The Unbearableness of Being.

Like someone said, we are the children of nothing.
There's no great war that defined our resilience, when we could all break out in choruses of Vande Mataram with Hemant Kumar's music.
No great depression that tested our perseverance, when we could end up writing films and having Henry Fonda clench his jaw and say what were apparently words.
No freedom struggle, when we could sing Ekla cholo re while going to the bathroom and feel we are part of something larger.
No counter culture movement, when we could pretend we loved Joan Baez and Jefferson Airplane, and spout invective while high on God alone knows what.
No Emergency, (unless you count my 15 day stint tainted with blood and gore), when we could shuffle around in Kurtas and feel important, all the while thinking what the fuck has JP Morgan to do with any of this jail business.

Agreed we have the internet and free porn and sites to download free music from, but what good is it when I am stuck in the hospital 25 hours a day?
Agreed we have reality shows we could cry hoarse about and be known as the voice of India, if you know what I mean (of course you do); but Derek O'Brien is doing that already anyway.
Agreed we have Global Warming and Al Gore and electric cars and Leo DiCaprio, but that is like 12,ooo miles away.
Agreed we have the Beijing Olympics and the prospect of a Tienanmen square, but what chances that Jeff Widener pops up there and I get to be The Unknown Rebel? I am sure Dermatology wouldn't give me permission to so much as go to Byatarayanapura, let alone go to Beijing and face a bunch of tanks.
Agreed we have cloning, but have you heard a name beyond Dolly? Agreed we have the Spirit and the Opportunity too, but we would get to Mars sooner than we would get Deve Gowda dead, which is never.

So really, nothing defines us, unless you want to call us The Undefined and sound like a Clint Eastwood film, which is never a good thing. Do these bomb blasts define us? No, they don't. They just define Breaking News, in a weird literal way.

I represent nothing. I represent nobody. We are all a motley crowd defined by nothing new. Do not even get me started on the iPhone.
As an intern in a big medical college hospital, I am a bottom dweller. There is nobody beyond me on this side. And there was a time I used to say the exact same words, and feel exactly the opposite. I take orders from people who are aberrations in the concept of evolution, from people who are human mutations of the bird species that went extinct in Mauritius.
I listen and nod when they say they write fan mail to Chetan Bhagat.
I nod along when they listen to "We got a little world of our own" in the Emergency Room and say Rock is so awesome.
I laugh my head off when we are trying to resuscitate a patient three heartbeats away from death and the radio in the ER screams "Kolle nannanne..." (Kill me).
I sometimes get confused about the meal I am having. Supper, lunch, dinner, breakfast, snack... all different words for the same thing - Carbohydrates. Much like us interns. Roger, Rohan, Romeela, Rusvan, fair, tall, dark, blonde, white, Kannadiga, Slovakian, Herzegovinian, Kongaati, all boundaries get blurred. It's always a nameless, faceless, pair of legs that locomotes, and carries with it a pair of hands that can write, and a pair of vocal cords that says "Yes, ma'am" to the call of "Intern, go bang head against wall."
I have come to hate people, because people always have something to say, and it invariably involves central lab, biochemistry lab, microbiology lab, biopsy reports.
I am traipsing a path dangerously close to both insanity and indifference. It's tragic that I don't stick to one side.

There is so much I can tell you all about how disgusting and how exhilarating being in a hospital could be. The transition between the two does not take longer than two seconds at times. But that's for another post another time. Or for another book, which, going by my atrophied brain status would be called something as imaginative as The Devil Wears A Stethoscope or something.
For now, I gotta run. There is some PG throwing super convulsions because I did not get some report (that nobody gives a shit about anyway).
Oh yes, I am stealing somebody's internet right here in college. Suck on it, medico bitches.

The travails, the travesty, and other such trash.
Ah, internship.


P.S.: The initial bit had nothing to do with anything. I just love Tyler Durden.

P.P.S.: Thanks for all the mail. I am, erm, good. How are you?