Mere Naam ki Chai!

 Doomscrolling on Insta has become a part and parcel of my life. I spend the larger part of my day telling patients to reduce their screen times, and then scroll a good 1 GB of insta after dinner and before bed. Before you jump to any conclusions, let me declare unequivocally that I am anything but a hypocrite. In my defence, my consumption of insta content is part of my “research” to help me keep up with the latest social media trends. As I happen to interact with a lot of GenZ and millenials and I need to make a connection with them, ensure our “vibes” match, I have to keep abreast socially as well. That is why I doomscroll insta. Thus, you see, it isn’t what it looks like, and I am a not duplicitous person.

One particular reel that caught my attention was cartoons dancing to a Bhojpuri song called “chai piyenge, hum to chai piyenge”. Now, that is an emotion I strongly feel and relate to as well. I may come back from death if someone offers me a cup of chai. Secondly, I have always been called a cartoon, my mother used to do it when I was in school (and still does), Sakina and Seema and Dhanashree did it when I was in college(and still do), Savni and Komal did it when I was in KEM (and still do), Krishna did it when I was in Delhi doing my postgraduation(obvio.....duh!), and many more continue to do it in hushed tones.

Jab tak Suraj Chaand rahega,

Cartoon mera dusara naam rahega!

Till date, I haven’t yet posted a reel on insta which shows me celebrating how vibrating and reverberating my belly fat is. So this song was the ideal candidate for me to make a reel debut and try to see if I can make it to BigBoss next season. Saying so, I started brewing myself a cup of “Poore India me World Famous Jayesh ki Chai adrakh maarke, paani kam doodh jyaada”.   The thought that I could write a blog on chai also took roots.

Let me introduce you to Sakina, Seema and Dhanashree. We met in the year 2006 in Ruia, 11 standard, C division, science stream. In junior college at Ruia, the divisions were made based on what we had opted for as our second language. So, people who opted for Hindi as their second language were in “C and D” divisions. Our small group of friends solidified courtesy this stratification system. And, with Hindi as a second language, came our Hindi teacher as well.

Our Hindi teacher, a pentagenerian on the verge of retirement. An old schooler who wore a neat safari, spoke in chaste North Indian Hindi, was as passionate about teaching his subject as was strict and nontolerant about indiscipline in his class. Very difficult for teenagers who’d broken out from school and entered college and wanted to do masti. (In Mumbai, school ended at 10^th and 11^TH & 12^th were pursued in designated Junior Colleges.) Attendance was not free. He would mark you absent if you didn’t answer the roll call in the first go. Mentally absent, physically present was also marked absent. Luckily, Ruia had a strong Mumbai middle class culture and bright students converged there with a common goal to move ahead in life. More substance, less style.

He had a rule, that you had to carry your textbook to class. Anyone without a text book would be shown the way out. “Aap canteen jaao, aur chai peyo.”

And then would start a volley of “But Sir..... Sorry Sir.... I forgot......”

He wouldn’t have any of it. “Aap bhule nahi ho, aap laaye nahi ho, kyunki aap lana nahi chahte the!” he would say (not verbatim)

“Aap canteen jaiye. Unko bolna maine bheja hai. Mere naam ki chai pee lijiye.”

And, with this rule he was impartial, even the most favourite of his students were ceremoniously sent to canteen to sip on “Mere naam ki chai.”

The onus of responsibility lies on you. In many interactions that I’ve had with many non-genuine people over the years, this analogy has come to mind. “O! I forgot” ..... can be anything...... a shared task in a team situation where you’ve done your bit, and the other person hasn’t.......an unexplained delay in completing paper works......... forwarding files........ a phone call you’ve been waiting for....... or in any other format. “Aap bhule nahi ho, aap laaye nahi ho, kyunki aap lana nahi chahte the!” helps save you from investing a lot of your time and energy in the wrong places.

It has been more than 15 years since. As one moved in life, one found oneself having forgotten (unintentionally) to carry that hindi textbook to that hindi classroom (metaphorically speaking). And the masterji in this classroom is even more ruthless in sending you to the canteen. You’d often want to say, “But Sir...... Sorry Sir....... I forgot.......”, masterji aint givvin ya no second chances!!!

So, when someone tells me “Mere naam ki Chai peelo”, I do it and carry my Hindi textbook religiously to the classroom for the next class.

But it is also in this canteen when sipping kisi aur k naam ki chai, that I have met people to whom I can say, "Hello friends, Mai chai pee raha hu. Pappe kha lo".

Pawwry Time!!

 “She’s a pawwry animal” I told my friend in the course of our conversation as she unabashedly shamelessly kept prodding me about matters that are defined as “my personal business” or still better “none of hers”.

My dear buddy - the one who has no sense of boundaries just ‘cause she’s been my friend for over 16 years - the erstwhile queen-bee of party animals quipped, “O, it’s just a phase!”

 She once partied so hard, she hadn’t realised she’d fractured her foot. It was I, who noticed her swollen foot a week later, got her a Roentgenogram (Google this), reduced the fracture and plastered her leg. I had told her it pains a lot, so I was extremely proud of my bone-setting skills and for a moment starting fancying a career in Orthopaedics, when she didn’t even utter an “Uff”. My dream was shattered just a few moments later when I boasted to her that other patients have screamed their lungs out earlier, but now I’m very skilled that she hadn’t felt any pain and she replied, “O it was painful like hell. I just didn’t shout because I thought you’ll laugh.”

Now that’s the friendship that lasts 16 years!!

#SharedExperiences.

Jo dost kamina nahi, wo dost sachha dost nahi.

 P.S.: In retrospect, no I wouldn’t have ‘not laughed’.

“Well then, we have a phase difference” I retorted in my nonchalant-high IQ – I’m a Doctor, but I haven’t forgotten my physics - pun laden - scientifically accurate sarcasm and cut my friend’s soul into two with the accuracy of a gamma knife incision.

#FrontalLobectomy 

(Click here to Google(verb) Phase Difference and Frontal Lobectomy, but since you’re reading it on a smart phone, why don’t you ask Siri or Alexa to do it anyway).

“We all have our phases” she said contemplatively.

(Not sure if she isn’t high. She usually isn’t this philosophical; au contrare she’s quite a superficial type of person to be frank. It’s Saturday night and in my defence one can’t quite figure it out if you are texting people 25000 kilometers away.)

Blogging in the early 20’s was easier (i.e. my 20s, not the 20s of the Y2K millennium. Duh! Lest you be thinking isn’t this only 2023- aren’t these the early 20s – what’s this guy talking about?) Ignorance was bliss. Life was majorly a binary affair. Everything seemed wrong, and I knew what was right. The eyes did not see what the mind did not know. Then, over the years Delhi happened, then Coimbatore and Krishnankovil and back to Mumbai, and in the process the mind uncovered a great deal of mysteries, a myriad of events, a few personal experiences, a few from those of closer ones and many more just by being a mute spectator to all the chaos that unfolded with all the seemingly unrelated people around you. “O poor thing” that you felt for someone else, and the very next day it is you who were “the poor thing.”

The mind now knows much more, so the eyes now see that much more.

There’s no binary now, there’s only layers – deeper and deeper, infinite layers. And that makes it difficult to write. How many thoughts can one pen down about a single moment or an idea without sounding lost or confused or worse still, contradictory? While I could churn out an essay in a couple of hours earlier, it takes me months and years to finish an article now.

“Cut the umbilical cord” one of my professors used to insist. No, not in the delivery room, he meant it in the abstract sense of the word. Over time, I did it, rather it happened. It was the most liberating event to ever happen. That is, however, just one half of the story.

Once one graduates into an independent existence, starts the real journey of re-establishing that cord. Every paradise that’s lost has to be regained. And then there are new cords which need to be forged along the way. Some just happen so effortlessly, that you don’t know when found your clan...... You lean on some, some lean on you and the relay continues. 

“Ye Mumbai hai, idhar Time ka matlab hai paisa” (movie buffs identify this movie starring John Abraham and Nana Patekar). This was the attitude with which I had moved out of the city I called my home for 25 years.

 “I want to be 20 again” I was cribbing to another fellow human recently. At first, I thought I was getting overwhelmed by the complexities that I was seeing myself becoming aware of and wanted to revert to the easier binary phase of life.

But my friend has pointed out “O, it’s just a phase.”

True, and that phase has passed.  I want to be 20 again because it probably was very easy to make “cords” then. Why? Probably because I had the time. We bartered time, not money. The friendships, the connections, all that have lasted over geographical distances, have flourished because they were nurtured with an investment of time. We are all starved for time now. And so it becomes all the more important to ration time and invest it wisely, on oneself most importantly. At a stage where work takes priority, one has to spare time for life! 

The role of a career is to facilitate the progression of our lives, while one faces a situation where the career turns one to autophage on one’s life! We’re offsetting milestones, because you guessed it right, we can’t ration out the time for them!

Ever since I’ve returned to Mumbai the fallacy of “Time is money” philosophy has been laying itself bare. “Time is time” is what my learning has been. Let's not place two swords in the same scabbard.

I know you haven’t Googled or asked Siri or Alexa to spell out for you any of the things I had asked you to at the beginning.  So, I’ll just explain what phase difference is –

“A PHASE DIFFERENCE IS THE DIFFERENCE IN THE PHASE ANGLE OF TWO WAVES”  😛😛

Well then, what’s a harmonic?

So kids, what have we discussed today? 

Phase Difference, Harmonics and Umbilical cord. 

Sounds like a good science class.

And here’s a better thought experiment to end with –

I think I misspelt something? Is it cord or chord?

 

Etymologically, the word chord is derived from cord.

The irony that life presents is that 

until you don’t strike a chord, 

you won’t establish a cord.

(the floor is now open to discussion)

Reverend Father Google

 How would you know that I have done my schooling from a convent school? Well, for one I’ve asked a rhetorical question, so that is hint enough(Samazdaar ko ishaara kaafi hai). Two, you can search me on facebook and see my about info and melody khaao aur khud jaan jao. But high chances are that you are reading this article by clicking the link that I’ve posted on FB, so, that’s that. Three, you’re enchanted by my neat cursive handwriting (a close friend with whom I’ll be catching up in the very near future, prefers to call it curly-curly handwriting instead. She also calls food nom-nom).  My professor was. And he immediately figured out that I had a convent education, but also supplemented his observation with the wisdom, that public opinion of me being a qualified professional of the modern medicine system (i.e. an Allopathic doctor) would be averse as patients would be able to easily decipher my prescriptions. So, now-a-days I have restricted myself to only give prescriptions in numericals. (Go figure out what a plus 10 Dioptre sphere over minus 5.5 Dioptre cylinder at 135 degrees means)

Anyway, going back to school time memories (which right now stand exactly half a lifetime ago for me). School days are formative years and I developed my well-rounded personality with an equally well-rounded snowman-like bodyform in school and have maintained it over the years by actively adopting a lifestyle of sedentary work and physical inactivity coupled with a specially curated high carbohydrate and fat diet.

A part of English Composition curriculum in school was letter writing.  ‘Write a letter to a friend describing your holidays’. (Well, technically at that age, all the friends that I had were living within a couple of buildings’ radius. They knew what I had done in my vacation. Why would I write them a letter?) Then the teacher would dictate a letter describing some lovely vacation I had in Manali.( The description made me envious, because I didn’t go for that lovely vacation in Manali and if I had to actually send that letter, it would make me friend envious even more). I guess, recent trend in schools may have shifted to “write a FB post to make the world envious of the picture perfect holiday you had and also upload a thousand photos with it.” But, I have also come to the understanding that the world has long moved past FB to Insta, so I guess the exercise now would be #describe #your #instaholidays in #hastags.

Then there used to be the exercise of write a lie leave letter to Principal (that’s one proforma that one really needs to master from a tender age) and other such formal letters. So, the usual letter writing books we had, started letters with ‘Respected Principal Mr. XYZ’. But, the letter dictated to convent kids start with ‘Reverend Father XYZ’. (That usually caused confusion during the earlier school years with us thinking “that’s not my father”, “my father is not the Principal”, “Yay! My father is the Principal”, “Shit! My father is the PRINCIPAL” variable from case to case.)

Fast forward to my days as a solo fellow in a heavy retina department, younglings wanting to rid themselves of Ben Franklin’s invention kept me busy (especially on Saturday evenings) as I searched every nook and crany of their Ora serratae right upto the insertion of the second cranial nerve to the location where it pierced the sclera of their eyes and became one with the inner lining of the eye, for all the 360 degrees and for both eyes, with the zeal of Indiana Jones searching for lost treasures. Ophthalmology is a subject very few doctors know much about. “What do you do?” A MBBS batchmate recently asked me. “I shine bright light into peoples’ eyes and scold them if they blink”, I replied. As per a recent international survey, less than 1% of all qualified doctors globally know how to use an Indirect Ophthalmoscope. (Well, why do I quote this statistic? Because it gives me the chance to brag that I’ve tamed this monster to high level of expertise).

So, these insta-hastager younglings (I earlier used to call people over 30 as uncle and aunties, but ever since I’ve transitioned onto the toddler side of 30 last year, I’ve stopped using that terminology. I now despise those not yet 30 and derogate them as younglings), don’t read any hardcopies of any books anymore. Whichever fancy school/college they attend, the smartphone with all its apps is their constant companion.

So, this one Saturday, yet another youngling walked into the consultation chamber wanting to utilise the services of Indiana Jayesh. True to my nature, I took my archeological excavation tools and began digging deep to unearth the secrets that lie within the confines of his eyes.  Lo and behold! What a discovery! I detected a segment of his retina detaching. Timely discovery indeed! Advised him to undergo a prophylactic laser procedure to halt the detachment from progressing further.

As has been the bane of every doctor in my generation, no one takes our word of advice anymore.

“I want to talk to my father first” he said. I would’ve been happier if he had said that he would like to consult another eye doctor (unless his father was an eye doctor that I was unaware of).

“OK!” I said.”But the condition is an emergency.”

“Here or anywhere else, you better get the laser done ASAP” I added. (Everyone takes second opinions. He was just being thoughtful and not hurting my feelings by telling me that he wanted to leave me to go to another, but I was just breaking ice and addressing the elephant in the room.)

About 15 minutes later, he came back willing to undergo the procedure. His father had consented, I thought. The procedure lasted about 20 minutes after which I explained him the precautions and danger signs and the follow-up routine.

“Actually doctor” he said hesitantly, “I had not gone to call to my father that time. I Googled. And I read all that came up. It also said that it is an emergency.”

15 years of my painstaking training being held hostage to a Google search!

But for whatever it was worth, an eye had been saved at the end of the day. Earlier people trusted doctors in good faith. In my career people will trust me only in Google faith! Having come to this realisation, I decided to pen down a letter in neat cursive expressing my heartfelt gratitude to Google.

But being the convent educated kid I ended up addressing the letter to Reverend Father Google.