Finding Him

Remember how I talked about a dream opportunity to die for in my 2024 wrapup post? That dream opportunity was a research opportunity!

O yeee, a 2nd year BSc (Hons) Nursing student from AIIMS Kalyani got a big fat research opportunity for nothing other than a SYSTEMATIC REVIEW AND META-ANALYSIS in pharmacology, her favourite subject! 🐼

You can tell how grateful and excited I was about it from my old post. Because research was a thing I kept close to my heart since I was in 9th standard. That was when I started discovering Pubmed and google scholar and gradually my love for scientific vignette grew to a level of a typical nerd.

Being in AIIMS helps with research interest, is what I have only heard about until thankfully it became a real life experience for me then.

September, 2024 was when it all started. We started having classes of 2nd Year and one day we get an email for submitting research proposals for Institute Research Day at AIIMS. That was when one of my immediate senior in Nursing asked me if I wanted to do something about it. I said “Hell yeah!” and went on with it.

That senior connected me with a Junior Resident Sir in the Department of Pharmacology, Dr. P. D. (Not revealing the full name for privacy reasons). Sir was really amazing with research and reviewed a case report both me and my senior wrote together but it was a case of alcohol induced hepatic encephalopathy which was nothing extraordinary and hence, was not a good fit to be something on the display for Institute Research Day.

Then I found a case of Steroid induced Cushing Syndrome in ward but before I could collect my necessary details and consent from the patient, he was discharged and I got a big scolding from Sir for losing that not-so-common case. 😔

Long story short, I couldn’t do anything in Research Day, but Dr. P. D. Sir got to know about my deep interest in research. So, one random day in October, 2024, Sir called me and Ankita, my sweetu friend along with a few MBBS students, and introduced us to the concept of Systematic review of safety and efficacy of newly FDA approved drugs.

Sir taught us how to find a drug and how to list search terms. We were slow but steady with our progress and November, 2024 began.

We had our gruesome Lamp Lighting ceremony rehearsals, first set unit tests of 2nd Year, so you can tell I was busy. And I thought maybe I had some time to proceed with my research.

But boom!

Now you will understand the significance of the title of this post.

Here comes someone!

Who?

A guy who got into the SR (systematic review) team much later.

But within few days, dude was done with finding the drug and listing all search terms, drafted his SR protocol and damn! got it registered on PROSPERO before we could, because apparently he had “nothing else to do”.

Who was this diva guy?

He was the “Him” I found.

And he is the one I will talk about in this post.

So this diva was a 3rd Sem MBBS student of AIIMS Kalyani. Diva has XY chromosome. Diva is a Bail🐮 (That’s how I saved his name on my phone!)

So this Bail did stuff faster than I could, and that didn’t sit right with me. Me, being the competitive bhondu Gai🐮 I am, felt the need to do whatever he did too, cause this (I mean research, obviously) was something I wanted to do all my life.

29th November, 2024, I messaged Mr. Bail – “Good evening Sir, search terms kaise kiya?” in a super polite and distant way (because girls should not fall for guys randomly! 👺).

(Can you see the professionalism in our conversation? Please tell me you can!)

So that was the day I got to know him. 😏

And both of us were as non-chalant we could be. Strictly professional.

And 🤥I felt a bit competitive. So, I got my SR protocol registered on PROSPERO just like he did.

(Also, I stopped calling him Sir after that first message because he was in the same 2023 batch, just serving in different courses of life!)

And then we went on with our lives. I had my first terminal exams of 2nd Year. And life kept going on tiringly. More details on this will be coming in my 2025 wrapup post.

In between, sometimes Sir (Dr. P. D) told us to work on our research and we proceeded likewise whenever we had some moments of academic recluse. But whatever it was, Bail was always the first one to take a step and then he taught us (me and Ankita).

Sometimes, dude felt like a better person than every other student of that medical college, but still cold enough to be ice most of the times! Sometimes, he used to talk a lot with me about hard core research, both of our colleges and courses, Bengal and Maharashtra (um! did I tell you? Bail was a Marathi Bull! ) and some unimportant stuff.

Sometimes he also flirted with me 😔 at 2:30am messaged me saying I was pretty, kind and “the best thing that happened to him this year”. Sometimes, he got angry when I subtly tried to bro-zone him, or called him a kid. (😞He was 19 years old at that time, don’t blame me!)

But sometimes, he didn’t reply for weeks straight. He used to disappear! And that felt like a lal pataka🚩 to me!

I mean not that I was going somewhere with this, but deep down, I always keep a track of my feelings. And that seemed to be going nowhere except him being the only guy I chatted on whatsApp with at that time.

I was very rigid at that time, cause I was still in the process of moving on. My old scar was still not healed completely.

Our research proceeded well. We were able to register our protocol, performed literature search, screened articles on Zotero and Rayyan, did data extraction from screened articles, did risk of bias assessment and even wrote an introduction for the article with Zotero referencing. You can tell how much hardwork we did at that young stage of our academic lives. And I am so so grateful for that.

But then we disappeared. Me and Bail didn’t have a reason to talk as such cause our research was put on hold temporarily. And I had my 2nd terminal exams in June 2025. So I got busy with it.

While my exams were going on, I had a random message from him. Dude wanted to know if I was alive or admitted in some mental hospital. It had been a while since we talked. I politely told him about my exams. And we agreed to talk after exams.

So, one fine day, my 2nd Year OSCE exam ended. And that day usually meant pure bliss after a long 8-9 days of back to back exams. And we talked. Then after a few days, he disappeared once again.

Then I asked him a favour. With my research. Are, Bail had a laptop so I requested him to help me take legible long screenshots of clinicaltrials.gov articles. But it was a cumbersome task and he went home for summer vacation at that time. So, he had very less reasons to help me with something that time consuming.

Later I got to know, bro stayed up till 2 am at his Nani ghar where everyone sleeps early and sent me those long screenshots. That was when I had some stones in my heart ignite a spark of fire.

Then came July, 2025. I was in home for my summer vacation. And he went back to AIIMS. And, and one day, we were chatting on whatsApp and he said “tabiyat kharab hai ma’am” which awakened the nurse in me. I gave him a full blown health talk on what to do with severe bodyache.

😬Hihi! That’s where things started breaking through. Since then, we started chatting a little longer. And he promised not to disappear this time.

🙂Long story short, after few weeks of a bit too cute chatting, some fluffy feelings bloomed amongst us.

And, here, in my safest place to bloom, I admit it proudly – I fell in love.

I found him.

We fell in love.

And it marked the beginning to the most beautiful time of my life.