I Wish To Travel

The most nomadic person I have ever seen- @NomadicMatt and my saving grace during my first ever backpacking trip (Hostelworld) and Vayama are giving away a free Europe trip and who would want to miss this chance! Not me... So, here goes right at the deadline (as usual), my post to convince them that I want it.

 

Who am I?

A recently graduated medstudent aka doctor. Sounds lovely and wow right? I must be this busy-bee saving away lives like Dr.House/ Dr.Grey right? Well, no and no. Iam in this transit phase between med-school (the extremely long period that somehow flew away) and residency (another excruciatingly long period that I hope to somehow get into)...

 

What am I doing now?

Well, like I said I am in transit (not the airport kinds- that ones that are good- if you manage to get a transit visa!... But the uncertain-phase-of-life types!)

 

Do I like traveling?

Duh! Why do you think Iam up at 2am and writing in the rain!

 

Have I been to Europe before?

Yea. My first attempt (a fantastic one) at backpacking! There were mistakes I learned from, there was a massive culture-blast, there are places I wish to visit again and again forever, there are memories!

 

Why do I want this trip?

So, finally I come to the point. Here goes. I have been to Vienna and Prague. A day here and a day there- enough to make me fall in love with the cities (and leave me desiring for more). Budget, time (remember med-school) and a medical conference to attend were my restraining factors. Now, I have the time (and maybe you guys can provide me the means) to explore the nooks and corners of the serene, culture-rich continent I so loved!

 

What I did then?

My first touchdown was Vienna- The Wombats- my first experience with a hostel and gosh! It was awesome- I got to meet some really cool travelers. In Prague, just walking down the streets, was sightseeing. But... There is that void- I didn't see that, I didn't eat that, I didn't do that!

But, how long can you hold onto just memories!

 

What I wish to do now?

'Wish'- What a lovely word! A beautiful ring, the sound sends me day-dreaming!

I wish to cycle as much as I can- through the bustling city and the quaint countrysides. My attempt at going green and going healthy. Discover Europe, and the European ways at my own pace, their way.

I wish to go sit by the Danube, staring away at the rising sun and the setting sun.

I wish to walk through the cobblestone streets of Prague, and absorb all the sounds and views the rich culture provides, to just sink in everything.

I wish to cruise through on a bike!

I wish to preserve my memories in a journal (apart from this fickle brain of mine!)

I wish to go, get lost and find my way back!

I wish to create a story for myself!

I wish to unwind, discover and get enriched!

I wish to go!

P.S. Another plan this time- I want to visit a med-school in every city I visit! (sounds geeky- Naah! This one is also just for fun!).

Date with Delhi

The greens. The rains. The views. The grass. The structures. The happy-smiling faces all around. The kids. The company. The walk. Even the splish-splash puddles. Everything about this date with Delhi was perfect.

The occasion- showcasing Delhi to a Dutch friend.
The venue- Central Delhi and the seat of India's politics!
The ambience- water all around- in the air, on the ground.
The conversations- everything India- the past, the culture, the languages, the reservations, the glory- the gory, the politics, the corruption, the changes.



We (me and dreamyme) started of with explaining the way Delhi is arranged- Old Delhi, New Delhi. We decided to cover the new and started from the centre- Connaught Place (for me it will never be Rajiv Chowk)- from Inner Circle's metro station to a lunch in the Middle Circle to walk along the Outer Circle to the Agrasen ki Baoli- the monument that got a pretty delayed recognition!  (I still remember the first time I went, there wasn't a single soul who could guide us, even the cops of KG Marg had never heard of it, it wasn't on Google maps, we reached that breathtaking place with just a name and a description).

The rain and the clouds, the high rise buildings creeping up behind the well preserved age-old rock structure, the pigeons, the trees- everything makes this the place to relax and breathe in. Once a rainwater harvesting system, it now lies non-functional yet offers a cool breeze on a hot summer afternoon.

From there onwards we went to where every Delhite flocks to as soon as there is any improvement in the weather- yes, you are right- India Gate.

We were walking.
The clouds were pouring.
The kids were smiling.

The couples were flirting.

The cars were stopping.
The birds were chirping.

Umbrellas/ raincoats couldn't stop us from getting drenched. As we walked along the 3km stretch of Rajpath, the Parliament house to the right, the Raisina Hill looming in front of us, a silhouette of the Rashtrapati Bhawan just visible, and an occasional bird flying across, it was the perfect picture (alas the camera was not waterproof).

"Taking pictures all the time turns you into an observer. It traumatically takes you out of the moment."   

- Julie Delpy (2 Days in Paris)

I couldn't go go click-click-click-click-click because of the rain. So, today was all about soaking in (both the rain and the moment)... And then a customary click here and a click there braving the rain (yet I have a lot of pics and a blurry lens now).

 

 

 

The royal house of the president, the humongous gate that keeps us on the other side, the north and south blocks on either side, everything around us was imposing, yet quiet, silent- unlike the bustling noisy Delhi.

Every few seconds, there was a taxi coming up, the window rolling down, a tourist peeking, a camera clicking and the car turning back to go. That's not the way to enjoy the glory of the place, I have been there done that. But, I was doing it all wrong.
 

 

 

The walk back. You turn around and now, the India Gate is a shadow in the distance, a blurry image in the rain, growing larger with every step. The green grass and the lamp posts dotting the Rajpath on either side, another picture perfect moment. The grass was so inviting that we decided to kick off our shoes and walked barefoot all the way. Like my friend said- it was so therapeutic. All you city folks, try it!

We arrive at the war memorial that has through time witnessed all the joys, the independence, the agitations, the injustices, the blooming loves, the friendships, the families and the celebrations of Delhi. (innumerable candle vigils with the Jessica Lal case starting the trend, the anti-reservation protests, the midnights snacks, the cricket celebrations, the republic day parades, the latest Anna campaigns). We see people drenching in the rain, and in the fountains and in the ponds.

The  picturesque view, the feel of the wet grass, the sound of raindrops were three senses checked. India Gate satisfied the other two. The wonderful smell of 'bhutta' (corn cobs) wafting through the air and the taste of it. A perfect finish! India Gate at all times attracts street vendors- the 'pink'est candy floss (mmmm...), bubble blowers, helicopter toys, bright balls, the crazy devil horns, instant photo-waalas, bhelpuri, gol gappe, fruit chaats, chai-waalas, and the ever famous ice-cream vendors!

 

Morning, evening, night or midnight...
Sweltering heat or piercing cold...
Rain or no rain...
One can never go hungry from here.

A perfect date with a city I have lived in forever and yet am discovering again and again.

 

P.S Why was this was so very special to me- I have been pretty much home the past 2 months as a nocturnal creature (thanks to our education system and more so to my lack of interest in the system whatsoever, I probably have to do this for another year!). So, I have been bereft of even sunshine, let alone the beauty of rain.

 

P.P.S 12hours later, now, as I sit down to pen type this- it is dawn- the sun went down and came up again yet the rain has refused to stop.

Signing off with a view from my window!

 

Click on any picture to get the slideshow.
Blog title courtesy the group on Facebook- DateWithDelhi. Follow them for some amazing pictures.

Gross! (Scrubs Diaries 3)

This scene from Scrubs reminds of a case I saw in the surgical emergency of Dr RML Hospital. This young guy in his late twenties comes with his index finger wrapped in a cloth. His finger apparently got stuck in a hotel food processor. And when he unwrapped the cloth- lo behold, the sight was Gross! The distal phalanx (that would be the top one-third of the finger) was exposed to the bone, covered in blood… and when he shook his finger in pain- a piece of muscle fell in front of me. Inspite of all this, he had a big smile bordering on a LOL face- I thought he was either high or being a 5-star-hotel-employee, I thought the smile was a permanent feature! Well, it wasn’t any of those, it was a mature defense mechanism that our body has, to cope with the immediate excruciating pain… (The body never ceases to marvel!) (Even in the clip, Ben seems to be fine with the nail in his hand- defense mechanism again!).

Anyways, what did I want to do when I saw that? I wanted to faint (just like JD did) but I didn’t. As an intern we see many things that would make us woozy! But, as a matter of fact- I have never seen or heard of an intern fainting at the sight of blood or exposed anatomy. Why is that?

Well, I can say this for me (and I think for most medical interns)- such things are thrilling- it may sound rude, but it is the fact. There is an adrenaline rush that gets you through it. You don’t want to miss out on the learning experience- you want to be in the spot and see how it is going to be managed. You want to be of help and be proud of it. Also, being exposed to dead cadavers and gross anatomy on the very first day of medschool helps! (There are people who faint then).

Sure, stuff like rectal examinations, or inserting a Ryle’s tube and getting vomit all over yourself, makes me want to vomit! Gross Gross Gross!!! But these urges certainly dont get in the way of finshing up our work.

No copyright infringement intended!

Evolution of Surgery (Srubs Diaries 2)

Another boring day with a monotonous routine was coming to an end when I got this link in the mail- Two Hundred Years of Surgery by Dr Atul Gawande. We have all heard the story of the evolution of science/ medicine many times- but when a person with literary talent pens it down it is taken to another level. He gets his facts together- researches and writes like a historian.

And then when I saw this during my daily dose of Scrubs- I had to put it up. And Dr Atul Gawande has already done the writing and discussing about it part! The clip summarises what Dr Gawande is explaining...

Surgery certainly has progressed from being ruthless and 'taking a chance game' to being life-saving (most of the times) and more organised. From the pre-anaesthesia, pre-antisepsis times to the present minimally invasive times, it has been a long route (checkout the timeline in Dr Gawande's blog). Not just surgery, every field is advancing at such a rapid rate that sometimes I think keeping pace with all 'this-and-that' is out of my reach.

Intern Talk (Scrubs Diaries 1)

As a medstudent, we have ‘lots’ of time (except before the exams of course). The word ‘lots’ is in accordance to the theory of relativity, when compared to the time we actually have when we become an intern. Interns are the lowest in the chain of superiority at a hospital. And by lowest, I mean below ground level- below the clerical staff, the nurses, sometimes even the patients. So, it is pretty obvious that loads of work gets dumped on us (and it may not always involve saving a life!). Hence the little time that we manage to sneak for ourselves is precious- almost magical! Most of it is spent zzzzzzzzzzing. And when we do manage to get around friends and go out- the conversations almost invariably go back to the dump we just escaped from- the hospital.

Intern talk is almost always about patients- the cases that you have seen for the first time, the cases that you were able to diagnose on your own, the lives you saved, the lives you could have saved, the new procedures that you did, the procedures that you messed up, the patients you successfully handled (yea yea handled- we don’t get to treat so easily), blah blah blah…. In short (well I was already too elaborate), the conversations always comes back to intern experiences! And from the looks of this ‘Scrubs’ scene- it is a global phenomenon.

Examples from my own internship- a group of us went to Chandigarh (for an exam actually, but it was a mini-trip, and I didn’t even give the exam!) and in the train we exchanged places just to make sure we could talk to each other (oh yea- you get to see your co-interns very rarely and that too mostly for just hello-hi-bye-bye!) What was the sole topic of our conversation in that 4 hour long ride? You guessed it right- what we did and what we didn’t do as interns, comparing notes! By the end of the journey, the people around us knew we were big-mouthed-budding-doctors. Birthdays, parties, girls-night-out, picnics, anything- if you are around fellow medicos, there is no escape from doc-talk. Even lunch time small talk is limited to the hospital…

So what happens when we are with non-medicos and family (I come from no medical background family)… Simple. You try to participate in the conversation as long as possible and eventually you manage to shift it to your favourite topic- the medical world! By the end of my internship, my parents knew how an ascitic tap, a pleural tap, a bone marrow biopsy…. blah blah are done. Oh yeah, they also get grossed out sometimes most of the times by the gory details (I have been requested to keep my mouth shut on multiple occasions at the dinner table!)

Why does this happen. Well, obviously because we spend so much time in the hospital that we rarely have time for anything else. One would think that once we are out of the hospital, we would want to forget about it, think and talk about something else more cheerful, something different. But that’s not the case. Once we become interns, an entire new world opens in front of us. Everything is exciting, hands-on experience. Everything we talk about is first hand and we are proud of it (at the conscious or the sub-conscious level). We love it when we succeed and we hate it when we fail- we try to learn from all that and sharing these little experiences with others is what gets us through and what makes us realize our mistakes. Sharing the experiences is expanding the knowledge.

(For those of you who managed to read it till here- My apologies. Am writing after a long time- hence the unnecessary small talk and the word diarrhea! Also the title of my blog says it all- they are Ramblings!)

P.S The ‘we-don’t-know-about-anything-else' is a teeny weeny bit exaggerated!

No copyright infringment intended.

Scrubs Diaries

For the umpteenth time now, Iam back to my blog. This time with a new concept for resuscitating the ramblings. I have been watching a lot of Scrubs lately. If you haven’t heard of it- where do you live man??? Anyways it is this hilarious medical-comedy show. Hats off to the creators and actors! So, some scenes, some dialogues from the show strike a chord in my brain. I can relate to them. So, chopping those scenes off (thanks to Windows Live Movie Maker and my unemployment!) and accompanying them with my own stupid thoughts and here goes a new series of blogposts that hopefully will last!

No copyright infringement intended.