wait.....

Wait......

It all begins with your

parents' wait for your arrival

their wait for the joy that

you and your pranks alone can give

Their wait for your first day at school

your returning home in the evenings

their wait for your becoming a grown up

then comes your waits in life

Your morning wait for the newspaper,

coffee, breakfast, lunchpack

your wait for the bus/ train , for the start of

classes , end of it and the lunch

These apart are your innumerable 

waits at the cinemas, hotels and temples

and the most thrilling wait for anyone-

that for exam results and college admission

Followed by that for your first day at the college

the semester exams and finally the convocation

followed by the most trying wait- that for a job

then the wait for your spouse and then your kids

And the cycle goes on and on

finally the eternal wait for the end

the most fascinating lesson that is never learnt is- that

Only we wait for the event  and

Time never waits for us!!!

This was an attempt at a poem , a long way back , for the college magazine

and it got published !!!(as the last content  in the english section - guess they did it because 

thay had to no other way to fill in the pages!!)

why i never went elsewhere

Had long self deliberations when I finished my class XII and had both engineering and medicine seats on offer in top institutes.

I was 12 years younger; so guess my brain should have been in a better shape undamaged by all these medical literature

One of the reasons I dint take up engg was that I dint want to entertain any thoughts of going away from my parents (I was not even ready to move to a hostel!) apart from the fact that I dint have any aptitude for engineering

By joining medicine, I banished any chances of me moving far from my parents as early as within 4- 5 years( that was the time  everyone was going onsite  as if it was boarding an EMU to Beach)

The primary reason of not wanting to move away from my parents was the issue of being near them, when they need you- I know a lot of parents who are proud to say that their kids are doing great abroad. Their kids earn well , send them money , buy property in posh locales, call them daily , pamper them in all all ways staying away, but when you  get the parents  to talk freely , u will definitely get the answer that most of them would prefer them to be here with them and that they miss something inspite of having a lot . I never wanted to put my parents in that position

About six years as medical undergraduate and intern meant I was not moving anywhere for that period. And I also had a false impression that life would be a bed of roses after MBBS. But that soon became a mirage seeing the need for PG

Even in UG period there were a few temptations like PLAB and USMLE.

I am sure even then I was not swaying towards that thought due to my primary reason apart from those choices needing quite an investment then. Anyway I had the confidence in me and God (more on Him) that I will get a good PG course. And luckily he gave me a good speciality where I will be able to earn decent early as well as stay in the city with my parents. Now I don’t have any regrets for not having gone out so far

Serious reasons apart ,others are

Never comfortable with the idea of missing home food ( if you look at my weight for height , you will know) and for the fact that  I should be having one of the most fragile gastric mucosa- it cant take tea for two days together- so no obvious interest in trying out new cuisines or so

Cant bear the cold climes I guess- I shriver at 18  degrees in an AC room- am more at home in the furnace that’s Chennai( hope I am not hypothyroid)

Don’t need a lot of money, as I never learnt the habit of spending and shameful fact being that my spending pattern has not changed between the dependent days and now. but one thing is definite - more money is more pain

Traveling far is a dream that I have a few times; but its stayed a dream because once I need to implement that dream, I become the laziest guy on earth – I actually prefer to travel virtually!!!- seeing on TV and net and transferring myself there!!

Challenges - those are things that are best enjoyed on the TV- i like to keep my life simple, uncomplicated

Silly fears  being - not wanting to die falling from  a plane; not wanting to die in another country; not getting caught by the law of the land(foreign)- as shown in a lot of movies; going without food / getting sick there; not wanting to be at the brunt of racist attacks

Anyways most people  go outside country  to earn a lot; some to train ; some to enjoy life; some for the sake of it; some because they cannot do anything here

None of the reasons above inspire me to do the same as i am double sure that i wil have the best life here simple, uncomplicated- i dont need anything more , anything less

May be its too mediocre to think so ; but everyone's got to live on their own terms . I dont hold anything who go searching for greener pastures

I surely believe akkaraikku ikkarai pachhai (not ikkaraikku akkaraikku pachhai)

This had to be a reply by mail to a friend who asked me the question yesterday ; but its become a blog ( still she will  be only victim to read this)

street smart

Is that a fitting term for the indian  voter? i guess so, seeing the way the average indian citizens have turned in a mandate! this was a most unexcepected verdict for most people. what many thought was that congress would just gain a slender lead and would have to deal with the poltical backmailers to survive for as long as possible before plunging the country into another election.i suppose congress itself was not too far from the opinion. Though the regional powerhouses ( thats what they thought of themselves before 16 .09.09) were of the opininon each one of them would be a king/ queen or a kingmaker.  The right wing ( called so despite most of their ideologies being wrong) was assuming that it was their turn to return to might and the left ( are they called so because their motto is to see everything  good left the country ) pining hopes on india's poor to have another shot at  run(i)ning the country without responsibility.

How did the large number of people of such a diverse country give an  unexpected opinion that surprised most psephologists. My common man brain sees two patterns in these - the voters have rejected the political opportunists of the first degree , blackmailers and the most ungrateful ministers( read bihari babus, china's partners in india  and the most health conscious minister). The second one being approving those who had worked towards development and who took steps to keep their poll promises( not letting them being just promises) - read bihar, gujarat , delhi and tamil nadu

The people have supposedly chosen the least toxic option available on view at present inspite of quite a few blips from the government.The way the people have rejected means  they  still believe their country is secular and hope it stays so. the Left's been red carded for showing 

red flag to everything good. People are wary of the regional powerhouses , especially the two ladies , one each in the in the north and south , who have a penchant for obnoxious display of wealth , unattainable by fair means. probably people thought what would remain 

in the country if they wielded their wands for some time.

Now its upto the parties to show the people that they have not made a wrong choice. Their re election , has had to with the opponents mistakes as much as their right choices. Now that they have a reasonable mandate , people expect them to behave responsibly and be as 

humble as they were/ are when they go garnering votes; hope they dont forget their promises and indulge in self sustenance. I hope they dont mess themselves giving berths to criminally tainted persons; but choose efficient persons with integrity(Mr. Shashi Tharoor- to name one)

and utilise their services.

Anyways i am happy that i dont have to vote for a central government for another five years; happy considering that its a very costly affair-take this sample, air turbine fuel cost for the netas election campaigns have been ~! 5 crores- for a country that  is still not able to help a lot of people going to bed( sorry lying on the floor) with hungry stomachs.

If the new government is able to buck the anti incumbency based on its good work, after another five years i am sure the country would have done well providing inclusive growth.Whatever the government does , I am sure that the street smart indian voter will use his common sense to right the wrongs, as needed!

Life as a radiologist

Life as a radiologist is a dream for a lot of young medical students when they intern / prepare for their PG entrance. It looks glamorous from the outside and a few succumb to it even if they have a greater aptitude for some other field. The features that make radiology attractive are the easy big money( its neither easy/ not very big after some time), cool working environment and lack of tension/ risk and ultimate lack of physical effort.

Most of them turn out to be false when you enter practice  or at least few years down the line. Money is big intially , but it stays the same for a long time . Our minds being human , never seem to come to a conclusion how much money is much!! Our surgical and other speciality friends start slow but once they cross a period only their choice limits the amount they earn.only cool thing about the working environment is that its cool literally( no one knows if all the places are radiation safe- no one takes those into consideration - they just think these guys sit all day in the AC rooms and just sign something). Most ironical impression is the apparent lack of risk / tension. You got to sit and work in a full fledged busy scan center at 8 in the evening to feel the real pressure associated with the job( you have CT/MR scans going on two sides, with a bunch of films on the table to report, a few on the lobby and a kid wailing in pain with probable torsed testis -  and imagine you have not had anything from the afternoon). it does not get worser than that - thats what you feel atleast at that moment. And you do not have the liberty of making a mistake and rectifying it later. whatever is typed and signed is going to stay on forever even if you leave this world .  A mistake however small is going to stay on ever recorded in words (haunting you for a long time if you are unlucky). You are always going to get some cases you are not very sure of , as the field is too vast- it covers from head to toe , skin to marrow and embryo stage to the  demented geraitric patients( though you do not "do" much). 

To top it all , some of the ignorant comments from people  like why are you working like a technician, why dont you start a clinic and why did you join this course, can be really irritating at the  least.

Even worser is the situation when you get to see young patients walking in normally and walking out with grave diagnoses in  hand.I have cried atleast on four to five such occasions and struggled to avoid being the person having to break the news.Hope not to be in such situations at all

Anyways  i love this speciality  as i think i fit it ergonomically.Hope its the same with anyone who joins the course and no one joins it because it just looks cool.

An afternoon gone totally wrong!!

Never thought the rare deserved off i take wud be spent roaming the streets of chennai. it had to do with both the  choice of my activity and partner( a" major" armyman- who is sometimes punctual).Fortunately for him he was uncharacteristically punctual that day. We chose to see a tamil movie in a theatre located between both our houses. To our horror we found tickets were not available at the counter for the film half an hour before the movie( it was being sold at the gates at double the rates-for a movie in the 6th week). So we chose to move to a theatre half a kilometre away to find it was no different there(though it had multiple screens).Hence we decided to go to a proper multiplex - satyam - only to be disappointed with the fact that tickets were available only for the night show. Other shameful reason for going there was that being a true blue chennaiite since birth , I had only heard the name of satyam cinemas- never watched a movie there(one previous attempt on a sunday afternoon had ended with nonavailability of tickets). My second attempt at correcting that anomaly was gone in the dust and severe heat today too. Never the ones to take disappointments easily, we bravely marched to inox for the same result. We felt really horrible feeling like fools on a sunday afternoon in the burning chennai heat

I immediately banished any thoughts of further trudging the city( remember we had sloggged from the west to the east within the city limits). My friend thought of giving a shot at a multiplex close to our college- butI dint have the energy and was almost averse to watching a movie that day ( a case of sour grapes)

And we decided that the best way to overcome the disappointment was to do some retail therapy; hence we moved towards the shopping hub of Chennai ( should i say its T.Nagar- am sure everyone who visited the city knows) . What did we get to see there- a sea of humanity and vehicles jostling for the smallest denominator of space. Took a few minutes to cross the road , jumping between the vehicles . Oh god! worser thing was my friend was about to get a bumper fracture ,when a parked car started moving ; but luckily he was not hurt and the driver apologised(rare nowadays as people dont own their mistake)

Finally we went to the 7  floor store(where u get almost everything u need- only if u have the patience to bear the congestion).  Even at the entrance we were sure that our day is made(for struggle). We just finished our shopping with a couple of pieces of footwear and made a hasty exit only to find that road was a lot worser

I hear anyone who comes to chennai know Ranganathan street and I no longer wonder why.

Seeing the sunday crowd at 6 in the evening, i had a feeling similar to what i hav when i see the holy crowd  thronging the mecca!! I dint dare to walk through the street initially for the fear of  being caught in a stampede/ being picked and the worst , accused of  being a frotteur. So i limped to the bus stand to see overflowing buses. And walking further I was thinking what recession are they talking about , when the shopping hub is so crowded.

 I dint hav a choice but to return to my favourite mode of transport(EMU) through a less congested road( the lesser congestion was becaause of the horrible stink emanating from the garbage on the road).Finally lady luck smiled on me that evening; got a seat on the train my way home. which seemed  heavenly after the six hour toil on the road.  On the way i picked up a original DVD( for viewing during my next off) , promising i would never go to a theatre again in the near future and that too with my lucky buddy.  I dont know if i would be able to resist my temptation to pick up a pirated disc of new movies if the theatres sell tickets outside the counters( today i resisted the thought of buying the dvd of the movie i wanted to see).

Let me see how long my resolve stays so. And  sorry to anyone who manage to complete reading  this cribbing!!

Are we just?

“Are we just?” – this question has passed through my neural network so many times in the last 10 years ( ever since I joined a medical school ). And the frequency of such thoughts has multiplied ever since I started practising radiology. I took radiology presuming I could help the patients in the maximum possible way with least harm to the patients (“primum non nocere”). I suppose I have been mostly doing that.


Radiology has established itself as an integral part of the patient care for medical as well as non medical reasons. Medical reasons are well known to the professional as well as the
educated patients. Main issues with diagnostic tests (imaging / non imaging) are the over referral and the issue of IC. Over referral is a tricky thing but that could be accepted as it is worth even if you pick a single tumor for hundred normal brain scans. Most unpardonable is the issue of IC. Primarily for the way the acronym is expanded (I don’t know what to call it – internal cuts / interpretation charges). For the uninitiated it’s the money that is given to the referring clinician by the diagnostic centers for the referral. I am amused how it is called interpretation charges because it is done by a radiologist and he does not get a single paisa of that( i am not jealous ,for sure). Remember the money comes from nowhere else other than the patient’s pockets whether it is deep or shallow.

Hold your breath- the worst one comes now – the commission/ brokerage/ bribe ( looking for cheaper words!) is not a single digit number. It hovers at and above 50%, nothing less. More the cut, more the referrals. Surprise, surprise some of the prominent consultants who looked and talked ethical were the worst offenders. There are doctors who are much dependent on this money to run their practice / lives as it generates a huge amount of unaccounted cash. The diagnostic centers are competing with each other in giving higher IC , to garner larger number of cases.

All this is happening with probably the public, media and the government in the know!
It’s been so surprising that none have had the gumption to challenge this practice which puts the already suffering people under higher stress.

I just wonder why all the fuss is made about ethics and service mindedness in medicine, when a large proportion of the fraternity indulge in this shameful act. Medicine is indeed no more a noble profession except for the smaller percentage of doctors who do not take “bribe” from their patients. They are the only saving grace.

. I am happy atleast that as a consultant radiologist I am not directly involved in this sinful giving or taking bribes, though I am a ineffectual witness to these proceedings. I pray God that this heartless fleecing act comes to an end sooner

HORO(R)SCOPE

This one old crumpled piece of paper has been playing a huge role in one of the most important events life- marriage. It comes into play whether you are for or against the belief. The ones who try to believe they are rationalists and don't believe in them are more likely to be on the wrong side of thirties by the time they compromise. As you don't get the parents of your probable life partners,so rational. As it boils down to the life of their beloved kids , they don't want to do anything that does not go down well with the 'stars'.There are some instances where proposals are rejected because certain stars and planetary positions don't go down well with the prospective in laws.

And what they don't realize or mind is the fact that it narrows down the options most of the times to single digit. I feel its funny that you have to choose from the narrowed list that has been arrived at without the use of eyes / mind of the prospective life partners. It ceases to be a thing of the heart.You might like a girl and prefer her to be your partner but if the stars don't will it is not going to be accepted.

One thing that amuses me is that how they have decided marriages with matched horoscopes are better than the ones that occur without their involvement.I don't think there are any case control/cohort studies to prove /disprove that.And another interesting thing is the number of marriage that run into rough weather. Anyway whatever i feel i think i too have to use my horoscope that really narrows the scope for the search of your partner, as without it there seems to be no hope of marriage.