Men in uniform…
Like most people , I always had this fascination for the Forces (Army/Navy/Airforce). So, post 12th grade, I decided to give the Armed Forces Medical Entrance a try. I reached there not expecting much but trying my luck anyway. There were many like me from all over the country and the exam hall was manned by Naval Officers.
Half way through the exam paper, I realized that there was something wrong with the question paper. An entire page of questions were repeated. I wasn’t sure if that would alter the sequencing of the answers on the OMR sheet and was contemplating on asking the examiner regarding the same. Just then, the fellow to my right who had the same query decided to volunteer first. He raised his hand, summoned the officer in charge and explained his predicament. The officer then summoned the Conductor of Examinations in turn.
The second officer marched in, clad in crisp whites, impatiently asked the boy what the issue is and then shouted at him at the top of his voice using the choiciest of profanities. He started with ‘Bast**d’ is all I remember. I was too traumatized to comprehend the rest. That shut the poor kid up and I on the other hand decided that I would be happy tanking the exams. Not implying that I would otherwise get in, but being yelled at was not how I wanted to spend my days in under graduation.
So the boy shut his trap, I didn’t bother opening mine, colored the little circles on the answer sheet and waited for the nightmare to end. Didn’t make the cut as I expected and a year later cracked the State Entrance and entered med school as a civilian.
Post my under-graduation, I met this commando in one of my treks. He was funny, extremely moody, spoke nineteen to a dozen, never completed his love stories and went off on a tangent at times.
He asked me along the way, if I remember rightly, “Do you know Bear Grylls?” As clueless as I was, I asked, “Who is he?” He went on to explain that BG was this survivalist who jumps into moving airplanes. As naive as I was, I asked, “Why? Does he not reach on time?” “Does the plane not wait for him?”
Facepalm!
He, during his incessant banter narrated to me stories about how he once speared a fish. I, in turn had my inputs about real depth and apparent depth following with, “How do you not know this? Aren’t you a student of physics too?” The fellow had his dose of unintended humiliation complete by then and sulked the rest of the way. He later labelled me a liability (probably only to get back at me).
Commando once agreed to meet up and then stood me up for a hockey game with his mates. Thankfully, I hadn’t left for the venue. So, after all the interactions with him, an other trek mate of mine and I concluded post a detailed analysis that the fellow was a genuine nut job.
Soon after, I was applying for my post graduation. I had done decently in my entrance exams and was offered every subject under the sun from General Surgery, Pediatrics, Ophthalmology, OBGYn to even Orthopedics. All except what I wanted-Internal Medicine. That year(the infamous NEET 2013) as luck would have it, the Armed forces colleges were opened up for civilians. They would not hold a separate exam. We stepped into INHS ( Naval Medical College)for our counselling and it was a deja vu moment.
I heard this officer stomp into the clerk’s office and yell his lungs out at him so much that the sound reverberated through the hallways. On the day the names were announced and I was offered Surgery, I went up to the dais to be asked,” Would you like to take up this seat?” and I replied with a “NO”. I was prodded, “Are you sure?” “Yes Sir” and then the chilling warning-”You won’t get even this next time”. Again, I declined and walked away. So, while others were rejoicing on getting into the prestigious Naval institute, I was walking away from it. All because I didn’t get the subject of my choice.
Just as he had predicted for me, I didn’t get a good enough rank the next year. I still so badly wanted to study General Medicine/ Internal medicine that I again decided to apply to the Forces for Short Service Commission. I spoke to one fellow doctor already doing it and he had one important thing to tell me. “Join the Forces if you like the Forces, not because you like Medicine.” With that piece of wisdom as I was deciding to leave the country and was getting my documents processed, is when I met an other professor who suggested I try the DNB exams first. Similar to DO in the USA. India always being my first choice, I did.
That’s how a year later, I went on to do my post graduation as a civilian with the subject of my choice.
PS :- All this is written in good fun. We all have our respective journeys and I try to see the humor in every situation. Every time I reminisce about this, it makes me smile.
