Chapter 07

On reaching the hostel I realized I had ridden with my lab-coat on, which explained
amused faces on the way. I closed the room door behind me and sat on the bed, slightly
breathless, more out of anxiety than exertion. I closed my eyes and cursed my fate. I had
dreamt of becoming a doctor and I had become a thief first. Shit… Shit, shit, shit!! I
banged my fists on my thighs and wanted to cry my heart out. Soon, I realized that my
lab-coat pocket was damp. I slowly reached into it and pulled out the envelope that
contained the stolen ampoules. It was wet. My heart missed a beat. One by one I removed
the ampoules from within and placed them on the bed. There were nine ampoules in all,
of which two had cracked and the drug had spilled out. This probably happened when I
collided with that stupid girl. God. Distraught, I carefully wrapped the damaged
ampoules in another piece of paper and discarded them in the dustbin. The intact
ampoules went into the safe confines of my cabinet for now and I double-checked its
lock.
“This is the second time in a row that you’ve missed the bio-chem pracs,” said Sunil as
soon as he entered the room, with a loud kick on the door. “Sarah missed you,” he added
with a wink. I waved a hand in dismissal. Biswajit Sarkar, our tutor at the bio-chem
pracs was nicknamed Sarah for his feminine ways. From the way he walked, talked and
made faces, the possibility of his being bisexual did not appear far-fetched. And I was
often made out to be his preferred choice. Ugh!
I had slept off and woke up with a start on Sunil’s explosive entry. I yawned and sat up
rubbing my eyes.
“I was feeling feverish today,” I lied.
Sunil jumped up and rushed to hold my wrist. Then he put the back of his hand on my
forehead, falsely wearing a thinking man’s frown.
“You seem alright, no fever.” He said mimicking a seasoned doctor.
“I took a paracetamol before sleeping,” I lied once again, feeling miserable.
‘Ok, you rest, if you want. Achal is at Manjunath’s stall and I came to fetch you for a
cuppa, if interested.”
“Its ok, I’ll join you.” I said, putting on my bathroom slippers.
“Ok, then lets go.” He said and slipped out of the room. I made a mental note to go to
Kedar’s room after dinner. The sooner this gets over, the better.
Manjunath’s tea-stall was located just outside the campus, abutting the boundary wall. A
foot-wide, circular hole in the wall near his stall had always been there for the
convenience of the students who did not want to take a detour all the way through the
gate. And Manjunath willingly handed out cups and plates through this breach. The
naughty residents of the campus rather tastelessly called this opening the ‘hole of
deliverance’. Wooden benches lay on both sides of the wall, and for obvious reasons, the
inner ones were unofficially reserved for the exam going guys. We, on the other hand,
always preferred to walk out through the gate to Manjunath’s ‘Lucki Tea Cornar’ (sic).
A neem tree stood close by the stall, but its branches overhanging the benches were
chopped off regularly for a good reason: students did not want their tea to be garnished
with bird shit.
The never-married Manjunath, it was widely known, had left his native village in remote
Karnataka when he was only ten years old, to ‘set up his own businesses’ in Baroda.
Years later, he was proud of his achievements as a vendor and never tired of narrating his
‘life-story’ to anyone who cared to listen.
The aroma of freshly brewed tea filled the air around his stall and the first sip
filled us with bliss. The staple and ever so brittle khari biscuit went along well with his
tea. This is life, I thought as I returned the cup.
“Great tea, Manju,” I said and he smiled as usual but did not forget to add an entry for
each one of us, separately, in his ledger. He never insisted for his accounts to be cleared
in time, and indeed, several rogue boys never paid up years of arrears. We medicos were
not reputed to default for more than a few days. And some day, I hope, I’d make up for all
of Manju’s losses.
We sat and chatted at Manju’s place till dinnertime. We talked about everything and
anything from studies to movies to politics to girls. At about eight o’clock, an imported
Honda (Hero, of India, had not yet collaborated with Honda to produce indigenous bikes)
screeched to a halt just a few feet from us. It was Kedar. I felt a chill pass through me.
Ignoring us but not oblivious of our presence, he summoned Manju, who ran timidly to
attend to him.
“I want the goods to be delivered by tonight,” Kedar said coarsely to him and sped off.
Manju stood bewildered for a moment and said, “I don’t know what he just talked about.
He had not asked for anything from me.”
But the message was taken. I stood up with a jerk and started walking, surprising my
roomies. They protested my sudden and untimely exit from the haven but soon joined me
reluctantly.
The mix-veg curry looked and tasted like swill. Whoever said we’d get used to this junk?
I’d never ever get myself to like this rubbish. I banged the spoon into the bowl making
some of the curry splash up on my face. I got up cursing the cook and left after asking
Sunil and Achal to fill themselves up on my behalf too. I’m sure they were surprised
because I had eaten worse food before, without letting out as much as a whimper. I
hurried to the room and carefully extracted the envelope from my cupboard and after
inspecting the contents once more, I left, feeling nervous, for Kedar’s den.
The door was ajar but I had no guts to enter unannounced. I knocked lightly once,
and then again, a little harder, when there was no reply. Suddenly, I thought I heard an
agitated female voice from within. The bigger shock came when the voice suggested that
the woman in question was engaged in uninhibited sex! I was flabbergasted. Just as I was
preparing to scoot from the scene, the sounds stopped abruptly. I heard lazy footsteps
behind the door before it opened. Kedar stood there with a cigarette in his mouth. On
seeing me, he raised his eyebrows in mirth and gestured me to enter.
I hesitated a bit but still stepped inside the dimly lit room, expecting to encounter the
worst. Upon entry, I immediately discovered the source of the female voice. The
occupants of the room had been viewing a porn movie on a VCR that was plugged to the
common room TV, which, in turn, had been missing from its rightful place for a couple
of days. I found that they had not even bothered to switch off the set in my presence. It
was only paused. The still scene on the screen had a naked couple in an obscene posture.
I immediately dropped my eyes to the floor. Realizing my discomfort, Kedar winced and
switched off the TV set. He then proceeded to switch on the light before indicating to the
unnecessary occupants of the room to vacate. The illustrious crowd slowly exited and
Rambo groaned. He lay prone on his bed with his head turned towards the TV set. I was
disgusted. Was this his idea of living life at the fullest before succumbing to cancer?
“You got the ampoules, doc? Rambo has been suffering without the injections,” said
Kedar.
I can see that.
I pulled out the envelope from my trouser pocket and handed it over to Kedar.
He hastily opened it up and his face lit up for a jiffy before turning stiff again.
“Only seven?” he frowned. “I told you to get atleast ten!”
“I had lifted more than ten but several ampoules broke in the accident.” I replied.
Kedar raised his eyebrows. “Accident?”
I narrated my collusion with the nurse and spiced up the story a bit with some falsehoods
about my getting almost discovered, just to discourage him from asking me to repeat the
feat in the near future. He appeared unfazed.
“Be careful next time,” he said. “Now leave.”
How about a thank you?
I looked at Rambo before leaving. He did appear sick. And has he lost some of his
weight? At least I’m helping someone who hasn’t got much time. Poor bastard.
Priya looked exceptionally beautiful that day and the dissection hall seemed to be an unfit
place for her to be in. Shanti, already cut up at several places, lay motionless on the table
and allowed a ruthless Pankaj to continue hacking her. My performance at the physiology
viva had prompted me to pay more attention than usual in the dissection hall. Pankaj had
dissected the interosseous nerve in the forearm and was proudly displaying it to others.
Rekha tried explaining its relations with the surrounding structures. On witnessing others’
expertise in dissection and knowledge in anatomy, I decided that I needed to cope up with
the subject. I could not afford a physiology-like fiasco in the anatomy viva scheduled for
next month. But for the moment, I was going to make best use of the God-sent
opportunity. Achal had an uncle visiting him and he had excused himself for half a day to
be with him. With the field clear, I struck a conversation with Priya. And since I started
by saying that she looked great, she quickly got interested in a chat - probably in
anticipation of further eulogies from me. Girls can do with praise anytime, from anyone,
and with any degree of dishonesty.
By this time, eleven-thirty had come to be the time for a short break in
dissections. Not that it was official; the tutors only helped by looking away or, more
commonly, heading for the canteen themselves. To avoid a complete exodus, we moved
out in batches of twos or threes to the canteen and everyone was supposed to be back in
about ten minutes or so, to allow others to have their time-out. Even at the risk of being
labeled as impertinent, I whisked Priya away to the canteen sharp at eleven-thirty,
ignoring the usual practice of arriving to a consensus as to who’d go first. She perhaps
felt a bit uncomfortable with my brazen act and turned twice to look at our baffled
colleagues at the table before deciding, with me, that they might as well go to hell.
The canteen was full but I was lucky to find a table for two at the far end. I had
decided to further infuriate the guys at the dissection by staying for a while. I ordered tea
and pastries as I had once overheard Priya voicing her craze for muffins.
Priya Makhija opened up that day and spoke at length about herself, her family,
her pets, her dad’s car and her ambitions. She even cared to ask about me and I gave her
selected information about myself. Girls are known to fall for guys with a sense of humor
and I tried doing my thing with anecdotes from my school days. That our talk got
regularly interspersed with her giggles proved that I was doing fine. I suddenly wondered
how I looked. I needed a haircut and I had kept postponing it for a while. I’d soon get
one, I decided. The talk drifted to studies and I admitted my limited capabilities in
academics. I could not, anyway, claim to be an Einstein after the Physiology debacle.
Priya herself had not done exceptionally well in that particular viva but the fact of pivotal
importance here was that she had fared better than me. We spent almost half an hour at
the canteen, much more than the stipulated ten minutes. I would have sat with her till
eternity, but lost a little of my enthusiasm when she revealed that a major goal in her life
was to fly off to the US or, perhaps Canada, in pursuit of higher studies in medicine, soon
after finishing her MBBS. And since half of her clan was already in that part of the
world, it only made sense for her to do so. And when she declared, in the course of her
dreamy talks about life in the western country, that she aimed to marry a well-to-do (read
stinking rich) NRI doctor, and that finding one would not be too difficult for her, I
quickly paid up the bill (the pastries were more expensive than I had anticipated) and
politely reminded her that we had overstayed our time in the canteen.
Priya decided to skip the rest of the dissection and headed home, promising to be
back for the demonstrations in the afternoon. I returned meekly to the dissection hall and
quietly joined my batch-mates, who gave me unrelenting stares, cold enough to freeze me
in my place for the rest of the session