“Good Good”,quipped my department head,popping two extra pills of lithium into her afternoon tea to stabilize her roller coaster mood swings, as I stood there nonchalantly wondering what the fuss was all about. “Most of your seniors will not be attending the conference, so you are on the quiz team that takes part in the conference representing our college!”,she said, without any change in expression as the lithium kicked in. “ So cute, So cute, a junior on the team” ,she said as I silently thanked her lithium levels that made her less of a terror than she always looked to be. Being ushered into her chambers on the pretext of getting some paperwork done suddenly put me on a road never trod, less heard. My seniors clearly conniving to get out of the obligation led to a fresher entering inter collegiate prelims on a quiz show at the national level. Having just gotten a whiff of gas science, an entire quiz competition in a subspeciality in an institute wasn’t obviously a piece of cake.
Obstetric anesthesia was the subspeciality I was to master in 8 days flat. The only thing I knew about obstetrics while interning in undergrad was that we had the wicketkeeping job to do, catching the baby on a single take as it wriggled out from its 10 month long prison! A painless component to obstetrics was less heard evidenced by the dolby surround sound effects that the maternity labour rooms provided, thanks to highly vocal women in labour ,ready to abuse anyone who walked in! earplugs deemed a necessity rather than an option, had slowly been phased out thanks to epidural analgesia being provided on the patient’s demand. Clearly the newer techniques had been elusive to the worm like learning curve that I had just started to wiggle on.
8 never-ending days of cramming put me on a train to Chandigarh to attend the quiz debacle. Optimism being my savior, the D day seemed a little less frightening thanks to the stopover at kasauli hill station to enjoy the scenic views ;) After breathing in the mountain air, drillbit concepts about inhalational gases used in labour analgesia had to be puffed out on command. The 8 days one on one with a fat textbook obviously didn’t bring me a medal to write home about thanks to a certain shady questionable advantage that the home team at the quiz professed not to enjoy. Controversies aside, a paid holiday on a hill resort and an outing to another city was well appreciated ;) bring them on, I say; Lots to discover, places if not concepts!
Here is me signing off with a quote apt for optimists..There is always a light at the end of the tunnel, am so praying that it isn’t the train!
Happy Woman’s day!
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