LAKSHMI AND I were classmates since 1966. In 1971-72, when I got to know her individually I realised I loved her, but I didn’t have the courage to even inform her. She too had the same feelings for me and for some years we silently adored each other for our individual merits and natures till at last we worked up the courage to confess. We went to Chandigarh for further studies and in 1975, completed our MS studies together. We felt we were inseparable and finally married there and I began working in the General Surgery department as the Registrar.

Although Lakshmi’s relatives and well-wishers discouraged her from taking up M Ch, in Plastic Surgery, a higher qualification than MS, I wished that she should study further and prove to the world that all men are not the same—jealous of a more qualified wife! Contrary to popular opinion, all husbands are not chauvinists. I feel that there should not be gender difference in obtaining qualification between wife and husband as one should have the right to get what one deserves, either in qualification or otherwise. I tried to help Lakshmi pursue her dreams, at least, in some possible ways within my capacity. Meanwhile, we had our loving daughter whom I adored and loved the most.

Then it was time to leave the institute after a fixed tenure of three years post-MS. Although we had the opportunity to continue as the faculty in PGI, we opted to go to UK to work and learn more in our respective subjects and also let go of a good chance of going to UAE.

I chose the option of going away from this country to overcome the blame or fear or consequences of inter-religious marriage that had always haunted me. A friend helped us move on and we reached UK soon enough leaving all our friends and relatives in India. There was certainly a sense of freedom in this new future, but it was tempered by a nagging fear—of growing and furthering in training and studies in the new environment. The need for earning and saving for the future so that we could sustain ourselves without external help mounted pressure on me. It was indeed a new environment, new weather, new people, new culture and so on but the sense of non-interference with our personal and day-to-day life kept me sane. I finally felt free from the pressures that haunted me.

I was literally tired after the tedious preparation and the long journey from India and I definitely felt lonely as I had always been surrounded by friends back home. I joined my first job, but left it soon for a better one. In my new job, I was very comfortable and happy as I was respected for my skills and qualifications in spite of being a foreign doctor.

We were initially staying at Downpatrick, a small town in Northern Ireland where I had got my first job in surgery. We were given a big independent bungalow to stay in the residential area of the town. It was December and very cold and lonely staying without any acquaintances in a strange land. However we had a middle-aged lady to mind our daughter when we were away at work in two different hospitals. We did not have a car and my wife used to start from home by 5:30 am to walk a mile to reach the bus station and it was another mile of walk to the hospital where she worked.

Life was certainly more satisfying abroad in terms of facilities and mechanisation in the medical sciences field. What attracted me most was the truthfulness of human beings without hypocrisy (of course in the circles I moved and lived). People respected me for what I was, and had a no-nonsense behaviour, not a little more nor a little less than what was the truth!

While in Chandigarh, my life was moulded to a large extent by my teacher—to be honest, hardworking and truthful. My visit and work abroad only reinforced my faith in life towards the same three principles and the loads of experience I was getting enriched their value further.

One night when I was on call, a drunken white man came with injuries that needed attention but he was so drunk that he insisted on a white doctor to take care of him. The nurse in-charge explained to him that I was the best available although I was coloured and if she ever got injured, she would prefer me to any white doctor in that hospital. But the patient was not to be swayed and adamantly demanded his way. Of course I was feeling bad about the entire nasty situation. The nurse and some other people present on the occasion tried their best to convince the man to agree to being treated by me. But the man, who was in a highly inebriant state, started using foul language. The nurse called the police and in less than three minutes he was booked under a nuisance case and was taken to jail.

In a way it surprised me that a white doctor was not called in to treat a white man. On the contrary, it was the police that was eventually called! I was, no doubt, very satisfied with the treatment I was receiving in that country as a surgeon in terms of quality and quantity of surgeries. But I was overworked, doing a lot of others peoples’ work too, which my wife felt was exploitation. It was probably true.

I was unable to clear some exams as a result all the work pressure, also as I hardly got time to prepare the way I could do in India, especially basic sciences that were long forgotten by me by then. It meant that there was no growth to look forward for me abroad.

Then the thought of our children, who would be brought up in western culture, gave us a lot of discomfort. I thought it would be wiser to go back to our native country where we could allow them to grow in a known Indian way of life. After spending five to six years in Belfast, UK, we had the options of settling there, or going back as faculty to PGI, or joining the Andhra state service, or getting into practice. We chose to take the latter option and settled in my native place, Vijayawada in private practice.

Life in the West, where I lived for six years, was indeed much disciplined, clean, hassle free, organised, satisfying, pleasant and mostly mechanical. What bothered me most was the materialistic way of looking at things in life unlike the philosophical and emotional way that we are used to in our day to day life in India. Radical thoughts about racial discrimination did not affect me as I took it to be a universal phenomenon having gone from India, a country with diversity. Of course, I never enjoyed the majority status anytime and I always was in the minority category all my life. Such things do not bother people like me who are a minority in their own country.

I returned from the UK in 1984 after completion of my advanced training in Surgery. I had already mastered the surgical techniques in the renowned Medical Institute in Chandigarh before I left for UK in 1978 but now taught postgraduate students in the UK. All the while, I practiced the three principles taught by my teacher.

Although I had left India with the hope of expanding my knowledge base further in surgical techniques and also buying time to be able to withstand the pressures of life and society and to sustain myself and my family courageously with the consequences of an inter-religious marriage, I enjoyed a richness of experience during my stay in the UK. The hygeneic, disciplined, scheduled and satisfying experience, both professionally and socially, was gratifying indeed. I feel that my devotion to work, personal skills and humility gave me the social status which I enjoyed in the western society. The confidencnce that I gained from my UK sojourn translated into rich dividends back home. It brought me widespread fame, reputation and status and dignitaries as patients who trusted my skills.

I strongly feel that one should visit the West and get a first-hand experience of its culture, but imbibe only good things that are found there. Professionally, I did not have access to any of the present modern gadgets or procedures while I was a trainee in India, and had only clinical skills to depend on when I had left the countryunlike the West. Even the Ultrasound or CT was unheard of during my initial career days. Today, when modern gadgets are available in the country, I strongly feel these should be used as complimentary to our clinical skills. One should not completely become slave to the gadgets alone like the West. This is what I teach my students and what I always follow—the fundamentals that each patient should receive the same importance and treatment that one would provide one’s own kin.