As the outgoing batch of ’92 comes together for the final performance, the clocks turn back, five and a half years into the past when seventy cheerful faces took on a task uphill. Some innocent and ignorant, some pretentious and arrogant; some meek softies, some self-assertive and bullish; some fair and some IAS (invisible after sunset); some beauties and beasts – a medley of varied physical proportions and mis-proportions; tall, dark and handsome; fat, bald and gruesome! But all with one dream… the same dream – the ambition to walk out of the portals of JIPMER as doctors.

Well it took some time to overcome the initial insecurities, homesickness and LOHA food hiccups and hiccdowns, with the unflinching support from our dear seniors in the form of… hush hushed…rrrragging. Thanks to them that the not so good-looking guys overnight became handsome muscular Adonis’, measuring the length of hostel corridor in how many ‘match-stick-lengths’ and some even in how many ‘match-stick-breadths’. Lord Shiva stood on one limb but never would he have tried sitting on a part of it, ‘The Femur’, an act which often attempted a desperate PR and at times even tried replacing the probably prolapsed piles of a not so suspecting victim, to the distinct sadistic pleasure of two horned sssssirs. Dancing to the tunes of the boss was heard of but dancing to the wails of our own classmate – who was actually asked to sing, was never even nightmared of. All said and done the joy, pleasure and ecstasy of proposing to – my fair lady sometimes even ladies, (sometimes provoked or probably forced by the seniors but most of the times unprovoked!) was unmatched. How I wish that I could have continued to be a baby (junior!) for that at least.

Besides this routine curriculum in our fatally suboptimal life sustained by the UEO’s (unidentified edible objects) from the LOHA mess, literally a mess, we also had an extracurricular program pertaining to academics. And that included the hour-long short naps in the Physio classes. The Anat lectures at times made me feel that I was mentally retarded for in spite of my innermost desire and utmost efforts I repeatedly failed to gather the ‘pearls of wisdom’ pouring out of our respectable teachers. Biochem perhaps chemically inconvenienced me as I found myself orally challenged and dumb struck whenever I was called for, to opine regarding anything pertaining to any and every topic under consideration.

The debut SPANDAN revealed the talent in almost all of us except a few lazy bones who were uniquely fortunate to, I shall say unpremeditatedly scoot and in spite be called – promisingly talented, it’s a different story that their talent never got tapped over the past five and a half years. Coming to those whose talents were indeed revealed, I shall talk about myself. I suddenly discovered that I was naturally gifted in ‘renovatingly architecturing the land’, i.e. mopping floors which in this case was a basketball court and which I thought was exclusively a job of the fairer sex or of the non-dominant recessive male sex post martially. My ideas that only professionally trained individuals could roll the ground (or roll on the ground) and highly sophisticated equipment alone could dry the wet football ground were shattered when… well, I was made to do that along with other less fortunate, no so lazy bones of my class. We take pride in telling that transport committee would routinely send SOS for ‘us’ for we were the only unpaid proficient labor force available anywhere in Pondicherry. It was an only guys team, another instances of gender bias, sex discrimination or was it sexual harassment of the other kind? To date all of what I know about interior designing, which is almost nothing, I had learnt in the reception team. To our relief SPANDAN came to an end and so did every baby junior’s drudgery.

Tragedy struck or did it?, as if by an awful retribution from the almighty above, we were thrown into the clinics. Proudly hanging the steth around our neck we felt ecstatic but most of the time was spent learning Tamil. ‘Asshollow!” was how it sounded when one of our superior country mates (i.e. north Indian friend) tried to open the mouth of a patient and landed opening his own, god only knows how many times.

The clocks stole the time beneath our nose as we graduated semester to semester and by luck, fate, chance or destiny we successfully cruised through our academics of course interspersed with inter-class-es and a couple of trips to Ooty and Kodai which led to some long-lasting, some not so long-lasting relationships. During those day-long infatuations and the puppy love tales on the backdrop of those scenic places, we shockingly discovered the Romoes’ and the not so really consenting Juliet’s in our class. Some did fructify, though not literally, but some of the cupid’s arrows missed the target and got out rightly rejected with blatant No’s. No harm, they had lots of arrows in their quiver and there were lots of fishes in the sea, the next day our rejected and dejected Romeo got up charged with rejuvenated hope and optimism to try his ill-luck elsewhere. With no gender bias, while speaking of rejection I must say that there was disappointment among the eves too for, some of the Adams refused to bite the apple.

As we were evolving in mother JIPMER’s womb and nature’s bountiful resources, sailing through the calm and benevolent marine outstretch in search of our ‘Capes of Good Hope’, tragedy struck in its most cruel form. We lost two of our classmates and very dear friends K and T under tragic circumstances. A reminder of his perhaps un-divulged plan for each individual. It was irreparable loss for the class and a personal tragedy to each one of us, for they were two nice lovable guys. No doubt, ‘good people die young’, “We miss you throughout Dr. K and Dr. T. May their soul’s rest in peace as we remember them once again.

Some how time flew carrying us about and we donned the executive seat. After intense tussle for ‘gaddi’, hard(-ly) fought verbal battles and unattmepted poll riggings we managed to give a stable leadership at the center – JSA and equally strong power in LOHA. Looking at the Lallus, Rabris and Kesris we feel proud today for the greatest decorum we maintained in being the organizing batch in spite of having the best of the nonchalant, nonconformists and the worst of obsessional perfectionists in the class. Grad day was pronounced a great success following which it took over sixty humans, six months (almost) and equally long consistent abstinence from academics plus illegitimate absence from classes to organize the six-day annual show – SPANDAN. Ridiculous perhaps but an achievement in itself, running around for sponsorships and money, not as beggars, but as JSA affiliated applicants for fund-raising services was no doubt a not so pleasant experience but we learnt a lot through this unpaid work of entrepreneurial nature as our convincing abilities and tremendous potential of lying (not to be taken otherwise – its telling lies) through this infra-nasal orifice came forth. The motto was hook or crook – beg, do not borrow and be indecisive about stealing! And it happened; for once all the hands and 119 legs (one of us fractured his leg) came together to make SPANDAN a roaring success. It indeed was, what with a roaring show of western music on the final day!

Come December and we found ourselves in a very vulnerable predicament of counting the number of pages of ‘Park’ to be read each second, a race against time, wind, light and everything capable of beating human mind. But to our misfortune we all did it. Misfortune because we were the honorable final years now, filled with consternation, we did come through. There was no turning back, having caught between Scylla and Charybdis. Charged with new vigor and utmost reverence for academics but oblivious to the impending doom we entered the new year. What a shocking metamorphosis it was, for the yesterday’s carefree punks, maachas and machees, Romeos and Juliets, suddenly became serious mugpots, sincere, regular, alert, oriented and conscious and above all cooperative. That one year of total abstinence, from every form of extra-academic social intercourse in spite of the tempting drop-dead beauties of the baby junior batch, which under the circumstances was an occupational hazard for every senior, did the trick. The so-called atheists suddenly became spiritual minded and ardent devotees of every form of God existing on earth, though just for the last three months. O’ God, to Allah became natural expressions of every emotion from joy to despair, success to failure, elation to depression. Prayers were heard and demands answered as we sailed through the final year unscathed though some were incompletely successful.

With celebrations and festivities, we joined internship highly spirited (literally). I would compulsorily call it ‘Compulsory house surgeonship’ retrospectively. It felt good attending OPD’s and going around in ward rounds as the joy of finally working as ‘live’ doctors stirred our souls but soon dawned upon us that, what our seniors had told us was true – it was a job of a glorified…. All said and some left undone, it was definitely a great time of practical learning, revealing to us, the intricacies involved in our profession, not only medical but also non-medical and extraprofessional, of course strictly ethical.

It will be an unpardonable mistake if I forget the most unforgettable and cherish-able part of internship – ‘The Ramanathapuram posting’, rather the honeymooning period of internship where we took full advantage of the symbiotic coexistence with the reptilian wildlife in erasing our acrimonious life patterns of the past five years, with the ‘spirited’ fun-filled moments and movements. Some old flames re-ignited and some new ones bloomed into long-lasting (time shall tell how long) liaison-ships as they rediscovered the indiscretionary pheromonous fragrances in each other in the sobriety of the spirited moments and movements again!

Soon it came to an end, five grad days, six interclasses and equal number of SPANDANs later; some fights, many catfights and a couple of couples later; few infatuations, some affairs and lots of true heart breaks later; one DVD, one KK, one Sollu…. the list goes on for seventy us all, and five and a half years later, here we are the tickers of the batch of ’92 parting ways leaving behind vivid impressions of varied emotions and multifarious pleasant images in each others hearts, un-erasable, unforgettable and eternal. For once, we feel lost, lonely, insecure, JIPMER sick (not homesick anymore) and unsure standing at the crossroads as a family disintegrates to allow each member to mould individual future and careers. But thanks to thee O’ Mother JIPMER for enabling us to walk out of thine holy shrine not only as knowledgeable doctors but also as mature, confident and self-assertive men and women.

With memories galore sweet and sour, cherish-able reminiscences, silently brushing across the windows of my thoughts sending in cold breeze of joy and happiness, it is a feeling of melancholy with which I put down the pen… for the last time… for thee O’ JIPMER.

‘Al-Wida’

(Outgoing graduate, February 1998)

Batch of ‘92