Weight and Watch

[Guest guest]

Sinha's letter has brought back memories of his batch alive for me. But the

most mysterious recollection that I have of his batch is from my early days.

Sinha's batch (1973) was our immediate senior, so it was their duty to train

us and educate us. Thus we learnt how Ram felt cold in Chitrakoot during the

night from the 73 batch. (Yeah, Ravin and Ameet, I am glad that this

tradition is still alive and kicking.)

On one such 'educational trip' to the F block (at that time, F block was in

the boys' hostel), a small batch of us poor hapless juniors was herded into

the room of a senior called (let's say) Raju. Well actually, Raju was a very

slightly built and unimpressive chap. However, being our senior, we behaved

very deferentially with him.

While Raju and his cronies were grilling us, I couldn't help noticing his

open drawer. As a curious junior I peeped in to see if I could garner any

useful info. I could see a small, flat plastic box of about 6 cms by 4 cms

lying there. The box seemed very familiar. Now where have I seen it before -

I thought.

That box puzzled me so much, that against all commonsense, I decided to risk

my life and limb and take a look inside it. So while everyone's attention

was diverted to my classmate singing the medical salute, I surreptitiously

slid open the drawer further and fingered open that plastic box.

Ah! Now I knew why it was so familiar. This plastic box, made of fluorescent

material was that familiar fractional weight box which we needed during our

pre medical Chemistry practicals, to measure out various powders and

chemicals.

We returned to our rooms, more or less intact, but I was in a pensive mood.

At that stage, we knew very little of the basic sciences. However, from what

little we knew, this apparatus was not required by Anatomy, Physiology or

Biochemistry.

This mystery remained on the back burner of my mind, while I went about

learning more important things like how doctors like to make things

complicated for themselves by calling the pelvic bone the innominate bone,

which literally means, one which can't be named.

I had occasion to visit Raju room subsequently. While he was talking with

one of my colleagues, I quietly slipped open the drawer. My old friend, the

fractional weight box was there, but it was accompanied by another equally

familiar, but out of place object. Lying beside the box was a sports type

stopwatch.

These round objects were part of our school sadists' paraphernalia, where

the particularly vicious sports teachers made you huff and puff in direct

competition with this ticking object. But what was a stop watch doing in

Raju drawer? His physical appearance was such that one could immediately

guess that he had not seen a playing ground in the past couple of years.

By then, we had covered a sizable portion of our first year subjects, and

nowhere was a fractional weight box or a stopwatch required. When you are a

junior, you are handicapped with an immense curiosity, paired with a fear of

asking the wrong questions. Asking a senior what and why he kept certain

things was akin to committing suicide. So I assumed the wait and watch

policy to solve this great mystery of the weight and the watch. But it would

be three long years before this mystery could be solved.

By then we were wizened old seniors, imparting the weather conditions of

Chitrakoot to our juniors. I had nearly forgotten about the weight and

watch. By then, 1973 batch was very friendly with us. Once, over a hot cuppa

I casually mentioned to my friend from 73 about the curious objects that I

had observed in Raju's room. At that my friend burst out laughing.

I was flummoxed. After administering the Heimlich maneuver to my choking

friend, I asked him the reason for his mirth. He calmed down to the giggle

level and said, " You did not observe anything else peculiar about his room? "

I confessed that I had missed whatever peculiarity he had in mind. Midst

chuckles, he said, " The next time you go there, see what is attached to his

mosquito rods on his bed. " He would not clarify anything further.

The things were getting murkier. I could not resist this mystery. On some

pretext or the other, I managed to visit Raju's room. The first thing that I

did was inspecting his mosquito rods. At the foot end of his bed were the

vertical mosquito rods with a horizontal connection completing the T shape.

No wonder I had missed it, it was so small. There in the middle of the

horizontal bar was a small pulley, much like the ones on which you do the

pre medical lever experiments.

Then it gradually dawned on me like the slowly rising sun of a cold winter

morning how the three, i.e. weight watch and pulley were connected.

I presume, even now Raju is downloading various mails about lengthening and

strengthening different parts of non muscular portions of his body.

Kishore Shah 1974