The Other Side of The Table

By Madhumita Mukherjee

Circa 1990. A world drawn and woven with words. A bond punctuated by absence and distance. Two continents. Two cities. Two people. And letters. Hundreds of them. Over years. Across oceans. Between hearts. Between Abhi, who is training to be a neurosurgeon in London and Uma, who is just stepping into the world of medicine in Kolkata. As they ink their emotions onto paper, their lives get chronicled in this subtly nuanced conversation through letters letters about dreams, desires, heartbreaks and longings about a proverbial good life falling apart, about a failed marriage, a visceral loss and about a dream that threatens social expectations. Letters that talk. And don't. Letters about this and that. Letters about everything Letters with a story you would never expect.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fingerprint Publishing
• Release date: Jan 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9789358561371

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Madhumita Mukherjee was born in Kolkata, brought up in New Delhi, and has been living in UK for the past eleven years. She is an alumna of Lady Irwin School, New Delhi, and Calcutta National Medical College, Kolkata. At present, she lives in Manchester and works full time in Wigan, Greater Manchester, as a consultant paediatrician. She is a compulsive shopper, a travel enthusiast, and a full-time dreamer. Madhumita wants to learn to read Mandarin, play the ukulele, and travel to Antarctica to see the emperor penguins.

The other side of the table is her first book.

15th April, 1990

London

Dear Uma,

Yesterday, I looked inside Khaled’s head . . .

After the saw had stopped drilling and the thin, thin dust of bone spicules had settled, a careful incision through the membranes underneath created a gap—just a couple of centimetres wide—and then, there it was: the cream-pink, convoluted, soft-cheese like part of our bodies. The brain.

The first time I saw it, I thought: How incredible; this is the seat of all intelligence, thoughts, qualities, emotions and . . . everything, really. Up close it is almost boring; somewhat bleak . . . like the lunar landscape. The real showstopper though, is the heart. You can see it go lub-dup, lub-dup, lub-dup . . . It’s mesmerising. And a close second, I suppose, is the glistening, frilly, vulgar and voluptuous beauty of the gut . . .

I hope this is not too graphic for you. I have never written to you like this before, but now you better get used to it. You dark horse! I thought you told me everything. But it seems you tell me nothing. Congratulations on your admission to medical college. I didn’t know you were really this keen about it.

Are you going to go to college with braces on your teeth and your hair in pigtails? That’s how I last saw you. Or, are you all grown up and a ‘proper young lady’ now?

I am fine here. Still working at Guys and St Thomas. Its hard work, becoming a neurosurgeon. But since I like nothing else, I continue working like a slave. Pushing myself, punishing myself. When I am a Consultant, I will be making decisions and doing interesting cases myself. I will be on the other side of the table, dazzling everybody with my brilliance. But for now, I have to make my peace with being on the assistant’s side of the table.

I watch, I wait . . . fingers itching with impatience.

What would you like to be? I mean, which speciality? Do you already have an idea or is it too early to ask? It’s too early, actually . . . But do let me know as soon as you decide. I was always your confidant, remember? Hope that won’t change.

It’s early spring here and the days are getting milder and longer. London’s parks are swooning with flowers. I am dreaming of a long, hot summer . . .

And how is it there in Calcutta?

Write to me more often if you can. Convey my regards to your parents. Love to your brother and sister.

Best wishes.

Abhi

2nd June, 1990

Calcutta

Dear Abhi,

Your letter reached us in twenty-seven days, thanks to the Indian Postal Service.

College starts in August, so I still have two months to kill. I am most certainly not going to college in braces and pigtails. I enclose my latest snapshot.

Very envious to hear about the early spring weather in London. You lucky soul! It’s sweltering here. Kal boisakhi storms were bringing occasional relief in May. Now, it’s just unbearably hot and humid. We scan the sky for clouds, waiting for the monsoon. But it won’t be here till July, I guess. In the afternoons, there is a hush, as few people venture out into the streets. Hand-pulled rickshaws tinkle past. Green-coconut sellers vend from door to door. And in the streets, tar melts. We close the Venetian blinds, put the ceiling fan on at full speed, and in the cool darkness of our bedroom, Putul and I take long siestas. You told me that when it is warm and sunny there, even for a good few days, the British are likely to say, We are enjoying an Indian summer . . . But do they really know what they are talking about?

Baba is sending me to Dehradun to spend a couple of weeks with Mejopishi, his dear second sister. Looks like I will get to escape the heat, but how will I escape them? They are insufferable. Her son, seventeen, is a peeping Tom who wants to join the Indian Navy! To become what? A pirate, I’m convinced. And her daughter, now fifteen, is a snob of the first order. She goes to Welham Girls High School and looks down on me as the poor, unsophisticated cousin from Calcutta. Mejopishi talks non-stop of her own superior skills as a housewife, mother, and society woman, and attends kitty parties. Her husband, Pishemoshai, hides either behind the newspaper or in his club. He speaks only when spoken to, and then too, is strictly monosyllabic.

Anyhow, it is only for two weeks, and I am going armed with a couple of good novels. Hopefully, when I return, I will find another letter from you and the monsoon will have arrived in Calcutta.

Ma and Baba send their blessings, Putul and Bibo their love. Don’t work too hard.

Write soon.

Uma

24th July, 1990

London

Dear Uma,

Bowled over by your ‘latest snapshot’. You are a ‘proper young lady’ now, and I will try to treat you like one in the future. If I can remember, that is. The trouble is, you will always be the bright little girl next door who collected stamps and quotations and coins and postcards and god knows what-not, like a busy little magpie. Do you still do that?

To be a doctor, then, means much more than to dispense pills or to patch up or repair torn flesh and shattered minds. To be a doctor is to be an intermediary between man and God.

Came upon this years ago. A very exalted description, indeed. To be honest, after years of drudgery, cramming for endless exams, long hours, and thousands of sleepless on-call nights, you will feel less like the intermediary between man and God, and more like a cross between a dodo and a zombie. But no, that is my own lack of sleep talking. Had a very busy shift yesterday. Mustn’t disillusion you. You are only getting started. Read AJ Cronin’s Citadel if you can. I think every doctor should read it.

What a bitchy description of your Mejopishi’s family. I like it, you know, that you are so no-nonsense . . . You always call a spade a spade. Just be careful though, when you meet new people in college. Not many people appreciate blunt honesty. So don’t carry your truth-telling too far. Be good, but have fun too.

Oh dear, smacked my head on the table just now. I was dozing and writing! Wait, is that even possible? Must get to Bedfordshire now.

Write soon.

Best wishes

Abhi

25th October, 1990

Calcutta

Dear Abhi,

Sorry, sorry, sorry!

Such a long time since I wrote to you. Sent you a Bijoya greeting card, hope you got it. I know that doesn’t count. Please, don’t be too angry? Please?

Are we still friends? I have so much to tell you.

First, college started in August. We are a class of hundred and fifty—fifty girls and hundred boys. Note the sex ratio! I have made some new friends. Some very bright, like-minded girls. The boys are all very immature and annoying. A couple of them are not bad to look at, but they are not really my kind.

As for the subjects, I love Anatomy and Physiology. Just can’t bear Biochemistry, though the professor of Biochemistry is a really nice man. I love the gallery style lecture halls and the projected images on the blackboards. I like dissection and am not the least bit put off by cadavers. I have bought a full set of human bones and I can spend hours with Grey’s Anatomy.

I love the names in Anatomy. Just take the wrist bones. I like reciting Scaphoid, Lunate, Triquetral, Pisciform, Trapezium, Trapezoid, Capitate, Hamate . . . don’t they have a lovely ring? Like the names of distant planets circling round another sun. And who would have thought the little hollow at the base of the thumb is called the ‘Anatomical snuff box’?!

I think if I ever have twins, I will call them Tibia and Fibula. My friends think I am mad and they say they will not blame my children if they are incited to matricide by their unfortunate nomenclature.

Anyway, Durga puja this year was great fun. One pandal was like the Ellora caves from the outside, and had frescoes of Ajanta on the walls inside. Very clever. At another, the idols were made entirely of biscuits! Fancy that! Went out with my new college friends and spent three evenings gallivanting about town. Returned home past 10 p.m. every evening, much to Baba’s displeasure. We ate so much junk food from roadside stalls that all of us ended up with diarrhoea. Putul, unfortunately, burnt part of her arm while lighting fireworks during Kali puja. Baba has banned them next year. What a shame!

Bibo is fine, just growing taller every minute. Last month, when, at the age of fourteen, he reached six feet, Putul and I officially crowned him ‘Giraffe’, by placing a crown of leaves and grass on his head.

The weather is lovely nowadays. There is a lot of dew on the grass in the mornings. I like walking barefoot on it. It must be cold and dark where you are. Will send you a Christmas and New Year card soon. Please, please, reply. You are the best friend I ever had.

Uma

5th January, 1991

London

Dear Uma,

Happy New Year! Got your card before Christmas. Thank you.

It is very cold and dark here, as you would expect, but I went on a little vacation with Carol. She wanted to escape the mad crush of last-minute shoppers on the high street, and the hideous electric lights strung everywhere here in England. So we went to Copenhagen, which is a real winter wonderland around Christmas. We went to Tivoli Gardens, and ate ableskiever with glogg, and all in all had a very ‘hygge’ time, which is Danish for cosy. Now back at work and very busy again.

Uma, dear girl . . . I am getting seriously worried about you. Waxing lyrical about bones and Grey’s Anatomy?! What else are you doing these days? Have you read anything lately, aside from textbooks? What about music and movies? And boys? What about boys? Remember ‘All work and no play’? You don’t want to become a dull girl, do you?

You know Uma, the more I learn, the less I am sure of anything. It becomes increasingly clear there is so much to learn, that I can never hope to cover even a tiny fraction of it, no matter how much I read. Besides, bookish knowledge helps very little in clinical medicine. Truth be told, medicine is not just a science, it’s an art. You’ll realise this eventually. I believe diligent mastery of the science of medicine can make anybody a competent doctor. But, to be an excellent doctor, one needs to practice the art of it. Take surgery for instance. One of our senior surgeon says, ‘What a surgeon has to learn, is not just how to operate but when to operate, and even more importantly, when not to’. That, I hope will come to me with time. In the meantime, I console myself with these words,

"Learning, that cobweb of the brain

Profane, erroneous and vain"

Abhi

15th February, 1991

Calcutta

Dear Abhi,

Do you believe in ghosts? It is rumoured that the Anatomy building is haunted.

I don’t know exactly what people have actually seen there. I can only imagine a green phosphorescence glowing around the cadavers.

A boy died in that building a few years back. The story goes that he was supposed to meet his friends in the dissection hall in the evening, to revise together for their exams. He was the first one to arrive. When his friends came in later, they found him on the floor of the deserted room, dead. His eyes were wide open, bulging, and mouth agape in a silent scream.

His post-mortem showed he had died of a massive heart attack. He was not known to have any major medical problems. There was no suspicion of foul play either. His friends, young and traumatised as they were, vouched that the expression on the dead boy’s face was one of extreme terror. He must have seen something, they said. The question is, what did he see? Did he actually see something or did he imagine something in that silent, cold, room of the dead.

As a child, whenever I asked Ma if ghosts really did exist, she would say, ‘It’s possible’. And Baba, he would say, with an amused glint in his eyes, ‘If I can believe in God without having seen him, then why can’t I believe in ghosts?’ Never a straightforward yes or no. But then, it is one of those questions.

I write to you sitting in the little room on the third floor; the one which has always been my bolt-hole. I often read or write my letters here. No one generally bothers coming up these three flights of steep stairs, not unless absolutely necessary. It’s about nine in the evening. The door is half open and it is dark outside. I don’t know what set me thinking about ghosts in the first place. But now that I have, I am beginning to imagine things. A chill is running down my spine. I keep turning around and checking the door, half expecting to find someone standing behind my back. I don’t want to run down and make a fool of myself. I am much too old for that.

So, I’m afraid I will have to end this letter here. Wish me luck. I am going to go slowly and sedately down the stairs, willing myself not to scream.

Uma

8th April, 1991

London

Dear Uma,

It is unbelievable how a smart girl like you is afraid of ghosts. I have always scoffed at the idea of ghosts, but something happened two years back.

I was on-call and had just finished a night round, mainly troubleshooting in the surgical ward. There was nothing else to be done. So I decided to make my way to the on-call room and catch a little sleep. It was a very cold January night. There was a gale blowing outside. So the idea of going out of the surgery block and walking all the way across the garden to the hospital block, which housed the doctor’s mess on the top floor, seemed highly unattractive. There is a short cut through the Turner ward, but it is not frequently used. Turner is a day cases ward and is generally deserted after 10:00 p.m., by which time the patients have been either discharged or moved to another ward, and the nursing staff have locked away things and gone home. The ward has two entrances—one from the male surgical ward through a short corridor, and the other, next to the staircase leading to floors above and below. These doors are generally locked up by