Let's talk....

“Respect your elders.”

 It’s a phrase that just about every child would have heard at some point during their growing up years. The emotion being that those who are older than us have more experience in the worldly ways and that their perspectives have a broader value than us and our friends. In many cultures, this is taken a step further. Stories of our ancestors and forefathers are passed down from generation to generation with the hope that the young will gain knowledge from those that have gone before.

It seems to me that the modern way is different. We don’t respect our fathers, we don’t respect their experiences, and we don’t respect their knowledge. At the same time we don’t overtly overthrow them, we just simply and very conveniently act as if we have forgotten them.  There comes a time when we realize we  should have listened to our elders but by then your children would be telling us ,”Dad , mind your own business “.

Advices have always come to me in plenty, in various forms as well. But when it comes from someone who is right at the bottom of the medical hierarchy it is always taken with a pinch of salt. This is what Ramakanth Gite – a ward boy in my Medical College Hospital had to tell me when I had the ‘fortune’ of sharing a table with him in a local bar. Our common passion for the spirits together with non availability of a place at any other table got me seating next to this white haired bespectacled frail man.

(This incident took place more than a decade ago when I was a 2^nd year medical student)

“I am sixty five year old man.. Seven years back I retired from Govt.  services. I was a ward boy at KEM Hospital (a leading Govt medical college hospital in Mumbai) for more than 32 years. I think I have been posted in almost every department there is in a Medical College. From pre clinical to clinical and from wards to operation theatres I have seen it all. For the past seven years I have been working in the hospital ( a private medical college) where you are getting trained to become a doctor. I believe I should work till my last breath thereby giving least burden to the people close to my heart”.

Now Gite took out a packet of beedi’s from his shirt pocket. I offered him a cigarette from my packet of Gold Flake Kings.  He refused it saying he would never give up on Dinesh beedi’s.  I also thought of giving him company.  I took a beedi from the packet which was kept on the table and lit it.  I was smoking a beedi for the first time.

Gite was enjoying my company.

“I have two sons and they have given me four lovely grandchildren.  You see, at least two of them have said to me that they would like to become physicians.  Now, that may change.  They’re still young.  They may yet become engineers, teachers, actors, sportsmen or many other things.  But if they choose to follow the medical path, I have some things to teach them.  And so, since you are young enough to be my grand child, and since you also desire to become a medical doctor, I will share some advice with you”.

We ordered our next round of whisky.  My beedi had been extinguished. (I still haven’t mastered the trade of smoking a beedi).

Gite sipped his whisky and continued, “It occurred to me once that medicine is not like it used to be.  I believe doctors are like artists. Because, cliché as it sounds, and no matter how much we become absorbed in this internet era of ours, medicine is an art.  Anyone who tells you otherwise has not practiced enough, or has forgotten what it was like to practice.

So, I give you the ward boy’s version of ‘Becoming doctors.’  But it might also be called ‘Becoming wise and compassionate human beings.’  Because the traits I want to inculcate in my little ones are those we all need in large quantities, if we are to navigate the world for good.

So, what would I tell my children?  What advice can I give you from years of walking through the medical college corridors?  “

He gave me a smile and dabbed his finger into the acchhar (pickle) and pasted it onto his tongue. Gite was in no mind of putting an end to his thoughts and I was in no hurry. Rules of thumb and a few stories followed.

“Humans are good.  I have seen old couples love one another to the very end.  An aged couple once touched my heart…she had some form of terminal cancer and he was kind as any old man I have ever met.  They loved each other so much, and he would sit by her side the whole day and talk to her   Ask him the time and he would tell her  how to build a clock.   But they so loved each other !!!   I have seen grandparents tenderly raising the children their own sons and daughters abandoned.  I have talked with parents of drug addicts, struggling to do their best for them.   I have seen young parents loose infants and mourn in ways you could not imagine.  I have been amazed that the scary, tattooed men (with jewellery all over them and  who resemble the ‘goondas’  from any of Ram Gopal Verma’s underworld movies)  was all tears and kindness, no matter how they may have looked on the outside.  I have met men and women who could have been on disability, but who worked on despite their shortcomings. I have seen prostitutes giving their mother’s milk to their little ones.  I know physicians who give their all, at all hours of the day and night struggling against the system to give their best to the poor patients.  Humans are capable of enormous amount of love and compassion. And there’s the other side of the coin.  Humans are wicked.  Just last year I saw a man who had severely beaten a child.  And he himself had been beaten in jail. I have seen doctors taking money and writing false medical certificates..  In fact, I have seen doctors denying treatment for the greed of money.  Men and women routinely cheat on their spouses, become addicted to alcohol, drugs and pornography, and drive their vehicles illegally and while intoxicated.  Humans lie, cheat, steal and do everything else imaginable to lower our expectations.  And some of the worst wear expensive suits and speak perfect English.  Do not be deceived by external appearance my son”.

He ushered for the waiter to get us some more tit bits to eat.  I was actually waiting for him to continue. He didn’t disappoint me. (I was relaxed as the tit bits were complimentary…!!)

“I know of an old drunkard.  He had served time in jail for murder and would regularly come to the casualty completely drunk.  Either he would walk in alone or else the local police would have brought him in after some street brawl.  Either way he would always be in an inebriated state.  None of the casualty staff nurses would tend to him.  He was very harsh and crude with his words.  So many a times it was me who used to start an IV line for him.  My years of experience putting in IV canulas helped me as I pushed in the sharp object into his pulsating vein in one shot.  He often threatened to kill me.  He could have.  He would never lie down still.  The alcohol in him would do all the talking.  He was vey loud and profane.  In the middle of his fury I would go up to him and tell him ‘Gawde, there is a baby sleeping in the next room.  Please be quiet..!!  And believe me he would stop the commotion, would apologize and start weeping. I came to know later that Gawde could, and did  recite verses from the Bhagavad Gita on a daily basis…!!!

I have seen all sorts of people.  From people like Gawde who has no money to multimillionaires.  Money is what makes the difference.  But I feel medicine is not only about making money.  Money cannot make you happy; money cannot provide the meaning you so desperately require in order to press on toward the goal to which you were called.  Many of the least happy doctors  I know make lots of money.  Money compels many bad decisions, and many moral perils, in which men and women make bad decisions because of the lure of cash.  The news is full of their stories.  But money is not evil, it is the the lust for  money which is the root of evil.  If you do your job well, you will deserve to be paid well.  Compensation is appropriate, and the lack of fair compensation for work will kill your work enthusiasm and productivity quicker.  Never be ashamed of your skills, or of the desire to be paid for them. And always remember that money is payment for the time of your life, which you have spent in training to become a doctor.  You need the money, and your employer needs your skill.  They key is to have something someone needs, and to be willing to do what others don’t want to do, in places they don’t want to go”.

The waiter came and gave us our next round of whisky with the bill and reminded us that this would be the last order. I smiled at him, looked at the bill, took out the money from my wallet and gave it to the waiter. I told him to keep the balance as his tip.

“You are young my son and you still have a long way to go.  May God give you many long decades of life.  But in the end, we will all exit the earth.  I have seen a bunch of death and participated in quite a few deaths…I mean, as a hospital staff.  I have watched aged men and women die slowly, holding hands.  I have seen infants who died in their sleep.  And I have seen young people, in the prime of life , die tragically from accidents, or from cancers that they never expected.  We can delay it; so live healthy lives and don’t take unnecessary risks.  But in the end, it gets to us all. Because this is so, life is precious.  Moments are precious.  Do not waste them.  Use them in genuine pleasure, use them in love, use them to produce and create and leave behind a legacy of wonder.   And so, I struggle to use every minute well.  A life in which death is certain should inspire you to fill up every breathing moment with something good.  I hope to stand before God, exhausted because I was still moving forward when I died.

A famous philosopher once said ‘Your true calling is the place where your deep gladness meets the world’s deep need.’  Let me say that again……J J …..(forgive me for my Facebook addiction..!!! )

You have gifts of love and opportunity.  So find the things you do best and use them for the good of the world.  But don’t be surprised if your calling changes with the years, even your profession!

Calling may have nothing to do with your job; your job may merely exist to support your calling.  Your calling may be something you desire deeply; or something you have not yet even discovered.  Be patient, but be persistent just like how I am with alcohol.  All the best my son, all the best”.

He gulped down his last peg of whisky. We got up and started walking out of the bar.Before parting ways I shook his hands. I smiled at him. I still felt incomplete…..

I stooped down touched his feet and took his blessings.

We parted ways and haven’t met since.

 (I pray for Ramakanth Gite’s soul to rest in peace)