Over a cup of evening tea
Last week I wrote about the kind of life led by many medical students, who take their own sweet time to pass out of medical colleges and become doctors, with some of them even dropping out from the courses altogether and pursuing other fields of life, often ending up earning more than what most other doctors can even hope to earn. Although there was no cap in the past on how much time would be allowed for a student to complete the five-year MBBS course, things are now about to change, with the National Medical Council (NMC) proposing to restrict this time period to only ten years.
Though I passed my MBBS course very comfortably, within the stipulated time frame, with good grades too, I had a very unique association and experience with many senior students in my college, who were finding it rather difficult to do likewise. This is a very common occurrence in almost every medical college, with every batch having a few back-loggers who manage to complete their course only years after their other classmates pass out.
When I joined medical college, in far off Gulbarga, there were a good number of such repeaters in the small hostel block where I had my room, who quickly became my friends. One of them, who was a year senior to me, was from a rural background, who had had almost his entire schooling in Kannada medium and was therefore finding it very difficult to comprehend what the voluminous text books in the college tried to tell him, in the very alien King’s English. The result was that despite his best efforts at taking his studies seriously, he had failed quite miserably, in all subjects of the first year.
One day he very apologetically approached me and asked me if I could take some time to explain to him in easy English, whatever topics I happened to be reading daily. I did not have the heart to say no and immediately said that he was most welcome to join me in my study sessions, with a warning that unlike most students who studied during late nights, I did all my studies only early in the morning.
He readily agreed to the proposal and even said that to make things easy for me, he would not mind passing in one subject at a time. So, our study sessions started early the very next morning. Although I quickly realised that what I had undertaken was not going to be an easy task, considering his abysmal lack of proficiency in English, I decided to help him pass all the subjects in one go, at his supplementary examination, that would come a full six months before my exam.
That would mean studying the extra portions of one full term even before they were taught to my batch in our classes at college, which was going to be a rather difficult task. Nevertheless, we went ahead with the arrangement, with both of us quickly discovering to our mutual delight that we were doing a pretty good job of what we had set out to do!
This was despite me taking time not only to explain the topics but also to dictate notes to him in simple English at the end of each session, which he would read instead of turning to text books. All through this exercise, I kept telling him that he must try to concentrate on all the subjects and clear them in one go instead of doing it one at a time. Very soon the dreaded exams came and the results too came and to our mutual delight and to the utter amazement of all his friends we found that he had passed the first year of the course fully, which was and still is considered to be the most difficult first step to getting the MBBS degree!
Astounded by how easily he had passed, his three other friends who too had failed, approached me and requested me to help them likewise. When I pleaded my inability saying that it would make things very difficult for me, they said in their defence that it would not be much of a bother for me this time because I would in any case be studying the same subjects over the next six months, for my own final exams. And, they also pointed out that this time my job would be much easier because I would not have to dictate any notes as they would use the notes I had dictated to their friend.
So, the second term of my forced early morning tutorial classes started all over again and seemed to be going quite smoothly when much greater trouble came calling. Yes, King Claudius in William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, very rightly says that “When sorrows come, they come not as single spies but in battalions.” Nothing could be truer in my case!
I say this because my first student who had tasted success and was now in the second year, came calling once again and said that he was having the same trouble in tackling the subjects there, for which he wanted my help once again, a request I tried very hard to refuse because that would mean reading up the subjects that I had myself not been exposed to yet. But when he began pleading with me most helplessly and knowing him as I did, I did not have the heart to refuse and I agreed to help him.
This new responsibility brought in some drastic changes in my daily routine. To be able to help him I would have to hold classes for him in the late evenings, which was the only time available to me for my other activities like general reading and going out into town. But I consoled myself that I should go ahead and do this, despite the inconvenience, because I was doing a good deed for a friend who helplessly need my help.
So, the evening classes too started and to me that meant studying for the first year MBBS in the mornings and the second year MBBS in the evenings, certainly something that no MBBS student had ever done in his or her lifetime! I told you how right King Claudius was.
Very soon, one day my friend told me very guardedly that two of his friends who had failed in the second year, would also like to join him for the tuition classes. Now, this was the absolute limit and I very firmly refused to let them in. That was when he told me that one of them who wanted to come was one of the most feared rowdy elements of the college and it would not be a very wise thing to rub him the wrong way by refusing his request.
He said that I would on the other hand, benefit greatly by obliging him because doing that meant having one of the most powerful persons among the students on my side, for the rest of my stay in the college. Now, I was unable to decide if doing good to this don was going to do good or bad for me. But I clearly had no choice because I was just a first-year student and a complete stranger in a strange land, far from home.
Caution told me to stay clear, while common sense told me to join hands and be safe. And, thankfully, the latter won, which was good for both of us because as we went along, I discovered the golden streak of goodness that ran deep inside the heart of that man who, had only because of some cruel twists of fate, compelled himself to only assume the exterior countenance of a warlord, in an unkind world! He had the most heart-wrenching story to tell, of the misfortunes of his family, where his parents, trapped in a world of crime, had toiled hard to educate him and give him a life of dignity, far away from his past. As a child he had seen the dark underbelly of crime and had even been forced by circumstances to be a part of it. We soon became the best of friends as I helped him with his studies and today, he is one of the most successful doctors, in another part of the world.
And, very strangely, he helped me too, in a much bigger way, by making me understand that one should never go by the external appearances of a person, however harsh or brutal… A lesson in living, which I will never forget, in my lifetime!
e-mail: kjnmysore@rediffmail.com
By Dr. K. Javeed Nayeem, MD
This post was published on June 7, 2026 7:30 pm