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For a book that puts so much freight on Bombay's rains and lasses, it doesn't lyrically describe either
There are the staple bits about ragging (which was infinitely more imaginative in the mofussil medical college I attended), lecture hall merriment and heartbreak. The strike by MARD (Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors) features centrally and leads (by accidents of fate) to a journey into the Northeast.
Medical undergrads and postgrads inhabit a world of great perversities and action. Its minutiae should make for great literature. If only someone would write their own half decent, roman a clef (with some back-handed wryness). I keep thinking of what Upamanyu Chatterjee would have done with latinate polysyllabic medical jargon and the anatomy dissection hall.
One last thing: for a book that puts so much freight on Bombay’s rains and lasses, it doesn’t lyrically describe either.