AFMC: A pupation
chamber
Arrival: The first few days at college are a
blur of psychic defense and are lost to me. I remember with clarity waving
goodbye to my mother and other members of her family at the packed, strident
and colorful Patna Junction railway station, typical of Indian railway stations
dotted all over the third trimester of 20th century India; dusty,
loud, colorful, daring, intriguing and yet embracing. When I opened my eyes
from the musings of where and whom, I was shorn, dressed in white shirt, black
trousers, black tie, and facing a long corridor with excited looking strangers
none of whom looked welcoming.
A new family: I bedded in 6Top6. It struck me that
this number sounded ominous. My roommates for the first month were Anupam
Agarwal and AV Ramesh, decent enough looking guys, but they decided after a
month to vacate my hospitality, and swapped rooms for more convivial company.
AV escaped the flavor of the period of being gifted a pseudonym and Anupam
became ‘Lona’.
My new roomies were different, and we
fit like a warm, ill-fitting glove. Anupam Kapur, later to be titled ‘Jackie,
heck knows when this happened’ and Sunjay Muttreja, AKA ‘Muttu’ became a
delightful bed of fiends, loud in music, creative in bunking classes, generous
in sharing food, and stories, and the vital ingredients to surviving the rag,
the infamous rag! It really wasn’t so bad though. I felt like a circus clown
with my British accent, which did no favors to me. It didn’t hurt that the rest
of 6Top was equally as energetic, and psychologically unchained, and fond
memories of raids of the sugar cane fields are burned in my memories. I moved
on from my first family after a few terms, but they returned to my life later
during post college years.
I meandered in a relatively disorganized
manner through college, gaining friends and memories. Education came in
different forms. I remember with excitement the anticipation of intercollege
festivals, the BB week, the elections, and the return from holidays. I resisted
the cliques and camps of groups and freely enjoyed the tang of youthful dorm
living.
My favorite moments: A patchwork
of beige uniform, shiny brass epaulettes, maroon ties, brown scratched (some
colorfully eloquent and funny) elbow leans of lecture halls, hot sun, red pagdis
of the sardars in the batch, puffed out and airy salwars of our ‘U’ ladies, desperately
sweetened nimbu pani, the cool breezes of tired summer nights by the ‘U’block
redi’ owned by now deceased ‘Omni’.
I remember the trick affectionately
played on me by CM Shreedhar and Damber Nirola, (whose painting of a seascape
from a TIME magazine still hangs at my home in Washington DC), which led me on a
ticketless ride to Madras for the Mardi Gras. This was so weird, spontaneous,
and emotional that I even recall the dream 30 years or so later from that week.
Memories of a wilder trip, mad with irresponsible ooze, to Bihar where I
reached my ancestral village, where I had never lived, at midnight sometime in
4th term, with a green eyed, and piquant partner in Sanjay Muttreja.
There are numerus such memories of trips across the country on AFMC time, with
guys and some of the young ladies. All were GOOD! Education came in different
ways.
Hang outs: The usual haunts, barring the lecture halls.
Those were such austere and colorless places.
1st to 4th
term, SP Muttreja, A Kapur, 6T guys, Manjinder guys, Sunjay Angresh, Sunjay
Bhasin, alias nunni, and others of 6T, P.K.Sharma, P. Jauhari, Achy, T. Roy.
5th term to the end, Gagan
Narula, who was a cool roomie with a talent on the strings and an inveterate
cigarette cadger, like any one had cigs for free!, fearless N. Ramakrishnan,
also known as San who partnered many adventures, and N.R. Tuli,
Post college:
The last day at college was
incontestably the saddest day of my Poona period. I was despondent dispirited,
and pathetically lonely for the first month post college. I however found a
jewel of U batch in Bombay who saved my sanity in those hours between Nair and
Ashvini, in the form of RP Chauhan. I had probably spoken to him 2 times in
college, but he became a lifeline during the desolate post AFMC world. Anupam
Kapur, Sunjay Muttreja and the Ashvini crowd became a sanctuary for me. I had an
Air force family member in Colaba whose house I would arrive at for the weekend
daytime, but would leave for the evening entertainment at Ashvini.
I left India for good in 1989 and
worked thereafter at several UK hospitals, until 1993 when I started a MSc/ PhD
fellowship stint in Neurology, at Charing cross and Westminster Med School,
London. I left this for the US phase in 1995, where I completed a residency at
Wayne State University in Detroit, Mi, where I also had the pleasure of
spending time with Suba, and Jigme Sethi ‘S’, and followed this with a
fellowship at Duke University in NC.
I am now a Neurologist practicing in
Metropolitan Washington DC. I couldn’t think of a more stimulating field for my
psyche. I have achieved like most of us, all I wished for academically, and am
busy enjoying a fulfilling family life.
Personal life: I fell in love
for the penultimate time to Aphrodite in Bombay during the internship.
Impetuous and unrestrained, we married in 1991, and have swung in the same
hammock since.
In 2004, an even more beautiful girl
entered my life, and I plan on a long term relationship with her (unless she
becomes a fiscal liberal)
Hobbies, what d’I
like!
Travels. The next 20 years of my life
I plan to cover the globe as much as I possibly can
Objectively scrutinizing and studying
the neurological growth of a millennial
Collecting contemporary art!
Finally It was my fortune that I walked into
AFMC, to become part of the most productive, giving, and intellectually gifted
group I have had the pleasure to witness and meet in my career. It is my hope
that this little brood glows bright in this world, and grows in stature in
their respective fields. I am truly, incredibly proud of this little group, and
grateful to providence for this opportunity.
May god, or for you atheists, earth
or genes bless!
Nirjal Nikhar, ‘61’, 2577
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