Doctor’s Day – Down the Memory Lane

 (Names changed)

Now it is Doctor’s Day in India. That rekindles childhood memories when I dreaded two objects. First, the police, with his untouched-by-body uniform, burly hair all over the body, and the baton. Second, the doctor whom, as a child, I visualized charging towards me with a needle in hand.

Strictly speaking, in my case it should be Grandma’s Day. She was my healer, caregiver and doctor till adolescence. She would ask my mother to pluck from our backyard 2 pieces of leaf-1 (sorry I am not sure of the names), 4 pcs of leaf 2, and 1 of leaf 3. She would crush them, add pepper, jeera, etc., from the kitchen shelf and boil them in say 5 glasses of water till it was reduced to 1 glass. Not always a cooperative patient, she would adopt Kautilya’s method – sama, dana, bheda, danda. This was till I was 10 years. To compensate for having prevailed upon me to drink it, she would give me a teaspoon of honey. And starts the fight between the bitter decoction and honey for supremacy in lingering taste.  

On the rare occasions when Grandma’s prescription did not work she would wait at the front-yard for Manikkam Pillay for his round between 2.30 and 3.30 pm. He was the de facto village Apothecary with an unkempt hair, humming Lord Muruga’s hymns, as he carried the antique leather-bag passed down the generation that now bulges from all directions refusing to buckle all the home-made medicines and bottles into its fold.  

Slowly but steadily from home remedies and Ayurveda villagers migrated to modern medicine. Emerges Compounder Krishna Iyer of our village, hitherto attached to a doctor. He went independent and did well.  One seldom visited a doctor for headache, fever, or stomach pain. He was very good at his job, but temperamentally he had a knack of rubbing the wrong shoulder with almost everybody. Thus, we children felt remedy was worse than the disease. 

At the same time, we were equally hesitant to go to the LMP doctor (Licentiate Medical Practitioner) - also in my village. No sugary syrup or chocolaty Brooklax tablet. For anything and everything he would prescribe a glass of sour buttermilk twice a day. No wonder he came to be known as ‘sour buttermilk doctor’. But I am told, it is very effective.

The epidemic of plague or cholera surfaced. Dr Ramabhadran, MBBS, who enjoyed a better patronage, was summoned. Children would get inoculated first. But no child came forward for fear of the pain. Ten minutes of infructuous wait, and the doctor pulled me gently and said, “See Sundaram here. I know he is a brave boy (he hardly knew me, except as Samikutty’s son). You will watch him take the inoculation without any fuss.”  I succumbed to his flattery and found it difficult not to live up to it. The inoculation was painful but I managed to pretend otherwise. The doc patted on my back, and asked others to line up. What everybody feared would end up a flop turned a total success.

My grandfather, an advocate by profession, befriended Dr Pisharody, a homeopathic physician. Sabarimala trips was the bonding factor. Soon he switched over to homeopathy. One afternoon, with still two hours to go for the evening tiffin, I was frantic to grab something. Couldn’t lay my hands on anything. My mother knew me too well and was equal to the occasion. I spotted the homeopathy pills. Tasted one or two. Sugary. Gulped more. Result? Uninterrupted purging. My Aunt, 8 or 10 years older and more a friend, interrogated me left and right and had me cough up the truth. Once bitten, twice shy. So much for my tryst with homeopathy.

I joined WHO. It was doctors, nay, international experts all the way - on leprosy, tuberculosis, malaria, polio, smallpox - from the 193 member countries, on visits or appointments. Luckily, I was part of the team that managed, inter alia, publication of the in-house journal, I had thus the privilege to interview many of them, including a Nobel Laureate, and publish them. 

No less, my own extended family houses far more than a mere handful of doctors – paediatrics, gastroenterology, urology, anaesthesia, dentistry, plastic surgery – and a few others whose disciplines I am yet to know. Kala, Shoba, Anju and others, please update me on your children.

Yes, service to the suffering humanity is the real worship of God. Long live doctors and their spirit of service.