F2020003: 11:50

"Happy New Year's!"

The atmosphere in the Casualty was joyous, to say the least. It was an interesting scene. A patient with a perforation in his bowel and contamination of his abdominal cavity with around 2 litres of pus had just been wheeled out towards the Emergency operation theatre and only 2 patients remained in the Surgery Casualty, one chronic alcoholic with bloody vomiting and one with acute left sided pain in his abdomen, most likely due to a kidney stone. The alcoholic had a tube running from his nose to his stomach which was instilling cold saline into his stomach which had successfully stopped superficial vessels in his stomach from bleeding. He would soon be discharged and referred to Medicine for alcoholism and related hepatic complications. His wife, covered in multiple woolen layers, was tired and mostly resigned to her fate as countless others in India. All she was worried about were her kids, whom she had left with a neighbour. The one with a suspected kidney stone had been in complete agony when he had come, half an hour back. When he was calmly given an injection in his butt and did not see the doctor paying him much attention after examining him, his relative created a fuss about the patient's agony, all of which completely disappeared as the new decade rolled in. He was now sitting in his bed, attached to an IV bottle and texting people wishes for the new year, awaiting the completion of formalities for the necessary Xrays and sonography. 

After hugging his colleagues and nursing staff, Surendra finally sat down after what seemed like 8 hours. The Casualty had been relatively calm till the early afternoon when 3 'bad' patients, all of whom needed to be explored in the operation theatre had come within an hour of each other. Apart from the other usual patients, Surendra and his colleagues then went about getting these 3 priority patients investigated, resuscitated them with appropriate medications and started getting them ready to be shifted for the required emergency operations. The third had just been wheeled out and now 'his' Casualty was calm again. It was 'his' Casualty after all. He was the ranking surgical resident present there, his seniors comfortably enjoying their New Year celebrations, confident in his ability of handling anything that could come his way during the course of the last Casualty duty of the year. Soon the alcoholic and the kidney stone were 'mobilised' and his Casualty was empty. The attendants had gone out for a smoke. The nursing staff finishing up their tallys and chatting up about some Bollywood star. After the mess and potpourri of patients and relatives from the evening rush hours had cleared, Surendra now awaited the next wave: the drunk head injuries.

They always come in droves. Sometimes, the relatives outnumbered the patients, carrying their fallen, drunken comrade in their hyper acute machoism in their arms, consoling him that they are their for him, forgetting that they, in their own inebriated state, allowed said comrade to go out and drive in the first place. Those with alcohol induced gastritis or pancreatitis would follow in the coming days but the 1st of January belonged to drunkards crashing their vehicles or just plain falling down the stairs. 1st of January was calling upon broken bones and cracked skulls. And the call would be answered. 

His own batchmates had gone out to party and by sheer bad luck, 31st December had been his unit's call day. He'd messaged them just before midnight about getting some chicken for him, after a healthy dose of friendly abuses and Rajan had replied in emojis: a kiss, a wink and a thumbs up. Bastard, he scoffed, as he started preparing notes in anticipation of the MLCs, medicolegal cases, as they were called.

Sure enough, around 12:30, he heard the first ambulances screech to a halt outside. 3 friends on a bike hit fell off the bike on a curve. 2 had relatively minor injuries to the face and would not even require stitches but the driver, driving without a helmet, had hit the road pretty hard. Half his scalp had come off with the impact and his right eye was swollen. When he wasn't busy flailing about, yelling incoherent abuses while people held him down, he was vomiting on everybody within a 3 feet radius. Surendra jumped to his feet, assessed his neurological status and check his vitals. He seemed stable enough, apart from his ghastly soft tissue injury. Meh, thought Surendra, I've seen much worse. He expected the patient to be sober and coherent in the morning and discharged if the CT scan revealed no traumatic brain injury. 

He had just completed the formalities when another stretcher rolled in, this time carrying a lifeless body. BD, brought dead, explained the Casualty Medical Officer. There was no relative. The police had found the body on the highway, 10kilometers away from the city near a wrecked bike which had driven into a parked truck with high velocity. 2 more MLCs came seconds later, cases of drunken assault. Nothing too serious, thought. Thankfully the RTA was BD, thought Surendra. Resuscitating him and managing him would have taken an hour and then patients had have piled up in 'his' Casualty. 

It was 6am. He'd slept on the bench for an hour and now was just counting the minutes till 8am when his duty ended. The attendant had gotten some fresh hot tea. The kidney stone patient was being discharged on painkillers.

'Doctor, should I take beer to get rid of the stone, as they say?' asked the patient. 

'Not unless you want to land up like the other guy vomiting blood. Take the medications, drink ample of water and you should be fine.' Surendra rolled his eyes over the therapeautic properties of beer, renal stones not being one application. A few MLCs remained, awaiting their CT reports but he was confident they woudn't require 'manjan'. His stomach grumbled, having survived the night on instant noodles and caffeine.

He was almost dozing when his phone rang. It was Rajan's forever anxious mother. After he was a no show with the chicken, he assumed Rajan had found appropriately receptive feminine arms and was busy having a happy start to the new year. What did the fucker do now?, he thought. Did he not call her yesterday? 

'Beta, please tell me Rajan is okay. They must be mistaken. You're there, right? Please tell me it is a mistake? You were with him, right? Hello? Surendra?' 

The morning attendants were cleaning the Casualty. A couple of them were moving the BD from the back of the Casualty to the morgue. He was covered in whatever old blanket the Casualty could spare, tied with two strips of bandages. The blanket was already soaked with blood at the base of the skull. On top of the torso, in a clear plastic bag, was the Tommy Hilfiger watch he had gifted Rajan on his last birthday. 

The watch was stuck at 11:50.

F2020002: Eureka!

On a cold. rainy December morning, the conference room was comfortably warm as the 20 odd people huddled together for the seminar. Everybody was covered in multiple layers and lounging in the chairs when it started. Shobha was in one of the corners, far away from the faculty row and conveniently ducked away from sight, where she could stretch her legs and be almost horizontal. It was a miracle she was awake till the 30 minute mark. With her laptop and mobile precariously perched on her lap, she was initially paying attention to the speaker, a colleague, talking about the recent advances in mining technology. To his credit, it was quite the detailed presentation and the speaker was well informed about all the studies he had included in it. It was clear that he had made quite the effort. Shobha wanted to stay awake and listen to all of it but alas, the conference room was just too darn pleasant as compared to her morning and the night before and even the latest updates on the near infrared satellite scans of the Congo river basin couldn't stop her from slipping into a deep slumber.

She found herself in a dense jungle, the canopy extending a few hundred feet into the air. Sunlight filtered through, shining upon the foliage around her, covering them in a layer of liquid gold. She could hear so many birds, part of a symphony she was too illiterate to understand. In front of her, in a small clearing in the jungle floor, she could see the partially weathered down face of a rock jutting out of the side of small cliff. The magnificent deposits of bauxite could be seen, shining a deep red against the surrounding dirt in the sun. As she extended her fingers to try and trace a vein, the rock withered. She jumped with small yelp. The vein was now gnawed out, as if taken away by a portable drill. As she slowly took her fingers towards the rock, she saw it happen. The rock withered away exactly where she was trying to touch it. She blinked twice, looking at her fingers. She touched her left forearm with her right index finger and ran it down. Everything felt the same. After making a mental note to make a grooming appointment, she returned her attention to the rock. This time, she cupped her hands and moved it across the cliff swiftly. A 3 feet tall gash opened up the rock face with pieces tumbling down to her feet. She picked up a piece and held it up in the sunlight. Something glittered. Shobha grinned.

With her feet firmly planted, she took both her hands and started wildly swaying them back and forth, as if swimming the most graceless breaststroke. The rock face split open, forming a burrow extending into the cliff side. She moved closer, beaming with what seemed to be misplaced pride. She entered what was now a 10feet tall cave and pressed up. Multitude of fist sized rocks were tumbling at her feet. She was so overcome with joy that she barely heard the crumbling sound coming from behind her when she stopped and turned. The cave was collapsing on her. The roof wasn't sturdy enough to support the enormous weight of the jungle above. In less than a second, she realised her amateur mistake as she was covered in falling debris, amidst a rising crescendo which reached its peak with a heavy, metallic bang.

'Fuck me!'

Shobha was standing in the conference room, her laptop and mobile on the ground and her palms stretched towards the roof, it seemed, trying to provide imaginary support to an architecturally sound beam that was 15 feet above her head. She turned, horrified, to find the faculty and her colleagues looking her, the former with disdain, the latter with contained peals of laughter, many of them turning red.

Her departmental head spoke in is stern baritone. 'While that request while not be entertained, what I am interested in knowing is if you have something constructive to contribute to recent advances in surface level mining, apart from expletives?'

Shobha winced. The room seemed too warm now. Her laptop, with its screen open at an awkward angle, seemed to weigh a ton as she groggily lifted it to her seat.

'I'm sorry, sir. I was just...'

'Dozing away like the rest of your worthless lot, I know. For if you had something constructive to add, you wouldn't getting suspended right now.'

A chill went down her spine. She could in no way have a suspension on her record.

'I'm extremely sorry, sir. I was just...'

'Yes? What explanation do you have for this insolence?', growled the professor.

'I was just... thinking about the recent advances.', Shobha bluffed.

'Oh really? You have something more to offer other than this rather detailed presentation you missed in your sleep?'

She took a deep breath. She wiped the sweat on her jeans and moved her hair over her ears. She shivered as she spoke.

"With the advent of better and better imaging technologies, what we really have lacked is in innovation with regards to actual mining technology. We still are using drills operated from massive platforms, drills made in the 1980s using techniques that nowhere are economically or environmentally sustainable. What we should be looking into is the utilization of information technology, computer sciences and robotics to decrease our footprint, increase efficiency and reach remote places while reducing labour costs and the risk to life and limb. I propose a neural network of surface drone equipped with pneumatic or hydroultrasonic drills, controlled by an operator using a HUD with Augmented Reality overlays, perhaps even BCI. Using BCI and VR consoles with micromotors, we can in fact get a tactile response and gauge the hardness in real time. Specialised construction and transport drone can be programmed to automatically secure any tunneling that is done and analyze the sediment on site, during the excavatory process to give us updates regarding yield and feasibility. Human labour would only be needed for inspection and maintenance of the drones. We could move mountains with the sweep of our hands.'

She didn't realise she was panting by the time she finished. The faint hum of the projector was the only sound in the room.

'Class dismissed.'

F2020001: The Thud

Arun really needed a break. What he believed was that having reached a middle management position, he was in a more relaxed and comfortable position. He no longer had to shoulder the responsibility of doing the heavy lifting and live as a bottom feeder and yet, he was safe from having to make the big decisions and face the big guns. He was never overtly aspirational and this suited him very much so.

The son of a shopkeeper, Arun knew what toil and sweat meant. He had spent much of his childhood as, in his mind, an indentured labourer in his father's shop. Because his father had saved enough, because his father never cared enough for his elder sister's education, he had the opportunity to go to one of the 'good schools', an English medium private school. Every morning, he would carry an inhumane number of fat textbooks on his back, wearing black shoes polished by him the day before till he could see his face in them. Every morning, for years on end, he would see the resentful face of his sister as he left for his 2 kilometer walk to school. Every morning, he would see the stoic and expressionless face of his father. Every morning, he would see the tired and somehow perpetually disheveled face of his mother. Somehow, their dreams and aspirations of him saving them from their impoverished existence seemed the heavier burden to carry than his textbooks. He excelled in school, not because he was motivated to do so for his family's betterment but to in fact be in a position to get as far away from them as possible. That was his childhood dream.

And now he was living it. Working on the 19th floor of an office building in Mumbai, hundreds of kilometers away from his hometown, he was the master of his own destiny. His sister had married one of his father's supplier's son and now had 3 daughters of her own to look after. His father and mother still lived in his old house, still paying a monthly rent to the same landlord, working in the same shop as they did when he was a child. Nothing had really changed for them but everything had changed for Arun. He was finally free from the shackles of his past with nothing but the abound sky of the corporate ladder to explore. As he returned his gaze to his screen, he thought back to what had been occupying his mind for the past 2 months, since his promotion: he needed a break.

As he shut down the tab featuring 30 places to visit before turning 30 on a social networking site, he returned to the project at hand. He had a conference call with his clients from Norway in an hour. After half an hour of working on the presentation and going through it twice to make sure he didn't miss anything, he went out to the 19th floor balcony for a smoke.

Sopan was already there, probably on his 3rd cigarette of the day. It was late afternoon and the sun was on its way to meet the Arabian Sea, basking the balcony in a golden goodbye. Sopan squinted towards the horizon, lost in conversation with his mother over the phone. Arun could hear a lot of monosyllabic grunts of agreement and it reminded him of his own conversations with home. He thought he heard a sob but it seemed Sopan was sniffling from the recent cold wave that had hit the city. As the wind blew away the smoke he exhaled, he felt restless and started browsing through tickets to tropical destinations. Bali should be wonderful, he thought.

With his heart almost set and mind already dreaming of the tropical paradise, he headed towards the door, looking to ace the presentation and then ask his boss for some time off. He was barely halfway through the door when he heard something. He turned to see the balcony empty, Sopan nowhere to be found.

And then he heard the thud. 

F005: Casualty of Causality

ST Notes: It's 4am. I should be studying but this story needs to be told. It is those few pieces which were born out of their title instead of being given one.
PS- Turning out to be completely different than what had first hit me.
PPS-Now that I look at it, it's a bit raw but I realize, I started out just with a title and no thought. *chuckle*

The long lecture hall was beginning to empty. There were those who were lingering around, trying to enjoy the air conditioned room for a few more seconds and then there were those who were with the professor at the bottom of the hall, asking their doubts.
As Professor Connors was leaving, a young mind stepped in front of him. The mind, inquisitive and inspired, spoke, 'Sir, aren't cause and effect irrelevant?'

The professor halted. He gazed at this young mind and the person that bore it. The eyes were bright with wonder and a sense of pride surrounded him. 'Now that you have made that carefully worded sentence in order to gain my attention, which you have, would you care to elaborate?'

The young man faltered. His confidence lost a bit, he spoke nervously, 'Sir, what I meant was, we now understand more about the space time continuum than we ever did-'

'A statement which is true when spoken at any moment from the 1900s to now. My boy, we shall always know today more than what we knew yesterday. But I understand what you're trying to say. Go on.'

'Right. Sorry. We now know sufficiently accurate information about the space time continuum to understand that cause and effect do not necessarily follow each other. We can now confidently say that time is actually stationary and that we are passing through it. That cause and its effect are present simultaneously in the same instant. All of time is happening simultaneously. Why then do we take cause and effect to be an understandable, quantifiable scientific pursuit? Why not look at the bigger picture? That causality is a sub set of time and that it just our perception of time that gives causality any meaning? What are your thoughts on it?'

'While you're trying to crucify causality, let me refresh your memory.' The professor started drawing circles as sets and arrows to specific connections and timelines. The blackboard soon turned into what looked like a war zone. 'You were conceived AS A RESULT OF sexual intercourse. You were born in an hospital AS A RESULT OF a team of a medically trained professionals. You were educated, fed and kept alive AS A RESULT OF monetary incentives received by your parents which have their own sets but let us focus on just you. AS A RESULT OF all this, you are able to stand here and think and you say causality is irrelevant?'

The student shivered. The raw power of intelligence had torn him down to shreds.

'Now don't wither like an autumn leaf. The way you are seeing things is from an outside perspective. Outside time. But you forget that you exist IN TIME. Your interest must be nurtured and one day you might just make some new discovery in it but I just want to make you understand something. In trying to look at the bigger picture, don't step back and gaze. Instead, look deep and gaze at the fabric of the universe. For grandiosity is attained from the smallest of miracles. Time may pass through us but we experience time in a linear fashion. We may wonder about alternate timelines but it rests upon causality. We, this world, humanity, everything depends upon causality. We are the casualty of causality.'

Silence fell across the room as students and faculty members crowded and silently heard this searing mind.

'We are the casualty of causality. Everything that happens to us is a direct result of some conceivable or inconceivable action. The reason we are having this conversation. The reason the Earth is spinning. The reason the Sun shines. From actual casualties of war or disease to casualties of the human situation, we are wounded by our own hands. That is where science comes in. That is where we, as mere mortals, try to understand the near-divine interplay of objects and organisms that we call life. Knowledge leads us forward and that is causality too. The inevitability of its existence is reason of its omnipotence. Even in its own definition. This beautiful alliterative phrase is our whole existence. Love, hate, war, peace, youth, death, anger, lust. We shall always be a casualty.'

With the finality of a judges gavel, the professor moved through the stunned crowd at that remark. Slowly and steadily, an applause grew. As it reached its crescendo and died, the professor chuckled, 'And that was a result of you asking me that question. Nice, eh?'

The crowd laughed and slowly dissipated except for one young mind, stunned into deep reverence and thought. A casualty of brilliance.

F004: The Leather Spine

(ST Notes: pending publication. T'was a productive WhatsApp chat. Thank you, muse)

The tired brow was sweating,

exhausted legs burning.

His rough ragged breathing

and his chest was heaving

For twas a long day
as all days now seemed.
Though his body was broken
only his eyes did gleam.

Darting from corner to corner
searching for the treasure.
To release him from this prison
and into a world of pleasure.

And lo behold, there it lay
amongst his sheets of yesterday.
Where he'd left it in his sleep
when his demons were at bay

His fingers found the spine

and forgot their fatigue
Softly he traced a line
along its crumpled being

Breathing in their story

Flipping through their lives
of kings, queens, wizards
of daughters, husbands and wives

To him they were real
more than a world now gone dim
And he was a part of them
as they were a part of him

He picked up were he'd left
A sunny day of spring

and though the night grew on

No darkness could it bring

And onwards he devoured

pages after pages
Their lives now he favoured
Than his own, of ages.

And when he did finish
The pain tore him apart

Melancholy filled his heart
as their souls did depart

And now the darkness crept
The dirty room visible.
For then he silently wept

Only emptiness he found

The night did wear out
and in came a sunny day
But his face was blank
and happiness far away

The same weary paths
His body now dragged on
His mind was somewhere
Lost from dusk to dawn

And then he saw
A sight sweeter than wine
For his heart did thaw
As he saw another spine.

Image001: MBBS Typography

MBBS Typography

F003P00: Forward to the Past

(A new start for a different story. Haven't even given it a serious thought. Let's see how it goes.)

It started as a very silly idea. A very childish thought at controlling the uncontrollable. It was human nature I guess, gaining more control on the unknown, the bizarre, the unavoidable. It was born out of regret, guilt and resentment. It was born out of sighs, tears and anger.

It was born out of a human trying to play God.

We can choose our future but not our past.

Why not?