Looking Back.. An Ode to AFMC

Unlike in other colleges, in AFMC, one of the first seats to be grabbed in the lecture halls are the back benches, there are exceptions of course who do not mind being disturbed by the teacher pacing up and down and delivering their monotone. My favourite  place was the last of the rows which the girls occupied. Yes, AFMC which was decades ahead of its time in its outlook, had this quaint system that the girls would occupy the Right lower quadrant of the Lecture Hall.(‘The skirts to go up and the pants to come down’,was just a part of the folklore passed down it didn’t  happen!) 

Sitting with your GF / BF, not only did that not happen, publicly accepting that one had a fondness for a particular person beyond the usual mass crushes, was like revealing your Achilles heel and accepting your softer side, it did not happen till matters really came to a head. PDA was a very private affair! 

I was late for the Dr Zargar's Anatomy lecture, all other seats were taken and perforce I had to sit in the first row. I slumped into the seat, took out a fresh sheet of paper and wrote Dr Z in the top Right corner; to actually find out what was being taught was too much of an effort, the walk from the hostel to the LH entitled one to an hour’s slumber. Having put the date and the teacher’s name was an honest day’s work and I was wafting onto a lazy cloud towards Somnotopia when I realized I had to delay this till the attendance gig of …Miss Kapoor, Miss Chhabra to which one had to rise and acknowledge. These few activities done, I was drifting where one is supposed to drift if one is not keen to see their name in the Honours board of the college, when a compelling nudge from my neighbour brought me face to face with the contours of Dr Zargar's face and he said in his rich baritone, Miss Chhabra, I wish you wouldn’t  use such endearments for me, I am not likely to be impressed with these! I turned a deep shade of purple from embarrassment and anger; I was so sure it was the handiwork of good friends sitting next to me. These friends had once added to my journal entry, where I wrote Vene section done. But alas the patient died with a string of sad smilies. Fearing something akin I looked at my paper it still said a very innocuous Dr Z, but who was going to convince those 100 odd batchmates that it was just that, they were hooting and catcalling already. 

In the college rule book, being friendly with the batch guys would earn you an epithet of sporting, with senior batches, disapproval, with the residents, some grunts, but hobnobbing with the faculty was a tut, tut offense! Having my slumber so wickedly disturbed, I tried to note down the relations of the inguinal canal, I was patting myself on the back for taking down a whole page full of notes (If one had a roommate who took impeccable notes in a neat and legible writing,that were intelligently concise, it was a needless infringement of one's time and effort) when Dr Zargar stopped again, I thought it was to make amends for his uncalled for comment earlier but he was in top form, your writing is like bullshit, spread all over it should be like goats pellets, neat and uniform in size. His comments conjuring the visual and olfactory imagery of the description, I felt I was going to throw up. This was by far the worst thing that had been said to me ever and I was smarting from the insult and from  the raucous laughter that followed. 

If it had been 20 years later I wouldn’t have rested till I googled who was the original author of this disgusting quote! 30 years down the line, as a Professor when I correct the examination papers, Iget so put off by the dirty scrawls of some students, that I warn them (but still never thank Dr Zargar for pulling me up) that the examiner will never read their papers if they are so unappetizing. No points for guessing what the AFMC bunch has to say to that, we are banking on that only, Ma’am! 

Having freed myself from the shackles of taking notes in class, I discovered a whole new world. The number of people that exited the class at the end of the lecture was always less than the ones that entered. Sometimes I wondered if these boys had dug out a passage a la escape from Alcatraz, but I think it was the obliging huge windows on either side of the LH but there must have been a sheer drop of 10 feet from the last ones! Or it may be the 30 seconds that the teacher took to scribble something on the blackboard that the Great Escape was made. That the samosas are best had, piping hot and the canteen would fry them just before the 10.30 break was reason enough to indulge in this exercise and not a reflection on the teacher at all. Thank God, it was before the dawn of the CCTVs. The less adventurous like me would let the mind and the soul wander instead of the body. A few times, we wrote a sentence and passed the sheet ahead and we would have a potboiler of a story by the end of the class. Nobody can deny that this was the ultimate test of creativity, the craziest on-the-spot writing competition, perhaps second only to the movies we had to conjure on the spot during our fresher days! The prompt given was that the climax of the movie should have the mother yelling at her daughter that she had disgraced the family honour which always got the loudest claps. Another must was a cabaret number or a mujra that was performed in the quadrangle of the Ladies hostel, the audience on the three floors would show their appreciation by showering the dancers with coins. At other times we honed our clinical skills, during the lectures. How to arrive at the correct diagnosis; where did the paper plane or the piece of chalk come from. Was the target the intended subject. Did the voice giving the attendance belong to that AFG or no. If not him then who? The probability of being caught which varied with the teacher and the rogue pupils. The cryptic message that was passed from the backbenchers to the girls would have put KGB to shame. But the sharp analysis and interpretation by the girls would have matched the skills of  a modern day hacker. These same people or most of them who would be doing everything but taking notes in class- would probably be sitting till the wee hours of the morning with 4 books in front of them, making their own notes on the subject taught that day. Why? Because we are not wired to take the straight and predictable path. In AFMC you could be guilty of a lot of sins and get away but it is unpardonable to be too ‘Keen’. We were the cool cats who did  everything with that nonchalant air !

 Whether it was topping the univ exams or skinning the other teams at the Inter-med Basketball or at Debating or Dramatics, it had to be effortlesss and casual. In our fresher days we had trooped in to cheer the home team for a Debate in Wadia College. Their faculty was addressing the audience when he stopped mid sentence and said, we have just been joined by the ace debater from AFMC Mr Shubhankar Ganguly- many of us had reached a celebrity status in college and had a cult following like the Quiz duo of Rangaraj Setlur and Kaushik Chatterjee who won the iconic Quiz on National TV. Another personal favourite  of mine was this master orator who would come to the stage whether for a debate or an extempore, remove the mike from its perch and just pace up and down the span of the stage to mesmerize us with his piece. Whatever happened to the rules-Always face the audience, make eye contact, maintain a fixed distance from the mike so that the voice doesnot wax or wane. Nobody was complaining. When I had to make a presentation, I wrote it, read through it once and was ready. On a whim, I walked upto him, secretly hoping to enamour him. He eased out the paper from my hand and made me say it out loud. Everytime I tripped, had to start over again. 10 reruns after the last fumble. That is how you play the cool and casual! That is the hallmark of everything  AFMC, effortless quality. Prowess is not touted around, it’s a given, being from the hallowed portals of this great institution. But heaven forbid, if you are caught on the wrong foot, then put in your might/mind that you don’t break the eleventh Commandment, don’t get discovered. 

If you have been dealt bad cards, happens, an AFMCite will poker face his way and evince a victory from the very same cards. They will party till the wee hours of the morning  and as easily get up in the wee hours of the morning and have a marathon session at the study table before the exams. 

It’s the only college where the audience claps graciously after a great goal by the rival team, in the same breath as they hoot and cheer for the home run. But there are some victories that are taken in their stride like the Lady Hardinge or AIIMS girls basketball team winning the inter-med BB, but losing to CON is not one of them. For that, an extra class was held, if you find yourself losing to CON, then in a desperate bid, what to do! Similarly, Stanley or Madras Medical could win but not, you guessed it, BJ ! AFMC has a very special Most Favored Nation status reserved for BJ complete with its national anthem! Once the college had to close early about 2 weeks prior to the scheduled summer break. How nearly 300 odd people traveled without reservations, from pune to Delhi by Jhelum Express, how some people went to the Railway yard to lay claim to the unreserved rakes and how so many people were given food and tea and some rationed sleep was a lesson in management. How the student leaders, managed the teams during Intercollegiate festivals like Rendezvous or Mood indigo in the pre mobile pre WA era, with hundreds of events happening  simultaneously, all with the last minute changes in timings and venues, was a mammoth task. But it would all fall in place as one aimed for a podium finish and were willing to labour for it. Talent was encouraged and lauded by the faulty and the students alike. If the crowd would go crazy about the lead guitarist of the rock band, they would enjoy the jugalbandi of the Tabla and the Sitar with equal vigour. 

They would rock to the Rolling stones and gyrate to Pungda, main gur ki Dali being belted out from the Bhairoba nallah, But the universal favourite was Living next door to Alice, though I had a tough time explaining  to my girls why Mumma was using bad language! Canvassing for elections was our first brush with public speaking. We all had to  advocate the cause of our batch person for General Secretary. As a cheeky fourth termed I remember  being confronted by  a gang of nineth termers with a ‘Tell us why we must vote for your candidate to which I had the temerity to ask whether they wanted me to start from ABC or from Billroth 1 and Billroth 11. Why I had to be so smart when I knew nothing beyond the names….and it served me right when the senior sweetly said, you could start from the Rue en Y! You have to gestate in that magnificent campus with the best teachers and doctors for around five years and then and only then is churned out an AFMCite. 

A young Captain from one of the Medical colleges of Delhi  once confessed to me, 'When people ask, are you from AFMC, I can sense their disappointment when I answer in the negative. At that moment I would give anything to be able to say yes I am from AFMC. One would fight tooth-and-nail for the Interbatch trophy but if any outsider dared to pick up a fight, within minutes the whole college would join in and form a formidable wall. All in all we are just another brick in the wall! 

But,what a wall!