<p>I had sincerely thought I had erased the memories of those torturous days. It had receded to my subconscious, buried never to resurrect again. But how wrong I was. The past does come to haunt you in unseemly ways and the way it comes unstuck leaves you dazed. But this particular experience of mine really takes the cake.<br /><br />These thoughts flashed in my mind, when I saw the screaming headlined anchor story in a newspaper, “UGC says no to dissection of animals in labs; zoology teachers miffed.” I could not agree with the University Grants Commission, the apex body for higher education in the country more.<br /><br />I thought at last these mandarins in the power centre had woken up to reality to bury the nightmare I had experienced all these years. It was in 1974-75 when I was doing my BSc in Mysore Sharada Vilas College. One of my optional subjects was zoology and being final year students we were all forced into doing dissection. <br /><br />Knowing that it played a big part in passing the exams, I did try to take the practical classes seriously.<br /><br />As the attender in the lab came and placed all those cockroaches and frogs on the dissection table, my heart would skip a beat. I was no animal brigade man at any point in my life. Still to see the poor creatures, which God had made them all, being tortured was something I could never come to terms with. As a result, I turned out to be the worst dissector in the class. Every time one of those creatures was put on the table, I would start using the scalpels, scissors, forceps on them and to my horror discover that they still had some life and were literally being butchered by me. In not a single dissection class could I get anything right. But many others were happily coming out with beautiful dissections. This went on for almost the whole year. As I somehow had to pass the practical exam to get my degree, I decided to join practical tuitions in a college. There the results were no better.<br /><br />To cut a long story short, when the time for the practical exam came, I was in a state of depression. On the day of the practicals when my classmate and I reached the examination hall, the invigilator looked sternly at us. Only then did we realise that we were ten minutes late entering the hall.<br /><br />I was asked to dissect the fifth cranial nerve of frog and remove the brain of shark. I started my dissection thinking that it would end in disaster. But to my surprise, shock and joy, I had neatly carved out the brain of shark and split open the cranial nerve of frog. Somehow I passed out in flying colours in the practicals which helped me get a degree.<br /><br />Now, that the UGC has decided to ban the dissections, my heart goes out to all the animals and I say a big no to all the zoology lecturers.</p>
<p>I had sincerely thought I had erased the memories of those torturous days. It had receded to my subconscious, buried never to resurrect again. But how wrong I was. The past does come to haunt you in unseemly ways and the way it comes unstuck leaves you dazed. But this particular experience of mine really takes the cake.<br /><br />These thoughts flashed in my mind, when I saw the screaming headlined anchor story in a newspaper, “UGC says no to dissection of animals in labs; zoology teachers miffed.” I could not agree with the University Grants Commission, the apex body for higher education in the country more.<br /><br />I thought at last these mandarins in the power centre had woken up to reality to bury the nightmare I had experienced all these years. It was in 1974-75 when I was doing my BSc in Mysore Sharada Vilas College. One of my optional subjects was zoology and being final year students we were all forced into doing dissection. <br /><br />Knowing that it played a big part in passing the exams, I did try to take the practical classes seriously.<br /><br />As the attender in the lab came and placed all those cockroaches and frogs on the dissection table, my heart would skip a beat. I was no animal brigade man at any point in my life. Still to see the poor creatures, which God had made them all, being tortured was something I could never come to terms with. As a result, I turned out to be the worst dissector in the class. Every time one of those creatures was put on the table, I would start using the scalpels, scissors, forceps on them and to my horror discover that they still had some life and were literally being butchered by me. In not a single dissection class could I get anything right. But many others were happily coming out with beautiful dissections. This went on for almost the whole year. As I somehow had to pass the practical exam to get my degree, I decided to join practical tuitions in a college. There the results were no better.<br /><br />To cut a long story short, when the time for the practical exam came, I was in a state of depression. On the day of the practicals when my classmate and I reached the examination hall, the invigilator looked sternly at us. Only then did we realise that we were ten minutes late entering the hall.<br /><br />I was asked to dissect the fifth cranial nerve of frog and remove the brain of shark. I started my dissection thinking that it would end in disaster. But to my surprise, shock and joy, I had neatly carved out the brain of shark and split open the cranial nerve of frog. Somehow I passed out in flying colours in the practicals which helped me get a degree.<br /><br />Now, that the UGC has decided to ban the dissections, my heart goes out to all the animals and I say a big no to all the zoology lecturers.</p>
