I'm back... post-internship!

Before the commencement of our internship year, we’d been told that each of us would be posted in three cities, for a total duration of five months. Alone. Of course, that didn’t go down too well with us. We were sure we’d end up like those despos who punch out a random mobile number and call or send annoying text messages like, “Hai. I don’t kno f ur guy or gal, but I m alone. Will u b ma fren?” So we decided to have a meeting with our Director and voice our protests.

Have a meeting, we did. We asked her to increase our monthly stipend. She agreed. We asked her to cancel postings in Sonitpur and Nalbari, Assam (because we were afraid our classmates posted there would be gunned down by the ULFA). She, being the very soul of generosity, said she couldn’t just cancel postings like that, but if we got shot, she’d let us come back without completing that term. How sweet.

Don’t make us go alone, we said. At least send the girls in pairs, the guys said. She just laughed. We said we’d have to spend so many hours sobbing on the phone (STD calls, mind you), that our monthly stipend wouldn’t cover even a part of our phone bills. We told her we’d end up having everything from depression to multiple personality disorder. We shouted. We pleaded. She just smiled and said that all that time alone would lead to self discovery and deep introspection, that it was all for our good. Discussion closed, have a good day. With that, she regally swept out of the room, leaving us either gaping like fish or sighing resignedly (some even wore sardonic I-told-you-so looks).

It was decided that for the first term (five months), half the batch would work here in the Institute, while the other half went on their ‘outside postings’. At the end of those five months (and a 15-day break), the two halves of the batch would switch places. I won’t even try to explain how they worked out the whole who-goes-where-when… It’s immensely complex.

It was only when the first batch went out on their ‘outside postings’ that things began to change. Nalbari got flooded, so postings there were cancelled. Sonitpur was going through a mildly violent phase of random stabbing and minor bomb blasts, so that was cancelled too. They couldn’t find the students any accommodation in Mehboobnagar or Narindernagar, so those were taken off the list. Postings in Gujarat were cancelled for no apparent reason, and those posted there were transferred to Vellore. In some place near Barabunki, the students were told to get out of there unless they wanted to be sent home in body bags. Apparently, it’s the kind of places where people carry revolvers in their hip pockets and use them when they can’t find the right words to make their point. So, surprise surprise, postings there were cancelled too!

With fewer places to cover, we could now be posted in twos and threes. Excellent! I was still going to be with my buddies, but in Vellore. It must’ve been a real headache for the internship coordinator, what with everyone giving him a list of their preferences, then changing their minds, then changing their minds again… Poor guy! But almost everyone got what they wanted (or so I think).

I thoroughly enjoyed my first few months of my internship. I learned to make paper rockets (that’s right… I hadn’t known how till recently!), I read novels between therapy sessions, I often sat and sang songs in the clinic with a bunch of friends, I downed two cups of disgusting coffee at the canteen everyday, I went around screening newborn babies for hearing loss, I made an ear mould (and a shiny transparent heart, using the same acrylic material) for myself… Then came Annual Day. I had a lot of fun then, too. I was in four of the cultural programs and had to spend so much time rehearsing that one lecturer asked me if I actually intended to kill myself. But I had a great time, and the dances came out beautifully too. And yeah, I survived. It was just brilliant!

A couple of months before my ‘inside postings’ would end, the internship coordinator said Pondicherry had been added to the list of postings, and he needed two volunteers to go there. He then gave us an outline of the kind of work we’d be doing. A teaching job at JIPMER for two months! Of course I’d go! I volunteered, as did my friend S, and we got to spend October and November in Pondicherry. I already told you all about the places we saw there…

After a vacation that lasted 15 days, I went back to Pondicherry, but this time, with D and G. A, R and S, all of whom I love very much, were in Vellore, so I didn’t miss them very much. In the last week of January, my postings in Pondicherry ended, and G and I came to Adukkamparai, Vellore. Tiny village, really. There’s the hospital where we worked, a bakery (that sells, in addition to what bakeries usually sell, everything from paper to shampoo to mosquito repellant. One can even send couriers from there), a ‘gents parlar’, a few gaadis vending fruit and a seedy looking wine shop a little way off. There must be houses somewhere, but I didn’t see them.

Now, after spending three months in Adukkam-boring-parai, I’m home. I look deep-fried and my rear end has gone numb after 9315km of bus-journeying (over the past 7 months). Sure, internship was great fun, but am I sorry it’s all over? Not at all! After all, east or west, home’s best!