It will be corroborated by friends and relatives I have had the pleasure of knowing, that I have never been concerned with how I look. People might confirm that beyond the tender age up to which my parents tended to my social appearances, I have seldom obtained the concurrence of the word “presentable”. It had never bothered me much, but what happened today in college should perhaps have me re-evaluate my doctrine. I’ll get to the experience shortly.

There is an old folktale in circulation for quite a while, wherein a king, desirous of protecting his nimble feet from the dust on the street, issued an order that the streets were to be covered with leather. He was, the story goes, enlightened by a bright entrepreneur who propounded that the more efficient solution would be to isolate the problem within his person; i.e., to simply wrap his feet in leather. And so shoes were born. Inspired by this fictitious tale, I became reluctant to engage in grooming activities of any kind, instead preferring to isolate the problem beyond myself; i.e., I simply disengaged myself from looking in the mirror. I hardly ever do that, so I am saved from the scary thought of seeing my own face, a feat my friends regrettably are subjected to. I don’t even keep a mirror in my room. I only engage in the ghastly act of looking at a borrowed mirror when I try my hand at shaving. Perhaps I should avoid that too. It doesn’t seem to do me any good anyhow. By empirical evidence, even while I am ‘guided’ by the mirror, my chin usually turns out bloody enough to be a prospective shooting location for the small-screen remake of the Battle of Panipat. I am of course, assuming powerful zoom lenses.

But I am drifting away from the point, am I not? The point is that I am scarcely concerned how I look. As long as some kid walking down the street, seeing me, does not cling on to his/her mommy and scream “Mommy, Mommy, what is THAT??”, I’d feel fine. Beyond hygiene, my only other criterion regarding appearances would generally be NOT to embarrass my friends and relatives when they are seen with me. I admit these are poor criteria to base such things, but you’ll have to remember that old Latin saying “Quid Quid Latine Dictum, Profundum Viditur”, which by the way, is probably my most favourite Latin saying. Not that I know many.

Beyond the health aspect of it, neither am I concerned too much about my weight, which is increasing, interestingly along the same lines as the tsunami casualty estimates did at the early hours. One would imagine that my goal would include, to use one of Wodehouse’s colorful lines, ceasing to resemble a captive balloon poised for its flight into the clouds. But considering the alternatives, which ultimately end in exercise or diet, I end up choosing the efficient path. In other words, I ignore the situation.

Today, I was presumably looking worse than usual, as I am considerably sick. At the insistence of my concerned neighbor, Avinash, I approached the college physician, Dr. TC Jaiprakash. Besides being a capable doctor, he is apparently a wizened veteran in the neglected medical art of poking people in the stomach and ribcages and asking in a concerned undertone “Did that hurt?”. It was during the fifth poke in the stomach that I began to wonder why I didn’t try to be a doctor. Poking patients could have been my specialty. I guess I’m stuck with MBA. Maybe I’ll get to poke a few subordinates once in a while. Anyway, in the middle of the post-poking diagnosis, he turned to me and said, “Your eyes look swollen, you look tired, and you look generally in such a mess. Is this because you’re sick, or is this your usual appearance?” I swear he asked me that. I didn’t know what to say. Totally at a loss of words, I fumbled around as if my economics tutor had just asked me to explain how the suppressed inflation and open market operation would affect the production possibility curve in post war Afghanistan. Anyway, my point is that it is possible that I WAS indeed looking worse. I had been sick since yesterday, and I wasn’t planning to attend classes today. I had gone to college just for two things; to visit the doc, and to give one of my friends a computer magazine I had promised her. Not the ideal schedule for an MBA student.

Evening. Peace. Quiet. I was just starting the walk back to my hostel. I was crossing the main block of ICFAI, about halfway to the Library building, and I saw a cheery lady coming out of the building, apparently not a worry in the world. Hers was not a familiar face, but I imagine it belonged to a member of the batch of 2005. A senior. As she reached somewhat within visual range of my face, she slapped her head and gave out a cry that was originally devised by African elephants, I presume, to warn comrades about an approaching predator. And then she turned around and started running off in the general direction of the new building. Startled a bit, I turned around to look behind me; to see what danger made her so apprehensive as to seek shelter within our venerated computer lab. And I was startled to see what I saw… which was nothing.

There was absolutely nothing and nobody on the streets other than me. My looks can’t kill, but it seems enough to make strange seniors flee for their lives. My, my… this required thinking about, or so I thought. I resolved to buy a mirror and see what the fuss was about. Then I thought, “Chuck it… I don’t have the time to shop around for those gadgets. I’ll borrow one from my neighbor when I reached my hostel, and then see what the fuss is about.” When I reached my hostel, I thought “Hell, I’ll have to look in a mirror the next time I shave anyway, so I’ll check then.”

Procrastination is such a blessing.

In the interest of humanity, and for the sake of a better future, a little blood must flow. Today, after some deliberation and some heavy doses of serious gulping, I decided to squirt out some of my blood, on the optimistic stand that somebody else might have better use for it. So I went to participate whole…. Say three-quarter heartily in the blood donation campaign conducted in my college auditorium, for the Rotary ttk Blood Bank, a regional blood transfusion centre in Bangalore.

And I wanted to share this experience. Donating blood is a fine way of extending a human life. And the bank recommends that you do it once in three months, and irrespective of what I may write here, I'd like you to consider donating once in a while. Some may feel, "Oh, so he donated some blood. What's the big deal? Why does he have to brag? Why does he clutter my mailbox so?" And to those special people, I say "COZ IT'S MY BLOOD, YOU INCONSIDERATE #%#%@." Of course, I know there are people who do this kind of social service every chance they get. And they can't look at a needle without rolling up their sleeves and asking "Are the bags ready?" God bless them, and science save them. But this was MY first time, and I'm all set to write about it. So there!!

Another reason is that I really want to write something. Motivation is high. My fan base has just doubled today afternoon! Yesterday, one of my friends, Nidhi, a.k.a. the ICFAIan Dido, said she liked the way I wrote. And today afternoon, one of my seniors, Nash (not Bridges, another one), chipped in with a similar phrase. My math is a bit rustic, and I have not kept myself updated with the latest buzz, but as far as I can think, double of one is, or at least should be, two. So, what do you know, I swelled with pride, though I must confess that very few people could have noticed, granting that I am way too swollen up already.

Our auditorium had a hospital-like atmosphere, with hospital beds and doctors strewn about for good measure. Nervous as I was, I steadily followed an equally nervous senior, whose name, for reasons of anonymity, I will try not to mention. Control… control… control…. bah, ok, ok, his name was Deepak. You satisfied?

As step one, our weights were measured. I managed to get a reading in a single weighing machine in one go. That too, without damaging it!! So far, I thought, things were looking good. Next, we were required to fill out a form. That, of course, didn't surprise me. I've opened accounts in other banks before… They invariably want you to fill forms. I found no reasons for blood banks to think differently. But there was a list of questions that we were supposed to answer 'yes' or 'no' by ticking the appropriate space, and the first question DID indeed surprise me. I forgot the exact words, but it went something like

I am donating blood voluntarily YES NO

Shaken, and visibly stirred, I slowly looked about wondering if somebody might be there involuntarily. My keen eye spotted one student who was viciously held down on the bed by two volunteers as a nurse siphoned off his blood, laughing menacingly. But later on, I concluded that the volunteers must have been merely assisting the donor, and the menacing laugh must have been merely my imagination gone wild. It happens sometimes.

In the next stage, one guy in a lab coat made me sit down, and took my right hand in his. He rubbed some sort of medicine on the tip of my ring finger, and just when my guard was down, stabbed me with a blade! Ouch! And as I lay there staring at him, he did some sort of hocus-pocus on some drops of blood (MY blood!!) and with the air of a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat, triumphantly turned to me and said "Your blood group is B+" Jesus! If he wanted to know my blood group, he could just have asked! There was no need for the torture!

Up next, I was told to rest on a bed, whereupon a nurse came up to me with the scary siphoning hose and started the transfer. Having lost serious opportunities of sleep during the last few days, the bed they offered seemed pretty comfy. The rest I got almost made the payment in blood seem worthwhile.

After the process, I was supplied with a cute little band-aid to clear up any evidence of the blood siphoning, coz these doctors were a cunning lot… and they also offered some juice and two biscuits. Not bad, I thought. After all, all I lost was a little bit of blood. If they had come a week earlier to my home, where I had cut myself while shaving, they wouldn't have needed all the sophisticated equipment. They could have done their stuff with just a clean empty glass.

I also witnessed that some donors had felt giddy. That was to be expected. They took blood from only the right arm of all donors. This would make them lose their balance! Simple physics. None of the giddy-factors could have come into play if they had merely collected equal amounts of blood from both hands. Their neglecting this simple fact made me mad. I almost felt like going up to them and demanding my blood back. But I let it go. "They are physicians, not physicists", I reminded myself.

There are other interesting things that I need to explain, but I'm afraid I'm gonna have to cut this short. The tip of my ring finger is straining a bit from all this typing…. And your eyes are straining as well… In any case, it was interesting for me. Firstly, I helped somebody who will someday use my blood as the nectar of life. Secondly, it seemed the easiest way to finally lose some weight. Thirdly, I was able to see the bag that containing my blood, and was able to finally conclude that they are right. Blood IS thicker than water.