Indian Medical Student : Abattoir

"Sari Umar Bhar Hum Mar Mar Ke Jiye, Ek Pal To Hame Jine Do Jine Do" ~ 3 IDIOTS

3 IDIOTS continues to be a popular and unconventional bollywood movie, beating the traditional boredom of gayish love stories, resonating with stories of Youths in India. Three guys living together all the time, showering, dancing, singing in bathroom, with expressions of joy being naked, definitely resonates. One of the songs, especially the one I just mentioned above, resonates with my spirit, as with the spirit of the Traditional English Education System of colonial era.

Having graduated from Indian Medical School, reminds me of Slaughter house. Though myself being born in a strictly Vegetarian household, have never been inside an actual slaughter house, but having eaten a lot of meat being a traditionally defiant youth, always reminded me of my spiritual dilemma of what a Slaughter House be like.

An opportunity to witness the killing first hand began on the First Day, when ten of us were asked to be seated around a man lying on a table soaked in formalin, and hundred of us in the hall were told the bodies that you see in front of you are Dead. There came a thumping sound from five tables behind me, and hundreds of eyeballs chasing, so as not to miss the action of some one dying, and there I saw a fellow medical student lying on the floor.

Smirking professor of Anatomy consoled us, saying this often happens on the first day, and those who are standing upright are survivors. Thus began our life at a Medical School, with faint memories of Dissection Hall and my colleagues who shared the Cadaver for one whole year, when all we did was slice open one part after another, trying to understand what it was, but most of the time arguing.

Memories of human anatomy have faded but the pattern of arguing with colleagues and friends continue till date. Was it because of the formalin or was it because of the slaughtering that happened during those years, that kept us together, though we still continue to remain argumentative yet resonating with symphonic lyrics of frustration and our journey of daily slaughtering. Some of them do it professionally and some of them Unethically, and saga of slaughtering and slaughter house continuing.

The purpose behind writing this book is to take others on a Journey of what an Indian Medical Student life is all about, sharing stories of naked bathroom performances and going all the way disclosing secret society of doctors living a stress free High life, though the goal continues to remain at highlighting systemic structures, that makes Indian Health System under-performing, and attempting to explain how Medical Education System is just a symptom of underlying Cancerous pathology.



Che Guevara a name every Doctor must know, not because he was a Socialist, Marxist, but because his name speaks of images of Imperialist Rebellion, who attempted to preach lessons of Solidarity and Revolution in practice of Medicine. One of his talk "On Revolutionary Medicine" helps us see what he was attempting to preach:

A few months ago, here in Havana, it happened that a group of newly graduated doctors did not want to go into the country's rural areas and demanded remuneration before they would agree to go... But what would have happened if instead of these boys, whose families generally were able to pay for their years of study, others of less fortunate means had just finished their schooling and were beginning the exercise of their profession? What would have occurred if two or three hundred campesinos had emerged, let us say by magic, from the university halls?

What would have happened, simply, is that the campesinos would have run, immediately and with unreserved enthusiasm, to help their brothers... What would have happened is what will happen in six or seven years, when the new students, children of workers and campesinos, receive professional degrees of all kinds... If we medical workers—and permit me to use once again a title which I had forgotten some time ago—are successful, if we use this new weapon of solidarity...

Humble Dr. Guevara, continues to remain an Inspiring role model, who attempted to Inspire his fellow Cubans, to visualize through his emotions a world, where they could be if they fought the war of inequity, through use of a new weapon, which he called "Solidarity".

But what does solidarity have to do with Medical Schools, and with Slaughtering. When a group of Viciously conspiring Corrupt beasts start shaping systems, which bring benefits to just One Percent, leaving more than Ninety percent in frustration, struggling to make their ends meet, the Question of Solidarity becomes paramount. Not because there is no solution other than revolution, but because we have to allow a better Solution to bring about this Revolution, such that resulting Disruption, brings about novel Innovations.

Solidarity a word that comes from French word solidarité which means "communion of interests and responsibilities, mutual responsibility". Offers us a peak inside what "Solidarite" means, which evokes emotions that often resonates with another closely related word Solid.