SURGEON'S DIARY: This is in honour of my beloved mother and father

Precisely on the 25th of this month, Surgeon’s Diary completed its 35 year run as a column in the Sunday Nation. Having made its debut on Sunday May 25, 1980, the 851st “Diary” was published on the 17th of this month.

To celebrate its 35th anniversary, I thought I should do something different than relate a case out of my surgical archives. The idea of what to do came from two sources.

One was the column by Prof Austin Bukenya in the Saturday Nation of May 16. In this article he celebrated the first anniversary of his column and then went on to elaborate on anniversaries in general and focussed on Mother’s and Father’s days, briefly writing about his dear mother.

This alliance with the good professor is not new to me because in 1981, he revived my flagging interest in creative writing by helping me to rewrite my second novel, which was published under the title The Price of Living.

The other inspiration came from the “Feedback” in the Saturday Magazine of the same date where three readers commented favourably on Jackson Biko’s article about his mom as a tribute paid to her on Mother’s Day.

Varying his words slightly, the dreams of my mum and dad are stirring me and I have decided to write about them to commemorate the anniversary of my “Diary”. I owe a lot to them but, more significantly, there would be no surgeon or the ‘Surgeon’s Diary’ without them!

Having written this long prelude, I must admit that I remember very little about my mother because I was only eight when she passed away.

Nevertheless, I do remember what she looked like. She was petite, patient, quiet and submissive. Her face was loving and kind, full of fortitude and forbearance.

She always wore the traditional three piece suit, which consisted of a knee length tunic, a pair of trousers which clung to her legs and a stole that covered her head. She never went to school, except for the madrassah for girls, where she was taught how to read and recite the Holy Koran, pray five times a day and become a religious, virtuous individual.

Her role in the family was carved out for her by custom and tradition. It was to bear children and care for them and her husband.

I remember two amusing incidents in relation to my mum.  Every night, after dinner, she insisted that I drink a glass of milk.

When I finished doing so, she would say. “Now stand up and walk so that the milk flows down your legs and makes them strong.” Obviously her version of human anatomy was vastly different from Gray and Cunnigham, two great British anatomists, who had dissected the whole human body and had written text books on the subject.

I suspect she seriously believed that like the inside of a doll, there were pipes in my body which would conduct the milk from my stomach to my legs!

The other incident occurred when His Majesty King George the Fifth died on January 20, 1936. The news was announced next day in Mumbai Samachar, a popular Gujarati daily, which my dad read punctiliously. He conveyed the news to my mum and said to her “King George the Fifth is dead.”

“Who is King George the Fifth?” asked my mum nonchalantly.

“He is the King of Great Britain and Emperor of India,” replied my father.

GRANDIOSE TITLESDID NOT MEAN ANYTHING TO MUM

The grandiose titles did not mean anything to my mum, which greatly irked my dad. My eldest brother, who was a college student, had a brain wave. He brought one rupee coin out of his pocket on which was engraved the head of the late King Emperor and showed it to mum. 

 “Oh him!” was my mum’s wry response to the chagrin of my dad.

I poignantly remember the day she died on February 19, 1937. As a doctor, I am convinced retrospectively that her untimely death was supremely preventable.

She delivered her lastborn son at the crack of dawn and continued to bleed copiously. No attempt was made to stop the bleeding and there was no blood in the primitive blood bank.

I vividly remember my dad rolling up his sleeve and thrusting his elbow under the double chin of the Anglo-Indian lady doctor saying: “Take as much blood as you need to save my wife’s life.”

As a little boy barely reaching my father’s waist, I remember the doctor, her white uniform perilously stretched at the seams by her gross corpulence, her broad triangular headgear flapping like a peacock’s plumage, sipping her midday yoghurt drink, replying without showing an iota of sympathy: “I doubt if your blood will match.”

After that, my dad and we five siblings including the newborn, sat around her bed watching helplessly as her life ebbed away under our very eyes. She was only 35.

I remember my dad better because I was 20 and already a medical student when he passed away. In fact he was admitted with his terminal illness in the teaching hospital where I was studying.

He was tall, quite well built and cut an imposing figure in his white cotton sherwani, a knee length coat, buttoned up to the neck in the modern Nehru jacket style, laced shoes and red round Turkish cap. He had the gift of the gab and could easily spin a yarn which kept his audience enthralled.

PAINFULLY PUNCTUAL

He was painfully punctual, a legacy which he passed on to me, an extremely kind man, sometimes even emotional and sentimental. He proffered two bits of advice to me.

One was, “God gave you two ears and one tongue so that you listen twice as much as you speak.” I must confess that he did not practise what he preached! His second admonition was against delegation. He quoted a local proverb which said “If you want to go to heaven, you must die yourself!” I must add that he followed this advice to the letter and also bequeathed it to me.

In contrast to my mother, he attended primary school for four years, during which time he learnt the three ‘R’s. He read and wrote Gujarati and sent very flowery letters to us in that vernacular language.

However, he excelled at the third ‘R’ and could do mental sums with speed and accuracy which would leave the modern calculators reeling. His greatest regret was that he did not speak English.

Once in the course of his business, he was due to meet an Englishman and asked an English speaking friend to write on a piece of paper, “I am sorry, I don’t speak any English” and promptly handed it to his esteemed visitor as soon as he was introduced to him. He was so embarrassed that he made a momentous decision there and then; his children would never suffer the same humiliation.

Since knowing the English language was synonymous with higher education, he sent all his children to different professional courses at the university.

When he was ill, I brought him to my teaching hospital, where he was diagnosed as a late case of cancer of his gullet.

Eventually he could not swallow even water and a tube was inserted into his stomach through which I used to feed him nourishing liquids. He passed away on December 15, 1948 and, with the help of my elder brother, who had flown to be with him and me, I arranged his burial in a cemetery near the hospital.

Amongst the mourners, I was surprised to see the manager of the students’ mess and politely asked him why he was there when, at the end of the funeral ceremony, we all went to the mess for refreshments.

“Your dad often came to see the dean to beg him to grant you a place in the medical school. He knew that being a missionary institution, preference would be given to Christian applicants.

Every time he came, he ended up in the mess for lunch when he told me how happy he would be if you got in.”

As I was listening tearfully, he added: “Let me tell you how you got in. The policy of the hospital was to give seats to Christian students from various parts of India so that they could spread the Gospel countrywide, when they returned home after graduation.”

He sipped mixed tea as he went on. “Two weeks before the new term started, the Christian boy from your part of the country died of typhoid fever.

While the dean was wondering how to find another Christian student, your dad appeared on the scene, cap in hand, head bowed and profusely sweating in the midday heat.

The dean took pity on him and probably thought that instead of converting the converted, this time give the seat to a heathen like you who, out of gratitude, might join the flock one day!” As he looked at me drying my eyes, he added the poignant punch line: “It was your dad’s 26th visit here.”

I retraced my steps to the cemetery. It was full moon and the marble tombstones were shimmering under the milky moonlight.

There were a few flowers covering the worldly remains of my dad. I wondered how far he would have gone, if he had higher education and the opportunities I had. I said a silent prayer for him, as I remembered my mother’s last words. “Look after your dad,” she advised all her children in her feeble voice.

“He has worked very hard, so that you enjoy a better life than he did.”