This is the burial site of a Blog.
For those of you who have come to pay your respects, I offer you my eternal gratitude, your appreciation was greatly appreciated.
But I am sure this Blog now rests in a better place. (Speaking figuratively, or shall we say, on paper)
And now if we can just have two minutes of silence to mourn Passing Fancies.

Thank you.

April, come she will?

Eighteen days of my life have passed in a blur of 24 hour calls, surgery emergency duties and sleeping though the entire of my post duty offs. April, come she will?

I want to tell you about the time when a drunk came to the Em and I had to suture his mile long chest wound. I struggled through it, partly because the instruments were blunt (Actually, ‘blunt instrument’ will forever have a pleasant association for me), partly because it was 3 a.m., partly because of a shaky wrist action.
Anyway, halfway through the laceration, with me bent over it, struggling, sweating, my coat drenched in blood, …… and the man just passes out, snoring into my face.

I want to tell you about my first ward duty – when this 16 year old boy looks into my face and tells me he is going to die. I don’t know which of the two of us was more terrified. ……… He’s ok now, drinks are on me everybody!

Though every 24 hours, it’s the same prayer- ‘Please God, not on my shift.’

I want to tell you about these stray dogs that wander into our wards and sleep on the beds, what with the bad lighting, I nearly mistook one of them for a patient. (If you’re from the Sanitation Deptt, I made that bit up)

Oh and don’t get me started on my experiences with urinary catheters.

It’s not all bad.

It’s great when your patients get better. When they come gasping and blue and you put in a chest tube and they can breathe again. (I remember watching my resident do that the first time, I just felt such gratitude for his skill …… no, I do not have a crush on him)

It’s fun laughing with friends over Mango Slice and Butter Bread at 1 a.m. in the canteen where old Hindi songs play in the background and there’s a cool breeze blowing.
Or when you sit with your whole unit for a tea break in the café.
Or when your “needlework” is good and you just feel quietly happy and you sit in the hospital compound and stare at the moon.

But that’s enough talk about work. Time to lead the rest of my life.
Or maybe just ………sleep!

joke-of-the-day

"
Beware the Ides of March...(and the bad jokes that might come with them...)

It's a little known fact that Julius Caesar did not die from stab wounds by Brutus, but, rather, was poisoned. During a sumptuous banquet which they both attended on that fateful Ides of March, Brutus slipped some poisonous hemlock leaves onto Julius' salad. (Thus making the world's first Caesar's salad - no, that's not the joke, wait for it....)
When Julius slumped over into his salad, Brutus feigned concern and asked, "My dear friend Julius, how many hemlock leaves have you eaten?" To which Julius gasped in reply:
"Ate two, Brute."

"

....... my sense of humor is getting dismal ........... roman jokes?

hmmm.

"Prince Charles says he wants to ban McDonald’s. He said banning McDonald’s is the key to living a healthy lifestyle. Really? Why did he single out McDonald’s? I think banning Dominos would make more sense. They deliver the junk food to your house. At least with McDonalds you have to get off your fat ass and walk to your car. Prince Charles says he wants to ban McDonald’s to teach people that excess is bad. Who better to teach people that excess is bad than a guy who lives in a giant castle?"
- leno

you know

... I'm really not busy. I'm doing all the things you're supposed to when you pull out of the fast lane.
'I stop to smell the roses, I listen to the rain slapping on the ground, I follow a butterfly's erratic flight and I gaze at the sun into the fading night' ...
But that takes up a lot of my time, for instance, do you know how hard it is to find a butterfly in Delhi these days?

I am ...

... late for work. I have half an hour to shower, make and eat breakfast, answer my mails (ok, mail) and read the headlines (which is 'funner' than the funnies).

Today's funny news: "UK shadow PM Cameron smoked cannabis as a boy." (and he grew up to be a Tory??)
These people really should learn from our great nation's political leaders - they may murder, pillage, pilfer and lie but they do NOT do drugs!

ok now I'm really late!

Today is

-Lohri... happy Lohri!
-The end of my first thirteen days at my first job
-The day I got the answer to "Is the glass half full or half empty?"

First: Lohri.
You have to love a festival that involves sitting around a bonfire in a cold, foggy winter's night, eating popcorn and talking.
Almost perfect, you say, if only someone could play the guitar.
'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" on the E string, you add quickly, does not count as play.

Second: The job.
So the job (internships are jobs right?) is terrifying in a fun kind of way. Translation- I have only a vague idea of what I'm doing. And that's fun because that's my defence mechanism.

Third: The question

First of the Third: The circumstances leading to the question.

Every year, our conversations around the bonfire go through the same stages that the fire does.

At first its a little weak and shaky: this is when we discuss news, politics and the damn government.
Then it begins to really catch on and burn brightly and strongly: This is when we gossip.
Then it mellows down: This is when we hug our knees and get all spiritual.
Then there's the glowing red embers and the memory of a smoke: This is when someone realizes they left the gas on.

Second of the Third: The question.

So we were in the third stage of conversation and I began to wonder aloud.
"Let's assume," I said (a little pompously), "that there are no parallel universes. There is just this one universe and there is just one objective truth, beyond any perceptual distortion. It is this, or that, and no other."
"Then" (here I lowered my voice for a dramatic effect) "is the glass half empty or half full?"

Third of the Third: The answer.

By this time my brother had disappeared, my father had yawned rather loudly, and only dear Ma was interested in answering.
But Ma is an English teacher, which means you can only get an essay in answer.
"So what you are saying is," I said finally," the objective, absolute truth is that there is a glass with water. And that it is all free will after that."
This is when Dad realized he'd left the gas on.

Puff (,) the magic dragon

This post is about smoking. Or not. I mean, not smoking.

I promise not to make this preachy, not even an objective health bulletin. In fact let’s do the intro again.

This post is about smoking.

I recently went to a book fair. I want to tell you about the man who was responsible for it (I mean, this post). The organizer was a ‘mannish’ man dressed in a two-piece suit with a smoker’s voice, smoker’s teeth, smoker’s fingertips who sat about staring into vacant space and chain-smoking like a fish (?).
I’ve never actually seen a chain smoker in action -I watched him light six cigs in half an hour using the burning end of his dying cigarette to light a new one.

Confession: as a literary and a film noir device I find the man with the cigarette irresistible. But in real life when you see a ghost of a man going up in smoke, it gets you thinking.

About that article for instance- the top cash crop of the US is (fading drums) marijuana
(trivia: marijuana has more than a 100 street names)

The article went on to basically say, “Look, I’m not saying legalize pot. But it is being explored for its medicinal value and is probably driving the US economy and if you had to have a bad drug contest brother, nicotine would win hands down. So don’t go self-righteous on my pot (!), we know about the cigarette lobbies, maan.”
(my ghetto version of the article … I know, pathetic)

(trivia: somewhere on a desk in the F Block of my school is scrawled “A friend in need is a friend with weed”)

My point of mentioning the article is that we (I) easily accept the chain smoker, morally and legally. Imagine the chaos if he would have been rolling a joint instead.

Though, not everybody accepts smokers. Not my buddy (ladette?) Apu at least.

The two of us were sitting in that open air ground in Ansal Plaza (the best place for coffee and conversation) drinking coffee and conversing. There was a couple on our right and the guy was smoking.

Now I have nothing against couples. What I do not like is the PDA (public displays of affection) couples where the girl is nestling into the guy and the guy is openly checking out All The Girls on the planet. To top it, he was smoking.

Now me being crippled by courtesy and all, I might have just coughed and even, wrinkled my nose. But Apu, thank God, has no such hang ups.

Apu: “Excuse me, but you can’t smoke in public places.”

The smoker was taken aback because, I suspect, we’d hurt his “cool dude” self image. His girlfriend was still leaning on him and had nothing to contribute in terms of speech or expression.

Smoker: “Yes I can”

Apu: (giving him a prize dirt) “It’s the law.”

Smoker: “Oh yeah? I don’t see a ‘No Smoking’ sign anywhere.”

Apu: “Is it my fault you have bad GK? Do you want me to speak to the manager?”

Apu got up to leave. I guess the guy just wanted to save his face.

Me: “I’m allergic to cigarette smoke, if you could just please not …”

Smoker: “Sure”
He butted out his cigarette and dragged his dopey girlfriend to some other place.

Apu: @#!!

Come to think of it, the girlfriend didn’t look dopey, she looked drugged. So much for the “I’m watchin’ your back, sistah!”

Hmmm.

Where was I?

Yeah, in the book fair, watching the chain smoker.
I walked up to him and said “Look, don’t smoke. Get drunk - on Life!”

I walked away, glowing, feeling good about the world and all. I heard hurried footsteps behind me.
A smoker’s cough.
“You forgot your books.”