I was open minded but the doctor stapled it up

cntd ...

walking towards Sonny Werblin wiping the blood with the kerchief, asking people if it has stopped bleeding.

junta: its still bleeding man, just press it. Hold it tight.

we reach Sonny Werblin,

kane: aa!! aa!! (ogling at the girl at reception desk) excuse me, he is got injured. Do you have a first aid kit.
Hot Girl or may be semi hot (I don't remember, I had a head injury): James (I don't exactly remember the name) we need you at the front desk, medical emergency (speaking in to the micro phone).
me: I will go wash up and come, there is blood all over.
HG: no no, you go sit there, they will come here.

James comes and starts following some basket ball hunk (I don't know for what)
junta: excuse me, the injured guy is here.
James: Hey, you have got a big one.

lots of people around me, looking at me like I am some freak of nature

Senior Medical in-charge: Call the bloody EMS,
me: Will I need the stitches?
everyone in chorus: yes, you have got a nice one.
Senior Medical in-charge: May be you can get some sympathy points with girls
James: No, his hair will cover it. May be you can shave it off.
me (always proud of my hair): NO!! It's not worth it. I will score any ways.

Some one: The EMS will be here soon.

EMS comes,

EMS1: woah!! its a nice deep one. Asks me all the cliched questions, did you faint?, Do you feel dizzy? How many fingers? What is today's date, day? Name of the president? Why do you go to school (ooh, that's a tricky question)?

EMS2 along with me is working on wiping the blood off my face. Then puts a bandage around my head and we are ready to go to the hospital.


junta(in big doubt over medical insurance): Never mind, a friend of our is coming and then we will take him to the hospital.
EMS: When will he come, there is a small window of time within you have to get the stitches. If you leave it open too long, then you cant do anything.

Thats the most ridiculous thing I have heard. As it turned out, it was about three hours before I could get the stitches. Small window of time indeed.

SMI: No matter how much it costs you have to get stitches done, its too big a gash.
me: k, lets go then.

first time in the ambulance, kane proudly sits in front
reach the St. Peter's Hospital. EMS guy almost yells at me and makes me sit in the wheel chair.

I take a nice ride to the emergency and get done with all the formalities.

Sitting in the wait room to be called by the doc. After sitting for about 20 mins, I hear my name. By then dandekar and dalal had arrived. Dandekar told me dalal was all psyched up, but he refused and refuses to give me that psyched up look. I would give anything to see that look on dalal's face.

Author's note: I am getting bored writing this, I am just gonna finish it up.

I reach the place where doc is going to treat me, she comes there after another half an hour asks me the same cliched questions and then she plays a funny game to check my hand to eye coordination. Then she asked me if I would like a local anesthesia or would just take three metal staples and get done with it. I gave her a perplexed look, so she explained that at times anesthesia can me more painful. The way she described it, I wasn't left with much of a choice. I chose to be stapled. When she first mentioned the word stapler with the action and sound, I couldn't quite believe it. She described it more like a paper stapler. I thought she was trying to be funny. But, my worst fears were realized when the thing actually came. It was pretty much like a paper stapler. "Ok, it can't possibly have metal pins" was the thought that crossed my mind. I didn't find out the truth till she actually stapled my scalp and kane took a picture (the one he is very proud of). They were indeed three metal pins.

On our way back we decided to go to the desi store, while I was still blood stained. I was scared people will get all psyched and I will get all sorts of weird looks, but all went smooth but for one small kid who noticed it and pointed it out to his mom.

A gash in the head and three stitches later - an account of things as they happened

tring tring!!!
me: haan, bhai bol
bhai: cricket khelne ko aa raha hai kya, 5:30 baje?
me: kitne log hein?
bhai: 8 log aa rahe hein
me: theek hai bhai, mein bhi aata hai, bye.
bhai: bye

Dire Straits playing on launch cast, oh!! its 5:30 pm, set the comp. to hibernate. Pack my bag, and leave the lab. Where is dandekar, call him. Oh!! There he is ...

me: chal lab jaate hein, i have to put my bag
dandekar: why man? (in his usual crying baby way)
kane(without thinking): shut up!! (now after thinking), why do you want to go to his lab
me: i want to put this laptop there, its not mine, don't want to take any risk
kane(without thinking again): shut up man!!! You are gonna be right there and its not even yours.
me: that's why i wanna be extra careful, don't want it around when we are playing cricket
dandekar: i have to go back to my lab again bitch!!! (as usual doesn't make sense but cries as usual)

n voices along with mine, split the team man. dandekar and varun start picking.

me and raghu trying to show off some non existent soccer skills, by kicking a tennis ball on the wall (this wont me the last thing I hit on the wall for the day, but little did I know then), trying to take some volleys.

raghu(after missing a volley): shit man!!! (in total disappointment, like this was the first time he ever miss a volley)

teams are split, I am on the fielding side.

me: who all are in my team, rather whose time am I on
dandekar(making a worst attempt at humor): that's much better.

Would you believe if I said, he actually thinks the "game" of cricket is an art form. :-))

kirit: its you, varun, VT and me.
me: k

start fielding at my usual cover + point position (why did I ever move from there). First over kirit bowling, nothing to do. Not even one ball came to me ... so far so good.

next over varun bowling, I take his place in fielding. its too sunny, sun straight in my eye. Don't like it, envious of VT's place in the shade. Next over, the ball tossed to me, I ball my stupid off spinners though not without putting the pseude of going cross round the wicket. Next VT is gonna bowl, cool I can take his place in the shade without looking cheap (big grin).

VT first ball, kane moves away, gives himself room, hits a ugly cross batted hoick over long off.

Here is what went through my mind then

Fruit ball, its going all the way, take a few steps in front just to show I was looking to catch it.
oh no!! The ball is dying, I can actually catch it, hop hop ... THUD!!!! a sound of my skull hitting the wall.

me: woah!! How did that happen
junta: you ok?

everyone concerned but for kane who was still standing proud of his ugly slog (later he claimed he didn't realize I hit the wall, I can bet the guy on the 5th floor of the building thought it was an earthquake (Richter scale ), with the building shaking)

me: yeah i am good (still ruffling my hair)
me: oh no wait!! its bleeding, its bleeding.
junta: oh shit that's bad
me: how bad is it
kane(now over his ugly slog): lets go to sonny werblin
me: does any one have a kerchief or something
dandekar: yeah take this (first act of kindness from the baby, I feel proud)
me(wiping a lot of blood): am sorry about this boy (referring to the kerchief)
dandekar: that's k man (like he had donated a kidney to me or something)
me: hey we left our cells and key chains there
dandekar: I will get it, oh bhai already got it, cool

wiping the blood as we walk towards the rec center .....

****************** This is long enough******************
Will continue the account of Sonny Werblin and the hospital in the next post along with pictures, till then adios amigos.

P.S. The accounts is of course not verbatim, but as I remember it.

Its in the voice

I went to my lab the other day, strangely the door was closed. I walked in to find my lab mate on the phone. She was talking in chinese, but the way she was speaking I knew she was talking some one she had a lot of love for, some one she looked up to. I didn't understand a word of it, but it was so obvious from her voice. Later she told me it was her boy friend.

I gave it a thought and realized that not only emotions but our internal image of the person, how much we respect him as a person, how we rate him intellectually, emotionally are all very very evident from the way we speak to him. If you hear two people talking its very easy to find out how comfortable they are with each other without even knowing the language they are speaking or looking at their expressions. The voice in fact depicts the emotions of the person speaking just as well as his expressions apart from all these.

But for some strange reason, the emotions et. al. in the voice always seem to play the second fiddle, when we speak ... what an irony.

Next time I meet a girl, I will say "I heard it in your voice" instead of "I saw it in your eyes" :-). It will probably be the last time I see that girl though. Such is life, not a fair place I say!!!

Murder by Numbers

I was listening to my station on launch cast as usual and I heard this song which sounds like a Police song (Sting's voice to be precise). So, I checked out the title of the song (I was right about the artiste) and listened to the lyrics more carefully. They took me by surprise, so I looked for lyrics on the net and indeed for a Police song they were quite surprising. I know the Police are known to have weird themes for their songs, but this one is way off even for a Police song. Here is what the song says,


Once that you've decided on a killing
First you make a stone of your heart
And if you find that your hands are still willing
Then you can turn a murder into art

There really isn't any need for bloodshed
You just do it with a little more finesse
If you can slip a tablet into someone's coffee
Then it avoids an awful lot of mess

It's murder by numbers, one, two, three
It's as easy to learn as your ABC
Murder by numbers, one, two, three
It's as easy to learn as your ABC

Now if you have a taste for this experience
And you're flushed with your very first success
Then you must try a twosome or a threesome
And you'll find your conscience bothers you much less

Because murder is like anything you take to
It's a habit-forming need for more and more
You can bump off every member of your family
And anybody else you find a bore

Because it's murder by numbers, one, two, three
It's as easy to learn as your ABC
Murder by numbers, one, two, three
It's as easy to learn as your ABC

Now you can join the ranks of the illustrious
In history's great dark hall of fame
All our greatest killers were industrious
At least the ones that we all know by name

But you can reach the top of your profession
If you become the leader of the land
For murder is the sport of the elected
And you don't need to lift a finger of your hand

Because it's murder by numbers, one, two, three
It's as easy to learn as your ABC
Murder by numbers, one, two, three
It's as easy to learn as your A, B, C, D, E

Incidentally, there is a movie by the same title released in 2002, starring Sandra Bullock, Ben Chaplin, Ryan Gosling. Its about two high school students planning a perfect murder and then playing mind games with a seasoned homicide detective. This song is not part of the soundtrack for the movie, weird ain't it? Just to add to all this trivia (if I may call it), number of the beast by Iron Maiden is part of the soundtrack.

East is not where I see

I was sitting in my lab yesterday, when one of my colleagues called me and asked me if I would be one of the subjects for her experiment. For those unfamiliar with what I do, let me tell you, I aspire to become a human vision scientist. That's what my colleague called me as she was telling me about her experiment, need less to say I liked the term, so henceforth I shall use it when ever I can :-).

Getting back to the experiment, it was a simple one, I was to detect motion in different directions. To my utter surprise, the results showed that I am really bad at detecting motion towards east (towards the right) compared to other directions. Usually humans are better at detecting motion in the four major directions (i.e. north (up), south, east, west) and not so good with motion in the intermediate directions (north-east etc.). I am worst in the east direction, I don't know for what reasons, though. One week into my research in this lab and I found out this, I don't know what all I will find out as I finish my PhD. I have my fingers crossed.