The Educated Drug Dealer 🫀🫁🩺💉🩻

That shadowy figure lurking behind every exam, presentation, or procedure… the Dementor that spikes your panic, or the invisible gremlin that whispers, “What if you mess this up so badly that even the neighbour’s cat starts judging you?”(Cats do judge! You can infer that from those eyes! LOL). Well, the fear of failure, they say, is what stops most people from trying. If you’ve ever flubbed something so spectacularly that you wanted to change your name and move to a deserted island, don’t worry. You’re in very good company. The greatest minds in history have all failed, and many did so with the flair of a Broadway performance. Take Sir Alexander Fleming, for example. He discovered penicillin—one of the most life-changing medical breakthroughs—because he forgot to clean up his workbench. Had he been an obsessive neat freak, like most our South African Morobatsis, modern antibiotics might still be a distant dream. Then there’s Thomas Edison, who famously said, “I have not failed....

[Don’t worry, I’m not writing the whole article in Hindi, mainly because obviously I cannot write in my ancestor’s language now for the past twenty-five years.  And yes, that's how your seat in the exam hall looks like figuratively.] In the Ramayana, अग्निपरीक्षा - Agni Pariksha, is the fire ordeal that Sita undergoes to prove her chastity and innocence to her husband Rama. In the case of the final fellowship exam, it will be the fire that might burn you to the ground, Constantine style! (Anti hero in DC comics and also a great movie featuring Keanu Reeves.) Examinations The noble tradition of testing whether you’ve absorbed knowledge—or if you've perfected the art of last-minute cramming. Let’s take a brief stroll through the history of these cruel and unusual practices. The initial format was the oral exam. Ancient Sumerians, Egyptians, and Greeks used this format to test a person’s knowledge of their sacred texts. The "exam" was delivered face-to-face, with ...

Yeah, that was a hell lot of S. Anyways… ‘What are you?’ followed by a mini awkward silence (for me), to define my approach to the question. Finally, true to the witty and delightful parasite inside me, I went for- Ahemm, I am still classified as human I think. Obviously, laughter ensured before I addressed the underlying question- I am Mauritian and what you just heard was Mauritian Creole. The usual answer ensued- Sounds so poetic (huge inner snort in my mind to that) and so French! Well, why so (Why French I mean!)?- Mauritian Creole can be thought of as an amalgam of languages. So, let’s stroll down memory lane! The Mauritian Bouillabaisse- a delightful pot of cultures, languages, and just a dash of simmering identity crises. Being an Indo-Mauritian (by that, I mean myself, my dear Lord) gives you a front-row seat to the Creole conundrum- where history, colonization, and modernity swirl into a complex narrative. Let’s start with "Creole," a word as versatile as Ma...

The 3Cs of life right now- Cranky, Coffee-Dependent, and pre-exam-Cramming. Being cranky during exam prep is practically a requirement. But hey, at least you’re not alone- Out there, millions of other students are also hating life, overindulging in snacks, and reading their notes for the nth time while crying Amazon rivers inside. Remember: you’ve survived 100% of your bad days so far. So, grab another coffee, channel your inner overachiever, turn on the bixxh mode and keep going. You’ve got this… probably(smirk to myself!). Studying for exams is a universal rite of passage—like puberty, but somehow more awkward and soul-crushing. If you’re currently buried under a mountain of notes, fuelled by equal parts caffeine and existential dread, congratulations- You are living the academic dream! Far from bagging a Nobel prize for it though. Well thankfully, there is my better half nearby, to shake me down to reality on days I feel like I am sitting on the Iron th...

  That infamous dinner party scene from Hannibal—the one where Dr Lecter, the ever so refined host, performs a pseudo-awake craniotomy with the finesse of a Michelin-starred chef. While it’s horrifyingly fictional, I found a grim fascination in that… Ahemm, I know what you are thinking- this guy needs a psych assessment to rule out sociopathic tendencies. Well, of course, when you watch endless videos of people chopping away at others, that is quite so normal, isn’t it? (Huge Snort). On a more serious note, Hannibal is quite the man- to chop your own hand instead of that damsel’s hand requires a ‘Macho-man’ courage, which, unfortunately most of our male homo sapiens think they possess. God gave the male counterpart two ‘heads’ and most probably, blood supply to one head is more. You can guess which one based on the number of theatricals the male earthling is involved in, for example, petting a wild lion or a croc. Well, at the end of that day, the world balance is restored- you w...

Cardiopulmonary bypass, CPB or the heart-lung machine- that miraculous contraption that lets us casually stop the heart while pretending we (the Anaesthesiologists) are gods… As if we don’t have enough of a Zeus-complex already. It is a testament to the triumph of human ingenuity (and a lot of errors probably!) over basic common sense (as I often say, is not so common) because, really, who looked at a heart and thought, “I bet we could turn this off for a while and still have the patient survive”? The story begins in the 1800s (yes! You heard right), when brave (and potentially foolish)—surgeons and engineers started tinkering with the idea of mechanically replacing heart and lung function.  One of the earliest pioneers, Dr John Gibbon, is often credited with inventing the first successful CPB machine. Dr Gibbon’s inspiration? Watching a patient die in 1931 during pulmonary surgery(pulmonary embolectomy). He probably thought, “I could build something better than God’s creation!” ...

  The little perverts will think of the F word. Others will be tempted to shout out: Love. Well, you don’t need love to define your existence unless you are Romeo (and are fond of poisons). And here it comes- drum roll and curtain lift- Life… Anti-climatic, I know. Well, what is life? Life, the four-letter word that encapsulates the chaos and beauty of all living beings. It can be the greatest mystery, the cruellest joke, and the warmest embrace all rolled into one messy, glorious package. But let’s not take my word for it; let’s stroll through the musings of literary giants, because, after all, “A mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone” (George R.R. Martin). Shakespeare, the original bard, quipped, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” Life, then, is a theatre without a script. One moment, you’re delivering a speech about unrequited love and the next, you’re tripping over your cape and spilling wine at the banquet. Shakespeare’s metaphor remin...