13th september 2010
yesterday a friend asked me how do you do so much with damaged hands ...i replied ...i do not know how long they will be usefull ...ergo i make the best of them as long as they are .... just are.... kind of normal ...
i have had 3 accidents ...first time i broke my left hand was, when i was in kindergarten ...my older sister pushed me off a wooden box and i broke my hand ....i was admitted in the hospital i was born in and keep going to ...Ruby Hall Clinic .....and my parents tell me i was so happy with all the fuss they made of me ...i said i wanted to break my other hand and go back there asap :) little did i know my wish would come true twice post that day ...
in june 2010 i quit the pvt college after a big fight .... the constant refrain in the pvt college used to be .... ppl who leave this college can never get into good colleges and will end up working in small unknown colleges ....in may 2010 i went to this govt aided college with a Parsee management ... i had studied in... for the first 3 years of my college life .... went and met the principal and felt a little let down ....good thing as, had i met the vice principal(she and the head of the college i was teaching in are good friends) ...i would have been in for worse torture.... than i was already being subjected to in the pvt college .....
in june 2010 ...i took leave from the pvt college i was working in ....heard a ear full and went and gate crashed, a junior college interview in this said govt college ....took two of my friends who were Phds, to reinforce the point that we are sick of the freaking pvt college we were working in .....i was serious about leaving...my friends had a ball talking utter crap in the interview ....i made a strong case ...saying i wanted to pursue research rather than be a clerk in a pvt college with an assistant prof tag :/ they said i will get less than half the pay i was getting ....i also knew i would be back to being a junior lecturer ... anything for freedom and dignity was my stand ...
in july the day i asked for a days leave for my son's birthday on 5th july which was a non instructional day (due to a pan india bandh) the head insulted and mocked me ...she went to the extent of saying celebrate a day earlier or a day late .....just because you have a chair does not mean you can spout utter crap ..... that day i got a call from the parsee govt college ... and resigned from the pvt college ...
the whole system was different and it took a while to get used to a faculty room, with lots of male profs and not being able to have a song and dance in the faculty room ...in the pvt college we were 99% women faculty and we did just what we pleased in the the faculty room.... spl sitting just how we wanted, when we were tired....which was the constant ...being bone weary of stupid work, a clerk should be doing :(
in this govt college, there was a male prof in the economics dept ...who kept asking me about the pay and conditions in the pvt college ....so i gave him all the tips to go apply for my post ... plus told him all the tricks of who to meet and how exactly to talk ......i had studied those vixens well in the 4 years of 3rd degree torture i took in the name of college politics !!!!!!! he left and did everything to a T and got double the pay packet i was getting ....life is so weird ...and women so predictable :/
he was admin for a course on online banking in the govt college .... i was so glad when the vice principal asked me if i could take over ...i was thrilled to get something new ....went into the whole thing heart and soul ..... the prof who left was supposed to write an annual report and help me with some stuff in admin, like giving a certificate to the batch that had passed out ....he did nothing and i realised he never did anything ever :(
in a way i knew i had sent the purrrrrrrrfect candidate to the 'she devil' i had worked for ....he got double my pay and he did nothing for the college ...some students would come home for doubt clearing and last minute revision .....this despite me explaining some of the latest theories that were being taught in the pvt college to the prof who got my job ...the syllabus was exhaustive and not a single honest prof could do 'tom foolery' in class ....we had to stick to the time frame and do a lot in the time we got in class ....
on 13/9/12 a few days before the college magazine articles had to be submitted ....was the day the report on the online course had to be submitted ... he refused to give it to me ...and finally i called him up ....i told the HOD, i would hand the report in the next day ...as i had to eat and then go in for a 3 hour supervsion of students, giving an exam in the pvt branch of the said college ... i was teaching at three levels in this college ...undergraduate Bcom, external Bcom students and a post graduate diploma course in import and export in the aided wing ..... plus one course in the private wing, international business for the undergraduate course ...
the HOD wanted the report that very day ... so i told my friend, the maths prof to have her grub alone and sat and wrote the report ...got it cleared and went straight for supervision .... students in pvt colleges are always naughtier... 3hours of being on my toes, in a saree was tiring ...ergo i called my hubby to come pick me up ...he had an off on mondays ...for some reason kids had a holiday and so he said come back on your own ....i was feeling bad as i had not had anything to eat since morning ..while crossing a road to hire a rickshaw ...the last thing i remember is the divider and woke up in searing pain .....ohhh so familiar it was ....i could not believe i had broken my left hand again ..i could not hang it down and was getting waves of nausea and i was weaving in and out of consciousness ....a person running a tyre store came running and helped me to a bench ...they recognised me as a prof from the college ...picked up my stuff for me and called a rickshaw to take me to ruby hall which is practically opposite the college ... seeing the money i had and the way i was going out of consciousness ...
i was very very lucky the time of my accident was such that there was very little traffic on the road which is usually jam packed with vehicles ... i would have not been writing this had the timing been different ...
i thought it would be better to go home ...i do not know how i reached home ....drank a lot of water and kept my cool thru a bite of food before i went to the hospital ...strangely i broke no bone but had hurt my hand real bad and it was black and blue all over ....my head was also scanned and thoroughly checked for any injury .... the amount of water i drank that day amazed me ....and the pain finally came down with strong pain killers ....some parts of my body were paining and i was exhausted by evening ....the HOD in banking felt very bad for me ....i did not feel bad after a point ..... as i was in a college where .......i did not have to burst a blood vessel and hear a mouthfull just to ask for and get leave...
i also went for a training prog in being an admin for the LMS course and did very well (as i has self taught myself the nitty gritty of the course by then ) with the hand in a sling ..... i was so used to pain by now and dealing with it ...my left hand troubles me more than my right hand ...i can not lift weight with my left hand ...though washing my face and combing my hair ...eating and a lot of small small things i am more comfortable with my left hand ......
what i realised after hurting my left hand was ....how much i favoured my right hand by not using it .... in a way the accident was a blessing in disguise for the pain between the shoulder blades ....it was beginning to get chronic and using my right hand kind of eased my pain ..... everything that happens to us ....teaches us a lesson in life ..... point is to look at the bright side .... most times i do so ....