PLAB PART- II

Time slips through or travels very unassumingly, on its own terms, as good as a leaf, which has withered off and falling off from a branch, very unnoticed.  None to bother and none too bothered. Scenarios left untouched and events go unnoticed, whilst I am on this line.  Do we have to bother? Do we have to worry? Do we have to pretend? Does it matter?

We began the preparations as suggested by few good old friends who had already holed up in UK in 1993, for the same exam. All three of us, the would be musketeers, met in Chennai and chalked out plans for a combined (!) or group effort for the next six months .The scope of our project was discussed and the deadlines were arrived.

We must have started working on collecting the relevant materials and the pathways for application, Visa and etc, sometime in September 1993.  The D Day, selected was in March 1994. We thought 6 months would do for the preparation and not surprisingly enough, in our case!

I went off my Isabel Hospital work and also the mallu babes for good and started focussing on the studies. Hari and Ganesh moved back from Mysore and Ooty respectively and holed up again in the Stanley Men’s Hostel.  The fun had begun once again for us.  The group got bigger with a quite a few aspirants from our batch, who were preparing for the All India and Tamil Nadu entrance exams studying along with us.

It is needless to say that we were distracted by the ensuing fun that followed us in the men’s hostel and at times in Ladies Hostel.  It was also complicated by our tender age (!) and lack of local guidance except from few of our seniors who had come back home after success in their PLAB. The hostel was also full of quite a few close friends of ours, who have had secured seats in their Post Graduate Exams by this time either by hard work or by money muscle and who were, therefore pursuing their PG degrees. They used to give us a creep, making us, doubting our own self fuelled dream which was already hazy and muddled in our brain.

Appa was working in full swing by this time to secure a sponsorship letter for me to secure the necessary VISA, through one of his company managers. Amma was too, and had plans to mobilise the cash to pay our application fees, which had to be done in sterling pounds for around £600. I and Hari therefore visited a friendly pawn shop on the morning to pawn Amma’s jewellery to secure the necessary money. The excitement was getting bigger every day.

Those days, we had to make a trip to the Reserve Bank of India, office in Chennai, in order to procure the demand draft needed to secure the application process. It was tedious too, as we had to fill up lengthy silly forms and cross thorough or jump the superfluous red tapes before sorting out the sterling pounds. We eventually managed to send all the application forms from the infamous General Post Office, affectionately called GPO, on one fine auspicious day of October.

My relatives had come to know of my silly plan by this time and needless to say that most of them were skeptical about my plans. None of them believed about such a plan being hatched out from No 22 Coral Merchant Street and am sure most of them wished that, the plans would never materialise.

Well the excitement factor grew bigger day by day and almost exploded when we received our Hall ticket for the PLAB exams and a correspondence from GMC UK to that effect.  This was the first time I have received a correspondence from any alien country and that too from our ex colonial super power (!).  I am sure must have scanned the letter some many times in utter disbelief. Just to bear in mind that this is only a Hall ticket to sit in the PLAB exams and we have not started the journey yet and were still on the first step.

Financial implications were considered and were estimated that we would need at least Rs 25, 000 for the cheap air ticket to London ( you may be lucky); possibly around Rs 10,000 for the attires (a suit, for heaven’s sake!!!!) and other essentials  another £ 500 to cover the expenses in East London, which would include 5- 6 weeks stay as a paying guest ( it cost me £25, weekly, to hole up in Burger’s Road, East Ham in 1994) until our exams.

Well, you must have guessed it that we had not, to the slightest hint , considered, thought for a moment, or possibly didn’t want to think about our fate, in case , we fail our exams. Each one of us would still need around Rs 75,000 or around £1500 to cover ourselves. No wonder, I discreetly left it for my parents to sort it out. You may be surprised to know that a sum of Rs 100,000, invested in India in 1993 on few pieces of land, would have easily fetched my parents 10 times the value now in 2012. Well, they were naïve to trust me.

We all assumed, were going to pass our exams in our first shot and that’s the problem with PLAB and ourselves. We were so naïve then (!). PLAB was so enticing then, however, so unfathomable to the same length, as to the scenario which would unravel in an alien land, culture and with hitherto unknown currency!

To be continued……..