Last Class Trip. Missed!

I am going to miss my class-trip.

I can’t believe my timing…Neither can my friends

When I told some of my close friends that I wouldn’t be making it coz I was going out-station the same day as the trip, many of them just laughed.

And when I assured them that I wasn’t kidding, they laughed even more. They think I’m joking.
They’re like: “Who will miss the trip- You? Hah-hah, we know you’re coming.”

You see, I’m always counted-in - by default. Any head-count and I get counted-in automatically, and THEN asked later.

So if/when I have to refuse, this is what happens- I get disbelief.

Which makes the "saying-“-sorry-I’m-not-coming-”-experience even more bitter for me. This is what happened today.

I already felt like crap for not being able to make it to the trip, but when I finally told people I wasn’t going, I got incredulity and doubt…It was assumed I was coming anyway. Slit skin, insert salt, rub…

But this class-trip is a bit more significant than the others- It JUST MIGHT be my batch’s last trip together. Sure, the guys will go to Goa once, but it isn’t the same as having the entire class along.

Once the results are out, I can already see people rushing headlong into Internship. The studious ones will start their PG-entrance-exam preparations, many will join practitioners as assistants, a few will arse about…. a few won’t even make it into Internship! But Interns are Interns…(and Repeaters are Repeaters) and those left out of Internship for 6months will get no sympathy- life will just rolllll on.

There’s another reason why I so badly longed…YEARNED…to go on this trip. You see, I don’t really see myself passing all my papers this time... (something I have no problem admitting as such). And once the results are out, most of my batch is going to carry straight on, with a ho-hum, into Internship, while I get left behind till March.

…and “Before-Results” is going to be the only time that I will be seen as an equal amongst classmates. “After-Results”, well…it’s the reason I want to go on this trip with my entire batch, before the results come.

(PS: Arrrgh! Life is going to be unforgiving- It’s frustrating at times to know this and still be helpless…..Shit, this is kind of ‘negative’ blogging that a missed class-trip brings on! Hope my bad mojo doesn’t stick!)

(PS2: There's a song which comes to mind now...a Kenny Rogers number: "You Picked a fine time to leave me Lucille..." hehe)

A short story i wrote yesterday....

G.O.C= General Officer Commanding, a very very high ranking officer in the Army, who usually heads an entire Corps or a enitre Command sector...usually of the rank of Lieutenant General or a Major General.
Flag Staff House= The residence of the G.O.C is traditionally called Flagstaff House.
Captain= The juniormost rank (Outside of the Academy- where the Officer is comissioned, and within which he wears the rank of Lieutenant)
Patiala= You dont know THIS???? Fugg off and educate yourself here. It's a nice story about the Patiala Peg!
Lidocaine= A local-anaesthetic your dentist gives you, usually as an injection.
Anyway, here goes....

QUITE AN IMPRESSION

A shadowy figure padded its way through Flagstaff House making its way to the cabinet that held the foreign scotch. A Patiala was hurriedly poured and gulped down. The glass nestled in the clammy hands of a man who had spent a lifetime marshalling anxious subordinates around, and who was now deeply distressed that he could not marshal his own anxieties.

A few more sips later, and considerably less anxious, he remembered a trusted maxim from his days in the Academy- ‘The best defense is a good offense’. Indeed, the figure thought, tomorrow, an impression would be made. He would show who was Alpha Male.

Hardly a furlong away, Srini’s roommate walked in to find him sitting amidst by a sea of books. The G.O.C was coming, he was told, and that Captain Srinivas hoped to make a favorable impression on the big man.

The next morning, the G.O.C was received at the steps of the Dental Center and briskly escorted to the office for tea and snacks. It would help, thought Capt. Srinivas, to establish a congenial Patient-Doctor relationship.

“No time, No time…Lets get down to the deed right away.” the GOC declared. Immediately, he was escorted into Surgery-I, and made comfortable in the Dental Chair.

“I’m just going to give you a small shot sir, it shouldn’t hurt at all.” Capt. Srinivas said cheerily.

“I should certainly hope not.” the G.O.C informed him.

The injection loaded with local-anesthetic trembled slightly in the Captain’s hand. After a deep breath, he proceeded to administer the Lidocaine.

The G.O.C merely grunted and calmly closed his eyes.

“I’d prefer it if you kept your eyes open, sir, it helps to gauge reaction.” Capt. Srinivas said, a bit warily.

There was no response and the eyes shut even tighter.

Injection finished, the Captain moved to pick up the new pair of German Forceps he had had rushed in.

The G.O.C opened his eyes wide this time, stared at the polished steel and quietly reverted to his mother tongue.

A shudder passed through the Captain’s thin frame.

A few deft rotations later, a bit of traction and the tooth was out. Like a proud father, Captain Srinivas held up the bloodied forceps holding an equally bloody molar in its beaks, covered with bits of tissue and a few spicules of bone, for the G.O.C to see. It was precisely at this point that things began to go rapidly downhill.

The G.O.C took one look at the gore being thrust towards him and fought back a fresh wave of nausea and decided the best thing to do was to go ahead and faint. A few moments later Captain Srinivas burst out of the surgery and told the Attendant, “I think I’ve made the G.O.C unconscious.” And then promptly collapsed.

15mins later, in the Recovery Room, both the G.O.C and Captain Srinivas gazed at each other solemnly from neighboring beds. Neither spoke, but both were united in thought.

They had, each realized, made quite an impression on the other.

By,
Dinesh Francis

B'lore- boom/bust?

Bangalore today is on this upward spiral largely because of IT.
The cosmopolitan flavor is largely due the massive influx of techies into the city…hundreds upon hundreds of Software Engineers descend on the city every month.
And Bangalore absorbs them all…

”2BHK, Running Water, Tiled flooring, Exorbitant Rent included”…sure, it’ll get lapped right up; the company’s paying for it!

One need only drive along Sarjapur Road, or Airport Road, or Whitefield, or whatever-halli to realize that a there is a new Bangalore coming up in the hinterland of Bangalore. Apartment complexes soar skyward, clustered like concrete warriors on either side of the road. They are occupied by the hyper-nuclear families of Bangalore: Single child, Double-income, Multi-lingual, Poly-cultural households, who pay upwards of 25lakhs for their humble abodes.

If Bangalore was once a svelte woman, it has now assumed the features of double-chinned, blubbery biped. Instead of maintaining a core city-area, with a central-business-district, the city balloons outward rapidly, reportedly at the rate of a Kilometer-A-Day! What was once a compact city-district, is now urban-sprawl. The cities planners have failed hopelessly to bring a semblance of order to the city’s growth, and thus unchecked construction continues, with a peripheral bearing, rather than central city.

Why people continue to use the byname “Garden City” perplexes me... Greenery exists, I do acknowledge, within the old city-limits, and that too is gradually getting replaced by concrete-jungle. While in the outskirts of the city, there is no greenery to speak of. Manicured lawns within apartment complexes do not constitute leafage. The outskirts of the city are dusty, treeless places. Only the overgrown shrubs in the odd empty-plot of land remain.

That the city is bursting at it seams is all too evident from a drive along the cities roads. Disposable salaries fuel automotive spending, and the frequent traffic jams are a testament to this. The roads are bad, and narrow, and the constricted fly-over’s that are offered as the solution hardly suffice. The Traffic Police too is chronically understaffed - Bangalore has the worst ratio of Police-personnel per 1000 of population, and is consequently hopelessly ineffective.

The Standard-of-Living in the city has reached stratospheric proportions…what was once considered a ‘pensioners-paradise’ is now a high-priced city. Loose purse-strings go hand-in-hand with good time and “Well-heeled is Wel-come” seems to be the message every shop shouts out.

Its turning ugly fast, and to arrest mutation of Bangalore something needs to be done…and quick.

Collective Chaos - the muted adventure.

Ok, I finally have finished my exams. My last exam was yesterday. Since our class takes the exams as 2 batches on 2 consecutive days, there isn’t really any point celebrating on the 1st day since half the class still hasn’t finished.

So, for want of something to do in the evening, I decided to go checkout Collective Chaos. Now CC, is part-forum for budding young filmmakers, part-film-society which arranges weekly screenings of alternative cinema. How I know this? Because its on the website… beyond that, I know nothing. I first learnt about it on the college bulletin-board, and was told it was a nice place to go if one liked art-movies etc…and that further details could be obtained ‘at-venue’.

Also, CC is on Millers Road…really quite close to home. And the weekly screening is on a Friday, a day I usually find myself quite bored in the evenings anyway. I’ve been putting off a check-out-visit for a long time now, and I decided it would be a nice tension-release after the exam.


So yesterday I went to CC. I walked into the Cinematheque…it’s on the 5th floor. I’m 10mins late and so I’m not surprised to see a lone guard sitting near the door, and no one else around. I confirm I’m at the right place and walk on in.

The show must’ve started and that’s why there’s no one around, I figure. So I walk past the heavy sound proof doors and enter a smaller-than-expected auditorium. The lights are off and there’s a overhead projector on, playing a foreign-language movie with English sub-titles.

So, I take a seat. There are people all around me engrossed in the movie, but the glow off the screen isn’t enough to make out any details. I’m trying to make out the company I’m in….young/old? College/working? Serious/informal? I can’t make out anything, so I stop staring out of the corner of my eyes and pay attention to the screen.


The movie is called “Blackboards”, and is about a teacher who carries his blackboard with him everywhere, high in the Afghan mountains, persuading the boys who run the illegal paths through the mountains to Iraq to smuggle contraband to let him teach them. They’re obviously disinterested.

It’s a bleak landscape, and plenty of gallows humor. Still no one watching laughs, mumbles or says anything. It’s really weird. No one talks. No cell phones going off. No one getting up in between. Nothing.

Then suddenly the movie is over. The kids get shot as they’re crawling amidst a large flock of wooly sheep past the border guard. Still nothing. No shocked gasps. No whispers to the neighbour. There’s a pause. Then people start getting up and leaving.

No one’s talking much. People move out in groups of 2’s and 3’s. Outside, the volume is not much higher than it was inside. People quietly read the circular about next weeks movie, and move off.

The whole experience was absolutely surreal…like one of those weird dreams when things only ‘happen’ and no one talks. Like an out-of-body experience. I walked away feeling a bit numbed by the whole thing.

It was such a weird experience that I’m going back next week.

The 1st Years Chronicles/KU64 Review

A new batch of juniors has unceremoniously been inducted into the Bachelor’s programme at my college even as I write my final exams finishing 4 years at Dental-School.

Watching them troop down from one lecture hall to the other; they walk around the corridors, unsure of themselves, looking this way and that, eagerly absorbing the sights of a busy teaching-college.

Only yesterday, it seems, I too was one of them, just a “plus-two-pass”, eager and excited to begin the next big phase of my life. I can’t help but be envious of them.

It’s almost comical when they cross us in the corridors. While most of them fail to make the distinction between Patient and Senior, a few of them are already vaguely conscious of a hierarchy they are a part of…and they indicate this awareness by developing an uncomfortable stiffness as they cross us. Plus shifty eyes, and quickened pace. Nothing could delight us more.

KU64

It isn't a movie about a mystery airplane. It isn't a crack commando regiment. It isn't a super-secret molecule that can kill millions. It isn't a map-reference to a hidden bunker. It isn't a elite spy's code-name. It isnt a German U-Boat.

It's a Dental Clinic.
Make that, The World's Coolest Dental Clinic.
And its in Germany.

So, Maybe a dentist with some secret fascination with WW-II submarines decided to name his clinic KU-64?
Not really, it's named after its Kurfursendam address in Berlin.


Check out some pics of the place. The whole place is about 'light, space, freedom'...and YELLOW!

Here you combine dental treatment with a luxurious relaxing spa-retreat...

And relax in a 10,180-square-feet spread.......(Must be easy to get lost!!!)

It accommodates 8-fuck-lucky-dentists at one time...

Who probably treat beautiful hotties...all day long.

LUCKY BUMS!