OVER THE CADAVER-PART 3

Every student of anatomy has to buy the Bone set. Bone set consists of all the bones of human body including the skull, all 24 vertebrae, Pelvis, scapula and others. Long bones are the favorite of all the students specially the longest bone Femur or the thigh bone. Other favorite bones are Humerus or the arm bone and radius and Ulna (The bones of forearm). Most of students could get the old bone set from the seniors who have just passed the examination and only few students need to buy a new one. I got my bone set from one of the seniors and all the bones were marked with red or blue pencils ( You are supposed to mark origin of a muscle from bone with red and insertion with blue. It was customary to take the bones home in first vacations to shock your friends and family. I also carried Femur, Humerus and ulna with me on first vacation home. Skull is usually cut horizontally into the vault of skull and the base of skull. Vault of skull was invariably used by all smokers as smoking tray and even non-smokers kept skull on the table as show piece . It was very difficult to remember all the names of bones and then names of muscles and their origin and insertions. We had devised certain formula or mimics to remember these names. I still remember one such mimics –this one is to remember all seven bones of wrist joint- SNEH LATA TINDE PAKAO TINDE TO KACCHE HEIN. There was a non vegetarian version as well  , which was more favourite among students.

It was now end of October, the days were shorter now and cold had started to knock in evenings. It was Sunday evening, the day when  mess is off. It was only 7 Pm but it was already dark and we were sipping tea with bread pakoras at our favorite joint Dallu’s Tea stall . The topic had turned towards ghosts and everybody was sharing his experience about ghosts. Atmosphere  had become creepy with Ajeet narrating his venture with ghost in Baraliey. I said it was all bunkam and there is nothing like ghosts in real life but Ajeet would not listen as he was sure there were Ghosts, Bhoot, Pret and Chudhels.  Discussion was heating up with no side bowing out of discussion ,Ajeet said suddenly “OK if you are so sure that there are no ghosts, then you have nothing to be afraid of, then go to area 13 at midnight today and I will reward you with 500 Rs.”

I was shocked with sudden offer. Let me explain you about area 13. It was piece of land in front of anatomy department with single story squat building which housed big stainless steel tanks ,which were used to immerse the cadavers ,which  were in different state of dissection. The cadavers Were dead bodies of destitute persons found in city and police brought them to anatomy department. Formalin was pushed into bodies and then immersed into formalin tanks. Then each body is allotted to group of students and after dissection for one and a half years the body is buried in area 13. After few years the bones are taken out and cleaned and sold to students. As you have realised by now that area 13 is the most feared area in whole medical college and no student want to go there in daylight , leave alone  at midnight.

I was just trying to think of some way to wriggle out of sticky situation without loosing the face , suddenly KKS came to my rescue. KKS was sitting  at nearby table and must be listening to our conversation . I welcomed him with open arms and offered him chair at our table. He sat down with us and repeated his offer that he wants to go to area 13 at midnight today just to prove himself and money was just icing on the cake. After consulting each other for few minutes consensus emerged that KKS will go alone inside area 13 with only torch with him and stay there for at least 5 minutes .There will be two observers who will see that he has gone in and will lend him support if something goes wrong. Next we had to find the keys to enter area 13 which were with Kalu the keeper of area 13. So we went to find Kalu and found him in his one room quarter. He was living alone in a dirty house .When we outlined him our plan to visit area 13 even he was horrified and said that after 20 years of service even he had not gone to area 13 in night .He tried his best to deter us but in end we could persuade him to see our point of view and Rs 100/ also helped. So now we had the keys to area 13 and we shifted our base to family planning hostel and started to wait for the right time to go in area 13.

The news spread to whole hostel like wild fire and many students collected in front of our room where KKS was sitting with us talking of many things. Though we were trying to avoid the topic of ghosts and lighten up the atmosphere still the topic will turn toward the ghosts.   

The clock stuck 11.30PM  ,I asked KKS “Do you want to reconsider your plan “

“No” he said . “I would definitely go to area 13.” We now had no option but to let the plan roll. I opened the door of our room G1 and was shocked to see ,that a small crowd of 25-30 students have collected. News has spread to whole hostel. As we came out ,silence fell on crowd . Most of the students were looking at KKS with awe but few had sympathy written on their faces.

I told the students to remain there and we started on foot toward area 13 which was about a mile and half from our hostel. It was a small party which had beside me and KKS, Ajeet ,PK and Jitender a close friend of KKS. We were walking silently and rapidly. We reached near area 13 at 50 minutes past 11 . It was time to go in .I asked again to KKS “ You sure want to do it” and he answered “ yes I do” We were all nervy but KKS seemed to be unruffled by the situation. I handed over the keys to him and gave him last minute instructions telling him that he has to stay in for 10 minutes and we will be standing right at the gate for help. The area was dimly lit with a single street light and we were standing across the street from area 13. As it was moonless night the sky was dark but clear. I and Ajeet were carrying small cane or bamboo just in case ,as if cane was sufficient to fight ghosts or whatever but at least it gave us some sort of confidence needed at this hour. As KKS started to cross to cross the road the lights went off and it became totally dark. We switched on the torches and focussed on KKS who was walking towards area 13. He waved his hand after reaching at gate of area 13 and pulled out the key from his pocket and put the key in the lock. As he was trying to open the door to area 13 we heard a car approaching us and saw the car headlights. KKS froze in glare of car headlights .I was just trying to think what to do that car reached us and screeched to halt in front of KKS. A angry  Dr V K Singh got out. He was our warden and world has reached him about this misadventure to area 13 . Rest is simple ,we all got a lecture from him and were sent back to hostel with a warning never to think about this again. 

OVER THE CADAVER -PART 2

 Due to menace of ragging the first  year students or fresher’s as we were called were housed in separate hostel called “ family planning” hostel .It was about 100 yards(considered safe distance by college administration though I would recommend 100kilometers) away from junior boys hostel and senior boys hostel. Though we were safe here comparatively ,still ragging happened especially in night. There were 100 boys living in  50 odd rooms on ground and first floor . So one  shared the room with his partner. My partner  was Prakash Kulkarni aka PK ,a NRI student in desi  avtar .He had his schooling in Nairobi and had been living in UK before he gave entrance exams for medical college. We hit it off first day despite  opposite nature and lifestyle. For example I liked to get up early and study and sleep early and he would sleep late and study late  in night. I was not careful where I kept my things and he had fixed place for every article. I preferred to complete the work  first and relax later and he would relax till the end and do things at the last moment. Then there was difference in food habits as I was totally vegetarian and loved typical Indian food and he liked non vegetarian and other fancy stuff. Still we hit it off on first day and had a great friendship going in few days.

 After gruelling day at college and more gruelling  evenings at hostel due to ragging ,we had little time to know each other but humans can get used to any situation. So despite all the problems we slowly started to get accustomed to situation and relaxed ourselves a bit. Sundays were good . It was mandatory to eat out  as the mess was closed on Sunday evening. On first Sunday we went for a movie and later had dinner in the city.

As I came to know more students of my class ,I realised that it was a motley crowd and we had come from different background and different socioeconomic status. Lot of non-social activities go on in each hostel which I became aware of slowly. There was room number G-16 where Ajeet and Khare lived, This room had earned the reputation of being the room where there was “AKHAND JUA” or uninterrupted gambling going on. You could go any time and join the gambling and could walk out any time. The game was teen patti or flash. I and my room partner PK had no interest in gambling ,so we kept ourselves away from G16.   My room was G-1 ,the biggest room in hostel and many students envied us  due to this fact. Ajeet was a bright student from Lucknow ,who had been wrongly paired with Khare. Then there was room number G14 which had earned notoriety  for supply of recreational drugs. Most of the times Gopal and RK (Rajkamal) could supply any drug to you like Bhang, charas, Dexa(Uppers) or Metha(Downers) and many more. Since I and my partner PK were not into drug scene, we gave this room a wide birth. I had never played flash or teenpatti in my life and never intended to do so but fate had something else in store for me.

It was 7 Pm on Friday in August and me and PK were busy completing our anatomy practical copy ,when door of our room burst open and Ajeet entered .His face was drawn and it looked he had cried also. We offered him tea and listened to his story. In nutshell ,he was living in pure hell .His  room was always full of gamblers, he had no privacy, Could not study ,could not sleep . The reason for today’s plight was that he had been cheated of his money which his family has sent  him for buying books. So now he had no money , no books ,no place to sleep or study. In nutshell he was living in pure hell ,his life had been turned on its head and his dreams of joining medical college lay shattered.

After listening to his story we advised him to immediately report the matter to warden and get his room changed but Ajeet was not ready to wait even one day ,or go back to his room even for a moment. Ultimately we offered him that he could move into our room till alternate arrangements were made,to  which  Ajeet agreed happily.

We had to go with him to collect his luggage and his bed as he would not go alone. Ultimately by 9pm Ajeet had settled in our room and now G1 had 3 students. Then there was question of 5000/rupees which have been cheated from Ajeet. We listened to his story late into the night and got some clue how the cheating has been done. Many type of scams were being carried out in G16 –

1.Dealing from both sides of card deck.

2.You hid 1 or 2 aces  and later on change the cards.

3.Set the cards so as to get better cards called card sharpening  

4.Playing in collusion or as team

As I had no experience of gambling PK and Ajeet started to teach me the basics of flash or teenpatti. I caught on the concept fast. We would play mock gambling  where Ajeet ended up winning most of the times. Then we started to plan to play as a team. We decided on set of codes and gestures  to follow and soon we mastered the art of gambling in pairs or triples.

The time had come to test our new acquired skill. We decided to test it first after 12 midnight on Saturday ,as we thought that players at that hour will be tired and will not notice our antiques. So we reached in G16 and announced that we want to gamble. There were 6-7 students in room at that hour and everybody seemed happy by our presence ,thinking us to be novice ,who could be deprived of their cash easily. We settled down and the game started at20 minutes past midnight. Slowly we started winning and within an hour the smiles were wiped out from players faces. We called it quits at 2 AM and came to our room G1 and counted the loot. We had won more than 1000/rupees  the first day or rather night. We repeated our journey to infamous gambling room after break of few days and this time showed no mercy on anybody and won almost 3000/ within an hour. Now the news started to spread in hostel about our winning but still no body had a clue how we were doing it. Players became cautious but we still managed to win 1600 Rs next time, thus wiping out the loss of Ajeet . After giving him Rs 5000/ we still had money left for partying and movie. Ajeet  life came on track and we became very close friend and despite warden offering him new room he liked it in G1 and we lived in G1 till we cleared our first professional.

After that we would go to G16 once a while ,win some money and party .This kept on going till we were in Family planning hostel . Khare obviously could not clear the first professional and was left behind and we lost track of him.

        

OVER THE CADAVER

It was my first day in Medical collage and I was feeling great . Let me introduce myself .I am Hari Chopra ,I am 16 year old and after passing my 12^th exams ,I got selected in combined premedical  exams  .

As if to shock us deliberately we were ushered in dissection hall of anatomy. It was a big hall with 16 dissection tables with round stools around the tables. It had marble flooring and was adequately lit.

One is supposed to sit alphabetically and there are normally 8-12 students on one table. I was allotted table number five .  I strolled towards my table and sat at one of the stools put all around the table. I was just trying to make myself comfortable and looking at students sitting on my table when door of dissection hall was pushed open and a trolley was pushed in. A sudden hush  settled in the hall and hall was filled with a stench which cannot be described. It is a mixed stench of dead bodies and formalin. Formalin is used to preserve the dead bodies. The Trolley was laden with 5-6 cadavers lying on top of each other and was pushed by a lab assistant we later came to know as Kalu . He dumped the bodies one on each table and now I had a naked dead body lying not a feet away from me.

Though we knew that to become Doctors  you are supposed to dissect the cadavers to learn Anatomy of body parts but nothing can prepare you for the shock you get on seeing the cadavers lying naked in front of you. I forced myself to look at the cadaver .It was male and must have died young. I looked at my table fellows  ,most of them were avoiding to look at the cadaver and were looking at other things in hall. On my right was seated   HP, short for Harpal and on my left was Hansa Gupta. Harkirat singh ,only sikh on the table was sitting across the cadaver. Henna was other girl on table sitting on extreme left and there were three more students Harish Malik,  Hariom Sharma and Harry on the table.

We  were just trying to ease our breathing a little ,which was not a easy task with all the acrid smell of formalin and dead bodies ,the door to dissection hall was pushed open again and Kalu rolled in another trolley laden with cadavers for the remaining tables . With him entered   a middle age person with a French beard and walking with the help of stick. He introduced himself as  Dr Bajpai ,our demonstrator  and told us the rules of dissection hall . He said that we will be starting with dissection of upper limbs ,then will go to dissection of lower limb and then onto abdomen, chest ,neck and head in that order. The same cadaver will remain with us all through one and a half years of anatomy  . Then he started to teach us the surface anatomy of upper limb.

Two miserable hours passed with difficulty and finally it was lunch time. We had one hour for lunch in which time we were supposed to go to our hostel ,eat  lunch and come back in time for post lunch classes. Our hostel was more than a kilometre from college and we were supposed to walk in single file with  head down. The significance of this dawned on us later on as when one walks  in single file its easier to identify him ,stop him ,pull him out of the file or insult freshers  one by one . Also since our heads are down , we had no idea who was insulting  or ragging us . So progress to hostel was slow and we had little time for lunch. As food was not like what we had been eating at home for last 16 years ,it was unpalatable and with the picture of cadaver coming to our mind frequently ,lunch was a tepid affair on day one.

As the miserable day passed and evening descended  ,we took a sigh of relief . we were trying to absorb ourselves in Gray’s  anatomy ,the seniors descended on us and sessions after sessions of ragging started which ended well after midnight .When finally we hit the bed even the  roar of lions would not have  disturbed us. 

 Few days later time came to test our skills with  scalpels and scissors when the dissection of cadaver started .I was sitting on right side of cadaver and so I  got to dissect right upper limb. Since we wore no gloves while dissection ,the smell would not go even after many hand washes. To eat lunch with this kind of smell from your hand was a effort and had to be overcome to fill your tummy. I got a lot to dissect because on both my sides were girls who were afraid of doing the dissection.

Within a month we were used to the cadavers  and the environment in the anatomy hall .Now all the students talked freely with each other.  Cadaver was even convenient place to hide candy rappers as there was no dustbin in hall and you were not supposed to eat candy in hall ,in the first place.

 PART-2                                                                                                                                      

 Due to menace of ragging the first  year students or fresher’s as we were called were housed in separate hostel called “ family planning” hostel .It was about 100 yards(considered safe distance by college administration though I would recommend 100kilometers) away from junior boys hostel and senior boys hostel. Though we were safe here comparatively ,still ragging happened especially in night. There were 100 boys living in  50 odd rooms on ground and first floor . So one  shared the room with his partner. My partner  was Prakash Kulkarni aka PK ,a NRI student in desi  avtar .He had his schooling in Nairobi and had been living in UK before he gave entrance exams for medical college. We hit it off first day despite  opposite nature and lifestyle. For example I liked to get up early and study and sleep early and he would sleep late and study late  in night. I was not careful where I kept my things and he had fixed place for every article. I preferred to complete the work  first and relax later and he would relax till the end and do things at the last moment. Then there was difference in food habits as I was totally vegetarian and loved typical Indian food and he liked non vegetarian and other fancy stuff. Still we hit it off on first day and had a great friendship going in few days.

 After gruelling day at college and more gruelling  evenings at hostel due to ragging ,we had little time to know each other but human can become used to any situation. So despite all the problems we slowly started to become used to situation and relaxed ourselves a bit. Sundays were good . It was mandatory to eat out  as the mess was closed on Sunday evening. On first Sunday we went for a movie and later had dinner in city.

As I came to know more students of my class ,I realised that it was a motley crowed and have come from different background and different socioeconomic status. Lot of non-social activities go on in each hostel which I became aware of slowly. There was room number G-16 where Ajeet and Khare lived, This room has earned the reputation of being the room where there was “AKHAND JUA” or uninterrupted gambling going on. You can go any time and join the gambling and can walk out any time. The game was teen patti or flash. I and my room partner PK had no interest in gambling ,so we kept ourselves away from G16.   My room was G-1 ,the biggest room in hostel and many students felt envy due to this fact. Ajeet was a bright student from Lucknow ,who had been wrongly paired with Khare. Then there was room number G14 which had earned notoriety  for supply of recreational drugs. Most of the times Gopal and RK (Rajkamal) could supply any drug to you like Bhang, charas, Dexa(Uppers) or Metha(Downers) and many more. Since I and my partner PK was not into drug scene, we gave this room a wide birth. I have never played flash or teenpatti in my life and never intented to do so but fate had something else in store for me.

It was 7 Pm on Friday in August and me and PK were busy completing our anatomy practical copy ,when door of our room burst open and Ajeet entered .His face was drawn and it looked he had cried also. We offered him tea and listened to his story. In nutshell ,he was living in pure hell .His  room was always full of gamblers, he had no privacy, Could not study ,could not sleep . The reason for today plight was that he had been cheated of his money which his family has sent to him for buying books. So now he had no money , no books ,no place to sleep or study. In nutshell he was living in pure hell ,his life has been turned on its head and his dreams of joining medical college lay shattered.

After listening to his story we advised him to immediately report the matter to warden and get his room changed but Ajeet was not ready to wait even one day ,or go back to his room even for a moment. Ultimately we offered him that he could move into our room till alternate arrangement are made, which  Ajeet agreed happily.

We had to go with him to collect his luggage and his bed as he would not go alone. Ultimately by 9pm Ajeet had settled in our room and now G1 had 3 students. Then there was question of 5000/rupees which have been cheated from Ajeet. We listened to his story late into the night and got some clue how the cheating has been done. Many type of scams were being carried out in G16 –

1.Dealing from both sides of card deck.

2.You hid 1 or 2 aces  and later on change the cards.

3.Set the cards so as to get better cards called card sharpening  

4.Playing in collusion or as team

As I had no experience of gambling PK and Ajeet started to teach me the basics of flash or teenpatti. I caught on the concept fast. We would play mock gambling  where Ajeet ended up winning most of the times. Then we started to plan to play as a team. We decided on set of codes and gestures  to follow and soon we mastered the art of gambling in pairs or triples.

The time had come to test our new acquired skill. We decided to test it first after 12 midnight on Saturday ,as we thought that players at that hour will be tired and will not notice our antiques. So we reached in G16 and announced that we want to gamble. There were 6-7 students in room at that hour and everybody seemed happy by our presence ,thinking us to be novice ,who could be deprived of their cash easily. We settled down and the game started at20 minutes past midnight. Slowly we started winning and within an hour the smiles were wiped out from players faces. We called it quits at 2 AM and came to our room G1 and counted the loot. We had won more than 1000/rupees  the first day or rather night. We repeated our journey to infamous gambling room after break of few days and this time showed no mercy on anybody and won almost 3000/ within an hour. Now the news started to spread in hostel about our winning but still no body had a clue how we were doing it. Players became cautious but we still managed to win 1600 Rs next time, thus wiping out the loss of Ajeet . After giving him Rs 5000/ we still had money left for partying and movie. Ajeet  life came on track and we became very close friend and despite warden offering him new room he liked it in G1 and we lived in G1 till we cleared our first professional.

After that we would go to G16 once a while ,win some money and party .This kept on going till we were in Family planning hostel . Khare obviously could not clear the first professional and was left behind and we lost track of him.

        

DUBAI CREEK