Best 3 years of my life....!!! Chapter 3: Out of the shell

Chapter 3: Out of the shell 

For those who were anticipating something dramatic to have happened as my hints were a bit dramatic at the end of my previous chapter, that significant change that I was talking about was my shifting from the male side of Unit 1 to the female side. A more friendly and relaxed work atmosphere suddenly became more tensed and more professional. But the more significant part was that it gave me the opportunity to bond with the guys who later went on to become my close friends with whose company I have spent most time with over the next three years. 

Also it was during this time that I slowly started coming out of my shell. Actually I was in a phase where i became a chatter box to the extent of annoying people around me during the time of my entrance exam preparations. That was of-course a result of my starving to chitchat with people during the three years that I spent in Anna Nagar, Chennai preparing for civil service examinations. During those days only speech output on a day would be something like  "One plate Idly" , "oru mealsu", "chinthamani oru ticketu", "12th main road oru ticketu" and "oru set chapathi"..!!! That is it...!!! 

So when I shifted to Ashok Nagar to a flat with my UG mates to start my entrance exam preparations all those pent up yearning for chatter began to emanate. So by the time I started off in NIMHANS the chatter system of my brain was already overworked and hence the break of one and half months were good for it to get recharged to unleash with its full fury when the chance arose. That happened during that time. 

Mahavir, Shiv, myself and Kapil during our Skandhgiri trek

It all started off with we four, myself, Mahavir, Kapil and Shivkumar going for dinners after out days work. Over the next five months or so we must have eaten out almost 98% of the time for our dinner. Those were the days when only Kapil had a bike with him 24 hours. Shiv would have his on and off whenever his brother let him. Me and Mahavir were not even in the planning stage to get one. So getting a bike or arranging a mean of transport was a big challenge everyday but still we used to go to either Jayanagar and Koramangala almost everyday.Many times we used to walk our way to Jayanagar and Koramangala having memorable chats all the times. But later when we all had our own bikes, the number of outing were very very minimal with everyone getting busy with their work.

Having Unit1 as the first posting is always a wonderful opportunity to bond well, get initiated into psychiatry at a mellow pace and at the same time to have a seamless orientation to psychiatry and clinical work. So I was lucky in that aspect. Every OPDs will be invariably followed by lunch at Adigas or Upahara Darshini or A2B. The SRs would be extremely friendly outside the work space while maintaining the professional decorum within the confines of the clinics.

Unit 1 team at Guganthara

 

The one day bonding trip to Guganthara, our quartet's mid-night trekking at Skandhagiri, Unit dinner at Banjara (which is the first and last time I can remember almost everyone who was working in the unit attended), all those eventful case conferences and unit seminars where unmindful of what others might think blurting out answers ( may be ignorance was bliss during that time) were some of the wonderful memories that stayed back all through the next three years resulting in everyone yearning for one more Unit 1 posting in the future. 

The whole Unit 1 team at Banjara for our Unit Dinner

 

During this point in time I got another idea which is to increase the interaction within our batch. Until that point our batch was more like collection of groups that belonged to various units rather than a batch as a whole. So I send out an e-mail:

" Hai all,

Its been more than 100days since we became "WE" . I doubt how many of us know one another more than what we knew 100 days back. So my suggestion is why can't we have a forum for our batch for us to share things like what we used to call as "GB meeting "(which i think sounds more formal )  in our UG days.

We can have a similar forum , an informal meeting of our batch mates where we can discuss various issues like ordering for text books in bulk or opthalmoscope or regarding some batch activities like an outing or a dinner or voicing one another's concerns on various issues....

How many of you are game for it.If yes lets decide about the venue & time for our forum & also frequency of such meets...

Also please suggest better ideas if you have one.If you feel such meets are not needed or not warranted or waste of time , please do express that also..

regards,Sabari " . 

The responses were: 

S.Mahavir Agarwal

to me

nice job man.. we should have a forum like this.. do go ahead

 

hemendra singh
to me

nice suggestion.... lets put a common name for our batch ..so we can stuck together as a batch unitet in mind nd sprit through out of roller coaster ride of three years! we stand to our slogan...FOREVER ONE ,SECOND TO NONE..

 

kapil jhamnani  to me hey shabri... i m always there to support u for batch forum...   G@yAtRi  to me hey its a good idea... kudos 4 coming up wid it n takin the initiative...'
dr preethi  to me hi shabari,,    thank u for the mail,,,and congratulations for coming up with such a wonderful idea like batch forum;-) any help in organising anything for the batch let me know anytime.        takecare.

Lets see what was the response to the call and all about the "Batch Forum" in the next chapter.