Bitter medicine

REMEMBERING A GREAT TEACHER, DR P K SETHI Every year on Teacher’s day I would carry a card and some flowers to my teacher, Padamshree and Magsaysay awardee Dr P K Sethi. The card always carried the lines ‘what can I give you in return, please take my heart, to sir with love’ from that haunting melody by Lulu that was the title song of the Sidney Poitier movie “To sir with love” based on the book by E R Braithwaite. Not any more Dr P K Sethi passed away on 6th February 2006 I am writing this tribute in the words of those who knew him well, his own word and writings and some words of my own I WAS brought up and educated in the colonial era. I practised conventional western medicine in an urban environment. I have been a witness to the heady post-World War II days when, with the emergence of some effective antibacterial medicines, diseases which were formerly lethal, such as pneumonia or tuberculosis, could be effectively treated. I was full of optimism that soon we would have answers to

It is said that character gets you out of bed; commitment moves you to action; faith, hope and discipline help you to achieve the goals. Anna has shown this, and done it. What are the lessons to be learnt from Anna’s initiative? 1. People will listen to you if you have the nation’s interest, importance and improvement at heart 2. People will follow you if you are impeccably honest, sincere and have the courage of conviction 3. Any movement which is not petty or self centred and is focused on the larger welfare will become a mass movement as all classes of people do not hesitate to join it 4. A mass movement cannot be ignored 5. A mass movement will succeed if it is peaceful, non violent and conscience controlled There is not just one Anna in the country. We need all the rest of them to come forward and raise issues plaguing us, now and not wait till the water rises up to our noses.

I am posting this blog on the occassion of Doctors Day THE IDEAL I became a doctor because my father was a doctor. It had nothing to do with genetics or family tradition or any of the other rigmarole It was plain and simple because my father was my ideal. He was a graduate from among the oldest medical institute in the country, the King George Medical College, Lucknow in the year 1935 He joined the Jaipur State medical service and used to receive Rs 35 as salary in the form of silver coins, the jharshashi rupaiya I watched him as I grew and this is what I recollect, and adore His patients loved him. There was a deep sense of gratitude in every patient he had treated and cured. As a result it was not infrequent for these poor village folk to bring fruits and vegetables and other farm products as gifts, whatever they produced, whatever they could afford. They derived genuine pleasure from giving, and I could sense the satisfaction of achievement on the one hand and the unqualified grati