It was yet another boring session for Raman. He was literally tired of sending out sms, passing chits and even yawning. He did not even bother to listen to any of what he was being taught. “I must never become a professor” he thought as he saw the muted film that he was witnessing in his classroom. All he could think of was “How can someone be so devotedly, consistently boring for almost a semester”. He wouldn’t have minded these lectures had the professor not been over-shooting on his time, his lunch time. The time was 12.40. The class must have been over ten minutes earlier. He could only think of Ramya’s poori and Kalpana’s Pulav. “Two pooris must have reached my stomach now. I won’t get more.” He thought and text-ed “Have you brought lunch?” to Rajiv, Suresh and Mohan expecting a “no”, but gravely wishing “yes buddy, you take the poori and pulav”. Who was he kidding! “Five minutes from now the attack on the pulav would’ve begun.” To make matters worse his breakfast had been just a cup of milk from the canteen. A milk rich, not in protein or calcium, but in water! Involuntarily he started salivating and there was a giant rumble from his stomach. “Wait buddy! Lunch is on its way” he said to his stomach.
There was this mental picture of poori and pulav and somewhere within the depths of his stomach, yet another time pepsinogen took the well known path to the stomach. Coming out of the cell, it came down to the stomach and was surprised to see it empty. It searched for anyone familiar and found a few lipases. It waved a ‘hi’. Lipase smiled back.
“Hi then, How are you? I guess I was sent out too early.” said the pepsinogen.
“Dude I was sent from the pancreas. I guess it must’ve been one of those food thinking sessions of Raman. Anyways how’s the day going?” asked the lipase.
“Pretty well, I guess you did not have much work from morning. I was sent out in the morning expecting some work. But I guess Raman had one of those canteen milks. I did not have much to do.”
“Oh yeah! I saw you trying to work a little bit. My colleagues who came in the morning had to be sent out too, since there was nothing in our area of expertise.”
“Yup! This happens quite often these days and let me tell you dude, this is not doing any good to us and Raman. But then, we are not supposed to be sent “expecting” something, we are to be sent sensing something!”
From the ceiling of the stomach, there was a big turbulence. It seemed like the esophageal opening would give way anytime now to something, some food. Involuntarily, pepsinogen and lipase exchanged expectant looks at each other and shifted their gaze upwards towards the esophageal opening!
Merrily skating its way down ad laughing, out jumped the trio, mucin, amylase and lysozyme of the oral cavity.
“….and he could not stand for a moment in front of me! One swift fling through the air and the bacteria fell down all dead and lifeless! I almost hit the mouth wall with my sword, thankfully it did not happen” lysozyme had just finished flaunting one of his adventures.
“Dead and lifeless are the same, dude. This is called boasting and you could start with not talking too much about yourself to control it.” said amylase
“Well you are just jealous, You don’t have as much a heroic job as me! What would this system be without me. The mouth giving free entry passes to everything on earth.” He lowered his voice a bit. “Sometimes I’ve even seen amylases, mucins and even lysozyme of a completely different gene composition.” He lowered his voice further. "They say Raman is to be blamed for all these entry. You know…” and gave a sly smile and winked. “Anyway” he continued in his usual pompous tone “you don’t have idea what I have to deal with everyday!”
“Deal with? You know what it is to break a fatty acid with my hammer and dagger?” charged amylase
“Shut up! will you, guys? We have been summoned and none of us have work! Do you even bother to enquire?” Said mucin trying to bring things back on track.
“Its nice to see that atleast one of you have sense. So wat’s the plan? Are we expecting something?”
As lipase was saying this, there was a mild disturbance on the stomach walls and immediately everyone knew what was coming next. This movement on the stomach wall was typical of the arrival of the dreaded hydrochloric acid (HCl).
From the sides of the wall, the most feared HCl came to the stomach and slowly increased in its volume. “What’s happening here?” it roared and without giving time to prepare, whooshed towards the pepsinogen and converted it to pepsin before even it could shout “No food Ma’am, please wait”.
There was mayhem in the stomach and other enzymes ran haphazardly in all directions. The irritated enzymes took out their weapons they used to break the food and started hitting against the walls of the stomach. Hell was set loose and as a result, the stomach shook heavily, unable to bear the chaos.
………………….there was a giant rumble from his (Raman’s) stomach. “Wait buddy! Lunch is on its way” he said to his stomach.
His vision, almost blurry by now, sensed the professor looking at his watch and exclaiming something. He heard words like “doubts, next, see you.” There was a sudden increase in the level of noise in the class. His hands automatically reached for Ramya’s lunch box hidden under the table. One poori went inside the mouth, another one was safe in his hands; two more hands plunged into the box; damn this Suresh and Rajiv. The sensory organs started working again!
Deep within the stomach, among the tumultuous uproar of a dozen enzymes, there were wild exclamations of “Work time buddies!”
No comments:
Post a Comment