Simply Syphilis

A good friend of mine occasionally and quite affectionately calls me a ‘syphilitic whore’ when she is amused and irritated with me. That is the origin for that phrase. I do not know where she got it from, but it sure does sound cute. Syphilitic whore. If you really think deep and say it aloud, one gets a very warm fuzzy feeling, all the happy centres lighting up in the grey matter. Think about it. It rather defeats the purpose of an insult, don’t you think?
Of course, penicillin killed syphilis, if not the whore. So although syphilis may still exist, and whores are rampant, the two are rarely seen together. Even if they are, they are soon divorced. Stupid penicillin.
See, its very simple. If you have syphilis, you won’t get it again, right? Then what is so bad about syphilis? The only thing it can do in the long run is make you mad. They call it GPI- general paresis of the insane. Whatever. Medical terminology bores me. They are just saying you will go mad. So, that will anyway happen, right? Who isn’t mad? Everyone is. If you have any doubts, go ask Tom Cruise. So why blame poor syphilis for that? Those lovely little curly organisms! How can you be mad at them?
Alternatively, we could think of it this way. Someone is stoic, expressionless, humorless and very sad. Let him see a syphilitic whore, do the business, get them spirochetes into his bloodstream, and up into the csf, wait a couple of years for GPI to set in, and he wont be all that stoic, and expressionless and boring anymore. He would be insane. Or in this case, sane. Sanity and insanity can be interchangeable, right?

A syphilitic whore can never be boring. Whores never bore. Show me one boring whoring syphilis, and I will lend you an arm. Also, bores are never whores. They may rhyme, but they are never the same. Remember that. Whoring bores and Boring whores are virtually nonexistent. Both theoretically, and practically speaking. If anyone says he has seen them, he is hallucinating, and urgently needs syphilitic treatment.
Atleast a syphilitic whore stands a greater chance of bedding Captain Jack Sparrow, than any normal female in the reproductive age group. Whatever. There are many who may consider that to be the biggest achievement in their lives. True story. And please do not be judgmental. Has a whore, or a spirochete, or a syphilitic whore, or any of the above combination ever discriminated in choosing an able, wise recipient? Its always an indiscriminate action, left to chance and the randomness, chaos and entropy of the universe. So, don’t, okay?

Why, it could even be a new religion! New members will be recruited, and the sect shall spread far and wide. It need not necessarily be a vice. And then, the non syphilitic whores will be looked down upon, rejected, stepped and stampeded on, put in concentration camps, and yet the world shall not end. Of course, it will and should be a matriarchal society. Or should it? I wonder what the gender distribution for the SW population is. Whatever. Syphilis rules, either way. Who cares what the gender of the vehicle is. We don’t really bother if the Mercedes Benz is male or female, right? I think the same analogy should apply here.
What if the non syphilitic race becomes extinct? What If there’s a war between the syphilitic and the non syphilitic population? Who will be the fittest? Evolution of the syphilitic whore. In this age, with HIV thronging the limelight, and poor syphilis pushed to the background, these are issues we seriously need to think about.
When I asked a few people what they thought about syphilitic whores, not many could think of an answer. Why, nobody said anything. Nevertheless, it got me wondering. It is a nice question to rape someone’s happiness. Considering I am an excellent candidate for that, this is how I visualize the rape.
Prof: Ma, what do you think of syphilitic whores?
Me: sir?
Prof: Syphilitic whores, ma? What you think?
Me: syphilitic whores, sir?
Prof: Tell me fast, I don’t have all day. < irritated expression >
Me: Sir, actually, it refers to a person who has syphilis… and…
Prof: Ma, I wish you would make up your mind about it. This wont do. Its ridiculous that you know so little. How difficult is the question? Cant you read up and come?
Me: Sir, wont her career be ruined?
Prof: Which book? Which book says that? Give me the reference.
Me:
Warning- The above stunt should be tried out only under highly strict experimental conditions and by people well trained in carrying out such maneuvers. In amateur hands, it can backfire and be potentially hazardous to the very sanity of life. It is a thin line.

Frankly speaking, I cannot imagine a world without them. I mean syphilis. Oh, and of course the whores. Therefore, a syphilitic whore is indeed a rare entity, close to extinction. It is my personal belief that we should do all it takes to save the race. And the next time someone calls you a syphilitic whore, it should make your day, for it’s a compliment! Long live the spirochetes!

Exam Lunacy

Yeah, yeah, exams are stressful for everyone. Be it any subject, any field, any age, gender blah blah blah and so on. But some people go off the grid when dealing with it. I still remember my tenth and twelfth board exams. Terrifying, as they were, minus all the fuss attached to it, parents and teachers really don’t help. And one other person who really doesn’t help is the previous year’s topper, who has his/her face plastered on every other ‘coaching’ centre book/guide. Really don’t understand what the hype is all about. Indians are funny, they will idolize anyone and everyone. All you need to do is get some ‘rank’, and a temple will be built for you.
Scene 1
Place : Outside the examination hall
Time: Before the exam
The area outside the examination hall before the exam usually resembles a fish market. Filled with different kinds of fish. Fish here refers to the variety of students that go to give these exams. One kind appears with the following description- Tall, geeky, nervous, sweaty, soda bottle glasses, with vibhudhi enough to drown one adult male elephant plastered across the forehead, mumbling some last minute ‘extra’ stuff. Can totally pass off for a samiyaar or a guy trying to ward off the voodoo evil. Following him will be his mother- the ever hopeful, the over achieving screechy, high pitched lady who would have spent the last 6 months feeding her son, as if he was going to go in for a world wrestling match. She would be carrying extra idlis, coffee in the sudden emergency that her already overfed hyperexcited, overachieving kid wanted some more, in the few moments before the exam. Last minute- one tiny kumkumam, vibudhi packet will be opened,(Prasad from the deity) as if all that on his forehead, was not enough. Religion/devotion/prayers tend to be rampant at this time and hour. Last minute clarifications will be exchanged between members of the said species, with each member unwilling to part any information which may give him an edge over the other, followed by glaring looks and superficial good luck wishes. I’m surprised these mothers don’t believe in the voodoo stuff. I can totally imagine them piercing needles on miniature dolls resembling their kid’s rival.
There’s another breed, that is usually not visible till the last few minutes before the start of the exam. They are the more experienced ones, who have written the exam before, and who ‘know’ what it is all about. They are visible only to the trained eye, when they waltz into the hall just before the bell rings, with no stationery to write, they don’t mind borrowing, and they don’t mind the fact that they wont know all the answers. This particular set may or may not doze off for a few minutes during the examination, may or may not ask for additional sheets, may or may not stay the entire duration of the exam.

Scene 2a
Place: Examination hall
Time: 3 hours of exam
The first breed of fish will be seen to write feverishly, from the start till the very end. Additional sheets will be flying off the table, ink will run out, hands will start to tremble, as the nerd tries to fill in the sheets with every possible info that is there in his head, even if it isn’t really pertinent to the question. Double colour pens, underlining, highlighting, its surprising the sheets don’t tear with his enthusiasm. He’ll probably write till the end of the day, if they allowed him to. Thank god for time limits. The dude will have about 4 pens of each colour and design, in case the first second and third stop writing. So, what happens when the fourth also runs out of ink? It’s a huge risk that he will have to take! Such a fiasco, that would be! I’m sure he, and his mother would have had nightmares about it. After all, there is only one pen that you can write with at any given point of time. Unless, of course he’s Arjuna the ambidexterous. Even then, two pens would suffice. The most brilliant aspect of this situation is that, he will be extremely unwilling to loan a pen to his fellow mates.

Scene 2b
Place: Outside the exam hall
Everything is quiet. Except for the ocassional chirping of birds and the silent prayers from some obsessive mothers. If it weren’t for the rules, am sure some of them would have organized ‘homams’ and ‘havans’ and all that in that time frame. So that, one more ‘ranker’ is created, and the numerous coaching centres have a field day.

Scene 3
Time : Immediate post exam
Place: Outside the exam hall
The scene is worse than a fish market. Mothers, mothers, mothers everywhere! And in some cases occasional fathers. Each one twisting his/her neck, looking at every guy/girl who comes outside the hall, trying to gauge from their facial expressions as to how tough/easy the exam was, and mentally fitting in that same guy/girl in their list of ‘good’ students, so that they have a rough idea as to how their own offspring would have fared. It kind of resembles the yester year scene at the airport when one goes to receive a would be son in law at the airport (when going abroad was rather prestigious) Each mother probably carrying an imaginary placard that says- “topper”.
Mr/Ms top ranker walks out, sees his/her mother ‘knowing’ glances are exchanged between them and they silently move out. For of course, its kind of rude to say you’ve done well in the exam. The fashion is that you say you’ve done terribly. And act surprised when the results come out. Like those Miss Universe/world paegents. Cover your mouths, and squeal. Those types. So, after the exam, Mr / Ms top ranker usually say that they are going to fail. Despite the vibhudhi,the prayers, the different colour pens, and all the other paraphernalia.

The Facebook Bug

Long long ago, I was a facebook fan. Now I hardly use it, for in my opinion, it has failed to serve its purpose for me. Not that I really had a direction and purpose, and aim and all that when I signed up for it.But generally speaking, on the whole, it bores me to death. I don’t have anything to say to people I hardly ever talk to, no photos to upload, no funny comments to pass, and don’t find the incessant need to let every Tom, Dick and Harry in the world know what I’m doing every minute of my day.
So, I pondered long and hard, and studied the users- namely my friends, and the friends of friends on my list, and realized I could neatly categorise them. Of course, there will be resemblance to living characters in this categorization, and it isn’t coincidental. But I mean it in good humor, rather wry, I should say. So request it to be read in a similar tone.

Well, the first category of people include the newly weds, the newly engaged, and the to be couples. They’d look and appear normal to the naked eye, but then suddenly there would appear a change in the relationship status to “ is single” , followed by “in a relationship” , to prove that nothing was going on before he/she met her/him. Yeah right, like we don’t know. And then there would be atleast 30-40 comments depending on his/her popularity showering with compliments/comments and the likes. Soon to appear would be “ is engaged”, with the photos of the beaming couple. And again, the same people would say the same things, in slightly different ways- “Congrats! You guys look so cute!”.The only difference being in the differential placement of commas and fullstops.And not to mention, the winkey smileys. ;) The flowchart repeats itself a month or two later after the wedding. And the honeymoon snaps. So, I have two pertinent questions here.
1. I don’t have much experience personally, but my cousins have got married, so I’ve seen weddings in close quarters. How in the world do you find time to update the fb status during the wedding or the preceding/following days?
2. As a friend, and well wisher, am I required to wish/congratulate on very status change- from ‘is single to ‘is honeymooning’? What is the norm, here? How many times is normal, and when does it become jobless/stalking?

Moving on to the second category, are the newly emigrated desis in the US of A, and other cleaner neighbourhoods of Mother Earth. They simply cant get enough of the cleanliness there, I presume, because all we are made to see is pictures of them stating- “Me in front of the tower”, “Me at some waterfall”. I suppose you get my drift. Sometimes, there are empty pictures of valleys, and flowers and rivers. By empty- I mean bereft of people. Even the titles of the albums are predictable. Everyone has an album called “fun times” or fun tymes”, “random” etc.

The third, the most irritating category is the ones who play Farmsville. I get nightmares because of Farmsville. “ A dolphin has been found abandoned, do you want to adopt it?”
Really now. That ranks priority one on my task list for the day. Adopting a virtual dolphin that some other virtual member abandoned on a virtual universe. Perfect start. I am sure there are other equally irritating games, but I’m quoting the most obvious.
Other nauseating tools include the ‘virtual poke’ that has been used, misused and abused so much that its like chalk on the blackboard. They have died down, a lot, though since the conception. But some people still stick to it. I don’t know why.
Posting Youtube videos is another fad. Especially of babies doing weird things. The video of some baby doing a dance for “hips don’t lie” is still doing the rounds. And the absolutely unimaginative, predictable clichéd ‘Awww’ that follows soon after!

The fourth is the ones afflicted with a serious disease/affliction. The ones who update their status every other minute. Everything they do, remotely funny, or interesting is up in a jiffy!Ever since I saw a Criminal Minds episode that dealt with a virtual stalker who used fb status updates to murder women, I cringe at every seemingly useless piece of information that is unwittingly put up. Like they say- “the internet never forgets”.

There is another set that deserves special mention. Posting extremely obvious statements on someone’s wall, and pretending to be the only ones who understand the ‘secret’. People aren’t dumb, you know. Besides, when all the girls suddenly say ‘red’ or ‘blue’ or some other color, its pretty obvious what you’re talking about/or what you want the other person to think of it. I can almost hear the giggles when I read such threads. There would be a discussion of a rather private matter on a public domain, a lot would have been said, and then suddenly one party would realize and say- “sent you a mail!”. Duuh. Couldn’t you guys have done that before? Heard of Chat engines? Gtalk/YM etc?

Well, since I unknowingly chose to be a medical graduate, and decided to stay in India, it follows that I do not fall under any of the aforementioned categories. So I really don’t know what to do on facebook. So I open the page everyday, look at some colours, and sign out.

Food Fiasco

A year back, we were posted in the TMA Pai hospital, in Udipi, in the department of OBG. Well, yes, of course, none of us were excited by it. Least to say. Most of our waking moments were spent in bitching, complaining, whining and the likes. Its funny, when you don’t like something, everything about it seems cunningly convoluted and repulsive. Of course, this post isn't about OBG, so I apologise for digressing. A whole new post and more can be written on OBG and the life in it. I shall save that for a rainy day.
There was this restaurant opposite the hospital, where we would all gather for our customary lunch. It was called Naivedya. Good food. No complaints at all. But trust the people in Dakshin Karnataka, especially round about Manipal to come up with irrational combinations. Parata with coconut chutney is the all time favorite. One keeps eating it, and then almost forgets what the norm is. So, this place had something called “ Shezwan Masala Dosa”.
I never could quite gather the courage to try it out. For starters, I’m not a Chinese cuisine fan. And I completely detest the way we Indians cook Chinese. So you can imagine my apprehension. But it sounded too fascinating to resist the try. So I would tell all my friends everyday, right in the morning that I would be having that for lunch. And then on reaching the restaurant, I would get cold feet, and settle for the simple thali. Deliveries, placentas, blood, endometrium etc etc didn’t help my appetite either. So this went on for quite a while.
And then one day it suddenly happened. I ordered it. Pin drop silence on our table. The excitement was palpable, I could almost touch it. My salivary glands first went dry with the expectation, and then overworked with thoughts of how awesome it could taste, and then went back to being dry again. After many an excruciating moment, the waiter finally placed the dosa on my table. I could have died in those few minutes, and I wouldn’t have known, for the dosa was the only thing on my mind.
It looked ugly. As a wine taster would know, the first step is to see it. I follow the rule for most foods. Well this ingenious piece of an invention looked disgustingly ugly. It was an oily fluorescent orange, with light reflecting off its creepily slimy surface. Even if I am exaggerating, it didn’t look all that pleasing to the eye. A fat Chinese man dressed in Indian clothes. With a cup of Sambhar and chutney at its side. Cultural integration at its best. Whoa. I took a deep breath. But all I could smell was the typical ‘aroma’ of a south Indian bustling restaurant. The smell of smoke, sambhar, sweat, and my own savlon tinged hands. Alright, next step. I took a piece, it almost fell out of my hands, halfway on its journey to my mouth. About a litre of oil greased my palms, even mud would have slipped through my fingers. I could see all eyes were on me. The tension was too much. I had to taste it!

Another attempt later, my poor taste buds were greatly disappointed, hurt and deeply pained as every morsel of the the much awaited shezwan masala dosa hit them where it hurt the most. No prizes for guessing, it had noodles in place of the heavenly potatoes as stuffing. So basically, it boiled down to the combination of shezwan noodles with coconut chutney and sambhar. Pretty awful, isn’t it? Well, I dissected the dosa. Deroofed it. Ate the fluorescent orange dosa separately. And ignored the noodles. I suppose someone else at the table had a go at it. Don’t think anyone of us were happy with any part of the dismembered dosa. So much for the chef’s brilliant idea. It sucked. I should’ve known anyway, with all the new Chine-indo dishes. Sounds as promising as the peace dialogues between the aforementioned countries. Never ever again.
Although I truly feel bad for the sight revolting, nausea promoting, fingers greasing, oil dripping, noodle stuffed masala dosa, I wont be eating it again. Its not the dosa’s fault you see. Its like watching Aishwarya Rai and Rajnikanth dancing together. Blame yourself for watching it. Or eating it, in the case of the SMD.

The Apathy

Time : too late in the day, too early in the night. The time when owls start to prowl, when spirits-good and evil start to roam. The time when things become blurred for a portion of the population
Period: the end of internship
Mood: disgusted, used, disillusioned, little nostalgic
Attitude: don’t give a damn
People: 2 medical interns
Place: below shenoys, Manipal, the abundant crow shit covered/layered area
Topic of discussion: nothing specific
Content: lots of curses, many pauses, no plans, more curses, blank stares, few more pauses
Excerpts:
Me: “Well. So, whats up yo? How’s it going?”
( Considering we’d just had dinner together, rather late to start a conversation, but considering the given time, age, and era, quite understandable)
Her: “Nothing much.”
Head nods. I look blankly at greens in front of me. Not really seeing anything, but.
A few minutes pass this way. People of all ages, and profession pass our way. We don’t really see anyone, except THEM. The ones who do OBG. And then suddenly the conversation kick starts.
Me: “Oh man. Am so glad that stupid OBG is done. And then some *(@$%@!(@ ( expletives censored)
Her: Yeah… I know @*#&@#*!#$@!*#!
And then silence descends once again.
She interrupts
Her: “You think my pants are too low?”
Me: “Err, err, uh, hmm, uh. Ok”
( Laughter that contains traces of embarrassment, boredom, some wry humour, and various other unexplained emotions)
Fade to silence.