The era of the family doctor

Looking through the book stand at the airport, I found a rack that said ‘Famous Authors’ but my recent book was not on it. Clearly I have a long way to go. But I suddenly began thinking about an interaction I had with Dr. Raghavachari. I was sitting in his office in Thiruvallikeni flipping through the pages of a magazine called, I think, ‘Outlook’ or something like that. It was a business magazine of the 60s in India that usually had a page of photos of company events and executives in transition. He mischievously looked at me and said, ‘If your father’s picture is not there, he can’t be very famous, can he?’

Dr. Major K. Raghavachari MBBS was a peculiar bird. He had served as a medical doctor in the British army which is probably where he got to resemble the British. He was fair, about 5’ 10” and walked with a stoop, and spoke Tamil like a Britisher might. ‘Pad – ma – na – bhan’ he would call out to his compounder, stressing out each syllable, as if he might otherwise get it wrong. He always wore white; white pants and a white bush-shirt.

Dr. Raghavachari was our family doctor, since he was the Company Physician at Parry & Co. where Anna worked. That meant we would have to go to him (I think everyone did except Amma) when we fell ill, which was not too bad except that his system of seeing patients had a peculiar logic. He did not believe in the ‘first-come-first-served’ principle, so we would have to wait in his waiting room hoping that nobody else pulled rank. All those who were his friends got to see him first. And he would chat with them endlessly while we were fighting our demise in his waiting room. I was a regular visitor to his clinic since I would suffer every month from tonsillitis and would have to go to him for a bottle of tincture benzoine for which he would write a prescription and I would take it to the pharmacy. God help you if you went to him for his signature on some NCC form certifying physical fitness. You had to sit there and wait till you became disabled.

But if you went with Anna, then, of course, you got to pass all those in the waiting room (‘suckers!’) and got to see him right away. He would order a horribly looking cup of coffee for Anna. And you could sit there and chat. I remember chatting with him on all kinds of things. Once, he corrected me when I said ‘preponed’ (as an antonym of postponed. Logical, right?) saying there was no such word. I rushed back home to look it up in the dictionary and he was right! Of course, it is commonly used, in India, at least, and I’m sure the gatekeepers of the language have by now included it at least in the Indian versions of the dictionary.

Dr. Raghavachari was more than a family doctor. He was a family friend. He would visit Patti (Amma’s mother) daily to give her an insulin injection; his clinic was at the other end of the same street (Nallathambi Mudali St, Tiruvallikeni) where she lived. He was also of the genre of physicians who made house calls. The only problem was that he would not come when he was needed but when it suited him, usually after 9.30 pm when he finished his clinic and was on his way home! This irritated Amma no end, who would grumble and say, “Does one have to be on the deathbed for him to come right away?’

Raghavachari and Anna went way back, to the early days in Parrys when Anna was a rising executive and a hockey player and so was Raghavachari. They would both play for the company team.

During 1947-1952, Mohana was parked with Patti at the Nallathambi Mudali St. house, I’m told, and was going to school there. One day, she ran off to a carnival at the Bharath Scouts and Guides field (on the beach road) at the invitation of Dr. Raghavachari who was the official doctor there too. She took part in a running race and even won a prize! The family was in a panic, not knowing where she was. Finally, after she was tracked down, there was a family crisis with Patti declaring that she could not be responsible for Mohana’s truant habits anymore and she had to be sent to Hyderabad pronto (where the rest of the family was). It was Raghavachari who got hold of an air ticket (as ‘Menon’s daughter’ I’m told, perhaps a spare ticket lying around) and shipped her off before she completed her 7th. Standard exams.

But Raghavachari came home many Sundays, when he was at the clinic only half a day. This was a social visit to gossip about Parry & Co. politics and have his cup of coffee (no sugar, I think he was diabetic). He would wait at the gate and honk and one of us would have to go out and open the gate for him to drive in and close it after him. Same thing when he left!

Clearly he did not think much about going home to spend time with his family. His brother-in-law and his family lived with him (living off his largesse, I’m told).

He was also the officiating physician of the Madras Motor Sports Club (Was there only one doctor in Madras at that time?) and got me a pass to attend the annual Sholavaram races. That was cool, walking through the pits, and watching all those racers pollute the air!

Coming to think of it, his inability to speak anything other than English probably was genetic. His brother, Air Vice Marshall K. Narasimhan AVSM also spoke like him. And N. Gopi, (of Kadam – Sharanya fame) who is AVM Narasimhan’s son, is also similarly challenged!

I wonder how many of the doctors in the family remember Raghavachari. Chinni mentioned to Dasharath the other day that I am the only one of the siblings who does not have a doctor (certified or in process) in the family. His only response was, ‘Too late now.”