A former Mumbai medical resident’s take on the suicide of a Mumbai medical resident

I’m a former medical resident from Mumbai. I am in a Whatsapp group with my peers from Medical College. As expected, there is an active conversation in the group about the suicide of the Dalit doctor in Mumbai, allegedly due to casteist slurs by senior residents. Along with that there is a relatively healthy conversation about religion, hindutva, NDA, the 2019 elections, Modi etc. I generally keep myself quiet in this because of several reasons. But I decided to break my silence and ended up posting this.
Considering that I did my post graduation from Mumbai, I guess I can throw some light on this. It's a bit of a rant, but I hope to address a few points.

Racism (regionalism) and ragging/discrimination go hand in hand in my hospital. In my case, casteism was not applicable because I was born to Brahmin parents. But I did get discriminated for being from the the South, being different, being a musician, etc. despite being not too bad at Hindi. The people who perpetrated  the coincidental happened to be, voila, upper caste Hindus.

This discrimination is more among the senior residents upward. The nurses, assistants, and staff were super nice to me. So I was able to pull through.

I had to isolate myself from orthopedics/surgery etc residents because these departments seemed to have more people with such tendencies. I thankfully got a resident from psychiatry (someone who thought like Sebind, ironically) as a room mate. That led me to me hanging out more among his friends. Eventually, I came out to them and they were super cool with that.

In other words, I was more accepted by residents from other departments who were generally broadminded.

Most of you don't know that that I have been under treatment for depression. You may remember that I was on the quieter side of things in my first three years in our college. I have had suicidal tendencies through my undergraduate, postgraduate, post-postgraduate lives.

I eventually got diagnosed and treated at the end of my postgraduate tenure. One of the reasons that I took a sabbatical was because of this discrimination/ragging aspect, which seeps through the hierarchy everywhere, but especially in North India in surgical fields. As someone said, for every publicized suicide, there may have been 10s not publicized, 100s of suicide attempts, and 1000s of victims who have somehow managed to pull through. Like me.

What about Mumbai itself? I get discriminated on a regular basis because I'm South Indian and because I'm dark. Restaurants, pubs, hotels, live events, what not.

The common denominator in all of this is this. Lack of "education", relative upper caste origin, religiousness, lack of evidence-based thinking, all leading up to herd mentality and lack of tolerance.

Guess what drives all of this? The current government. They may not commit or admit to atrocities, but they still don't clamp down on happenings. There is no open stance apart from empty platitudes. Who are they serving? The corporations. Who's benefiting? Upper caste more than lower castes. Who's feeling insecure? Any minority, let it be religion, caste, orientation, gender, etc.

Whatever truths/lies people want to tell themselves to put a coat of paint on what's going on, I will not believe it because I'm a minority in many counts, despite being born upper caste.

And the irony is that these trends are so evident in my own family/extended family, my partner's family, my ex-orthopedic peers, and some among us here.

Guess some of you may get a hint of why I (have preferred) prefer to distance myself from some of these. Basically, I'm trying to protect myself.

All I have to say is this - the world is going darker for the minorities, including the economic one. This is being driven by religion, which is one of the most potent forces that can be harnessed to bring and keep people to power. Such trends are cyclical (~20 years), but the extent of damage unleashed on the persecutees can take 100s of years to reverse.

Gym at last

For the last year or so, I have had the desire to start going to a gym again - again, because, during a brief stint of 3 months or so two years back, when all of us from Shor Bazaar were deluded enough to believe that we could all quit our livelihoods to chase our musical dream, we had all joined a gym and gone there for a month or so, and I had lingered on for a couple of more months. All through out this “plump” phase of my life, I had longed to re-start something healthy, something that would get rid of my ever-growing love handles and paunch.

One of the three reasons that I was intimidated was – two reasons are based on the lack of adequate dispensable income – is that I thought I could not stick to a diet that you are expected to follow once you start working out in a gym. The other reason, of course, was the expenses associated with joining the gym. The third of course was the doubt as to whether I could find enough time and motivation to go there regularly – as regular are almost daily.

So, last month, a lot of money came in – guess what, through music! Yes, both Shor Bazaar and Cirkles are increasing my dispensable income enough for me to think about gym, a new phone, iPod etc – and I decided that enough was enough. Impulsively, almost instantly, I decided to join a gym. On the first day of deciding, I was supposed to check out a couple of gym in the locality. This, of course, barring the one which is right next to my apartment building, on top of the supermarket, which happens to be the biggest (and apparently the most expensive) gym in Asia.

After work, I went to check out the first gym, which is about 10 minutes from my apartment. My budget was around 10 K for an annual membership. In less than 10 minutes, I signed up for the gym after a guided tour and a fantastic package deal offer. I signed up on fourth of April and I have had a really wonderful time at least until now. If anything, I am sticking to the diet in the most practicable way – that should help me restore some health to my ageing body.

It is ironic that I started this new “health” trip almost as soon as I started to have my own mini-bar, the pleasures of which are less available to me now, by choice. But then, this is all of longevity and health, and being a doctor I think I need to portray an image of health and wellness. Yes, here’s to a year of physical activity and healthy eating, the after effect of which will hopefully be a less flabby, more muscular body!

The party

You don't often get to see/feel/know me like this; when I'm high. I'm high in the drunken sense. I don't usually drink. And I'm (well, I was at least), forcibly (by my own will), off of alcohol for the lat 4 months or so. So, make use of this wonderful opportunity.

Despite my monetary setbacks, I decided to attend the gay party arranged by GB (Gay Bombay). The party was happening at a Sports Bar next to my apartment really. That was one more reason. Actually, something positive had happened in the studio where I met my band mates and our audio engineer. I felt optimistic. I felt sure that things were actually going to go good for me. With that I mean, my band and my monetary situation. That had made me decide to ride my wave and attend the party. And boy, did it not turn out to be wonderful!

To put things in perspective, I had a torrid time at the gay party about 2 months back. Despite being gay, I don't enjoy 'dance' music or the actual 'dancing' part. So, I had a torrid time at the last party. No real 'quality' people to hang out and talk with. To summarize, I left the party before the half-way mark.

Tonight, it was different. I was one of the first persons. The confidence of the mini-success in the music field was paying off. Don't forget the beard/moustache part (I was clean shaven at the last party and thereby, got ignored as another twink!). I met a lot of new people. Very interesting people. Some old friends like this guy. New doctors. New Dads. New friends. Everything was fantastic. I even managed to dance with a cool blogger. Mind you, I never dance. I'm clumsy and a-choreotic when it comes to dancing.

I met 2 mallus and 2 people entwined with the music industry. Call that lady luck! And, I also met at least four older men, all of whom were 'in a relationship'. One of such relationships, a very, very cute couple who had flown all the way from 'Chennai' to attend the party, was one which struck me as being so ironically, coincidentally similar to mine. It was an older, American boyfriend, bald with a beard, who lived in New York who fell in love with a younger, cute, South Indian man who is a doctor!

Hello dear Goddess! I don't want such a degree of replicability! I am proud, and ergo, I need to be authentic and unique!

To top it all, I decided to go to the GB friendship day picnic, which starts in about 4 hours.

Good luck with sleeping and waking up, Kris!