BY BANDU
EDUSSURIYA
At
last after 50 years we met - 18 of us from the original batch of 83 of ‘53. Some
had left for the great beyond, some too ill to come, some unwilling.
The
occasion brought back nostalgic memories. I remember when we first met in 1953.
We were the flowers of Sri Lankan youth after a free education, gathered at the
Colombo University all sleek and fresh, mostly clad in white, eagerly waiting
to enter the hallowed seat of learning to
to learn the art of healing. There was youth from the south , girls with
pottus’ from the North, the dress clad girls from the Colombo schools, the raw
accented youth from the North and a few from the south, the glib from the
Colombo schools.- the dark and handsome, the tall and the short, the petite and the plump, all the
mama’s darlings and papa’s dreams.
There
was a certain amount of trepidation as we had heard of a thing called the rag.
But our heads were in the air. We were the chosen few from the whole country.
No
longer confined to classrooms , teachers and
school discipline I was suddenly an adult. The feeling of freedom was overwhelming
,exhilarating, invigorating, enjoyable and sometimes even frightening. Certainly it was too much for me. I was
immature I think. The availability of all kinds of sports, well stocked
libraries, cinemas within cycling distance, leisurely walks to lectures
along tree lined cool roads gave us a world of our own. We started
university education against the backdrop of a rich country with a stable government.
There were plenty of friends, stag and rag parties, music and singing which got
rid of our inhibitions. A”cup – tea –
punt at Lion House Bambalawatte” after a late night gallery show at the Majestic
cinema were routine. Films like Casablanca, Gaslight, Redshoes, Samson and
Delilah,From here to Eternity come to my mind.
The only limiting factor was the non coperation from the home front -their allowance was very meager. Thinking back, I am glad about that because
some more of us may have gone” off the track” if we had more cash, like a few
in our batch.
The
first year was a fun year: a year of acclimatisation. We met students from
other faculties. This was the first time we had such a lot of young girls in
our midst. We had get-togethers, picnics and excursions, amongst work in the
relaxed atmosphere of Thurston Road. The canteen with the tea cups without handles,
tables wet with and smelling of tea was a regular meeting place. One day we
were due for a chemistry lecture and at about 2pm in walked the lecturer : a
burgher gentlemen in white suit and bow
tie . Over his shoulders was a black cloak and to cap it all he had a black cap
with mortarboard and tassels on the mortarboard. He wore rimless glasses,had a pencil line moustache and spoke with a British
accent. The effect, at 2 in the
afternoon was stunning,hilarious and too
much for us. We stamped our feet on the wooden floorboards. The lecturer smiled
and he too enjoyed the situation thoroughly. He spoke for about an hour. We
were the gazing rustics ranged around, amazed that one small head could carry
all that he knew.( with apologies to Oliver Goldsmith ).
The
second year was different kettle of fish. We went to the medical faculty where
we were thrown headlong into the harsh realities of a medical education.
The
sudden exposure to the dissecting room was shocking. 10-15 blackened nude bodies
were lying on tiled slabs in a large hall - some were staring and some were
grinning - a grotesque picture. The stench was overpowering. We were ordered to
dissect them. This was going to be our environment for the next two years. So
armed with scalpel and forceps, with manual in hand we started cutting. Soon we were digging into
the cadavers like labourers on a new road track. We cut buttocks and brains,
testicles and ovaries, guts and kidneys, breasts and bladders. Monro’s foramen,
Sibson’s fascia and the white line of Hilton flash through my mind. It was
stench in the mornings, smell in the evenings and nightmares at midnight.Lots
of anatomy was learnt with the help of mnemonics. A famous one was an aid to
remember the branches of an artery of the neck. It starts with “anatomy
students like”………. The rest is too vulgar to put on paper.
The knowledge of the functional aspects of the
body was imparted on the other side of the road. They were Koch , Tom and
Watson sessions. Some lecturers hid behind dark glasses. They
talked to the black boards - some of us dozed some wrote. Kreb’s cycle or was it his bicycle?, Barrington’s reflexes and bundle of His evoke
bundles of memories. Tutorials and signatures were hurled at us and we hurtled
along with the turbulences of anatomy, physiology and biochemistry. The 2nd
MB was the first checkpoint. Most of us made it – some with classes medals and
distinctions.
The
third year presented new facets. Now we were exposed to human beings, though
they were ill, rather than dead bodies. Also we could use the iconic medical
instrument :the stethoscope. It could be flaunted in several ways .It could be
worn round the neck, it could be placed round the neck, carried in the hand, or
in the pocket with a little bit jutting out. It was our passport and status
symbol. So, with story and tale, with palpitations, palpations and percussions
and with bloodied fingers we had to give a verdict. Medicine was imparted by sedate,
sagacious professors and wise, witty
physicians. They were the High Priests and were libraries, sorry warehouses of
knowledge! We saw tender livers, enlarged spleens, noisy lungs, large hearts,
fluid in abdomens, diabetes and
paralysis. We tried to hear non existent heart murmurs and got
thrilled when we felt cardiac thrills.
Then
came the our stint with surgeons: the Brahmins of the hospital. They were deft
with the scalpels and apt with their tongues. They were master cutters and they
cut on the trot. One of them ( a man of immense capability, knowledge and
stature) is said to have quipped “I
shay putting things into holesh is a
mans job, it needs only a woman’s assishtance”
when a nurse was fumbling trying to thread a needle under his impatient gaze.
The awe of the operating theatre replaced the stench of the bodies. Overpowering,
irate surgeons, fearful professors, demanding Registrars, masked and gowned
nurses hiding a lot of curves, uncooperative Sisters, Xrays ,flowing E.C.Gs,complicated
blood reports ,sterile areas, caps and gowns, pin drop silence, bloody
dressings, open abdomens,Thomas’s splints, crushed limbs, cracked skulls smell of ether all were in this
segment.
Obstetrics
and pediatrics followed: howling women in labor, the unmistakable odour of labor
rooms, undernourished mothers,
underweight bawling babies, smell of baby stools, diphtheritic croup, tracheostomies in a row, aircraft splints for polio kids,
carcinomas in jars, liver slides under the mikes, strangulated necks, bullet holes in heads, daggers and knives were
regular sights. Now Phlebotamas papatasi and Ankylostoma duodenale of
Parasitalingam, were getting mixed up with Ps.Pyoceanus and E. coli of Chapman.
We saw breast carcinomas like split pomegranates and liver abscess-pus like
wood apple juice. We were in that
medical era sans C.T. and M.R.I scans, ultra sounds, cardiac stents, tumour
markers, blood oxymeters,laporoscopes, drip - sets etc etc.
It was the time when tinctures and
mixtures were being replaced by pills and injections and religious sisters were
replaced by Health Department ones, in the wards. An innumerable number of
drugs came into the picture with their doses for the various diseases in grams,
milligrams,grains, milliliters,litres and even ounces.
We plodded along through rain and sun to the
general hospital complex. On the way we passed some of our teachers, sunk in
the back seat of their huge chauffer driven cars with orchids in the button holes and the Daily
News in hand. We envied them and had dreams of emulating them. The vast living
laboratory of at the general hospital
complex was at our disposal. Loads of information were imparted to us daily
which could only be assimilated in a week. Some teachers gave us valuable information on
common diseases in understandable ways.
They made us capable of recognising and
treating common diseases. Others went for the small print as well.
Some
of our teachers were different. They
ridiculed us, shouted at us, made us look fools, crushed us psychologically and
shattered our paltry self confidence. We feared them ; a stare or remark from some of them could mean the”
yellow card”. I do not know whether they
realised that we too were human beings and would be the next generation of
medical men and may have to treat them when they fell ill. The teachers were rarely friendly- we were on the ’other side of the table’ most of the
time.Some of them had a Risus Sardonicus when they addressed us.
With all this we enjoyed life. I would give
lot to go back in time and spent one year of those halcyon days again. We
played in University teams, went on inter-faculty trips. Some of us played in
National teams. Occasionally the “bad
boys”( myself included), ,
sang bailas and danced aided by the” old stuff”and went flat - the good ones
pretended. Affairs were started, broken,continued, restarted, consolidated and
the couples lived happily ever-after like budgregars . We enjoyed Shebas
We
had absorbed and adsorbed as much of medical knowledge we could and awaited the
long dreaded final. Our ears were filled with heart murmurs, we imagined lumps
and bumps in all the people and breach presentations in all pregnant women,
Kwashiorkor and meningitis in all the babies- in short we were toxic and our
heads were like pressure cookers which had lost their valves!!
The
final checkpoint came - theory, cases and vivas. We went like cattle to be
slaughtered - sweating, rapid heart rates, inarticulate, itching bladders, dry lips
and trembling fingers - the future doctors!!
Exams are one of the best forms of torture ever devised - better than Abu
Gharib or the Fourth Floor, only the torture was mental, no visible marks. We
had spent the best part of our young lives to acquire a little knowledge of
this fine art of healing. The results came suddenly to the notice board. There
were passes, classes and distinctions - most of us were jubilant.
We
parted with P.B. and R.P., with Hilary and Handy, with Paul and Peris,Antho and
Bartho, Ranaya, Sinna and Prins, with
Misso and Austin, with C.C. and Stella.-we cut the cord with the General
Hospital complex as undergrads, which had been our milieu exterior and even our
interior for five years.;we had started drinking at the Perian spring. Only
later on did we realise that even though the medical course was five years it
was a crash course – and that it will take another 5-10 years to have a working
knowledge. It was said by the wise men that Medicine is not a simple sin!!
We
dispersed like a cloud burst but top dogs again - brand new doctors of medicine
this time. Internship followed. Then we spread again. Some to foreign
countries, some to prestigeous posts at home and we rarely met together again. A
few weeks ago I had to stop on Kynsey
road when a group of noisy medical undergrads burst through the hospital gate
and crossed Kynsey road, on their way to the medical college. No doubt they
were on their way for lectures just like we did 50 years ago. I don’t think
they realized that the man who was seeing them was an” old boy” of the same
school, now a medical ‘aadi – vasi !’. I hoped their perspirations brought forth
their aspirations.
Today
after fifty years we have met – some of us for first time after the medical
college-only eighteen of us this time. Almost all had a string of letters after their
names. They were enjoying their grandchildren and retired from active service.
Added to medicine there were authors and advisors, historians and teachers. We
met at the large “square - architectured” spacious, Blue Waters in Wadduwa Sri Lanka,
with the Indian ocean as a backdrop.
We
had dinner and drinks together gossiped about old times, met spouses, revealed
our whereabouts and departed with heavy hearts no longer the youthful doctors
but sedate, wise and still young at heart though some us, I think were on a
regular diet of Metformin, Cardiprin and statins etc !
“When
often on my couch I lie, In vacant or in pensive mood, These flash upon my
inward eye, Which brings memories of magnitude”i (With apologies to Wordsworth).
