A Language Beyond Words

Music is truly one of the most beautiful creations of nature. It has become so ingrained into our lives that it is virtually impossible to imagine a world without music. It’s one of those things in the background that are not technically essential for life – like water, oxygen or food – and yet, it forms one of the cornerstones of our existence. Man simply wouldn’t have evolved if he had never learnt how to create or appreciate music.

Music is there all around us. The chirping of a bird and the falling of raindrops has never failed to enthral humans since time immemorial. Eventually, music has spread far and wide and diversified itself into innumerable genres – though they are all connected by an invisible strand that appeals to the very basic senses of the human mind.

Back during my school days, the Backstreet Boys were a worldwide rage – I used to love listening to them on MTV. Bollywood songs were also a favourite of mine – who can forget the melody of Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge? My interest in music really grew after my Mama gifted me an MP3 player. Yes, remember the rather thick USB player of the last decade, with a single-line monochrome LCD screen? They met their death rather quickly, as iPods and smartphones took over. So that’s when I started downloading songs and trying out different genres. Linkin Park (of course!) and Nickelback were among my first favourites (they still are).

I learnt to play the keyboard at around nine years of age. It was a favourite pastime of mine back then – I had a tiny beginner’s keyboard, the one with two octaves. Even now, even after about twelve years, I still play it occasionally. It gives a particular feeling nothing else in the world can ever match with. I always wanted to play the guitar but never got around to doing it so far, but in the future, I’m still very much interested!

With the advent of the Internet, we now have the choice of listening to music from virtually any part of the world, just at the touch of a button. The music of a certain place tells us a lot about its culture and tradition – and it’s amazing to be able to explore so much right from the comfort of our homes. Initially, I was a fan of Hindi and English music. Being in Hyderabad, I listen to a fair amount of Telugu music too though I’m not very fluent with the language – nevertheless, it’s fantastic! But recently, I discovered some amazing Indonesian (Peterpan!) and Korean bands as well. Some of the Arabic singers are really good too. Music blurs the borders between cultures – it takes everyone in its midst. Thus, I reckon it’s indeed a universal language, if ever there was one – a language beyond words.

This blog post is inspired by the blogging marathon hosted on IndiBlogger for the launch of the #Fantastico Zica from Tata Motors. You can apply for a test drive of the hatchback Zica today.

Medico Life

It is often said that if there's anything at all that is constant in this world, it's change. It can be such a heartening thing as well as a depressing thing at times - no matter how good or bad the moment might be, it's never going to be repeated again. Many of us loved our school days, but ultimately the goal of school is to learn from it and move ahead with life. I'm a twenty year-old who's been living in the same city since kindergarten, hence for someone who's viewing me from outside, it'd be rather difficult to pinpoint one particular moment in my life that was a paradigm shift or something which set me on a totally different track. However, when I look back upon the rather short course of my existence on this planet, I find that change has indeed hit me - in a gradual yet very substantial manner - my 20-year old self would find it hard to recognize my 15-year old self; and no, I'm not talking about appearance of course. Which forces me to think - what was so great about the past five years that led me to, if I may put it that way, "start a new life"?

Well, the biggest visible change is of course - joining medical college. In a lot of ways, college has changed me and opened me up in a way I never thought was possible with me. Let me share with you what really goes on in the mind of a student when he/she is in medicine and is on the path to getting that "Dr." prefix before their name. Of course, each profession has their uniquenesses, but since I'm in medicine and have experienced it, I choose to articulate that here.

Well, the first day you walk in to medical college and bam! You find yourself in a room full of dead bodies lying on tables. Let's be honest - this might sound scary to some but once you're in it, it's actually intriguing. The feel of having to cut open those persons - yes, real persons, who once were full of life and had their own stories to tell - to observe and learn what literally lies inside us, is well, surreal, when you think of it. And then you get absolutely submerged in the ocean of anatomy, physiology and biochemistry - the syllabus is enormous. It's when you actually begin to have real respect for doctors - for having gone through so much, and well, that's just the first year. Those who were toppers in school are now more than happy to just scrape through over 50%. In the first ever internal assessment test which I wrote after joining college, a grand total of nine students passed (out of 150), yours truly not included.

Then comes second year. It's comparatively more relaxed... and by this time, you're quite familiar with the college; you've made friends with the seniors and the newly arrived juniors... and you get closer to your classmates, so college feels much more familiar. If you're lucky, you get to go to Pulse, an annual fest at AIIMS, Delhi - we couldn't go, but I've heard it's pretty amazing. This is also the time when you start going to the hospital and start interacting with patients - and for the first time, get face-to-face with real people's problems and poverty, and how far we need to go before we can call ourselves a developed nation. You get in touch with different types of people from varying cultures - the beauty of our country - and how all those barriers stand absolutely nullified in the doctor-patient relationship. You also get acquainted to the challenges you're about to face... get to see a few surgeries, a few people dying right in front of your eyes, a few postmortems. It becomes commonplace. You talk to your female classmates about medical stuff which you'd get slapped for if you were to talk about that to any non-medico.

My third year has just begun. Let's see how it goes :D

So yeah, in short, medical college has really made start a new life. What's your story?