In quest of medical seat sans quota!

It was blistering hot for June but then in Chennai it should not be surprising. The first phase of counselling for medical courses was underway. It was the second day of counselling and as I parked my scooter near the auditorium in Kilpauk Medical College, my eyes scanned the huge gathering of people.
I was trying to find that one person who would not only be approachable but would also talk easily. As a reporter it is one thing I have to constantly worry about. Would I be able to engage a person long enough for him or her to reveal some information, something I would be privy to?
And then I saw the middle aged man standing aloof from the crowd. He was probably waiting for his son or daughter to emerge from the counselling hall.
It is a long wait for these counselling sessions to end. Parents usually come early in the day and wait in the shamiana that the Directorate of Medical Education puts up outside the hall. The sprawling yard outside the hall has an ancient banyan tree that offers much shade. But then in this hot sun, the shamiana does help to stay cool.
The man was my target as he had not chosen to sit with the crowd. He stood alone and seemed tense. Then he walked to where I had parked my bike. I was deliberately slow in my movements. I removed the gloves slowly and then my scarf that helped to ward off sweat caused by the helmet.
I asked him, "So has the counselling session ended?" He nodded and said, "Yes, but getting a seat in government medical college is so difficult." 
"Why? Which college has your son got into?" I asked.
"My daughter, she has got admission in a private medical college. PSG." I was impressed. "Oh, that is great. Where are you from?" I asked.
"Ayanavaram," he said shaking in the general direction of West of where we stood. "I thought she would get into a government medical college. She had scored 198.75 marks and yet she got only PSG."
For a seat in medicine, a candidate must have scored high marks in physics, biology and chemistry. While the entire marks scored in biology is taken, the marks received in physics and chemistry are divided by 2 and then added to the marks scored in biology to arrive at a figure. This is called the cut off mark. So, even minor decimals count when it comes to seats as there are only around 2,500 seats in government medical colleges and another 4,000 in private medical colleges. Fees in private medical colleges is exorbitant. It is a little lower if you are taken in through counselling - even that comes to around Rs. 2.8 lakh. That is a huge sum for a middle class family.
"Where do you work," I asked the man.
He is employed in the Railways and judging by his demeanour and attire - he wore brown trousers and a white striped tericotton shirt. His hair had been greying and he had hennaed it, giving his springy hair a certain brown colour that comes only with henna application. There were silver grey hair along with brown ones.
"But it is the money that matters," he declared. "In government college it is only Rs. 12,500. She even sent her answer sheet for revaluation and she got only one mark. If only she had scored one more mark. she would have got it in a government medical college," he lamented.
I sympathised with him. Higher education is expensive but medical education in a private medical college is impossibly difficult, even if you are earning fairly well in a government institution.
"Oh, did you apply in the open category," I asked, hoping to keep him on the subject. "Yes, but I am a backward class person from Maharashtra."
My mind was swirling with information. "Did you not produce the nativity certificate?" I asked.
Anybody who has studied in a state can claim nativity if they have studied five years in that state or if tbeir parent can get a nativity certificate to prove they are son of the soil.
The man said, "I am from Maharashtra and I came down to Tamil Nadu 25 years ago. I decided to stay on here and that has caused all this problem," he said. 
The caste system in India works in various ways. You could be a high class brahmin and you would not get anywhere in society. Or you could get around the entire system and remain out of the most coveted jobs. You could belong to a backward class, which comprises a gamut of castes that have been often cheated of their rightful place by the upper classes. The government's affirmative action over the years has helped these oppressed sections to get educated and find jobs in government sector.  

Rediscovering the kitchen!

I never considered myself a working woman or even an excellent home maker. Though I am a bit of both, I should admit. I have a full working life and run a full-fledged kitchen. I cook, clean and keep home. I also work eight to ten hours at my workplace.

It is surprising to not be able to see this right away but then that is how life has been and I was happy to go along with the flow. Until this morning.

Let me tell you about my efforts in the kitchen. Since my visit to my cousin's house early this month, some things have changed. I have become more experimental in the kitchen - trying out new kinds of breakfast. And so it was that I made puttu, thanks to my cousin, who presented me with a puttu maker.

Last week I casually googled puttu and lo! I learned that an idli plate was enough to make the dish. Then I read that coconut shells are good enough puttu holder. Now I seem to have realised the need to be a kitchen queen.

This morning a colleague invited me to taste a very special dish that his wife had made. Called the 'Saasui'. Made using raw bananas, it was quite unique in taste. Soon after my exposure to puttu I have been googling up foods and recipes and it has taught me to experiment with yam and raw bananas. I have yet to try out how to mix these vegetables, given my busy work life.

Saasui has now been added to my repertoire.

Indeed I am beginning to think may be one of these days I would have the confidence to try out these wonderful new dishes, one at a time.

Breaking misconceptions

Once in a while life gives you a chance to learn about your kins.
Last week on a trip to Bangalore, I stayed with a cousin. When she was trying to apprise me about her daughters' aspirations, the conversation meandered to my father's educational qualification. I was surprised that she mentioned my father. Surprised because in the last 32 years I had known her she had never spoken of him. She was born six years before his death.
My dad had been dead for 32 years and even mom doesn't bring him into a conversation unnecessarily.
But that morning, my cousin casually let it be known that my dad, who was her dad's older brother, was after all a failed candidate in chartered accountancy. Yes, he had flunked the intermediate exam but had then passed CA and had since done very well in his life.
I didn't have to think too long why the conversation came up. She went on to heap praise on a relative of her husband, who was the financial advisor to a wealthy businessman in her town. She told me the relative, a cousin of her husband, was based in the United Kingdom but had reposed much faith in her husband.
Maturity does a lot of things to a person. I wasn't angry with her assumption but a little out of sorts, wondering who in my father's extended family had given her such a wrong impression of a man who was respected by my mother's family.
My cousin then told me that she would impress upon her daughter to pursue her dream of becoming a CA.
Such conversations are not only amazing but also entertaining at another level. For, later that afternoon, when we went to pick up her kids from school, she returned to the morning's conversation and told her young 10-year-old daughter that her uncle, that is my father, was a CA and that she should pursue her dream. To this the little one piped up, "I don't want to be a CA as I don't like mathematics."
My cousin was now thoroughly embarrassed. "Oh that is because you don't like your math teacher," she said.
At the end of the day, I relived the entire episode. It was a revelation to me that my father had been undervalued by his own family. A couple of my mother's siblings respected him for his graciousness but at least one sibling hated his guts for showing them their place.