Jab tak hai patience

Jab tak hai jaan has all the masala ingredients that define a present day bollywood movie - two ultra glamorous heroines, bollywood’s biggest heartthrob (not mine though) in two versions, one, the young carefree boy next door with his trademark guitar in hands and the other older rough and tough guy with a well built body showing off through tight fitting tees, a stubble and no expressions, a story spanning three exotic countries, fantastic cinematography, songs that make you humm and few well planned emotional dialogues. But what it lacks is pure logic. Many questions remain unanswered, like what exactly is SRK doing in London (of all places)?, why Anupam Kher, who wants his daughter to learn speaking Punjabi, wants her to get married to a firangi? how a 28+ man with no background training gets selected as the chief of bomb disposing squad? how can a person discover self in a pub amidst a group of almost naked dancing drug addicts? what exactly is Anoushka doing moving about with the 4 soldiers 24x7 other than irritating them? why doesnt katrina’s father make any attempt to get her married in those ten years? etc etc etc. SRK looks as usual, gives the same expressions he has been giving in every romantic film since the last..what, twenty years? i guess so. There is a very fine line between bubbly and irritating, and unfortunately anoushka sharma manages to cross that line. Katrina is okay...but still her hindi dialogues seem forced. The characters of anupam kher, neetu singh, rishi kapoor are a waste. the end has been stretched till our patience snaps. Overall, this is not a trademark ’Yash chopra’ movie. I would suggest, if you want to pay him a tribute, watch DDLJ again, rather than wasting time and money on JTHJ.

My poem which was published in the Souvenir for Government Medical College Miraj, 50 years celebration.

MEMORIES UNFOLDED

I still remember my first day of college

The memories as vivid as though live

I had stepped into a whole new world of dreams

With the knowledge, I had a lot to strive

I fondly recall the Anatomy lecture hall

Where I first met my friends for lifetime

The corridors, the tutorial room, the dissection hall,

Still hold the essence of our being

The fun we had while pricking ourselves

During Physio Hematology sessions

Our fruitless efforts to byheart the Biochem cycles

Which was always an impossible mission

The freshers party that turned ragging

Into the most memorable affair

The crush we all girls commonly had

On this handsome senior, cute and fair

The fun rides in the clinic buses

To and fro from Sangli Civil

Partying till late and returning to the hostel

Under the warden’s watchful vigil

The hostel food which I better not describe

The fights for getting good rooms

The small catfights with best friends

Over wet clothes, buckets and brooms

The dozing off in lecture halls

Attending Post Mortems’s with horror

Byhearting the patho slides

By byhearting the slide number

Learing names of zillions of microbes and drugs

That really made us sick

The PSM visits to ‘interesting’ places,

Yet nothing short of a picnic

The visits to central library

Less to study, more to see people dating

To see Juliet’s fake surprise

To find their Romeo’s waiting

The yearly college trips

Where we would all have a blast

Only to come back to spot a notice of exam

With syllabus very very vast

The tension during exam time

Viva’s that terrified us to our core

The dreaded feeling that before uttering anything

The examiner would show us the door

The midnight birthday celebrations

The gatherings filled with excitement

The nights spent practicing dances and drama

For us, the perfect vent

The great teachers we had

Stalwarts in their respective fields

Who laid the foundation of our lives as doctors

And helped our sculptures to be built

The college taught us a lot more

Than just the medical stuff

It taught us to be calm and stable

During patches of life, rough

It taught us to be patient

When things didn’t seem our way

It taught us how to find, in utter darkness

That single hope ray

It taught us the way to deal

With the patients we treat

It molded us, from kids to individuals

Who could stand on their own feet

It helped us not only to become doctors

But better human beings

And fighters who can calmly face

Whatever life brings

What GMC has given us

We can never repay

I salute my alma-mater for what it is

On this special day…