The Secret Course That Doctors Do

I had my Linguistics exam the other day and Don's mom (a doc) had generously taken out time and made notes explaining the concepts of Phonetics to us. Reading her notes a flashbulb lit in my weary, tired, grumpy brain. And no, it was nothing connected to Phonetics! :P

Image Copyright © 1998 Mark A. Hicks. Originally published by Mark A. Hicks. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

What is the one thing that connects doctors across the world, the one thing they share across all boundaries-nationality, race, gender, whatever? No, not the white coat silly! It is- wait for it- (hehe!)- ta da- {{drum-roll}}- IT'S THE BAD HANDWRITING!!!! Yea folks, that's the thing! Whether you go to a doctor in Munirka or a doctor in Nebraska, you can be sure that you'll never understand what they wrote on that prescription slip! 

So I decided to find out why exactly this happens, is it a mere coincidence that I haven't met a single Doctor with a legible handwriting. After a day of super-sleuthing and haunting doctors across the city, this is what my spies reported- "It is a conspiracy! "

Wait. That was not dramatic enough. After all, it's a big secret.

Ok, let's try India TV style:
"Ye ek saazish hai! Kya aap jaante hain apne chikitsak ka raaz? Aap kyun unki likhavat ko padh nai paate? Aapke haath mein chikitsa parcha hai ya ek khufiya saazish ka raaz! Dekhiye ye parcha kya aap kuch padh pa rahe hain? Kya raaz chupaate hain chikitsak humse?.."

Alright I could go on and on if I had been the India TV crew member who would love to drive you mad but my Hindi vocabulary isn't loaded well enough! :( So the big secret is- Yes, they do a secret one year course in Spider Crawlies, I mean, bad handwriting. This is info straight from the doc's mouth, obtained after threatening him to decipher what he had written and leak it to the press! So here's the deal- the course is called 'Legibility-A Medical Crime' and has books like- "Bad Handwriting for Dummies and Docs" by secretly renowned author U. Kant Reedmi and "The Medico's Guide To Scrawling" by I. Wright Spyder. These books are not available without a medico prescription! 

All medical students have to pass this one year course to get the "Dr" tag next to their names. The exam is closely monitored and if even the invigilator is able to read what you write you are thrown out right then and there and given an ER (Essential Repeat, dummy!) All doctors have come through this tough course with a lot of hardwork and the Minstrel salutes them! Our source Dr. Sharma (name changed just for fun!) says, "I could do all the other courses even with my eyes shut. The toughest ones too were a cakewalk! But Course AUDUD1 was a mighty firecracker! I don't know how I made it through!"

And yes, a chemist has to take the course too. How else would he read the prescription? 

After years of the English teacher drilling them in school to get the beautiful cursive handwriting, it must definitely have been hard to unlearn all of that. All those truant medicos who were scolded by their teachers for bad handwriting ("I would have corrected your paper IF I could read what you wrote!") must have had the last laugh now.

Who said it's easy to become a doctor? Planning to become one, start scrawling today.
ESSENTIAL TIPS (stolen from Mr. U. Kant Reedmi's book)
1. No human but your chemist should read what you write.
2. It gives you that aura of mystery and enigma.
3. Learn from 2 and 3 year old kids. Steal their books for guidance.
4. When done correctly the page should look like a handicapped spider wobbled across the page.
5. Hold your pen with 2 fingers and write for practice.
6. Pretend as if you have a fracture in your hand and then try.
Honestly, I couldn't read the rest or I would have reprinted it all here! Sorry guys!


P.S.- Thank goodness I never wanted to become a doctor! How would I ever have deformed my beautiful handwriting!? :P
 

Lives and Leaves..

I come here often,

Sit and wonder

What could have been

The leaves have turned yellow

They rue the green

Lived for sure, it's true

But how?

The thin line between happiness and bliss mocks.

Through thorns and deserts,

storm and thunder,

Is it the path

Or the one who treads it?

The blame sags like the misery of Atlas,

But who would hold it?

Yellow, what once was green

An idle thought

Or a profound question

What could have been.

Lives and leaves,

So close,

So close to man,

Who once born

lives and leaves.

But how?

Angry Young Woman

So what do you do when you're filled with wrath and cannot find ways for a release? If there are mini pressure cookers building up a nest within you and well on their way to forming a massive volcano (hell, i don't think there's a biological link between volcanoes and pressure cookers, but what the heck! What on earth is a poetic/ writer's license for if not for making inane links like this and getting away with it!!!?) 

Shit, I lost track! So where was I? Oh yea, anger. Bloody bloody anger. You want to punch someone but you can't because it's just going to hurt someone you care about? Or because the person whose face you want to ram your fist into is someone you really really care about? So what do you do? How do you find an outlet?

Heck, I ain't a psychologist, I don't have the answers to everything! But well, here's what I do most of the time. I find a creative outlet, I write, I draw, or whatever. I find some way to express my anger, even if not to anyone else but myself. Anger or any ill feeling that is bottled up will just find a release in a drastic way sometime or the other, perhaps in a way that you might regret, it's best to wage that battle here and now than to be drawn into a war that is a lose-lose situation from every aspect.

So punch that pillow, scribble out those angry words. It might just help in saving a relationship. It might make a difference.

(P.S.- The Minstrel's learning to deal with anger and trying to ply out the pressure cookers from her Mount Vesuvius, one word at a time. Matter of "PRESTIGE". Hypocrisy ain't cool!)

Nothing like exams to kill the creativity!

I know it's been a long time!!! And my apologies! My only tryst with words has been what i have to study! Does your brain refuse to function the way you want it to? Do the professor's lectures swim in your head even in your sleep? Does each day that comes to a close send shivers down your spine? Do you read and read and still feel you have much to read still! Then you too have the "system-draining-my-system-syndrome"! It should be a punishable offense really- this ruthless murder of creativity! 

I'm sorry if I sound doped right now but there is so much Wordsworth in my system that my brain protests against all this unfair labour! I mean, where on earth did he find the time to write all that man! It's such a pain to read his poetry (no offence to the Wordsworth lovers!!!)! The Prelude is just a prelude to my misery! There is still so much to do! This sabbatical is uncalled for! I can't even think of something funny to write! Sheesh! I give up! 

 

P.S.- Lord deliver me from this misery but if it is Thy will to torture me thus, atleast make me a little more tolerant with the syllabus (my task at hand!)! Please!!!!Pretty please!!!!!!!      

What was that word dude!!!???

 







So this is a perennial cause for worry as far as I am concerned, Why is it that you forget that word/name on the tip of your tongue every time you REALLY REALLY need it and remember it the minute you no longer have any need of it? I always get stuck with it, especially during exams! Precious minutes have I spent chewing off the top of my pen trying to remember what the name of Santiago's best friend was or what the name of that graveyard poem by Gray was! Arre baba it's so frustrating!

Why does it happen? Is it a conspiracy? Are words trying to get their revenge for the frequent misuse and bending and twisting that we subject them to!? Is it a smart cunning devious plot? Or is it just a game by Fate? To slow us down, to make us stop and think, at least once in a while? Whatever it is the fact remains that this crap is a top rate pain in the posterior. Even this post began with my wondering about what this word was that means deriving some kind of pleasure or pain from watching someone else's or something like that! I asked the kiddo but she had not a clue! And I still can't remember! Damn! Such is life, full of crap! There is still so much to crib about dear folks and I have a feeling I might not be able to keep my promise anytime soon!!!!! A vicious circle it is and there is no escape! Lol! 

p.s.- It's a miracle I managed to write this entire blog post without stumbling at even one word! It's so...umm..what was that word..which means..miraculous yet ominous or something, surprising too..ummmm...Shit! I knew it was too good to be true! Damn! Should have known!

On Writing

Today I woke up to a vision...a vision of a younger me, about 7 or 8 years old, sitting at her desk, furiously scribbling away on sheets of paper that she silently filed away. Later she took them out, read them with a stoic expression on her face and then tore them up and burnt the pieces. She was unhappy with the words, they just did not seem right the way she wanted them to be. This is not what she wanted to be remembered for. She sat on her steps that evening, morose and disappointed, her head on her scraped band-aided knees. 

She didn't know why she felt so hollow and sad. Were they not just pieces of paper? But she knew those shreds contained more than that. Each piece contained a fragment of her dream- her dream to weave magic with words. The dream that she had just shredded in anger and frustration- yes, someday it would be real.

Those eyes burnt a hole in my heart, the hope in her eyes, the sadness in her tears. The vision shook me up, I couldn't let that dream die. I would give it wings. So i got up out of bed, opened a new blank document, ran my fingers across the keyboard in a dreamy state and vowed again-my dream is to create and I shall not let it die. I bit my lower lip in concentration and took a deep breath. So this is it, now is the moment. It was time to fly.

And so with a sigh and a prayer, I let it flow and wrote...nothing. My mind was a blank. I just sat staring at the keyboard cursing and muttering, as if the words would just come flying out of nowhere into my mind and allow me to pin them onto the document that was still staring blankly at me. It was taunting me, challenging me, writing is a bitch really. How the hell could I give up like that? I couldn't let her down, that little girl was me, I couldn't let her dream sink so easily! So I typed, whatever I was feeling at that moment, whatever came to my mind- she led me on through her universe, her eyes were dancing now and I could feel slivers of ecstasy penetrating my being. Her eyes were my eyes. Her joy was now mine. I read, cursed. typed, cut, smiled, muttered, laughed and nodded to myself in approval.

And here it is- this is what I wrote. I just put down what I felt and there I had my tale. Who said one needs wings to fly? Take a flight instead. :) This shall not be torn to shreds    ( well that's also coz I literally can't since it's on the computer! :) And I shall blind myself to the DELETE and BACKSPACE keys!) However it may be, good or bad, it is mine. And here it is, for everyone to see. I can see her smiling, my little dream. She has flown at last!