Crossing over... the main story of Gosumag 07

Introduction to the Main Story:
Beyond mere scalpels, ills and pills…

Should it be something to do with us, our stages of our life in a medical college? Oh, but then, that’s for the college and hospital life section, isn’t it?

Or maybe the things doctors have done for the improvement of the lives of the destitute, unfortunate ones… Stop! Are we going into the Miss.India-answer-mode… But, I wanted to add ‘for world peace’.

That happened in between thinking about the themes that we could have had for the main story, and we did this thinking in the most random places… while looking blankly out of the moving local train or while browsing through he fresh pages of Park or the behenji-bitching sessions on the katta… Then someone came up with the Eureka moment…why don’t we have the theme that doctors can have fun too.

Okay, so we all know that…what now???

This is the (seemingly) frivolous account of how we came about with the main story.

But that’s a fast-forward too fast. Lets go back in time a little bit…

It wasn’t long ago that whispers in the class went by, “There are only six months left now, and we don’t even have an ECG (that’s Editor-in-Chief of Gosumag, by the way, for those who only browse through the photos in the magazine like six-year olds…but, you guys wouldn’t be reading this anyways, so why bother explaining).”

This, I think, came from feelings of guilt (for not studying like the ghasoos for so many days in a row), a constant need to focus on academics…and hence a majority of the class were skeptical to put away their Hutchinsons’, stethoscopes and khoof-clinics (even the regular clinics, actually) and shift focus to Microsoft word & Page Editor. But some of us did put a brave face forward and volunteered. Even then, we had our moments of doubts… why am I writing this when my batch-mates are lapping up another ten pages of Park. Another trip to Hinduja for a measly five hundred rupees; I’d rather attend the surgery seminar. If this was not enough, our earnest efforts to ask for articles were turned away, not bluntly, but by friends who were so concerned about us, “Do you know Shraddha, the day after Gosumag is released, I have a whole stack of them lying down my corridor of my hostel room, near the dustbin. You are wasting your time doing this. ”

Really, I thought, am I wasting time?

That was the flashback.

Reality-check. While doing the research for the magazine (again, wasting time doing ‘research’ for which we are not going get a scholarship), we realized that there are a number of doctors who have gone off the beaten track, they followed their hearts and pursed a plethora of activities…some sailing, cartooning, painting, writing and the works. When we met them, we realized that they had fun doing what they wanted to in medical college and today, for them, is no different; the show still goes on, strong as ever, the fun is still as immeasurable as then… And this only strengthened our resolve, we are making a magazine because we like doing it, actually, we love doing it.

In this section, we bring to you interviews and profiles of doctors who are names to reckon with in their chosen professions. An Olympian sailor, an internationally acclaimed painter, a multi-talented singer (are you in euphoria already?), a fashion-designer (who had auditioned for a fashion-show in our LCR!), a cartoonist who is a household name; and to sum it up, a columnist doing what he does best-writing (that’s beside reading radiographs).
{Put in an intro for Bhavin Jhankaria before his article, that will solve the problem of not having a writer}

Further on, we have our own peers, the students of GS waging battles against some clichéd beliefs coming down the ages; the ones that tell us to study, the ones that tell us that its ok not it, once in while… As Akshay is hard-pressed for time balancing internship and his books, Sasha justifies doing-it-all. Natasha is cynical about the bland life that medicine offers to her, but Dr. Henal believes that medicine offers the highest level of inspiration that a profession can. The talented, free-bird Vivek has a line-or two to add about the life of ghasoos of our class, but ghasoo Saumya does have her share of washing the dirty linen in public (we had to have some sugar, spice and sarcasm to make it exciting!).

Realistically, we, the team had experiences we had not bargained for…making someone pay for coffee in a five-star hotel, being awe-struck by a pop-star as we tried to concentrate on the interview, learning that a top medical journalist in the US is of Indian origin, or that a Gosumec is making movies in Hollywood. This while we each discovered within us, and our teammates, abilities that needed just some polishing and shone amongst us (I should start writing more I think).

Maybe, going on in this way, in future, we too would have the liberty of saying something on the lines of what the playwright-physician Anton Chekhov, in 1988 wrote to his publisher: ''I have two professions and not one. Medicine is my lawful wife and literature is my mistress. When I get tired of one, I spend the night with the other. Though it's disorderly, it's not so dull and besides, neither loses anything through my infidelity.''

Maybe, as Vivek puts it, that will happen when the performers watch and we, the spectators perform.

To sum it up, it was a lot of fun putting together this story. Hope you enjoy as much, reading it.