A beautiful conversation

-

 I am in Goa. Woke up late due to late night party which I feel wasn’t meant for me (am I old ? - no ways)

So I was staying at a hostel. The reason being the opportunity to meet people. So after having a nice breakfast of omelette and coffee at a nearby restaurant I wander back to my hostel and sit in the wonderful courtyard with tall old trees saving u from the sun with their shadowy leaves. I started searching for places that had live gigs. Like of real indie music and not the usual ...omg I have forgotten what the sound of the disco is...please help me with that. So I was searching for some soulful musical experience in Goa. (Hoping to find lucky ali actually) Luck be it there was a live gig happening in the beautiful space in the hostel itself. The staff told me that the band people were already there. So I went to see who these guys were. They were just setting up their whole thing. The mic and the speakers and stuff. Don’t really know what all things are included. I just went and sat at the bar. Ordered a fancy pinacolada for myself. Ankita the chef started chatting with me. One person from the band guys joined us. He was kinda good looking enough to make me interested. So we started with the usual banter .

R (me) : hey where u from ?

H(him): hey I am from Pune actually.

R: R u playing in the band?

H: no m just the photographer. Those other guys r going to sing and play the guitar.

R: oh nice. Btw cool tattoo. What does it mean? Looks like some script.

H : thanks. It’s written vertically, try reading it

R: something from R

H: yeah it’s Rada Rada in Marathi. (It was on his neck)

R: oh shit that took me a while. Cool ya. I also wanted a tattoo of a semicolon. It stands for solidarity for people with mental health disorders. 

H : damn cool ya. How come I didn’t know this. I am supposed to know.

R: oh why u supposed to know about this ?

H : wait I’ll just come. (The band people called him to help with the arrangements.)

H: this place is damn nice ya. The decor and everything. Wish we could do a video here.

R : hey why did u just say that u were supposed to know about the tattoo?

H: oh that .. because m a doctor yaar. That curly guy over there  we both are mbbs interns.

R : what ? 

H : yeah I mean obviously it’s rare to find a doctor in this setting.

R: That’s right. What are the odds ? I am a doctor too.

(I had to really convince him in the next part of the conversation that I was a doctor because me sitting there in my Goan shorts with an oversized T-shirt and my unwaxed legs and wind blown hair sipping on a pinacolada at the bar in Goa ... kinda hard to believe)

So I told him about my NGO and he was super impressed. I just hoped and prayed that he didn’t call me ma’am there when he came to know that I was actually done with my MD and everything.

But he didn’t. 

Later he introduced me to his friend who wanted to do psychiatry later. I told him about the research work at samvad and hopefully he will be joining as a volunteer in the later half of this year.

It was a good trip.

P.S I don’t date interns😉


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Corporate Community Doctor

-
Image
My first blog was on Being a Community Medicine doctor. I expressed how difficult it was to explain my specialization to random aunties. It wasn't love at first sight - me choosing this branch. But accepting whatever came to me and falling in love with the subject as I explored all the nooks and crevices of this subject in detail. I found this subject as a very useful tool to provide medical services to the community at large. I said in that blog what's in a name? What is the need to call it community medicine and not Preventive and Social Medicine.  But applying this subject and the learnings for more than two and a half years (well not that much of an experience timewise)  I have realized that community medicine is actually a better name.  PSM makes people focus just on the preventive aspect. But Community Medicine is just more than prevention of a disease. Prevention is an important part - YES!  But there are a lot of things which go unnoticed by general public or...
Read more

My essay for WHO day !

-
Image
Let’s talk Depression “I don’t feel normal” Sneha told her mother. “What is not normal? You get up, you do your chores ,you study ,you have food with us , you laugh at jokes ,watch T.V. Everything is norml my child, you must be feeling hungry, go eat something then you will feel better.” Sneha’s mother answers her.What could possibly be wrong? Sneha is a graduate MBBS doctor studying for her entrance exams. She is beautiful, she is intelligent ,she is independent. But she doesn’t feel normal. She wants to tell somebody. She goes to her friends who tell her to just chill, stress is a compulsory part of life these days.It’s just a phase. Life will be better when she gets a post-graduate seat, they tell her. Her mother doesn’t even think that anything is wrong. But Sneha is a doctor, she knows this is not normal. She gets that sinking feeling in her abdomen. Sometimes she gets up early in the morning but still doesn’t feel fresh. Wa...
Read more

Being a community medicine doctor!

-
Random aunty in society asking,"So what are you doing these days?" "I am doing M.D in Nair hospital."I say proudly hoping to avoid further questions. "Oh great! What specialization?" The inevitable question comes for which I know I would have to spend sufficient time and energy answering it. P.S.M .....Who does that?It is nobody's first choice.Random aunties don't even know about it and they think that I am pursuing some new found branch.....which makes me look good in front of her ...but seriously P.S.M people are thought of as those who build latrines for poor people and who take advantage of so many bank holidays. Oh Ok sorry its not P.S.M anymore.Its Community Medicine....Gives it a clinical feel.Makes us feel more like doctors rather than social workers.But does it really mater what we call ourselves.Think.What we do as preventive doctors is just secondary.The name matters.Fancy!. Ok so I am Dr Rucha doing M.D. Community Medicine in T.N....
Read more