Anecdotes and Reminiscences

ANECDOTES - From Sany

TC instructed me to forward a few anecdotes. Many of ours pertain to our first day, the first tonsuring, Fresher Term, Second term, the trauma of First MBBS examinations, bunking classes, otherwise perfectly normal pals scooting off to Girls' Hostel every evening beginning one fine day without warning, BB week, Mains, Coffee House, Festivals, learning to drink, Socials' "behind the scenes" stuff.

This will take the form of reminiscences with a few anecdotes.

.........................................................................................................................

The Telegram which changed my life

"Admission offered subject to medical fitness (AAA) Report not later than Sep 20 (AAA) Forcemedcol Pune"

I thought AFMC was calling out to me. AAA.

The next afternoon, I was on the Minar Express from Bhubaneswar, and reached Pune at 0200 hrs after a day and a half on the train. Little did I know then that my being a Bong from Orissa was in itself going to be complete justification of being ragged with some ferocity.

.........................................................................................................................

“You are my LG Sir. I am?”

My medical examination started off with me meeting Surajit Ghatak and Shiv Kumar Gupta the day I reached Pune.

I started off by filling the AFMSF-2 incorrectly. To the question “Have you ever had seizures/ fits?”

I replied “Yes”. I hadn’t had seizures or fits, but I had fainted once or twice. The NCO who was detailed to take us along to the various departments, God bless him, took the form away saying “Ye kya kar rahe ho? Yahaan “No” likho” and gave me a new form to fill.

Dept of Medicine. While walking in the corridor, I noticed boards hanging outside doors, giving the names of officers and their designations. I noticed that a fair share of them were Bongs. I have no idea of badges of ranks.

Anyhow. After a while.

Me lying in my undies on an examination couch in an office.

Med Specialist auscultating.

Suddenly, “Chh chh chh”.

I might have asked What?

You have a murmur. You are unfit.

What does that even mean? I hadn’t even heard the words “U Batch” yet.

Get off the couch and put on your clothes.

Do you have an LG?

Yes Sir.

Who?

Col “So and So” (Bong name I had just seen in the corridor outside) Sir.

He is your LG? Wait here.

The Specialist walks out.

The NCO pokes his head inside the room and asks “Kya Hua? Fit?” I shake my head. He is very disappointed. Now he will have to do this with yet another chap all over again.

I am in turmoil. To come so far, just to learn that I have a cardiac murmur, and return home? This cannot be the script, I think. God would not be so unkind. It’s going to be alright, I tell myself. A peace comes over me. I have never felt anything close to it since.

Then, in walks an officer along with the man who had just examined me and declared that I was not fit to join AFMC.

Who is he?

Candidate sir, unfit. Has a murmur.

Oh.

Sir, he says you are his LG.

Who is your LG, son?

Col “So and So” Sir.

That’s me!

You are my LG Sir.

I am?

Long silence. He is mature enough to know that any questions about this are going to make me look like a fool, and doesn’t do so.

Come to my office, he says.

I get up and make to move into the corridor in that state of undress. He stops me, tells me to wear my clothes, and come across to his office.

I lie down on the examination couch in his office. He auscultates my chest. Asks questions. Where are you from, do you play games, that sort of thing. Takes my BP, feels my Pulse.

Get up. Come with me. We enter the office where I had been declared unfit.

He is fit, no murmur.

Sir, I can’t write fit.

My LG turns around to face me. Do you have forty rupees, he asks. I say I do.

He makes as if to fish his wallet out of his pocket. Do something, go with the NCO, deposit this forty rupees, he says, counting ten rupee notes, one, two, three, four, that’s the fee for a medical review. Come back, I will do the review. Okay? Don't worry.

Sir, in that case, I will write fit.

Okay. Let’s do an ECG first.

ECG done, all okay.

And it was done.

....................................................................

First Day.

I got through the medicals along with Ghatak and SK Gupta.

If there was to be a nickname called PC Last, I would be given it.

I remember the first day I landed up in the Hostel with my stuff after paying the bills in the Accounts Office. It was time for lunch, and as I stood on the corridor of 6-Ground-Triples, I saw a long line of clean-shaven and nearly tonsured boys, wearing aprons, filing through the gate into the Hostel. 

I had no idea who they were until I noticed to my horror that as they passed by they were looking down with their heads parallel to the floor and wishing me a Good Afternoon. Terrified that they may later recognize me as their last in the lot of batchmates, I fled into the Visitor's Room.

However, before that, I registered 2 or 3 faces, just so I could say in later years as to who among my batchmates I had seen first (apart from Ghatak and Gupta). As days passed, I learnt the names of everybody, but the guys who wished me a good afternoon that day were Tanmoy Roy, Vimal Virmani, and Sanjay Suri. If they read this, they may still beat me up. 

Inside the Visitor's Room, I chanced upon a few old copies of Dhanvatari. I started flipping through the pages and noticed nice poems by someone called Sanjeet Narang. Okay, I thought, I could give it a try and hope to be published. (A couple of years later, I came to be involved in a bigger way, with that magazine)

After a while, a big, burly man poked his head inside the room and started a conversation.

"Excuse me?"

"Yes?"

"Good afternoon"

"Good afternoon"

"Are you joining this college, please?"

"Yes, I am"

"Is anybody there with you? Parents, LG?"

"No"

"BLOODY FRESHER, OUTSIDE!! ON THE DOUBLE, ***H***, START ROLLING, ROLL UP THE BLOODY STAIRS, YOU ******, ********"

After a long time of trying unsuccessfully to front roll up the stairs, and being called various names, I was told that it was time for me to go shave. “Shave everything.”

In a while, Tanmoy came to me and helped me with my luggage to his room, 6 Top 4 (??). He has always been like this.

.........................................................................................................

Poor Form

During a football match at home in our fresher term, we were ordered to rush into the field in our NCC uniforms and disrupt an inter-college football match being played to protest a goal said to have been scored from an off-side position against us. The goal was good.

I put one foot into the ground and stepped back, and was roundly ragged later for doing so.

Anyway, AFMC was banned for 2 years for that extremely unsportsmanlike behaviour.

It took 2 years away from our lives. By the time we entered the inter-college arena again, we were learning from scratch. That’s the only regret I have about those days. If only one could go back in time to that point, and disobey that awful command en-masse.

........................................................................................................

“First MBBS prelims results”

I did not go to check.

We were in 3 Mid 1. My roommates, Achy and Ghatak, both light years ahead academically, and inseparable buddies, did.

The first letters of our surnames, Ghatak, Acharya, Sanyal, formed G-A-S.

3 Mid 1 was The Gas Chamber. My roomies went to D Mess. There is an important association here.

That day, I caught them when they returned from College with the Anat marks.

Obviously I don’t remember the conversation verbatim, but words and spirit were to the following effect.

What happened man?

Achy: Hee hee hee hee!!!

Bol na kee hoeche? Paash???

Ghatak: Hah hah hah haaaaa!!!

Abe hua kya hai?

They were through. But me?

Both in unison: Ha ha ha ha ha hahhh haa haaa!!!

My heart sank.

Achy: “Sany, seventeen marks, man. Seventeen! Hee hee hee hee, hee!!!!”

Ghatak: “Ha ha ha ha ha, chal koi nahi, ragdega to nikal jaaega.”

Me: “Ha ha ha ha ha ha !!!!”

Achy (shaking his head, wiping tears): “Hee hee heeeeeee!!!!!!”

........................................................................................................

Sunday Photoshoot

When we were in U Block, one lazy Sunday afternoon, I dropped into Shanks room. I think we went up to U Block super top and suddenly decided to go take pictures of our Hostel. There is a picture of us standing next to a water tank on U supertop that day.

The sky was light blue, some clouds in it, a typical idyllic Sunday when one decided that that was the day one would do nothing. Except that there were a lot of things in the Hostel that could be better. Overflowing loos, trees growing from walls, wire boxes open and overflowing, inept housekeeping. So we upped and about.

We finished the photoshoot within a few hours, and went and got the pictures developed in Art Studio in Mains, which has shut shop now.

After we got the prints, we felt that that the pictures were worth being displayed in

the Hobbies Exhibition. When we went to take permission from Col PS Coudhury to

do so, he said that he was “glad there were some students like us in the college, bc”,

and gave us his blessings. I fancy I saw his eyes slightly moist as he turned away.

The title of the feature were lyrics of one of the Beatles numbers. (I forget which). Captions were descriptive of the rot. Although we loved our little world, it could be better.

There was a tug of war right away. Col SKP Matwankar, Training Officer, insisted that the exhibit be taken down. It was anti-establishment.

The GS was threatened with dire consequences if the exhibit was removed. It stayed.

A compromise of sorts was reached. The feature was placed in a poorly lit corner of the exhibition hall.

The Southern Army Commander was Chief Guest. The standard method of going through an exhibition ensued after his arrival. The College Brass walked behind him. He would look at an exhibit, appear to like it, go to another exhibit, pause a while, then move forward. It was as if a person “walks through” a room, but with the sensitivity which is deserved, given the occasion.

When he came to our corner, we had him to ourselves. He halted, rooted to the spot. Very interested. We trained a torch beam on each picture for as long as we wished, and he understood what we were trying to say, and why the feature had been relegated to that spot.

Shanks and I instantly got miles on the wrong side of Mattu.

We had antagonised Mattu without meaning to do so, but since it had already happened, we didn’t really care that much. It was as if he had taken our photo feature in the exhibition as a personal affront, which it was not intended to be, primarily. It surprised us a bit. However, the fact that we had elicited that reaction from him meant that “the establishment” was not happy. And therefore, we were happy.

It may be a slim coincidence, that the Army Commander expressed the desire to visit the Hostel shortly afterwards.

A year later, after our POP, before leaving AFMC, Shanks and I went to his office for the “final finger”. We entered his office without headgear. (This actually did nothing for Shanks since he was in the Navy and was expected to salute without headgear.) Neither of us saluted. He saw that we were being cheeky. We told him that we were leaving.

Mattu said, “Shankar you have joined the Navy, but Sanyal, one day you will serve under me.”

Bliss.

........................................................................................................