Looking back 50 years:

A kaleidoscopic view

by Bandu EDUSSURIYA

At last after 50 years we met - 18 of us from the original batch of 83 of 53. Some had left for the great beyond, some too ill to come, some unwilling.

The occasion brought back nostalgic memories. I remember when we first met in 1953. We were the flowers of Sri Lankan youth after a free education, gathered at the Colombo University all sleek and fresh, mostly clad in white, eagerly waiting to enter the hallowed seat of learning to learn the art of healing. There were youth from the south, girls with pottus from the North, the dress clad girls from the Colombo schools, the raw accented youth from the North and a few from the south, the glib from the Colombo schools.- the dark and handsome, the tall and the short, the petite and the plump, all the mama's darlings and papa's dreams.

There was a certain amount of trepidation as we had heard of a thing called the rag. But our heads were in the air. We were the chosen few from the whole country.

No longer confined to classrooms, teachers and school discipline I was suddenly an adult. The feeling of freedom was overwhelming, exhilarating, invigorating, enjoyable and sometimes even frightening. Certainly it was too much for me. I was immature, I think. The availability of all kinds of sports, well stocked libraries, cinemas within cycling distance, leisurely walks to lectures along tree-lined cool roads gave us a world of our own. We started university education against the backdrop of a rich country with a stable government. There were plenty of friends, stag and rag parties, music and singing which got rid of our inhibitions. A cup of tea punt at Lion House, Bambalapitiya after a late night gallery show at the Majestic cinema were routine. Films like Casablanca, Gaslight, Redshoes, Samson and Delilah, From here to Eternity come to my mind. The only limiting factor was the non-coperation from the home front -their allowance was very meager. Thinking back, I am glad about that because some more of us may have gone off the track if we had more cash, like a few in our batch.

Fun year

The first year was a fun year: a year of acclimatisation. We met students from other faculties. This was the first time we had such a lot of young girls in our midst. We had get-togethers, picnics and excursions, amongst work in the relaxed atmosphere of Thurston Road. The canteen with the tea cups without handles, tables wet with and smelling of tea was a regular meeting place. One day we were due for a chemistry lecture and at about 2 p.m. in walked the lecturer: a burgher gentleman in white suit and bow tie. Over his shoulders was a black cloak and to cap it all he had a black cap with mortarboard and tassels on the mortarboard. He wore rimless glasses, had a pencil line moustache and spoke with a British accent. The effect, at 2 in the afternoon was stunning, hilarious and too much for us. We stamped our feet on the wooden floorboards. The lecturer smiled and he too enjoyed the situation thoroughly. He spoke for about an hour. We were the gazing rustics ranged around, amazed that one small head could carry all that he knew. (with apologies to Oliver Goldsmith).

The second year was a different kettle of fish. We went to the medical faculty where we were thrown headlong into the harsh realities of a medical education.

The sudden exposure to the dissecting room was shocking. Ten to fifteen blackened nude bodies were lying on tiled slabs in a large hall - some were staring and some were grinning - a grotesque picture. The stench was overpowering. We were ordered to dissect them. This was going to be our environment for the next two years. So armed with scalpel and forceps, with manual in hand we started cutting. Soon we were digging into the cadavers like labourers on a new road track. We cut buttocks and brains, testicles and ovaries, guts and kidneys, breasts and bladders. Monro's foramen, Sibson's fascia and the white line of Hilton flash through my mind. It was stench in the mornings, smell in the evenings and nightmares at midnight. Lots of anatomy was learnt with the help of mnemonics. A famous one was an aid to remember the branches of an artery of the neck. The rest is too vulgar to put on paper.

The knowledge of the functional aspects of the body was imparted on the other side of the road. They were Koch, Tom and Watson sessions. Some lecturers hid behind dark glasses. They talked to the black boards - some of us dozed, some wrote. Kreb's cycle or was it his bicycle?, Barrington's reflexes and bundle of His evoke bundles of memories. Tutorials and signatures were hurled at us and we hurtled along with the turbulences of anatomy, physiology and biochemistry. The 2nd MB was the first checkpoint. Most of us made it some with classes medals and distinctions.

New facets

The third year presented new facets. Now we were exposed to human beings, though they were ill, rather than dead bodies. Also we could use the iconic medical instrument: the stethoscope.

It could be flaunted in several ways. It could be worn round the neck, it could be placed round the neck, carried in the hand, or in the pocket with a little bit jutting out. It was our passport and status symbol. So, with story and tale, with palpitations, palpations and percussions and with bloodied fingers we had to give a verdict. Medicine was imparted by sedate, sagacious professors and wise, witty physicians.

They were the High Priests and were libraries, sorry warehouses of knowledge! We saw tender livers, enlarged spleens, noisy lungs, large hearts, fluid in abdomens, diabetes and paralysis. We tried to hear non existent heart murmurs and got thrilled when we felt cardiac thrills.

Then came the our stint with surgeons: the Brahmins of the hospital. They were deft with the scalpels and apt with their tongues. They were master cutters and they cut on the trot. One of them (a man of immense capability, knowledge and stature) is said to have quipped "I shay putting things into holesh is a man's job, it needs only a woman's assistance" when a nurse was fumbling trying to thread a needle under his impatient gaze.

The awe of the operating theatre replaced the stench of the bodies. Overpowering, irate surgeons, fearful professors, demanding Registrars, masked and gowned nurses hiding a lot of curves, uncooperative Sisters, Xrays, flowing E.C.Gs, complicated blood reports, sterile areas, caps and gowns, pin drop silence, bloody dressings, open abdomens, Thomas's splints, crushed limbs, cracked skulls smell of ether all were in this segment.

Obstetrics and pediatrics followed: howling women in labour, the unmistakable odour of labour rooms, undernourished mothers, underweight bawling babies, smell of baby stools, diphtheritic croup, tracheostomies in a row, aircraft splints for polio kids, carcinomas in jars, liver slides under the mikes, strangulated necks, bullet holes in heads, daggers and knives were regular sights. Now Phlebotamas papatasi and Ankylostoma duodenale of Parasitalingam, were getting mixed up with Ps.Pyoceanus and E. coli of Chapman. We saw breast carcinomas like split pomegranates and liver abscess-pus like wood apple juice. We were in that medical era sans C.T. and M.R.I scans, ultra sounds, cardiac stents, tumour markers, blood oxymeters, laporoscopes, drip-sets etc etc.

Tinctures and mixtures

It was the time when tinctures and mixtures were being replaced by pills and injections and religious sisters were replaced by Health Department ones, in the wards. An innumerable number of drugs came into the picture with their doses for the various diseases in grams, milligrams, grains, milliliters,litres and even ounces.

We plodded along through rain and sun to the general hospital complex. On the way we passed some of our teachers, sunk in the back seat of their huge chauffer driven cars with orchids in the button holes and the Daily News in hand. We envied them and had dreams of emulating them.

The vast living laboratory at the general hospital complex was at our disposal. Loads of information were imparted to us daily which could only be assimilated in a week. Some teachers gave us valuable information on common diseases in understandable ways. They made us capable of recognising and treating common diseases. Others went for the small print as well.

Some of our teachers were different. They ridiculed us, shouted at us, made us look fools, crushed us psychologically and shattered our paltry self confidence. We feared them; a stare or remark from some of them could mean the 'yellow card'.

I do not know whether they realised that we too were human beings and would be the next generation of medical men and may have to treat them when they fell ill. The teachers were rarely friendly- we were on the 'other side of the table' most of the time. Some of them had a Risus Sardonicus when they addressed us.

With all this we enjoyed life. I would give a lot to go back in time and spent one year of those halcyon days again. We played in university teams, went on inter-faculty trips. Some of us played in National teams. Occasionally the 'bad boys' (myself included) sang bailas and danced aided by the 'old stuff' and went flat-the good ones pretended. Affairs were started, broken, continued, restarted, consolidated and the couples lived happily ever-after like budgregars. We enjoyed Shebas' melodies, Dago's antics and J P Jega's guffaws.

We had absorbed and adsorbed as much of medical knowledge we could and awaited the long dreaded final. Our ears were filled with heart murmurs, we imagined lumps and bumps in all the people and breach presentations in all pregnant women, Kwashiorkor and meningitis in all the babies- in short we were toxic and our heads were like pressure cookers which had lost their valves!!

Final checkpoint

The final checkpoint came - theory, cases and vivas. We went like cattle to be slaughtered - sweating, rapid heart rates, inarticulate, itching bladders, dry lips and trembling fingers - the future doctors! Exams are one of the best forms of torture ever devised - better than Abu Gharib or the Fourth Floor, only the torture was mental, no visible marks. We had spent the best part of our young lives to acquire a little knowledge of this fine art of healing. The results came suddenly to the notice board. There were passes, classes and distinctions - most of us were jubilant.

We parted with P.B. and R.P., with Hilary and Handy, with Paul and Peris, Antho and Bartho, Ranaya, Sinna and Prins, with Misso and Austin, with C.C. and Stella.-we cut the cord with the General Hospital complex as undergrads, which had been our milieu exterior and even our interior for five years; we had started drinking at the Perian spring. Only later on did we realise that even though the medical course was five years it was a crash course and that it will take another 5-10 years to have a working knowledge. It was said by the wise men that Medicine is not a simple sin!

We dispersed like a cloud burst but top dogs again - brand new doctors of medicine this time. Internship followed. Then we spread again. Some to foreign countries, some to prestigeous posts at home and we rarely met together again.

A few weeks ago I had to stop on Kynsey road when a group of noisy medical undergrads burst through the hospital gate and crossed Kynsey road, on their way to the medical college. No doubt, they were on their way for lectures just like we did 50 years ago. I don't think they realized that the man who was seeing them was an 'old boy' of the same school, now a medical 'aadi vasi'!. I hoped their perspirations brought forth their aspirations.

Today, after fifty years we have met some of us for first time after the medical college-only eighteen of us this time. Almost all had a string of letters after their names. They were enjoying their grandchildren and retired from active service. Added to medicine there were authors and advisors, historians and teachers. We met at the large square - architectured' spacious, Blue Waters in Wadduwa Sri Lanka, with the Indian ocean as a backdrop.

We had dinner and drinks together gossiped about old times, met spouses, revealed our whereabouts and departed with heavy hearts no longer the youthful doctors but sedate, wise and still young at heart though some of us, I think were on a regular diet of Metformin, Cardiprin and statins etc !

"When often on my couch I lie, In vacant or in pensive mood, These flash upon my inward eye, Which brings memories of magnitude" (With apologies to Wordsworth).

[Some of the views are solely the author's. Comments are welcome [email protected]]