A tale of two mothers ft. working or home-maker?!

Like every regular day, twitter got embroiled in a soup once again – this time over the opinion about the superiority of home makers over working mothers by a certain supposedly well read doctor – and it got me wondering about my own experience with mothers. Plural.

To be born into a household that was on the cusp of radicalized millennial changes in the small town of Rourkela back in 90s, thanks to two extremely well educated parents who had not only been state toppers but also made sure to study in blue blood institutions in engineering and medicine respectively, my upbringing could be at best progressive (Caution: In certain things). Where everyone in my school was asked, “What is the occupation of your father?”, I was among the rare few who could excitedly chip in – My mum is an Obstetrician and Gynaecologist! (With extreme difficulty in pronouncing obstetrics, so going from obstet..trix..tics.. to O&G eventually). People stared in awe, and I would chuckle on the outside but be completely clueless about the implications of the same since I had a lot of grievances because of the same since my mother was doing post graduation and had to live away from us for her residency program in my growing up years.

All the girls in my primary school used to come bearing beautiful plaits, powdered faces and crisp uniforms ironed to the thread. Yet, no one would comb my hair leave alone putting it into a plait. My skirts would be horribly oversized due to the dud estimation of my dad who either believed his daughter was smaller than she was rapidly growing into being or larger if the previous size didn’t fit perfectly. I wouldn’t know what face powder was, but carry my smudged chubby cheeks around with nonchalance. My tiffin had chips everyday while I used to crave other boxes for the condiments in it. Despite being a hooligan in my neighbourhood, I was scared to shit in the school with the girls towering over me with double the height and would get bullied everyday. They found me weird, but I couldn’t help tell them I found them weirder. What do you mean your mom stays at home and is available for you every time? You get to hug your mom? She helps you with your homework? She makes hot food for you? I pined.

But where I did not have my own mother, I had god’s favourite angel in the form of my aunt – My beloved Maa. She took charge of me from the day I was in my diapers and crawling around the house. Her hands weaved magic in food even though she knew zilch about arithmetic and English. She couldn’t help me with my homework but she taught me all the shlokas and made me meditate everyday for 20 minutes to tame the tempest in me. She couldn’t see a single flaw in me and I could literally imagine a halo on head everywhere she walked. She would never force me to eat vegetables, and I could chomp on it to glory as my grandfather and father protested in the back. I might not have my mother to hug but I could snuggle up to my Maa quietly when she was asleep and fall asleep to her rhythmic rise and fall of her breath. She was a god fearing woman and with her I learnt all the scriptures and the ways to do pooja perfectly. I got my religion from her which eventually transformed to spirituality in adulthood, yet my belief in her prayers remained more than my belief in god.

When my mom finished her post-graduation and senior residency to come back, there was a chasm that couldn’t be filled. To put it plainly, I did not know her. I did not know or bond with my own mother. She became the person who I would see for the first few hours of the day, only to disappear and then return in the night – by when we would be done with our food and preparing to sleep or well asleep. My world revolved around the constants I recognized to not make effort for the variables again. My mother gave up as well. We welcomed my younger sibling, who again went through the same chasm of having an extremely busy mother with a roaring practice – and she inevitably became my kid. I had to wipe her poop, change her diapers, teach her how to walk, ride and eat (though I stole her last bite of chocolate and food).

Time passed, I went through the raging teens and reached the crucial board years – 10th boards. My father had scolded me again because I had performed poorly in my mock and didn’t do as well as the neighbour’s kid. I locked myself in the room wondering what was the best possible route to run away to the Himalayas – when my extremely tired mother after work came in with a bunch of new notebooks in her hand, extremely fancy highlighters, pen and three review books she had purchased for Board preparations. She smiled and kept all of it on my table. I had a rush of endorphins as my weakest spot had been hit – new Stationery! She sat down on the bed next to my table and charted out a study plan. Since my mum returned home at 10:30pm from hospital we would finish dinner by 11 and then sit down to study from 11pm to 2am with one hour each for Physics, Chemistry and Biology. Morning hours were for all the other subjects I liked and could manage on my own with a target set for 100 arithmetic problems for Mathematics every day. Thus began my preparatory month for Boards. Mum would come drained from work but come with a flask of her handmade coffee for me, sit down with the newspaper or a book or a magazine on the bed in my room sometimes reading, half sleeping while I studied away to glory. At sharp 1 she would leave to sleep while I would either sleep or continue solving problems blasting the radio on earphones till wee mornings. When everyone would wake up and see me burning the midnight oil they would be shocked while I would chuckle at their concern. Slowly I was getting familiar with my mother, I could notice the lines on her face from stress, the softness with which she would explain topics to me without getting cranky like my dad, she never hit me once but would always have a kind word for every obstacle I got stuck in. Slowly, I grew familiar with my own mother. On the day of board exams my Maa fed me curd with sugar while my Mamma gave a big bar of dairy milk (A tradition that would long continue from 10th to 12th to multiple entrances, MBBS professional examinations and MS). The day I got my results and secured 94% I started crying and my mom who was sitting beside me started laughing- “Why are you crying?”

“Because I did so poorly. I should have been first no?”

She laughed and patted me, “I think you did very well. Be happy for your success”, and then with every happy call she made telling friends and relatives my percentage I got more assured of her belief in me.

Time passed. We went through my boards, the decisiveness of entrances where I didn’t know what to become and was just winging it weighing my options of joining NIT or medicine but was clueless about the branches in engineering leave alone becoming an engineer. My path had been carefully laid out to become a doctor since childhood with there being none on the paternal side, but once I crossed the gate of medical college an entire wave of realization came dawning over me. I flunked in my first test and called my mom crying – “Mamma, I am so dumb. How can I become a doctor?”

My mom laughed that day as well borrowing a leaf from her experience – every topper in school feels dumb in medical college. You are not alone. It’s just onward and upward from here.

Being compared to my mom in every lecture and barraged with questions from my professors made me realize the legacy I was trying to live up to. Yet when I went home everyday (being a day scholar) I saw the humility with which my mom led her life and fell more in awe of her. From dealing with my failures to seeing me secure double honors, to seeing my issues in friendships to giving me the green light to relationships – my mom gave the flight to my wings till she couldn’t restrict me within her protected environment anymore. I rebelled and did my MS in Karnataka and continued with fellowship in Bangalore. Where a carpet of flowers awaited me to takeover my mother’s practice with the reputation and hard work over the years, I tolerate corporate politics, the struggle of breaking into a closeted field as a first generation doctor in head and neck Oncosurgery in a different world. Every week I work for 96 hours or more, I am on call most of the time and I skip meals left, right and center – and every time I realize the sacrifices and lifestyle my mother led when I used to judge her for not spending time with me. In my personal and professional challenges having such a well educated mother has given me a broader perspective on every doubt I have and let me explore things in a rational way. She is among the few I do not have to explain my lifestyle to, because she knows. While people get offended thinking I do not give them time because I have progressed in life, my mother understands the pitfalls of the career trajectory’s upward curve.

I have my mother’s resilience and strong will, while I carry my Maa’s softness and nurturing nature. One gave me brains and the other gave me a safe home to come back to in my growing years. One made the world’s best chicken biryani while the other wouldn’t come 50 feet close to anything non-vegetarian but make the best comfort food in vegetarian cuisine. When I got my heart broken, both came and tended me to life each time. When I have told them countless times to not worry about me, they have secretly worried and prayed for me. When countless potential mothers-in-law in arranged matrimony have found flaws in me, making unreasonable demands, my mothers have stood rock solid behind me telling I am no less because someone found me less for their son and family. They still look at me as their beloved little quiet one who will get lost in the corner of the house reading a book, transporting to a faraway land. They still hit their head with frustration and laughter because I would give my slippers to some beggar and come back home barefoot or money to some person on the streets because I found her needy. They still know of my pain even if I don’t tell putting on a brave, smiling face and will overcompensate with home cooked food or bakes. With a soft heart comes great suffering. They desired love and life for me, and knew the price I had to pay for the independence I enjoy. Watching them smile at the flights I take, makes me believe in the generations of women I have healed in my family by being the way I have been.

So when you debate whether it is better to have a working mother or one at home, I had to tell the tale of my two mothers, and to be very frank – I wouldn’t choose one from both. They are just mothers at the end of the day.

To the unlimited selfless love of mothers,

Working or otherwise,

To my mamma and Maa,

Love,

P.

Bengaluru rains, filter coffee and one kind Paati

Two good things happened yesterday. One – finally after months of waiting and weeks of scorching heat it finally rained in Bangalore; and second – after years of letting time take its course and getting caught up in life I finally reconnected with my Paati after a long time.

Readers who have followed my blogs since a long time know of my brief stint in Chennai. I stayed for albeit six months until COVID cut my time short. In that brief period I went from the dinghy room in a PG in T Nagar to a semi habitable room in the swanky by lanes of OMR. I cannot explain the relief I had with finally getting rid of the Oliver Twist menu of my PG with watery dal, Pongal which resembled a big blob of glue, controlled portions of edibles and unlimited amount of the food which can at best be described as horse poop – I lost a decade worth of weight in a go. Beyond that, the inhuman living conditions with unventilated hallway, a 4×4 room with just one window and being locked inside like cattle by 9pm on the top of studying 16 hours per day for NEET entrances was the last straw in my emotional state. Within two days I sat in front of the window on my bed sobbing uncontrollably thinking why was I in this godforsaken city 1000s of miles away from my home with no one I could turn to. The weather was hot and humid, and after a point sweat could compete with the flow rate of tears.

Right then a soft breeze flew through the window and the very empty balcony right opposite to my window  which was empty no more but now replaced with a almost toothless Paati with the kindest smile in the world. I hurriedly wiped my tears. She waved, I waved back. She asked me if I was new here – I said yes, I had recently moved to Chennai for my coaching classes in T Nagar. She was surprised by how far I had come from just to study and told me that she had lived there in T Nagar almost her entire life and now she lived there alone with her children and grandchildren settled in the US.

When I told her that I was a doctor her face gleamed. Suddenly she quipped, “Why don’t you come over ma? I will make you some coffee”. My affection and nutrition starved brain put all thoughts of parents saying don’t talk to strangers, don’t take food from strangers and most importantly, do not go to strangers’ houses! I made my way giddily down the quaint staircase, opened the front gate and jolly well went around and then realized my folly – I never asked for the house number or name !

Then I used logic and all coordinates of geometry to arrive at the conclusion that this particular house could be Paati’s. As I was gallivanting into the compound, ignoring the “Beware of dogs!” sign on the front gate, somebody waved to me from the next gate – Paati’s household help who told me she was waiting for me upstairs. I sheepishly grinned and made my way up. It was a rickety staircase leading up to the first floor with traditional south Indian architecture. The moment I reached the top Paati welcomed me with huge smile.

“Hello ma, so nice of you to come visit me. Come, come sit down”, she waved at the sofa. I sat down on it. She told she’ll be back in a bit and went to the kitchen. The TV was on with some Tamil song on it. My vocabulary by then, note a week of stay, was limited to ‘Yepdi irkenge? Nallarka” and I planned to use that to the fullest extent to charm people along with my moderate exposure to Tamil movies and songs especially the one by A.R Rahman – yet this song went above my head.

Paati returned with a brass tumbler of filter coffee which I eagerly took a sip of – my senses exploded. All my tiredness, frustration, the pain and struggle which had led to my hasty decision of coming to Chennai – melted in the warmth of the another human being who had taken in a not so little girl lost in the city with no one to turn to, no familiar language with and no familiarity with in seconds.

“It’s so flavourful, Paati. I have never tasted coffee like this before”. She chuckled at my glee – “It’s filter coffee ma, I do not have anything else. I ground the beans and make it myself everyday”. I nodded along appreciatively. As I sipped a little more I noticed the garlanded photo of a thaata infront of me on the showcase. She followed my sight.

“My husband was a doctor too”, she said with a fondness that would betray that almost a year had gone by to his death. She told how he used to be a general practitioner who loved to treat patients at meagre amounts and was quite known in T Nagar. This house was built by his blood and sweat and every part of it decorated by her. They had had a simple wedding but a stronger marriage where he used to be quite busy with his work. It had been their 50th anniversary when he had decided to take her to the temple she had been begging him to take her to after finally finding time out of his busy schedule – when they came back, he collapsed on the sofa and passed away from a massive heart attack. Now despite their pleas, she did not want to leave the house and go to her kids settled in the US. I smiled and let her talk about him, you could see the sparkle in her eyes every time she mentioned him. The air in the house spoke of him, each of his memory so delicately preserved. She would look at his photograph longingly in between and talk lovingly of him. In the age of Tinder and Bumble, situationship and other godforsaken terminologies that gen Z has devised there was this woman who had found solace in her husband’s memories. I hugged her.

“You’re so sweet, Paati. I will visit you everyday. From now on you are my Paati”, I told off. She chuckled and patted my head.

Thus began weeks of evening coffee sessions at Paati’s place. Every time I would feel down with my preparations, worn down by the MCQs, Grand tests and life I would make my way to Paati’s place where a piping hot filter coffee would wait for me. Every visit would have a bit of thaata’s stories in it. One day when Paati looked a bit down and I urged to do her checkup she took out thaata’s stethoscope lovingly. She told me how she loved Savitri amma and Shivaji Ganeshan; and I told her how much I loved ‘Ok Kanmani’ and sang ‘Malargal Kettaen’ for her. This unconventional friendship raised several eyebrows at my home and hers. My aunt would listen to my story with horror and reprimand me of how I could be so trusting of strangers and her sisters who came to check in on her thought i was some con girl fleecing her. We sent them a selfie of us for verification and chuckled over it on another cup of coffee.

When I cleared my entrances, she was overjoyed, “Oh please apply to some college in Chennai ma. I know you love this city”

“Sure, I would Paati”, I quipped. Yet destiny had other plans and I would not only leave T Nagar and shift to OMR to join corporate but then even COVID would cut that short to transport me back to Rourkela and finally Karnataka where I would end up doing post graduation. Yet I promised to visit her from time to time.

The first new year’s and in between I kept in touch with her over call – every time I heard her delighted voice I would remember her smile and feel her warmth and blessings wash over me. Then the pace of residency took over, then life happened and somehow in the midst of all Paati was pushed to the back of my mind with that ever constant fear that considering her age, would I able to take it if I called and it went unanswered. I let it go.

Yesterday morning as I went through my twitter timeline I came across this particular tweet which said how we should make time to talk to the elderly even if they are strangers who look out for that connection in their lives and become happy with this small act of kindness since their days are numbered – and I remembered my Paati whose act of kindness and connection made one not so little girl navigate the big city independent life once and in an act of bravado I texted her –

“Good morning Paati

Been a long time since we spoke

Hope you’re doing well and remember me

P 🙂 “

I sent the text and waited. No reply. A dread filled me, but I pushed it back. Hours went by, I went to work, got lost in OT and OPDs and forgot about it. I came home and started helping my mother in the kitchen since my parents have been visiting for a couple of days and suddenly my phone pinged –

“Hi P, what a pleasant surprise

I never expected from you

How are you?

Completed PG?

May God bless you always !”

I choked. It was raining in Bangalore after months of wait and my Paati was hale and hearty, replying to me. I immediately called her. That familiar happy, delighted voice came through – “Hi P, How are you? What a pleasant surprise! It is so nice to hear your voice! Where are you ma these days? I am 92 now!” My heart was overfilled. That voice was so calming to hear after years and I could picture her smile as if it was yesterday. I enquired about her health, she couldn’t move around much anymore but was still managing. Her sisters used to come check on her. Her grandson was married to the Chinese girl he was dating the last time we spoke and she was still making her filter coffee. She urged me to come visit her whenever I was in Chennai and I mentally booked a date to go to Chennai just to meet her.

After I put down the call, I wondered, life has been so kind to me with it’s varied experiences. I have lived in so many cities by now and found so many varied experiences in them. Some kind and some not so – yet there’s always one person I would always remember the city for. Be it one of my dearest friends in Delhi who brought me hot soup when I was sick despite having known me a couple of days in coaching. Be it someone who helped me settle into the city of Bangalore and the crippling initial days of fellowship with his calming presence or be it my Paati with her hot cup of filter coffee in Chennai.

When people take a look at me they see the long exciting life and achievements I have lived, but I can tell you that for every step that I have taken in life it has always been possible because of that one act of kindness by someone who didn’t realise they are so significant in my journey. Through all the unkindness and troughs I have lived that one simple act of kindness or love has washed over the pain of the rest of the days.

As I navigate one of the most confusing times of life right now personally and professionally, reminiscing about this particular incident brought me significant joy. Through those dark days, Paati served as my light – someone who came from nowhere and turned my world around to give me the strength to push on and reach where I am.

We never know whose lives we’ll touch or who’ll do it for us will we?

Love,

P.

SUNDAY BLOG FT. THE SOCIAL GAME

Just the day before, I came across a new set of NMC regulations that curb how and how much “celeb” doctors can engage on social media with their target audience, which got me thinking about how social media has impacted us enough to take over the legal system as well. We need rules and regulations now to dictate our social media behaviour. Something so innocuous as a technology made to connect people has taken such a draconian shape that we need to disconnect from the same. Our lives are governed by algorithms and our needs replaced by wants. Where people used to have knowledge before, they have opinions now. Meaningless ranting and information overload has taken over our timelines and we do not know what to consume and what to let go anymore. This leads to me to think – that soon there might be something known as ‘Information Overload syndrome’ or ‘Social media exhaustion’.

As we scroll through our timelines going through countless tweets, articles, posts, photos, memes… do we really understand the kind of media bytes we are feeding our brain? The kind of cannon events we go through per second which earlier probably we went through over weeks or months? The kind of eyeball grab which sends our nervous system into an upheaval – an emotional rollercoaster of sorts.

Not just that, by giving our headspace to such people we have not only perpetrated an entire band of social chimpanzees dancing it out trying to grab the most eyeballs and get money in return. As each and every person becomes a social media influencer,” do we really find it acceptable to take half baked opinions from people who are not experts in the field. It’s akin to getting Botox done by an untrained person who has taken a two-week rapid course in Aesthetics with no primary medical degree — disastrous. Remember when we were kids and looked up to APJ Abdul Kalam or Nelson Mandela? Now imagine instead of them speaking about their work with their vast expanse of knowledge and understanding of their own field, they spoke about 5 ways to apply concealer to hide your dark spots – would you go for it? With changing algorithms to perpetrate the influencing, influencers, and the influenced, people like Musk are slowly monetizing what used to be supposedly ‘free speech’ in all its literal and metaphoric terms. Putting speech into money brackets, with premium users being allowed more access to words and more reach, are we progressing to a world where money will decide the mass thought process?!

What was an innocuous childhood play with dolls has now been cleverly marketed so and so that we have an entire platoon of girls from all ages dressing up in pink to go watch Barbie which has a substandard plot with a clever feminist angle of marketing. A random female whose racial/ body shaming slur over a Pakistani girl who married a guy in her neighbourhood has been made ‘viral’ and being asked to come on talk shows?! Five years back the account which begged for follow to each account on Instagram is now a well known travel influencer ‘influencing’ people to buy into the travel consumerism which has been funded by their own likes and eyeballs. Where does this end?

We have created an unnecessary culture of consumerism feeding consumerism. The big conglomerates to keep this wheel going are doing their best to add perks and voice to these chosen social media chimpanzees. Such is the trend, I wouldn’t be surprised if in the next few years, “What do you want to become when you grow up?” will yield – “I wanna become a Social media influencer and get the gold play button” as goals.

My teacher in primary school used to say – the tree with the maximum number of fruits, bends.

I feel the meaning and depth of this are lost to our generation. Where the maximum number of likes, retweets, and shares takes precedence, people are willing to decimate others just to prove a point. Incessant rambling and ranting. With increasing space for people to express they have forgotten the art to just listen and understand before they retort. Why do we have the feeling to be right at all times? Don’t we learn from differences?! Knowing that people have something different to say and add value to a standpoint is what adds flavor to a debate. Have we forgotten the art of debating? Is it just an elocution now? Or worse – just a podium speech with the audience having a ball of word limit stuffed into their mouth?

Just some thoughts to mull over a long weekend.

P.

The Sunday Blog ft. Chicken tarakari

I realized my break from this blog had become quite long; longer some people’s relationships. There are times I feel we use this metric of comparison so often that it could be added to the standard text. Its also flexible, you could fit it to any unit –

“Hey Ram, how is the sushi?” “Better than our relationship”

“Leela, why didn’t you come last Tuesday?” “I was stuck in a meeting longer than my last relationship”

So and so.

Yesterday my mum and I over call broke down her famous chicken tarakari recipe which i made for lunch and which I converted into chicken biryani for today’s lunch. In a generation which believes in takeout boxes and home deliveries finding the time and urge to eat something hand made and home cooked has become the perfect indulgence. I have recently discovered the tantalizing taste of elaichi, the pungency of labanga, the aroma of tejja-patra, the perfect blend of spices and oil that make home food, well, home food. In our lives busier than the busy and unmindful of what we pump into our bodies how long can we survive as a plastic box generation? Not to mention the monthly expenses. You know how engineers complain about month end? I guess our hospital thought to change the trend and credit salary in the mid of the month, so that when the entire world asks you to pay the rent, the bills, the maid – you’ll be broke at the month beginning itself and questioning the entire cycle of life. How does a 28 year old manage to spend an entire paycheck on herself anyway? Do we have liabilities? No. Do we have responsibilities? No. Are we single? Yes. Then how? That’s a magic black hole all of us are riding with no end to it.

In other news being 28 has also certain other liabilities to it. Living 1400+kms away from home might have bereft me from pesky relatives who can make my life a living hell asking when I will get married but it most definitely hasn’t given me the free card with my own age group. If you open Instagram these days you’ll either see a couple getting married or a pre wedding shoot or the senior generation having babies. Instagram has become the new Facebook where the incessant mush of these people makes us wonder, our generation which spent its entire childhood judging a set of uncles and aunties had harbored such exquisite specimen of its own?!

No, Leela we aren’t interested that you are missing Ram for the 300th time in the 13th hour of the day. No Ram we are not counting the days to your wedding. I mean, CALM DOWN.

Weren’t we the sensible lot?

Weren’t we the ones who vowed to change the world?

Then how did we become the dal – chaawal generation who judges people who wants to have a bit of keema-pav and mutton biryani till my consultant stops fucking my mental peace every day and pushing me into emotional breakdowns every fortnight with yet another toxic barb directed at my soul. Surgical residency is hard as it is without waking up everyday to yet another post about people in conjugal bliss when your parents advertise some Cherub who wants you to give up your food practices out of duty or shade your skin color on a shade card. My father called me the other day and asked me how I was – I was so stressed I ended up giving a calendar of events aka my exam schedule for the entire year. What is it about medicine that makes you forget who you are, how you are eventually? I used to be a sweet little girl who wanted to change the world once, now I feel the greatest change I can bring about is in my sleeping schedule and in binge-watching ‘Sex and the city’ in between work and cramming for prelims.

Anyway, like they say the night is darkest before dawn. Here’s hoping we’re at the end of the tunnel.

Adios,

P.

A hopeless adult’s guide to ‘Chicken tarakari’

• 1 inch ginger
• 4-5 cloves garlic
• 500 gms chicken
• 4 cloves
• 1 tejj-patta
• 4 cardamom
• 1″ cinnamon
• 100 ml mustard oil
• 1/2 tomato
• 2 medium sized onion
• Haldi
• Chilli powder
• Chicken biryani masala
• Salt, as per taste
• Pepper
• Rock salt
• 7-8 cashews ground to paste

1. Wash chicken pieces thoroughly and keep them aside with a pinch of haldi and a squeeze of half a lemon.
2. In a medium bottomed pan heat some mustard oil and put ginger-garlic paste. Once it starts sputtering add chopped onion and fry until translucent. (Alt tip: Can make ginger-garlic-onion paste and use it as well)
3. Then add chopped tomato (Alt: 2 tbsps curd) and fry till a mush.
4. Add the rest of the spices and breathe up the good aroma (Pro tip: I preferred grinding the spices in my mortar and pestle first. Opens up the aroma a lot more)
5. Then add the washed chicken pieces to it and add water as required. Boil it on medium flame for 15-20 minutes taking care to stir it in between.
6. Voila! Garnish and gobble the same.

KINDNESS IN A FOREIGN LAND FT. LIVING OUTSIDE YOUR STATE

It has been roughly four years with few blobs in between of homestay that I have been living away from home in different states. What started as a quest for freedom from the shackles of a typical orthodox Odia family I landed up first in the bright, shiny city of Hyderabad; to coursing my way through a shackling preparation period in Chennai and landing in my current pseudo-home city of Belgaum. Three states, three different feelings yet something essentially remains the same – superficially it seems as if you are being welcomed, yet if you dig down, deep deep down – you understand that the loneliness that comes from people being too rigid to let go of their racial identities, stays.

I come from Rourkela, basically – it is a so-called smart city in the northern part of Odisha which still lives and breathes its old small industrial town charm of 90s. With planned layout of sectors, its hills, its winters, its ring roads, its green lush vibes – you almost wonder what will make you ever leave it – the fact that nothing has changed since the last 27 years perhaps? The fact that the once smart shiny industrial town designed by German architects which surpassed the capital decades ago in development and modernness has now been reduced to a reckless ruckus with potholes and pollution which Bhubaneswar has been pumped with all the exchequer to make it the poster boy of Odisha’s development. That brain drain has happened with such ferocity that every kid I knew from school has either moved abroad or living in metros working in the Big fours or bigger IT firms. That all our preparation for medical and IIT; cracking all the entrances never really showed up on the landscape since no one really returned – so did I.

I remember how I fell in love with Hyderabad – it was my first night in that big, burgeoning new home to the IT wave, when my brother took me on a drive to show me around the place and his IT workplace – there was a long stretch of road which slid down the hill, as we went down the entire IT landscape, the shiny glittering buildings came up with a million lights – and there in a foreign land, I fell in love with a city.

I fell in love with the promises that the city offered, the nooks and cranny of Madhapur and Gachibowli – I studied, I travelled, I roamed across Charminar and Qutb Shahi tombs alone, I rummaged through all the biryani places till I found myself licking my fingers in Bawarchi, attended my first photo festival, had a minor stalking incident following it, felt energised by the IT crowd who seemed in a rush to get somewhere and get ahead in life, lapped up the culture heritage and tried to learn the local tongue too. It was the best three months of my life. My Maa thinks I was crazy the way I woke up everyday and roamed around the city armed with a bag and google map – but people backpack across Europe, I just did the same for a city I fell the first time in love with. I remember the last day in Hyderabad like all last days when you know things will never be the same again even though people promise you that it will – I sat down on the floor, all of my 24-year-old-self and folded my arms across the chest pouting my face at my brother and Maa, tears streaming, I am not going back. I won’t go back. I did anyway.

Move forward to one year later when my sojourn started in Chennai – juggling mental sanity and a new state seems overburdening – yet my resolve made through with filter kaapi and the love of new people and friends I made in the city – with my fondest memory being of my Paati. My beautiful, kind, warm Paati who saved me on the third day of being in Chennai in a horrible Oliver Twist worthy PG crying in the small room I was holed up in till NEET. The kind face overlooking mine from her balcony opposite mine, her kind word, her life and resolve motivated to make it till NEET. It was the hardest goodbye when I left that hellhole after NEET.

OMR is the shiniest part of Chennai according to me. It is what was a vestige of life in Hyderabad to me – the long wide lanes, the IT firms, the IT crowd, the 5 min access to beach yet with all promises of perks of metro life was everything to me. Plus, bagging a job in a top corporate hospital and earning my own money and spending it as I please was sweet life for me.

When COVID struck and so did my NEET results – it was only with a heavy heart that I left my independent life behind to start a new journey to a new degree with a new form of slavery in a new city.

Belgaum at first look reminded me of the bustling college town of Manipal, on a second and wider look after I got my car and could afford to roam again (thanks to the previously exorbitant rates of autowallahs of the city) it struck me like my own city. Rourkela with its roads and hills. Just with addition of metro food chain outlets and a better pub culture. The green campus of the university beckoned with its ever-lasting monsoon and cool climate. Somehow it felt like it could be promising again. But this time I wasn’t in a different state for three or six months, I have been here for two years and there has been a growing discord inside me. The batch is a mixture of people from different states – yet if you ask them what they are they immediately label themselves as south Indians or north Indians. They group themselves likewise. They find comfort in dating likewise. Their lives are so wrapped around their regional identities they never take the pains to know a person beyond their regional labels, not to their fault, since the person on the other end does likewise. Ganging up as Tamils or Telugus or Northies, at the end of the day I wonder if this is the idea of one India that had been fed to me throughout my convent life. Those cultural programs with a mandatory unity dance in the end representing every region of India coexisting harmoniously seems fake when in adulthood no one really practiced it right. But then what is the point of being a bigger person if the person you are dealing with doesn’t do you right?

I wonder how I will remember this place, the way I remember those other two – will I remember the kindness of my friends or let the bitterness of being put back by my lack of Kannada speaking skills in the department or the lack of enough South-Indianness or North-Indianness to fit into someone’s life seep in. Will I remember the memories of beautiful climate and the long drives or the reason went for solo drives in the night to try to dissuade the burnout of residency imprint on it. Will I remember how the girl from a small city who never left the environs of home and was a day scholar throughout MBBS travel 1800 miles to another state and stay in the hostel for the first time for three years of residency with a bludgeoning hope in her heart and spark in her eyes for a new life quenched or give up and live through the rest of my days here as an outsider who miscalculated an in?

When life gives you a 2020 –

I have finally found out the cure to my writer’s block or if I could put in in a more appropriate way the cure to my long lulls of writing inactivity even though my 2020 resolution was to write frequently, and I have ended up making it the resolution for the upcoming, right at the door 2021.

So, the cure to it is free time and a mind at rest. After a whirlwind year that has changed my life completely – I am finally bidding it a goodbye right where I started it – the city of my aspirations and inspiration – Hyderabad; with the people I love the most and I couldn’t be more motivated to come back to the greatest love of my life – writing. So, here we go, the blogpost wrapping it all up.

Admit it or not 2020 was the answer to everyone’s deepest adulting wishes – to relieve childhood once more.

2020 shuttled every grown up, self sustainable, independent, hard working, frustratingly mechanically living 20+ adult back from their stereotypical weekday pe kaam-weekend pe aaram locked down in their hometowns. A huge flush of all my IT friends “making it” in their metro lives came back to my sleepy town. My own brother left for Odisha for what was to be the longest stay after thinking that the day they left for their engineering college was the last day they got to spend time at home. I was also a recipient of the new normal for a few months then, after being shuttled out of Chennai from my carefully curated life back into my hometown – short-lived until I started my residency. It was a twist of fate for everyone. The lockdown opened our eyes to all the words that came after the “what if’s we had been keeping in our minds. It gave us all the time to be kids with pastimes that didn’t just involve chugging the maximum number of beers again. From Dalgona coffee to playing Ludo King, from jamming on my guitar on Zoom call to picking up those unread novels again; the lockdown gave us life beyond careers – making us realize what we had been missing. Making me realize what I had been missing. It gave me all the time in the world to get over the things I thought I could never get over. 2020 helped me heal.

Yet, 2020 also shuttled me to a space I had only been planning for since 2012. This was the year I got to live all my dreams. I always wanted to live and work independently in a metro city – I got to do that at the beginning of the year itself when I got a job in one of the leading corporate hospitals in Chennai and got to experience the corporate life. The sheer joy from getting a salary off my hard work, paying my own bills, getting to live a life beyond work, getting to spend and splurge on myself was a high of another kind. If that wasn’t enough, I also cleared my NEET-PG entrances surprisingly on the first attempt; convincing me of the fact that sometimes you get things when you are actively not wishing for it, so maybe the concept of destiny exists. Not only did I get a PG seat but I got that in Karnataka – a longstanding dream since a decade. I can’t explain the moments of sheer disbelief I have that I am in Karnataka doing residency! And in the college whose photos I had since and mildly wished to be in 2012. Everyday I get to don the one attire I really love – my scrubs and go off to work. Every day is a new challenge to grow better than the day before. Every day reminds me of al the milestones I have yet to reach and achieve.

I was a small town girl once who wanted to live and grow old in the same town once, within the boundaries my father had set for me – not until one day I had the courage to scale it all. Now that I have seen everything that I can have, I realize the wish list never ends. Yet you might end your peace, happiness and real joys of life in trying to achieve them.

By giving me everything I dreamt of, 2020 has also taught me how when dreams turn to reality, they might not be as dreamy as they seemed.

Life has turned for better, but it’s the adulting version of better. Everyday I wake up exhausted and tired from the day before. My sleep deprivation hits an all time high trying to juggle being a junior resident with a normal functioning human being who needs a break. Now that I am at home and can reflect on my life in Belgaum, I realize I’m far off the mark I have gone from when I started it. I was dropped off at my hostel gate with three bags and wonder-eyed; so much that I didn’t even look at my mother leaving in the cab. I made all efforts to come away from my past, not realizing that’s what kept me, me. Every day in the hospital I run around thinking everything I do is changing the world, yet now that I sit on this chair overlooking the balcony with flowers and vegetables planted by my brother, my Maa cutting up vegetables, my mom and sister trying to fit into 15″ of a phone screen because I was not granted enough leaves to be able to go all the way to Odisha and ended up coming to Hyderabad – I realized that the life of peace and love I had been searching was already here. Glamour, glitz, fame – everything attracts me since childhood – I am the kid who has always been and always loved the spotlight. Yet, the fact that I forgot the ones who put me there is dawning on me now. What’s the use of being the spotlight if you don’t have someone cheering you. What’s the use of having good days I can’t celebrate with my family? What do I do on the bad days I feel so lost wanting to run away and sleep in my mother’s lap – the safest place in the world?! I realized my folly when a patient boycotted me for not knowing his mother tongue! All the things I had left for all the things I could have not realizing I didn’t need them.

But then I cannot be that ungrateful and dissuade everything over a toxic workplace and workload that takes a toll on everyone’s mental health – when I also have few things to be thankful for. Starting off with my friends – when people said you won’t be making friends in residency they were so far off about my lot. I might not have them on the days they are also busy and broken from the department – yet I have them tugging me on food cravings, Sunday brunches and spontaneous Goa trips. When I fall sick I have someone getting food to my hostel room door and through the scary dark room ultrasound finding. Life has found a small address in hurriedly drunk coffee before morning OPD and after evening round blasting. The picturesque residency images have been replaced with barking seniors, unreasonable demands and a department that is bent on sucking your peace and blood. Yet every single day that I see my naivety slip away I also know that all of it is preparing me for a future I never had the courage to dream of. I know that when I became a part of a glorious institute I should have been prepared for the yin and yang that came with it. I know exactly who I am and how too much of goodness is also an invite for the world to feed on you like vultures – and all of this is toughening me up for the greater battle that lies after residency.

So, here’s wrapping it up – my 2020 with all it’s highlights and lessons – knowing that this year has given me the time, space and opportunity to rise ahead in life and emotion exponentially! I started this year off with red wine, long drive and UNO with the fam – and my entire 2020 has a slow melt of it. Hoping that 2021 gets us out of the lull with all the essential teachings from 2020 and adapting it to a hopefully COVID-free world.

So, when life gives you a 2020, you learn from it to make all your years better! Cause admit it, we’re never gonna be this chill ever again. So, enjoy while it lasts – exactly three more days of it.

Happy new year (in advance) folks!

IS COVID A HOAX?! FT. #MyCOVIDDutyDiaries

I admit it – when I started writing this with such a title, I knew this was gonna be a clickbait – but then I can’t help facepalm when I get to see the picture of anti-maskers protesting in Marine Drive, Mumbai on my twitter feed the first thing after completing a week of COVID duties. Maharashtra, a state where the case load is 1.43 million with 37,758 deaths already – having a bunch of twats holding placards asking India to wake up, when they literally shouldn’t be sleeping at the horrific situation they are in. What irony!

Image courtesy : mid-day.com

I was also a different person a week or so back – of course I understood the disease, I understood the problem, but the seriousness of the situation didn’t make it into my head properly. How can it! Being a doctor’s daughter I have literally seen and seeing my mom putting patients before self first. She has been working throughout the pandemic relentlessly without a damn care for her health when she is the one person who should be taking care thanks to her co-morbidities; but then who cares?! Indian patients never do. They will give you a mithai ka dabba when the delivery is successful or break your head if there’s an unfortunate turn of events. We’re sacrificing our lives for people who wouldn’t hesitate to harm us. (Ref to Dr. Anoop, a young budding orthopedic surgeon who committed suicide after a patient he treated selflessly died and he had to undergo a social media trial.)

My own non medico friends didn’t hesitate on making sarcastic comments when they saw me my pictures on outings on social media. How do I explain how our brain works – when every single day we work in a hospital with high viral load and risk of exposure. When the very patient I examine on a Saturday comes COVID positive on Tuesday, days before I am supposed to start duties in a ward full of COVID patients.

I always thought in COVID duty the biggest battle will be my ability to breathe given my history, but it wasn’t. Then came the task of bearing the brunt of a PPE with multiple tapes to seal any chance of contamination – Belgaum saved me there with it’s ever-cool weather normalizing the temperature in there. Even bladder control wasn’t much of an issue even after 10 hours of duty. I guess the biggest fears I had were psychological and I got over once I felt at home in the place with supportive co PGs I got to work with. Even my interns were sweet enough. Just the duties were exhausting and the PPE made it even more dehydrating, and coming back to my room no matter at point of night I had to follow a daily ritual of bathing, decontaminating myself and my clothes that had been in the high risk area. A constant headache accompanied me 24×7 because of lack of hydration. Every night I had to take 5 tablets for prophylaxis having to work for 7-10 hours in a high risk area when the minimum threshold for getting infected from a COVID positive person without protection is 15 minutes. Some days I got to say to my patients their reports are improving and it was the high point of my day.

But what really, really disturbed me in there – was the way I lost my patients! The biggest battle was me trying to salvage the patient’s oxygen saturation!

I started my duty with two deaths all in a span of minutes. Anyone who has been in COVID wards can vouch for this fact now – COVID deaths are scary as fuck. When the saturation starts dropping – it has a steady and steep fall. The steady progression of the patient from oxygen mask to NRM to HFNO to CPAP can result in a steep fall to need ventilation; and ventilation is the last and final resort which is dicey when it comes to patient survival with post venti saturation coming down by 10-20 points. After careful observation I have to conclude that the patients most at risk of crashing are 45+, obese patients with co-morbidities like diabetes and hypertension. I have worked 24x7x7 days in an Intensive Care Unit during my MBBS but losing patients wasn’t so mortifying then – as you literally see patients who have been maintaining fine until one night crash in the next. The mere fragility of a human body got to me.

When I saw a patient attender kiss her husband’s forehead goodbye, it broke a part of me. I ended up crying when I came back to my room at night. We deal with patients, agreed – but these patients are people outside the hospital, with family and kids. Just like we have a family. COVID has broken up so many families. So many patient attenders came up to me and requested me to update about their loved one’s survival status. It takes a great deal of patience to have to deal with a patient attender not only as a doctor but also a human being who knows that their frustration stems from losing a loved one and financial incompatibility. On night duty I am crippled by anxiety and make multiple rounds to check if the patients have taken off their mask – which they usually do – as it’s extremely irritating to have an oxygen mask stuck on your face; especially a CPAP mask which has the lowest tolerance among patients. Patients literally beg me with folded hands to take off the CPAP mask and I just stare at the monitor with their precarious saturation helplessly trying to gather words to counsel them. Wasn’t it simpler when they could just social distance and wear masks?

Now that my duty is done – I do not feel the same towards this disease anymore. It’s different to view something as a textbook case or a newspaper headline and extremely different when you have to treat it in real time.

So, my dear anti-maskers, I really hope you take a trip into the COVID wards in a PPE suit that barely suffocates you the way the disease is actually suffocating my patients in the ward – see for yourself the despair on the face of my attendants scared for the life of their loved one, the multiple ways a patient tries to convince that he was a fit army man till date and never been to hospital so their must have been a mistake in the report – but even he knows what the disease is when he now reaches out for his mask as his lungs grasp for air. I hope you see my ever-smiling favorite Ajja in the ICU who I had weaned off high flow oxygen to normal oxygen but has deteriorating again with ascent in oxygen requirements. I hope when you see all this and come out to doff, painfully taking off the tapes off your face feels exactly like the resounding slap I want to give you right now for taking a disease, that made countless people all over the world lose their loved ones, lightly.

Cheers,

Dr. P

Dear 16 year old me,

Dear 16 year old me who wanted to grow up desperately,

There’s nothing new when you grow up. I rephrase – the settings change, your dreams come true, you are sitting in a single room with a window overlooking the enormous green university campus that you can call your own with plateaus topped by windmills in the distance and having chai is a long drive at midnight on the highway with a bunch of friends you only hoped you’ll have but that’s it – nothing has changed.

Remember standard 4? Vartika Chabbra? Remember how you recieved your science paper with 97 on it and on reaching home found an answer paper stashed into your bag with your name scribbled wrongly on a paper which had only been graded 12? Remember how your mother made frantic calls to the teacher and said how you clued in it was Vartika who forged the name, as for the first your name being unpronounceable and your answers unnecessarily lengthy was a boon as she misspelt your name and didn’t bother to change her name to yours after page 4? Remember how she threatened you the next day for calling her out.

I would say Vartikas are only primary school miscreants who want to prank you, but it’s not. You keep meeting them throughout your life. Even as a Junior Resident who tried to stay low, do her work before time and yet someone tried to butcher her for his power play.

The truth is sweetheart, you grow up. Eventually. You have the freedom you yearn for, eventually. You have all the hangouts and male adulation you dream of yet life, life is a bitch; it doesn’t pan out the way you want it to. You grow up and realise that fantasy and reality are two worlds placed so far apart you spend all your early twenties trying to search for it.

My love, you learn to keep yourself happy. Something that you, I know did but kind of lost it while trying to grow up. Your books, hold on to it. Your music, sings to your soul. Your company, cherish it. You start dancing again. Because as you grow up you see everyone fighting a battle that only they can win. You learnt to fight all of yours. You learnt to be your own savior, and to stay happy through it – you cling to whatever rope you can find. It’s usually is like this. Writing to vent it out. Don’t forget your talents, they were god gifted to you for a reason. They keep you alive through all the mess.

Anyway, that’s enough of the morose. Remember all the dreams we saw? I am living them now. I believed in the rubber band theory – if life takes you behind, it’s only doing that to jet set you higher. Not to burst your bubble but life wasn’t rosy after school, but you find your groove a decade later. The tiny hallowed library of Carmel? My college library has three floors and thousands and thousands of books I can’t even dare to finish now. The college and faculty consists of stalwarts you only dream of reaching close to; they create for you milestones that you never knew existed to want to achieve. You finally get to learn to play basketball on a court you used to yearn at while growing up. Bhai used to call you lemon for always crying at the slightest teasing yet you have the tolerance level of a stork and an enviable pain threshold now.

The truth is when you stop letting things get to you, they eventually do. Though most of all, you realise who are truly your own. The parents you are fighting to get away from – you’ll be jumping a decade later when they make sudden plans to visit you in your PG college. All that Papa is saying now? You will find it more and more practical over the years and regret at some points for not adhering to it. I wish I could tell you I realized it soon, but I didn’t. You will realize that the list of friends undergoes a lot of addition, subtraction over the years – and you can’t mourn someone leaving but just be grateful that at a point when things were going downhill you had a friend handing over a cup of tea to make your day better. You will be grateful that there are friends to bug you over and over again to know if you’re okay – because life gets more and more busier as we grow up and no one can make time for another human which is why it becomes a miracle to have even few people true to you. You had such fantasies about love and having a lover; but it gets broken over the decade in multiple heartbreaks and mistakes. You realize that love should be found within before trying to find it another person.

Life is a patient teacher though. You go through similar episodes at different points of life, over and over, until you learn to react to it properly. You find your triggers and your loopholes, someday you even learn to stop blaming others and start with yourself at making your life better. It gets better. It really does. No matter how bleak it seems momentarily.

So that’s that. As my current motto neither do I live in the past for too long nor do I entertain sweet daydreams of a future. Living in the present is something you don’t know yet, as I know you have drawn one year worth of routine with each day planned to accommodate the portion you want to cover. Your brain filled with theorems and thoughts of more reference books you can quote in your answers to score more in terminals. A holier than thou attitude that irks people and perfectly oiled hair plaited and tucked to keep in with the persona a school prefect demands – but a decade later you will be writing this in shorts and T shirt with quirky slogan your 16 year old brain abhors – getting mentally and deadline wise ready to go for COVID duties (we are in the midst of a pandemic now with a new world order your books don’t teach you. Boo!) as a frickin post graduate student in a medical college (yes, we got our career timeline right) and still making time to chill with friends while battling deadlines.

Love,

Your older and still getting wiser self.

The Sunday Blog ft #thefamiliarconcept

Routine keeps you going. Any routine that blocks your day, keeps you mentally and physically occupied to prevent you from going off track is a welcome change. My father used to say I look the most beautiful when my exams are around, that’s because I am single minded focused on getting good grades then with a damn care for the world. When I was young the old adage, “An idle mind is a devil’s workshop” never made sense to me – but these days I have finally grasped the meaning of it. When I am caught up in my work and do not have time for anything and anyone else I do not get this nostalgia in waves. I do not miss my home. I do not miss my little sister. I do not miss my Maa’s lap. Else everything goes haywire.

Yesterday was Ganesh Puja and they didn’t celebrate it because I wasn’t there at home. I was in KLE and due to COVID the usual celebrations had been toned down to min pujas – which by luck I got to see three of; yet I missed my home’s Ganesh Puja. I missed staying up all night decorating the room with my siblings, waking up early and taking my bath, going to get dooba-patra from my neighbour’s house, arranging the fruits, raasi-laddu on the plate, keeping my books infront of the god, becoming the mini nana for the day and doing the puja. Getting to break the fast after pushpanjali with my Maa’s haata randha Puri Aloodum. I missed the smell wafting from the kitchen of the typical Odia-style Aloo dum which people sell here as an abomination terming it bhajji. The style of Pooris only made at my home. I missed the movie ritual post that where we took up any family movie and by any it would always be a KJo mega family movie (psst… Kabhi khushi kabhi gham) and devoured it to bits. One day we were set free from the obligations of studying. One day we were kids all over.

They say as you grow up, you become more set in your ways – yet it’s strange that as we grow up we are made to break away from who we are with each passing day.

My Maa told me I should focus only on being a good human being, yet the more I grow up people ask me to be more shrewd. My Maa asked me to be more kind, but as I grow up people use this kindness to exploit it and sell you to the vultures. My Maa asked me to be more soft but people mistake this as submissiveness and dominate me to the point I have to turn into a aggressive version of myself I do not recognize.

Who am I, and who I will be after I grow up are two starkly different beings I doubt I know of.

It is only because of this that we keep on seeking people that are more and more familiar to what we know. Somebody who makes you laugh like your brother does, somebody with a smile as honest as yours, somebody who will make you an egg sandwich going out of the way just like your Maa does to pamper you on the days you don’t feel like moving out of the bed, somebody whose embrace feels like home – love, care, kindness, humility, honesty, familiarity – I crave all of that in batches of people that life keeps throwing at me with each consecutive stage of life. The same values, the same ideals – which my Maa sat down and taught me over the years.

It is so weird to come to residency and find that most of the girls here are not committed (okay, in a ‘maybe’, only KLE people would get that); such a stark contrast from my UG days when I used to see girls engaged in a battle of whose boyfriend did the most for her. That’s maturity I guess, when you have finally come to differentiate between need and want. When you finally realise it’s not about seeking the unknown, the adrenaline rush or the arm candy anymore – it is only about finding constancy, permanence and familiarity at the end of the day. People are not making plans to just go out and roam anymore – they are cribbing about getting to go to home. Not a boyfriend anymore, but a life partner. Because more than receiving red cut roses a single time, it’s better to be planting them with someone and watching them grow into a hundred roses over the years you spend with them.

I was deeply against the social event of wedding, but I have begun to understand the concept of marriage these days. The sole reason my father kept me away from men all over the years, demonizing them yet now insisting on marriage at times – they want to leave you with familiarity. They want to leave you with someone that takes care of you the way they do. Your festivals aren’t just modaks and decorations – it’s the happy family that went into arranging and executing it – our parents want to leave us with that. Someone who is there for every puja, every occasion, every morning and every meal; bringing a familiarity to the table. One that keeps us safe from any battle in the world. One that gives us strength to face any battle in the world.

I hope you find your familiar and I find mine. Leaving you to spend your Sunday with this thought.

Cheers,

P.

Hesitation

I saw you in the corner

your heart beating harder than the rest

I saw how your eyelids would fall

(and rose)

and you laughed an entire laughter in a single breath.

I felt your hand

it was soft

softer than the every hand I have rested mine in

and when you looked into my eyes

i could see a million sighs evaporating

a million times i had wished

(for a girl like you)

yet you sat there in the corner

your heart beating harder than the rest

and i couldn’t dare to embrace you when you cried

because of the ring i already had

on my finger on the left.