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Super Mario!




They say you have to have it in you to be a doctor.
Before we go on with deciding whether or not we have it in us, lets study the game..


The flowers, the rainbows and all things nice:


The fact that you are going to be a DOCTOR! Just imagine! How cool is that going to be!


Plus, in M.B.B.S.,we have our exams every six months. Thats it! Any part completion tests? No! Any surprize class tests? No! Any unexpected change of schedule and an oddly timed exam? Again.. No! Life here is pre-planned, predictable. Its like a video game! Just go on passing through the levels. One after the other and you will come out a winner. Maybe not in one shot. but The Medical Council of India is in no hurry either! Take all the time you want. You dont feel like it in 2009? No problem sir! Lets give 2010 a shot! You think 2011'll be a lucky year? Fine! Or maybe you might want to graduate with your son in say.. 2030? Sure! Maybe it'll turn out to be a good thing after all. I mean we all have our worries about the generation gap. Throwing a joint graduation party might prove to be a plank helping you bridge it up a little! 


In the beginning, they show you trees, and flowers and butterflies. Basically, everything that calms you down, keeps you in a great spirit. What they are really trying to do here is giving you time to gear up, to be ready for what's about to come.


The obstacles, the monsters, the fireballs:


A month or two before the exam is havoc! The circadian rhythm (though it never held any meaning for me anyway) is broken; the 90% attendance that you kept all year long just to kill the time, which seemed amply available then, becomes your hibernation survival tool; even the tiniest of joys like watching a movie, grabbing an ice-cream, napping all day long... become the Mercedes you always dreamt of owning.. and you know you'll have it someday but not yet!


The life of a medico is no joke. What we face are not stupid creatures who vanish simply by jumping over them! We here face real danger and true torture.


Who can endure full one hour classes, eight to five, from teachers who are masters of spiritualism, law, environment, social service.. virtually everything that has absolutely nothing to do with their line of subject; in a language which seems a lot like English but at times makes you question your high school English teacher's credibility; and who are so sinfully boring and monotonous that you consider the prospect of poisoning them somehow just so the posterity lives safe and untouched by the sadism these teachers actually master!


It's not just the one hour that sucks the life out of you. Its the amount of physical labour that we put in during them that's draining! I mean I am sorry but my parents didn't implant a pendulum in my head that'll constant bob after every line of yours. Or I am sorry if I forget to laugh at every one of your 'jokes'. I just don't get them! My sense of humour unfortunately isn't as sophisticated!


The worst part comes next. The girl sitting next to you is exactly what you are not, or what you have failed at doing so miserably! Highlighting your incapacity to nod along for 60 minutes and your utter disregard for the teacher's sense of humour, she'll portray a pendulum with unparalleled amplitude and giggle so violently at those 'jokes' that you are more often than not forced to question your state of orientation(or if put less gently, consciousness).


You have to be a person of immense stamina and ambition, if you ask me.. to be a doctor!


If you think you have all this, you can smoothly totter your way into the succeeding levels without any introspection or regret. And if you don't have it all. Oh come on! Did you think I was going to give up and look for other career options!? No way!
Cheat code? Yeah baby! They themselves gave it to you! 
Focus on the vision of you, ten years into the future, radiant, with an aura of brilliance and compassion speaking for itself, that no amount of head boggling or dramatic laughter can fetch you. Let this vision, of which you often dream(so what if its in those endless hours of lecturing!), do the trick! It works for me!
So no matter what you are, just play the game!

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