"Know Your Status"

For the past couple of months I have begun to start showing the classical signs of long-term unemployment, reflected by a sleep cycle that swings from anywhere between 5 am and 5 pm (sometimes extending a complete 12 hours) and over-grown unkempt hair that a crow could easily mistake for a nest.

Given that I now have an infinite amount of time to ponder about the mysteries of life, the universe and everything, I decided to get myself an HIV test. Before your imaginations run wild, let me clarify that I've worked with a lot of blood during internship, and sometimes been less careful than I should have been.

This would probably be a good time to describe myself. I am thin. Very thin. Some call it malnourished, emaciated and anorexic, but these are just jealous fat people. Incidentally, weight loss of more than 10% qualifies as Stage 3 HIV, as per the World Health Organisation. Added to this, my erratic sleep cycle means I'm quite sleep-deprived if I have to venture into the outside world during the day. In short, if you ever meet me, I look like the textbook description of an HIV-positive cocaine-smoking drug addict.

(I'm sure that paragraph made some of the ladies swoon)

I walked into the lab, and, being sufficiently vague since there were people around me, told the lady at the counter that I'd like to take a blood test. I don't fault her for asking "Which one?". I said the word "HIV" loud enough for the guy standing next to me to hear. Despite his shock at just being told that the tests in his prescription would cost him 3.5K, he looked even more shocked at what I had just said. I proceeded to say that I was a 23-year old, without a prescription, presenting for testing voluntarily and without a referral.

I probably looked quite suspicious at this point because the nurse who drew the blood was totally cold shouldering me. None of the usual "So what did you have for lunch?" or "Don't worry this won't hurt" lines. The only thing she actually said to me was "You can go". Hand gestures sufficed for everything else. 

Obviously I could've just said upfront that I was a doctor, and probably even gotten myself a discount, but hey, where's the fun in that right? It's not everyday that you have the pleasure of switching roles with a drug dealer.

Anyway, that was two days ago. Today I get to resume pondering about the mysteries of life, the universe and everything.

PS. I like the way they say "Please" at the end

Oh, To Be In England

Two months of studying for the Indian post-grad medical entrance exam makes you feel like you've aged a few decades. Mercifully, a little holiday in the UK seems to have done me some good (though the hair loss seems to be permanent).

I realised that cows have a very good life in the UK. They're fat, well fed, lazy, have amazing weather and do nothing all day but eat. They even have actual bridges across the highway that were built especially for them to cross (If I was any good at blogging I would probably insert a "Why did the cow cross the road?" joke here, but I dont know any). Cows in India are much like the house surgeons - emaciated and overworked. But then I suppose English cows do tend to get eaten a lot, so I'd still say that's India - 1, England - 0.

Another thing weird about the UK is the birds. Apparently, people arent just nice to each other, they're nice to wildlife as well. This has led birds to view the human species as walking food-dispensers, and nothing more. Now they act almost as if we're in a real-life Rise of the Planet of the Birds. They all ganged up on us when we went to the Lake District, thinking we had food for them. Like we were going to spend a whole one pound on bird food! I just wish I had some chicken nuggets to chew on though. Just to show them who's still at the top of the food chain.

But besides the birds and animals, a certain group of people enjoy a particularly privileged life in Britain - cyclists. Now I'm no stranger to cycling. Every working day of my third and fourth years at Chengalpet Medical College I huffed and puffed and rode my 10-year old bike through 40 degree temperatures, through the great Cyclone Nilam of 2012, through flat tyres and malfunctioning brakes, through roads that cavemen could build better, through buses and bikes, through autos and cars - all to have it stolen while I was terrorizing children during my Paediatrics internship. 

But in the UK, cyclists are treated like kings. You don't get honked off the road like you would in India; no, in the UK you quite literally race the guy who had the gall to try and overtake you. No more "I'll just go off the road for a bit so you can pass me". Here you use an entire lane and ride your bicycle bang in the middle of it. I once saw a cyclist single-handedly create a mini-traffic jam just by cycling down a one-lane bridge. And by cycling, I dont mean actually pedalling. No, she was just letting the wind and gravity do the work, blissfully unaware of the 10-car pile-up behind her. Try doing this in India and not only would the deafening noise of car horns quickly make you aware of your situation, but those same cars would probably run you over, just for good measure.

Now I'm back in India, though, and was welcomed back to class with an extremely fascinating 10-hour lecture on biochemistry. More hair loss to come, I suspect.

Flogging a dead horse

The day you finish your year-long work-like-a-slave internship, you find yourself slightly delirious and roaming the streets at two in the morning, singing about happy days being here again. I was under the impression that this would be followed up by an entire year of just letting loose and chillin'.

I, of course, was wrong.

Being unemployed isn't all its cracked up to be. Especially if the said unemployment is justified by your intention to focus all of your energy on sincere and determined study to pass an examination in 6 months.

Not sufficient that the exam in question decides the specialty you're stuck with for the remainder of your sane lifespan, it's syllabus includes everything that you've "learnt" over the last five and a half years. And more.

To aid you in your impossible quest, you enroll yourself into an "Institute" that deals with this kind of thing. It's mildly disheartening that the price of this enrollment is approximately half of all the of money you made during the entirety of your 1-year internship.

You then find out that much like a meal at a restaurant, you're given a menu card of the different courses available. Calling myself an average student would be over-stating my abilities, so I skipped right past the "Achiever's batch" and the "Deligents batch" and went straight for the "Beginners batch" package. Unfortunately, and I say this with a touch of pride, I was over-qualified for this, having finished both my 3rd and 4th years of under-grad. I therefore settled for just plain old "Regular" (Yes that's what it's called, I kid you not)

"Regular" classes are a behemoth 11, or sometimes 12-hour session (with a 30-minute lunch break of course). I generally tend to start seeing stars somewhere about half an hour into the lecture, as evidenced by the sudden epileptiform discharges recorded in my class notes. I find that a lot of people in this class are surprisingly resistant to these hypnotic effects that I experience on a daily basis. I suppose they've either been rendered catatonic by their stint as interns or they were blessed at birth with all the emotion of a pot noodle.

While I was sitting there in Psychiatry class today, being told of the important differences between illusions and delusions and psychoses and neuroses, I was left thinking "We are all just prisoners here; Of our own device"