Dedication
My father had this small slogan stuck on his table – ‘Work is Worship’. My oldest memory of him is being buried in his books with his glasses slipping off his nose as he wrote and corrected his numerous papers he published. His hobby he said was his work.
Another thing I remember about him is dedication to the poor. He was amongst the few consultants who attended the charity clinic regularly. He worked with rural village development. One of his favourite stories he related was when he went to a village. He was made to sit in the only chair with the villagers sitting on the floor around him. My father got up and sat on the floor to discuss their problems. He always said that respect people and you will be a better doctor.
He believed in integrity especially in science and research. He said that research was useless unless it was done to help others. He also believed that third world countries needed to do research that reflected their own problems. He disliked merely imposing Western science in India. To that end he wrote a 3000 pages Paediatric textbook for Indian doctors. However, he greatly respected Western medicine and contributed to several books including the Nelson Paediatric Textbook.
He loved travelling and went to medical conferences all over the world. He would come and show us photographs of far flung places like Argentina, Oslo, Venice, Japan and Philippines. He worked closely with Institute of Child Health London and ran parallel courses for them for postgraduate doctors in Bombay. He was Vice President of The World Tuberculosis Association with the headquarters in Paris.
My father was a devoted family man. He had seven sisters and three brothers. He worked hard to educate them and get them married and settled. He had the ability to talk to anyone of any age. All his nieces and nephews still remember him with love. They often dropped in with their problems, medical or otherwise and he always helped them. We were a very close knit family and though we had our ups and downs like any other family we were very attached to each other. Communication was open and we had lively dinner discussions often about medical cases but also politics and social problems.
My father taught me everything I know – mostly lessons in perseverance, hard work, respect for everyone and dedication to work and science.
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