chance I have to get at the laptop, so here I am.
Why the one chance? The owner's not back yet but others more needy than I need the keys to surf the waves of information albeit in bits and pieces. But I'm ranting. The flight of ideas is primarily due to the fact that I'm incapable at the moment of sticking to an idea for longer than 30 seconds. That apart I'm ok.
The powers that be took pity on me and some thirty others and offered us rooms at the new Trauma Centre, about a mile away from AIIMS. The mile is a small issue when compared to the flashy, swanky as of now pleasantly cool rooms that exist there. It's a nice large single room with an attached bath and a little balcony. Furnished with a computer table, a revolving chair (to make my attempts at pursuing academic excellence a little roundabout, so to speak), a book shelf, a bed (with a mattress, this is a new one) and Godrej look alike. Just what do you call those things? Steel cupboards? Almairahs? So I'm finally bereft of the pigeon brood, which incidentally is now a brood and not just potential omelets. And in good time too for as of now the little things are quiet but they are rumored to have the highest decibel to size ratio at the age of ten days. I'm also potentially looking at a death-trap in summer due to a rather poor ventilation and little provision for installing electricity consuming, ozone depleting rented air conditioners. But that might be offset by some eco-friendly architecture.
So this is the time for all good men to come to the aid of getting through to something substantial in the coming months and not getting comfortable in the luxury of a room, butter chicken and a substantial paycheck.
Next up if nonsense doesn't come my way, Kareem's in Old Delhi and a meat extravaganza like no other.