Cuneatus

Sixteen years after release, Dil Se has become synonymous with a genre of movies that narrate a story of painful, impossible, yet immaculate love. The movie is a rollercoaster ride through an exceptional love story, so perfectly scripted and presented, that you virtually start seeing through the eyes of the characters and start sensing the pain deep inside your hearts, only to end in absolute agony. Movie left me speechless. Love can melt a rocky heart I'm immensely hurt by the ending. The excellence of the narration is in keeping you gripped through every frame of the movie wondering will anybody die? Will Meghana leave behind her terror community, her vengeance, her own dismantled past, and accept the love of Amar, marry him and lead a happy life together? Will a brave Amar avert the bombing planned on Republic Day? I'm certainly sure that everybody hoped it would be a "Yes" to the second question. But, the movie breaks a million hearts. Could the story have ...

It was fun taking the third term MBBS students on a visit to the Primary Health Center and Anganwadi. Me, my senior and junior took the batch of 25 second year under-graduates to the PHC in Holalur, a village roughly 20 kms away from the city of Shivamogga. We showed them the staffing pattern and demonstrated the rooms and services provided at the PHC. Students were eager to learn the activities happening at the grass-roots level of the healthcare delivery system of India. The enthusiasm and curiosity to learn was apparent in their doubt-clearing intentions. Anganwadi visit - revisiting childhood? After the discussion at the PHC, we walked outside. I tossed a question: "So, having seen all that goes on in the government health center, how many of you are willing to work in our PHC's? Raise your hands, all those who will." After a brief mumbling, I saw more than three-fourths of the students smiling and raising their hands. I smiled at my junior, Dr. Thippeswamy, st...

Those who live bold never grow old There is a breed of humans who are not gentle and tender, who will not laugh when happy and never admit their mistakes. They, too, have brains, but this brain has fabricated their naive mind into a much sophisticated and complicated one. It's undoubtedly tough to convince the members of this breed about the truth, or at times, get them to accept their wrongdoings. I recollect that day among several other insignificant ones from my past, when I encountered a man in my clinic, who, apparently, turned out to be of this breed. He seemed like in early sixties. He had brought his frail and aging mother for the analgesic injections for her chronic knee pain. After the injection was given, he relaxed in the chair and attempted to pull me into a conversation on his pre-retirement life. He said he once held the administrator's post at the city municipality office from 1990 to 2001. He worked there for a cause. He calls himself the messiah who ...

Exam invigilation - a tryst with your days of learning The under-graduate medical students are taking the university practical exams. It is my second year of post-graduation in community medicine. Being a PG-cum-Tutor, every day in the department has its own share of fun and learning to offer. On the days of practical exams, I (including my post-graduate colleagues) have to come to the department by thirty minutes past eight in the morning, that is a whole thirty minutes before the usual attendance time. We help our professors in preparing the question paper and then in assorting the spotters for each day of the exam. We would then supervise the students writing the answers, which is followed by conducting the rounds of spotters. After the spotters, students pick up answer sheets labelled with the diagnosis of the cases that they would take in the medical, obstetric and pediatric wards. We allot the cases to them, and see to it that the discussion of the cases are carried out...

At the inauguration of Indian Science Congress today, PM Shri Narendra Modi has asked universities and institutions to make the process of acceptance and funding of research proposals a hassles-free and quick one. Given the shortcomings in the amount of research projects currently progressing in our country, the assurance from our PM is, indeed a relief. But, it certainly leaves questions on the quality of research unanswered. Till a little more than an year back, I was just another among lakhs of those medical graduates fighting the competition for a postgraduation seat. Today, while I call myself an aspiring community health professional, I take pride to be involved in petty departmental research projects. In the researcher's shoes, taking up strategies to answer questions generating from within the realm of current biological plausibility, it is an emotion that equips me with greater determination to explore into arena of the unknown. I observe that improving the quality o...