Thursday, March 6, 2008

Do Medicoids Dream For Salaries To Leap And Pizzas To Be Cheap? Yes they do, yes they do.

So, anyway. I cower in my seat and hope for the baritone behind the wickerwork curtain to convince me all is not lost, yet.
Yes, I confess.

I do not get poetry.
When I read blogs that are full of apparently fantastic verse, I merely nod and say "Ahaa ahaa, that is some deep writing, that is. Who knew it even had meaning?!"
I do not get it of course. I do not understand all the fuss about Neruda, or Ghalib, or Walt Whitman, or Wilt Whatman, or WhateverTheFuckElse, merely because well, I do not, I cannot.

Especially when they,
in specific,
exotic Tamizh species like

Kanniyakumari Kalabhimanjari Kattabomman insist
on writing
like
this
With obvious dis
regard for rhyme and more
so for reason and most of
all
meter! Do you under
stand this?

I do not, I can tell you. No stand, certainly no understand. But that does not mean I do not admire people who can come up with verse like that. How cool must you be to put together disjointed words and make people believe you are all super literary. It must be the FabIndia clothes you wear.

I give you - I do not attend book release functions and ask insightful questions about the implied profundity in lines like,

The opossum.
It wept, but its
penis did not,
The tail however
did not either.

No.

I do not wear thick glasses, and smile beatifically at wistful turns of phrases printed diagonally in sombre-colored hardbound editions of The Poetry Of Azerbaijan, Palau, Vanuatu And Whatzitsname.

And I almost certainly do not "hang out" in coffee places, Koshy's leading the pack, because I don't know, there's too much South Bangalore in me, or there's way too much Cantonment in them, or may be,
A. I do not have enough kurtas
B. I do not read Kafka/Yamanaka/Kawabata/Gabagaba or hold books by them in public places and wish I be seen because,
C. I did not go to Christ College/St. Joseph's.
D. God, the coffee there sucks.

So yeah. One way to shut me up, or insult me without having me know is to hurl abuse in verse at me. I will smile like the village idiot, like Virus Cama, and you will have your two minutes of fame. But that's hardly the point.

While we are at it, let's also discuss why being a Medical Student/Doctor is such a bitch. As opposed to being say, a Software Engineer. Or, a Corporate Lawyer. Or better still, a Head Hunter (the name, damnit, the name.)

[Aside: This will be a long post. And those who do not like long posts, or me, or long posts written by me may leave right away. But this is what I want to write, this is my political purpose. The same political purpose that Orwell talks about in his magnificent, magnificent, magnificent essay about Why He Wrote. I found the essay, thanks to her.
In retrospect, it seems like an epiphany. He talks about everything I would ever have wanted to say about why I wrote myself, but could never bring myself to, owing to largely non-existent writing skills.
(I still write anyway, but that's because I have an inexplicable God Complex that urges me To Create. Inanity is what is mostly created, but then I call myself Demigod - that's what Shah Rukh Khan is anyway.)
Before you proceed to read this tirade, please go read it, and just may be, it influences the way you look at your own writing.]


Now for the express political purpose of abusing bandwidth. I have of course already discussed why I chose to be a doctor and the slightly unhealthy situations involving halitosis and Gerstmann-Straussler-Scheinker Syndrome that ensue because of it, but here I will tell you how the society discriminates against us and snuffs any retaliation from our side by calling us Gods and quoting random lines from the Vishnu Sahasranama to quantify as much. The doctor crowd is of course pleased as hell and forgives all iniquities on the society's part (including alcoholic mobs going on rampages).
But I, am already God, and hence do not take this downright lying lying down.

1. In the beginning, there was CET.

There are far fewer seats for the medical course than there are for engineering. I choose the latter stream in specific, as these two are the only career choices for Brahmin Boys In South India. No, make that Any Human In South India. Hence, the tirade will be mostly concentrated in comparing and contrasting the two streams (comparing and contrasting being a grand favorite with question paper setters in the medical course).
Now, right after class ten, some of us got bouts of idealism. Mostly because one certain Dr. Devi Prasad Shetty operated upon a 12 hour old baby's peanut sized heart, and it lived, and the press went crazy, and your mum did too. And you did too. So you went ahead and chose PCMB (Biology) and realized that you cannot rely completely on a medical seat, and hence had to read Math with the same fervour, in the hope that you would at least land in some Gowda/Reddy/Shetty engineering college.
So, while wondering about the point that lay in differentiating only to integrate, you also wondered ceaselessly about Angiosperms and Gymnosperms and where exactly their penises were. All said and done, it also meant you had to study that much more, and attend tuition for another subject thus also threatening bankruptcy at home, as a result of which you had to make do with two not-so-square meals.
And you still went ahead with all this.
And four and a half years hence you have an epiphany whose background music is the Tata Indica jingle. Dumb da da di dumb dumb.

2. Then there was college, but not before some serious injury to your crotch.

Ragging, as a rule, is more severe in medical colleges. Since you deal with the anatomy of cadavers, it is only fair that yours be dealt with by somebody - is the seniors' theory. Fair you might say. But that rule somewhat does not extend to all other arenas. After all,
- you are not washing your patients' bikes
- or running far and wide to get cigarettes to your patients
- or writing your patients' painfully overdue practical records
- or SMS-ing answers to your patients while they are giving exams.
- And you are certainly not chased by rabid dogs when you went asking for money house to house because your patients wanted to organize a college fest.
No.

Slightly out of logic, wouldn't you say? But then, this is medicine. Logic is killed in its very inception. Sorta like how the iPill works.

3. Then there were urine, feces, irate pregnant woman, irate pregnant woman's irater relatives, touchy kid who wouldn't stop crying, touchy kid's mother who wouldn't stop yelling, and you in the midst of it all.

After the pretty much all-explanatory heading, I still feel the need to add, which should tell you that much worse has been had.
Did I tell you of the old man that had a hydrocele (Water In Balls) who was an exam case and who would just not strip?
Or of the man in the OPD who insisted on euphemisms like "I'm losing a lot of my genes"? If you thought he was sleeping around too much and forgetting his jeans the morning after, you aren't too wrong. Only in this case, the man was sleeping with himself, and whenever he felt bored, he saw the need to "lose more genes" and now it had become a matter of routine to lose genes around 12 times a day.
If you thought all this was funny, wait till you present these cases in front of your professors. They'll pretty much strip you, and you don't even have a hydrocele damnit.

4. Amidst all this, there are also minor distractions involving hairloss, traumatic nailbites, concussions owing to banging of heads, dehydration due to much crying, et cetera.

And they are mostly centered around exams. It is a rather curious coincidence. Also extremely funny, because the medical exams are designed to be student friendly after all. I mean, see -
- There is no choice in exams as opposed to Engineering exams.
- The passing mark is 50 as opposed to 35.
- There are no breaks whatsoever between exams.
- Which generates a lot of prayers for the Prime Minister/Chief Minister's death during these exams.
- If you fail even one paper - theory/practicals - in the first year, you are picked off the batch and ostracized and be made a separate batch which is fancifully, not to mention sensitively, called The Odd Batch or The Irregular Batch.
- The first class cut off is 65% as opposed to 60%, and the cut off for distinction is 75% as opposed to 70%
- The number of pages for compulsory reading during final year is around a mere 7500 pages.
- Do you want more than these to consider this, one swell setup?

Really, I have long failed to understand why my friends whine so much about the inhuman quality of these exams, or about why so many of them have nervous breakdowns.
Clearly, giving exams in MBBS is quite a joy.

5. And did we talk about the money involved? Did we did we?

We did not. It costs a LOT. Let's not get into the specifics for I wish to not be depressed for more things than I am already depressed about. I will however say that the money that has been spent is a tad more than the GDP of Burundi, or one of those Micronesian Islands. As a result of which I have had to look for early alternative employment to prevent choking myself using those darned fee receipts. As if that were not enough, the post graduate courses are costly enough for you to voluntarily up the dose on your Appa's anti-hypertensives.
Let's not even go to USMLE. Unless you want me to come and lynch you, or rob you as may well be the case.

6. It is time we documented the breezy working conditions.

It is true that those boxlike glass-steel buildings do get hurt at times.
Like when? Like when Rajkumar dies. There was one, and he died, case closed.
But us, is another matter. Rajkumar may be only one, but pregnant women there are many. And sometimes they die. Just like that. One moment they are all "AAAAAAAAAA", the next they are not. Just like that. In some cases, they fall off the table; but let's just say they can die. Despite medical help.
The mob goes on a rampage and destroys most things in sight.

48-hour shifts, cranky consultants, crankier patients, crankiest relatives, collecting reports from across the campus, generally feeling like the scum on the seabed - breezy.
And you computer types, that central air conditioning can be a bitch at times, no? God, 23 degrees instead of 24.5 the other day must have killed you.

7. And damn, at the end of it all, they don't even send us to the US.

These IT types. See, I have lots of cousins who are in this typist business they fancifully call IT (Or that's what their mothers say to matrimonial agencies).
They must type real fast - they earn too much and wring their wrists one too many times. Whatever the reason for that one may be, I know one thing for certain.
They only shop retail. And must have only cornflakes for breakfast. And must also possess a black large Samsonite suitcase. Which must have a handle to pull it with. Specially in airports. Which have aircrafts parked heading to different places. Specially the United States.
And when they consume cornflakes for a meal, pack Chutney Pudi and Puliyogare Gojju in the black Samsonite suitcase, and pull it in the airport, and say at the check-in "Frisco" instead of San Francisco, is when the entourage of 20 that has paid 50 rupees each to enter the airport is fully convinced that he has grown to be a Complete Man.
"All those days when I used to wake him up in the morning at 5:00 for those KSR tuitions, and those times when he used to take those godawfully crowded buses to Vijaya High School... it all comes to a culmination here. Bhagavanta, nijvagloo eega kaNN biTTyappa neenu (God, you opened your rather lazy eye now)", goes the mother who has to be dressed in a red Kanjeevaram saree and who would have instructed every one of the members in the entourage to not dress in black, "no, not even underwear". A final smearing of vermilion from the Dodd Ganesha Temple near BMS College of Engineering (where you studied Electronics/Computer Science), you are ready to take on the world.
At that one moment, you can take on even Chuck Norris.
And win.

This never happens to us.
Should we choose to go to the US, the entourage comprises of three people including yourself. And the father will be chanting -
That house we all live in? It's in the bank. Just saying.
That house we all live in? It's in the bank. Just saying.
That house we all live in? It's in the bank. Just saying.

I can go on, but I am tired, as are you.

I know that most of you computer guys will be frustrated bald old cubicle animals with a 6-month pregnant paunch and a bad digestion problem soon enough, but at least you will be rich frustrated bald old cubicle animals with a 6-month pregnant paunch and a bad digestion problem.

I know that our standing in the society is far higher than yours will ever be (suck on it, chumps), but our first 800s will come by the time you have your first Bentleys.

I know that we can do the eyebrow-raising and the I-Save-Lives-What-Do-You-Chump saying, but really, we wish we could just save enough money to pay our mess bills.

I know that money isn't everything, but I also know that Jangamesh Bileekattematha aka John Blake can pay for his own pizza. Every night.

And into this situation have I landed myself. Call it informed ignorance or conscious cataclysm or such other alliterative allegories, but this be the fate I chose for myself.
So, while you shake your head in disbelief at the length of this post, the ranting therein and want to scream out a loud "Monkeyyy", remember now that you have to prefix it with a Dr.
Yes, discerning ladies and gentlemen, I am now Dr. Spunky Monkey.

The world did not see this coming.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

P.S.: I barely managed to scrape through. The university is getting an earful.

P.P.S.: To not forget the intent of this post, us doctors (ah, will you hear me be smug) have a fucked up deal. Respect-shispect, I 21, gimme the moneys.

P.P.P.S.: My anonymity is a farce. Apparently some three new people know who I am. So long as they aren't from college.

P.P.P.P.S: I do this P.S. thing a lot, don't I? Sucks.

P.P.P.P.P.S: What are you waiting for? Go drop a comment.

47 comments:

love and squalor said...

you crack me up, Dr. S! ya know, the comments to the poems are far worse than the poems themselves.
and c'mon! it can't be all bad. well, I confess I thought nothin could beat bein a civil engineer till jus about 10 mins ago, but there're perks to everythin that comes outta bein in college. jus you see, they'll hook you up with a nice brahmin doctor girl and all will be well with the world again.

the Monk said...

I knew getting through your exams would merit a full-length post, and thusly I came to check here. I agree with you on all counts. Engineering is not what it used to be, and IT is fuck-all. I'm dying to quit, and get back to some real science. And if all goes well, that should happen soon.

Prats said...

Dr spunky monkey...man!! That was one fantastic post....great...in spite of all the housing loaned!!! Its worth the effort....remember the white coats, and those steths you'll wear... " I save lives" title.....
Congrats re.....and did u put some of that vermillion from Dodda Ganesha temple ( yes! right opposite my college :) , but not engg )


*God, 23 degrees instead of 24.5 the other day must have killed you.
You are so right...all these guys just don't know luxury pa....che thu

sumne kalasipalyam busnalli send off koDbeku

Are you still at the radio station....??

all or nothing said...

that bad aa? :(

But still, congrats daaktarr!
For some odd reason, I'm proud of you. All the best da :)

Anonymous said...

Whoa! Fantastic post. Congratulations monkeyman. That airport scene is right outta my family. Super.

Somebody Else said...

You must be given The Rahul Gandhi award for Honesty.

Q:What is common to your post and George Orwell's essay?
A:Both of them say stuff we think loads of times but don't have the facility to write.

There! No more compliments.

Dude! You can eat painkillers like they were indigenous poppins or IT-Cousin-sqe M&Ms, be venomously sarcastic, 40 and grouchy and people will still love you. Like Who you ask??


PS- Stop throwing attitude and blog more often. Any talk of retirement and all the 700 people that read this blog will get your Janampatri mailed to them. Howzzat for blackmail?

Anonymous said...

don't you go about giving the gag about the penniless doctor. some of the wealthiest people i know are doctors, and one of them even charges Rs. 150 to prescribe a paracetamol.
your current abject poverty will fade into irrelevance when you'll be making a killing (pun unintended) working at wockhardt or apollo. with job security, mind you, JOB SECURITY.

and what's with you and obscure country names? did you, just like me, when you were a kid, read an encyclopaedia of countries and cultures so much that you knew it back to front and azerbaijan, burkina faso, tuvalu, vanuatu and micronesia were familiar, friendly names, and you knew that dili was the capital of east timor?
or were you so impressed by the lyrics of Orinoco Flow by Enya that you made it a hobby to collect obscure-sounding country names?
either ways, it gets slightly trying on regulars (here i mean me).... so jet off this gag to guinea-bissau for a while and bring it back a few posts later.

poetry.. verse.... try Ogden Nash. not as trying... actually, very entertaining.

Narendra shenoy said...

I hereby strip you of your medical degree on the grounds that you're too gifted to be a doctor.

I come from a family full of doctors (though I managed not to become one, owing to being an imbecile). And the one characteristic that all of them share is being incredibly boring. It's part of the Hippocratic oath which says

I will treat everybody regardless of age or sex
I will not let them succumb to their ailments
I will kill them by boredom instead.

And instead of boring me, you have made me laugh noisily for the last ten minutes, prompting the missus to dial someone furtively, probably our family shrink.

By the way, here's a poem, penned by the great Shakespeare himself, which you might be able to relate to.
There was a young man from Poole
Who found a red ring round his toole
He rushed to the clinic
But the doctor was a cynic
He said "It's lipstick, you foole!"
- Hamlet, Act II Scene 1
I can imagine you using it in the OPD.
Congrats, by the way. Like Bond, you are now licensed to kill.

Kavitha said...

Hey Dr. SM!! Congratulations!!

I perfectly understand the points you have made here, being a 50% partner and 50% doctor and all :)

The sad part is, I am not even the Amrican type of IT employee...Just a plain H/W engineer (People ask me "Oh hardwarea? Computer/TV repair madtheeya???? with a scorn on their faces.) So we are double losers. Families' black sheep and all....

AnSVad said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
AnSVad said...

Congrats about making it as a doc...

Now I don't agree with you about the money thingy... You guys have respect man! Something we all crave for. Am almost a mech engineer btw - final year. One other thing that I believe is that medicine breeds passionate people who never burn out. There are LOTS of people with sub-standard 4 year engineering degrees who do more harm than good. A little money thrown at them doesn't hurt anyone cos there is so much; but the quality that those guys put into the system is abysmal...

Bottomline - I'd have loved to be a doc... This coming from a guy who loves what he is doing now too...

playbyrules said...

Bhagavanta, nijvagloo eega kaNN biTTyappa neenu (God, you opened your rather lazy eye now)"
*loud guffaw*, when you are a brahmin kid growing up in one of the oldest areas of bangalore(malleswaraaa), you are in the elite club if you go gururaj or shastri tuitonsss.(These two people are responsible for major brain drain from north bengaluru)! aunties smile approvingly like the us consulate has mailed your visa home.its a pity we dont have a consulate here,alongwith the coaching factories.one genaration of manufactured dreams.Sigh.

the stygian sailor said...

i know who you are.
congrats all the same.
for every house you loan for yourself, you will build one... for your children

frissko said...

What i do primarily helps people download porn quicker!...I feel envious when i see doctors and how purposeful their work is. (Yea, money is not good and all that, but we can't have it all, can we:)..Anyways congrats on the graduation!..

Anonymous said...

just read my last comment... man, I sounded so rude!! there's no excuse for that... no, I'm not gonna say I "get very passionate when my field is being criticised and lose control", or "I haven't seen hint of power or water in my college this week, and hence i was pissed and your post was the last straw" or any shite like that ... but thing is, i didn't mean to be rude, and i'm surprised it came out sounding that way.

congrats on turning dr. spunky monkey... what's your specialization, btw?

ps: try ogden nash. maya angelou isn't so bad either.

Arjun Sharma said...

[Wanderlust] Once when I was waiting for my mother to come home, I sat outside my house and listed all the countries I knew and their capitals. Vanuatu was one of them. I also had a fondness for saying 'Montevideo' and 'Antananarivo.' I did this for amusement. I deserve that death sentence they gave to Sarabjit Singh.

[Spunky monkey] Feces? It isn't 'faeces' ? My whole belief system has now collapsed.

Who's Virus Cama?

You're right, the pretentious poetry in italics is so irritating. I like a healthy rhyme popping in every now and then. Don't know what it is about metre and rhyme, makes me feel I've read a real poem. Unless it's something like "The revolution will not be televised," in which case no rhyme is also kick-ass.

I also KSR tuition, but evening-times. I no US. I poor. No one's proud of me.

I must side with Wanderlust's angst here, with respect to the stereotyping of engineers. That's one section of society, just as there are low-key dermatologists, ENT specialists in small clinics, quacks who operate(ooh, pun!) kidney rackets and 'chiropractors.' We don't all shop retail, we don't eat cornflakes and we don't say 'Frisco.' That sounds like a creepy superhero. Or a perverse magician.

Didn't mean to bitchslap, like Wanderlust said in her second comment. Loyalty, and a certain affection for the truth, does come forward sometimes.

Loved the opossum poem.

Why do I get the feeling you studied medicine just because you wanted to know where the penis was? Jump around a bit, you might have found out cheaper. :)

"My anonymity is a farce. Apparently some three new people know who I am. So long as they aren't from college."

Yeah, even I know who you are.

Anonymous said...

What you
say
about this kind
of nonsense writing
is so
true.

I do not understand what these "poets" accomplish by writing like that.
Having said that, I think all your points are valid. You may have stereotyped a lot of us engineers for comic relief, but that is not too far from the truth.
This blog rawks!!

neel said...

Poetry loving Dr. Monkey... take a bow...

And now i know why most young doctors look like they are refugees from Somalia... but dnt worry... seeing my family physician (45 or thereabouts), am sure eventually, you will get to hog more than pizzas... kidneys and all.. :)

Sairekha said...

Uff! That posssum poem reminded me of Ogden Nash:) And congraats! :) You still at the radio station?

Malaveeka said...

You are fucking funny, friend.

I don't get poetry either.

We get a lot of money, us lawyers. Yay!

Anonymous said...

The opossum.
It wept, but its
penis did not,
The tail however
did not either.

Super funny... i don't get any of that poetry myself. who does, i constantly wonder.
Damn, u are funny man! fuckin funny!

Anonymous said...

Did I tell you 'nanuuu ninna fan kano !'

I tried very hard, but my manager still turned around to see why I was making wierd sounds ( try controlling a LMAO kinda laugh )while quickly closing a web page when she turned. ;)

Superb post( as always)..Hats off dude!

Anonymous said...

@arjun sharma:
virus cama is the musically-inclined, slightly mentally challenged older brother of ormus cama.
And ormus cama? he's the protagonist of Rushdie's Ground Beneath Her Feet. He's a world-renowned musician, a mish-mash of elvis, freddie mercury, john lennon, and hendrix-alone-knows which other musician. he also has a wife and co-band member (the band is called vto, btw.... take on U2, i guess) called vina apsara... a combination of janis joplin, janet jackson, linda mccartney, yoko ono and (if you extend your imagination further enough) even ella fitzgerald.
if the rock connection makes you want to read the book, here's one word of advice: DON'T.
it's by and large the worst rushdie book ever written. you can skip entire CHAPTERS and not miss anything. the prose is worse than the poetry that seems to put spunky off.
of course, the only good fallout of this book was that a bit of verse rushdie penned in this book was set into tune by U2, and there you go! you get the excellent song called "ground beneath her feet".
it's not very rhyming... but sounds nice.

There! I feel better after letting off steam about that ridiculous book. sorry, spunky, for using your blogging space for venting my frusts and showoffing my trivia mania.

Tys on Ice said...

i feel for u man...sorry Doc..u guys are totally unappreciated...talk abt a bummer career...the odds are that people die...by now u expect people to accept that, after all we hve had death arnd us for more than 3.5 billion years ( see, how u throw numbers arnd?..this is the art of trying to appear well read)..

hate it whn an idiot commits slow suicide all his life by smoking too much , drinking too much and eating too much ( i wud love to add , having too much sex but i want to pity the guy not admire him) dies on the operating table and u guys get the blame...not fair, i tell u..

there shud be a disclaimer posted in hospitals which says : If u want a miracle go to a church , but if u want a bunch of guys doing their best to get u back on ur feet, crawl right in..

Anonymous said...

Can i just say this is among the best blogs there is on the internet and that we, the husband and i, love it! You are one crazy kid and we love you for it...

moody crab said...

Logic is killed in its very inception. Sorta like how the iPill works. hahahaha...

btw, congrats!!!

Nomad said...

The longer the better. LOL... Congrats Doc!

Anonymous said...

The reason not many are reading and commenting may be that it is too long!
But it is very true and very funny!!

Anonymous said...

Dr Monkey, how comes the intern with the time to write looong posts? (Congratulations!)

KSR? IIT-Maths? Chennai? Wait, do I know you?? (Not at this point, I don't. Just two people I know learning the barber's trade :P ).

Five more years - if ever -
before I become Doctor Camphor,
without (the pleasure

of) sticking knifes into
people, cadavers (and), other
teddy (bear) look alikes.

Most of the "modern" stuff is written for self; and what a reader gets out fo it need not be what the author means. When you read "modern" poetry, or anything else, for that matter, your interpretation makes it yours. And not connecting means not connecting, not lack of meaning.

Surely you aren't saying that you don't visit Kothas? Or India Coffee House? because of bad coffee? [Barita, CoffeeDay and the ilk are hang-out-spots, not coffee places]

Bah, you've gone and made me regret not dropping a year or coughing up 10L as "deposit". Oh well. The world is saved from my shavign hands and instant diagnosis, at least.

PS. More in defence of the poor engineers I know - job security. Job security.
and did I mention? Job security!

Anonymous said...

What fun this blog is! Love it!

Cyber said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Cyber said...

I too took PCMB. Had to choose between NIT Trichy and AFMC Pune. Chose CSE@NITT. I am in final year BTech now, and still haven't figured out if I made the right choice. And btw, I will become Dr. Cyber (got an offer for PhD in CS from UIUC).

Anki said...

no comment
i only want to laugh

Spunky Monkey said...

Hello dear children. We are upset that you are not reading the blog as much as you are supposed to. Do you not know this is the 21st century equivalent of James Joyce? And that I am the 21st Century Schizoid Man? Anyway.

Love and Squalor - Thank you, both of you. I know one nice Brahmin Doctor girl. Very pretty also she is being. But then.

The Monk - An engineer from a big college agrees! Then Engineering today must surely suck. And congratulations on going back to the Pure Sciences. So few are doing it that the ones who do make me very happy.

Prats - Thank you, and that's what I am saying to console myself. I Save Lives, What Do You might as well be my catchphrase.
Yes, I am still at the radio station.

All or nothing - Yes da. That bad. Everything is bad. Hopelessness only. That apparently is the first symptom of clinical depression, and also the marker for suicide risks. (I am in Psychiatry these days)
Thanks da! Full happy I am feeling.

Anon - Thank you very much.

Siri - Give me award. I love any award that is not given for academic performance. Although Rahul Gandhi? Hmm.
And like I have told people before, you are all so kind. You are all like the uncles and aunties that give candies to injured nephews and nieces. Full sweet you all are I say.
Shoot, blackmail maaDtaaLante! Okay I will write more often. At this point in time, much smugness has been felt.

Priya - See, let's say a medico wants to go out, down a few beers, generally have a good time in a expensive place with his friends from other careers. But, the number of times you check your pocket before you could that outnumbers the number of rupees you have. Agreed, the medico makes much more money and can eventually buy out the beer place, but at 45! He wants to have said fun at 21. And not 24 years later.

I LOVE weird country names. These days my attention is focussed on Russian city names. Like, weeeird. Also, Facebook has been contributing vastly to the weirdness.

I love Ogden Nash. Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker. Whatte no! Now, that's poetry.

Narendra Shenoy - I hereby declare you a master of premonition. The MCI will strip my degree two years hence for gross incompetence anyway.

I LOVE the limerick. Very funny mister. And thank you. I shall send a dead body across From Bangalore, With Love.

Kavitha - Just you see, when this saaftware thing crashes, you guys will make a killing. And from all of this I gather a certain thing. Engineering sucks.

Ansvad - Yes, we have the respect. And we are more likely to kill ourselves than run out of steam because this is SUCH an interpersonal-dynamic job. All this was what my ultra prudent self at 17 thought of, while choosing medicine (and the prudenter 15 year old while choosing PCMB). It is a very nice profession to be in, I am beginning to realize. But my point is, just the desire to be in it is not enough for one to sustain interest over the long years that one puts in, and that something far more visible, monetary benefits to start with, must be done in order for it to NOT veer away people who genuinely wish to study medicine but are wary of the fewer benefits therein. It is merely A Question Of Balance. (Anyone for The Moody Blues?)

Playbyrules - I know the Malleshwaram-Rajajinagar brand of automatons. The south of Bangalore has various outlets under codon-like triple letter identities. And they do brisk business too. I am a product of three such codons. And look how nonsense I turned out.

Spunky Monkey said...

The Stygian Sailor - I know you know me. So, pleasantries. How are you?
Anyway. En House-o eno. The future, it looks bleak.

Frissko - There, you are doing great service to mankind. Bravo.
Thank you very much.

Wanderlust - You did not sound rude, first of all. Even if you did, hello? This is the Monkey Place. We like rude people, cos we are rude. And terribly crude. And judgmental. And all-those-things-that-drive-some-people-up-the-wall.
So, go ahead, and not think for a bit before venting whatever it is that you might want to.

Maya Angelou is that Caged Bird woman, no? How presumptuous was she, huh! SERIES of autobiographies!

Arjun Sharma - Oh then I deserve the seven death sentences they gave Paul Reid. It's not just naming countries, I insist on locating them on the map too. Swalpa jaasti aaythu. Irli.

Ayyo, first firstu Firefox use maaDakk shuru maaDdaaga nangoo suddsudden aagi fibrillation aagOdu. Idu baree American version accept maaDatte, illa andre ond red line haakatte. I have never been a red line fan.

Virus Cama has been explained. Anon, thank you.

The revolution will not be televised. Hmm. Idey wit-u.

I KSR tuition. Morning batch. I no US. I poor. I collect shit sample. I collect urine sample. Everybody run from me.

What this bitchslap is? I keep hearing. Slapping in effeminate way, is it?

The penis comment. It was perfectly funny. Why you had to put smiley there and ruin it? I know you did not want to come off offensive or whatever, but don't worry about all that with me. The Monkey was curious. Hence medicine.

I know you know me. The Black Singing Bird. It speaks too.

Idu long aaythu.

Let - Thank
you.

Neel - Kidney toppings don't quite seem appetizing. Even if it's the beans you are talking about.
Somalia? Try Timor-Leste, Malawi instead.

Ziah - Thank you! Yes, I am still at the station. And just today, they declared me a maniac. So joy!

Malaveeka - Thank you, friend. At this rate, who gets poetry around here?
And yes. You lawyers. We hate. You black. We white.

Pavithra - Yes yes, fuckin funny. Much flattered my body be.

AP - Trust me. I know something about Kerala. Ahem. Was it the strike to protest pork instead of beef in an office canteen on the outskirts of Alapuzzha that cost you half a year?
Yes, laugh all you want. When you get there, I will be done. And I will then GUFFAHAHAHAHAaaargh.

Always happy kya? - Always happy kya?! Super.
Thanks ree.

Anon - DON'T GET ME TO SAY IT. But almost all of what you said is true. It feels like I am hurting myself while putting beloved Sir Rushdie down. He is God.

And who are you? I generally dislike anons. But the reason I keep the option open is because occasionally someone like you comes along and makes my job easier.

I haven't finished reading The Ground Beneath Her Feet yet. Shucks.

Spunky Monkey said...

Tys on ice - Aww, thank you. Did you have your second child yet? If so, congratulations!

Fans - Woohoo, thanks many! Name your child Spunky Monkey. We shall be pleased.

Moody Crab - Whew, thanks!

Vague Identity - There, vindication! I thought I was losing out on a lot of readers because I am long winded.

Anon - Thenkyoo thenkyoo!

Camphor - Whew, I am so tired, although I want to say much. No Chennai, we are Bangalore. I had not started working then, hence the long post. Now, I am. Hence, no posts. But long comments anyway. Shit I am long winded.
Thanks anyway!

N - Thank you!

Cyber - Wow, congratulations. You know The Monk? He is doing pure sciences too. I love it when people do that.

Anki - Laugh laugh. Meri haalat mai jaanu.

risha; said...

Heh.
I suddenly miss Bangalore for all its pseudo-intellectual bullshit- even Koshy's!
(Pecos mostly)

Medicine has always terrified me- you lot are far too smart. You keep your Hydrocele and us Eng-Lit types will keep our poetry in verse.

And.. yes; it is the Fab India kurtas and the Shrishti (the school) art-nouveau earrings.

p.s: Virus Cama. Ground Beneath Her Feet? Since when do you medical types have time for Rushdie? (but not poetry from Azerbaijan?)

Anonymous said...

Sir, you are awesome. Take many bows.

Spunky Monkey said...

Persona non grata - Bangalore in general is not teeming with pseudo-intellectual bullshit bearers. It is mostly the cantonment. Koshy's, to be isspecific.
Medicine guys aren't smart. They could never write books of nonsense verse. Now somebody who would call it that AND sell books under that genre is smart.
Salman Rushdie is God-ness. We have time for him.

Big fan - Hess, taking many bows. I will win Sita someday.

risha; said...

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/982

About as close at it gets for now, me thinks.

Oh come now; any college cul-fest is teeming with pseudo-intellectual bullshit. And of course, I count myself in its many forms. That's not to say that there isn't any real intellect around. Of course there is, in spades too. But it's the whole I wear Fab India and I Spend All Day In Koshy's And Then Head To That Art Gallery by Java Ci ty On Church Street; that really makes me miss Bangalore. They did (do?) after all, consider themselves the consummate Bangalorean.

Anonymous said...

gosh!! you are long winded and boring!

Anonymous said...

P.P.P.P.P.P.S: This part is copied from another blog! :p

Spunky Monkey said...

PNG - Of course, there is intellect. That it should stick to a credo that goes "I wear Fab India and I Spend All Day In Koshy's And Then Head To That Art Gallery by Java City On Church Street", is what makes it all super-contrived and takes away any actual intellect there may be and adds a prefix that is invariably 'pseudo-', no?
It's like a syllabus these guys follow. And it's not even a practical one. All those places are so frikkin expensive!

Anon - I am, no? I know.

Arjun Sharma said...

"Hess, taking many bows. I will win Sita someday."

He he, ee joke pedd-peddhangiddrunu, I am liking it.

Black singing bird alla heliddu nange; the other bird, who has a blogworld cwush(see her blog) on you. Malaveeka.

And yes, pseudo-intelligentsia 'junta' are extremely boring. Even more so than aam junta(according to Suresh Venkat, mango people).

hangar18 said...

saaar ...
dooodd namaskaara ..
(big namaskara..? )
i have met few like u ( if u call reading ur blog as meeting:))
and i thought everyone read chetan bhagat to be cool! I know a lot of folks who said ... ohhh I completely relate to it since I studied in IIT.. ok was that a way to tell us where u studied or were u actualyl commenting on teh book .. similarly with the alchemist .. "have u read that?? God .. u should read it" :)
btw .. is the long hair still on ... and does John's still have the autumn muse fest..?

Anonymous said...

absolutely love your posts!!

Anonymous said...

Idhoo late anthaa gotthu, but idhoo super super posts anthaa helakke barithidhini.
Long-winded it may be be, but that's only because it knocks the wind out of most chaps who read it. So the numerous gushing comments seem to indicate, at least.
P.S: I write in as 'anonymous' for it is what I am--for the most part. I have no blog to name, no monkey that is spunky, and no poetry to act pretentious about. Does that not usher me directly in the Halls Of They Who Have Not Been Named? 'swalpa adjjushtu maadi' is the only refrain that rings around here.