East Ham, 120 Caledon Road, E6 2EZ
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120 Caledon Road, East Ham, E6 2EZ, was the address
given to us by our friend Ramesh, in his letter from the same and it was early
1994.
We didn't have Google browser those days. Neither personal
computers nor Internet were heard of in my India of 1990’s. If you are keen to
look what it is like, please click on the link below. Marvelous.
Neither me nor my other friends, Hari and Ganesh
and for that matter, so many of us Stanleans, numerous other medicos from Tamil
Nadu or those aspiring doctors with dreams beneath their eyelids like us all, from
other neighboring states in India, would not have the least dreamt the value of the
number 120, the game changer, the opportunities, or for that matter the everlasting
significance of our visit to this house, in East Ham, might provide to our life
and to our medical career. It is a tough paragraph for me too.
It was a tryst with destiny to quote Pandit Nehru.
Well for me, the number 120, breathed life, into my
mundane life and made me what I am today. The Street, number and my stay at and
around this address made me, and in that process, helped me understand the
realities of life, helped me to understand myself; made me realise my potentials; relate to my inadequacies
and made me understand that me is nothing but a microcosm in this ever
expending cosmos, where I am or I mean nothing. Well thus began my spiritual journey.
Caledon road slowed the pace of my life and showed
me the pace of my life. It made me understand the nuances of life and what to
expect from life and people around me and at times from unknown souls and strangers.
I mean souls. It is till this day the baseline sruthi of my life. Well, I can
go on and on until I sweat it out and that’s what 120 and PLAB for me and I am
sure for most of you who are reading this.
Ramesh our friend and a batch mate, in his letter
from the same address in 1994, suggested us to ask for this address, on arrival
at East Ham tube station, which we eventually did on our arrival from Heathrow,
via Hammersmith, in a Green district line, carrying few bags and pushing the
newly acquired status of a huge suitcase, loaded with pickles, pickles, books,
clothes and edibles!
This was 20years ago in March and it was a sunny lazy
afternoon in East Ham! The wind was chilly and the air was thick with never smelt
aromas. We dared not to get into a Taxi and hence pushed ourselves and the
luggage via, Burger road, onto Caledon road. We arrived on the scene 15 minutes
later, which in fact looked like few hours for me, as I was already exhausted,
knackered, and homesick. It was only two days since we left Chennai, via Delhi,
on the 14th March 2014 and the journey was very arduous and a drain
on my frail emotions. (Mentioned in my earlier blog” Life in London” http://vanakkam-doc.blogspot.sg/2009/06/life-in-london.html )
We arrived on the scene excitedly looking for an apartment (fondly
called by our seniors as “Stanley Flats”); however to my surprise found a small
unassuming semidetached house, with a tree just outside the left front walled
fence, overlooking a school and a playground. The road was eerily quiet too. The house, I noticed, was already flooded with
strangers stuck to their books, sporting curious eyes, hair styles and faces, whom
we later realised, had come from other parts of Tamil Nadu, as well India (Possibly
International, as we had few Pakistanis and Nigerians visiting us too). There
was also Guhan and Ramesh (both our classmates) and also quite a few seniors
from our own medical school, (who were equally strangers for me, until that moment
and day,) who, were welcoming us with a broad smile.
I had already could see the gambit of emotions of frustrations,
home sickness, haplessness, helplessness and also envy amongst the eyes of
those who welcomed us. There was some sense of uneasiness pervading the
atmosphere, after the initial formal words. Well, It’s possible that everyone
assumed and considered every other person subconsciously as a villain and
that’s what it meant, as most of them had failed in their initial or second and
some of them in their third attempts to do PLAB. It’s possible that they were welcoming us to
the reality with a whiff of uneasiness, which I now, retrospectively feel, the
same way, I was also welcoming the future arrivals. However I could also sense
from their body language, a band of camaraderie that was going around them, who
were holing up at 120 (amongst the college juniors and seniors), and also with the
others who were staying nearby!
They looked like; they were united for a cause!
Passing PLAB; start a new life in life; attain the impossible and scale the
uncountable!
The house itself was a very unattractive place,
which on entry will lead onto a big lounge with few old boring settees,
looking at a fire place (unused), with PLAB books stacked near a corner on a
shelf. The place was filthy and smelt of some odd fragrance, which was
unwelcoming; possible lasted on me for quite some months.
The carpets were old and murky. From the lounge,
you can also walk onto the so called kitchen and via kitchen to the back yard
with a small loo bragging in the corner, obviously used for smoking and relaxing too!
Well, it was cold out there. Always. The cold air can get to the red
marrow of our bones, which I soon learnt over the days, spent in the loo.
The stairs on the front entrance led on to the
upstairs toilet with a shower and three bed rooms. There was this one large bed
room, with three single beds and two other small bed rooms with single beds
each. From, what I could see, all the rooms and beds were already occupied and
hence, except for Hari, both I and Ganesh were asked to stay out at Uncle’s
house (called Uncle!) in Burgers road, as arranged by Ramesh. This was a big blow for me, as I had assumed that
all three of us (Hari and Ganesh) were going to hole up in one single place and
continue preparing for the exams, which were arriving soon in few weeks’ time.
Well, Hari somewhat looked happy as he would be
holing up with Ramesh, however I wasn't. The situation however, was not under
my control, as I was a new comer and it never was until for few more ensuing years
in Britain.
The lunch was ready by this time, cooked by one of
our senior inmates presumably on a rota, and we were politely served rice and sambaar,
pickle and few crisps to go with it. The rice smelt and tasted wonderful (it
was ‘broken Basmati” and little did I realise then, that I was going on to live on nothing but
broken Basmati for next few years), however not when mixed with what should
have been sambaar!
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