A Surgeon's Comprehensive Incision Of Life

Jagadish Lal Vaidya, a well-known surgeon associated with Shanta Bhawan, Nepal Nursing Home, and B & B Hospital with sporadic innings in other medical facilities, has penned a book detailing twists and turns that marked his variegated career. The autobiography entitled Jagadishkaa Paailaaharu which can roughly be translated as the Footsteps of Jagadish is an important addition to the list of books written by medical professionals with Dr. Hemang Dixit topping the list, Dr. Manindra Ranjan Baral and Dr. Sudha Sharma, only to name a few.

In reading the book, I am reminded of my days at The Rising Nepal in the seventies when two medicos, Dr. Hemang Dixit and Dr. Jwala Raj Pandey, used to write regular columns, Vaidyaraj Column and Kathmandu Kaleidoscope, respectively. Dr. Vaidya has conveniently divided his book into forty chapters plus two chapters, one contributed by family members and the other by his close friend, Dr. Ashok Banskota, jointly credited with the establishment of the B & B Hospital.

In the Preface, the author makes a confession that life is a mix of good and bad, opportunity and setback, achievement and failure, and, optimism and pessimism. He laments at the prevailing trend of self-pontification in the form of autobiography or memoirs. The proceeds of the book are dedicated to the Hospital and Rehabilitation Center for Disabled Children.

The first three chapters are written on a rather pessimistic note as the family became victims as terrorists sought huge amounts of ransom money keeping them in virtual confinement with the threat of physical action in case they did not accede to their demands along with the abduction of their son from the residence. The family was further subjected to another extortion on monetary grounds. These chapters break the chronological order of the otherwise highly readable work. 

The first chapter entitled Tyo Kaalo Raat (that dark or dreadful night) is the longest relating to mental torture and psychological horror on March 22, 2006, and runs like a thriller movie or sensational drama with bouts of depression and mental exhaustion.

It is lamenting that no concrete action was taken by authorities despite bold claims of nabbing culprits and returning huge ransom in the form of cash and valuables including jewellery. The whole operation conducted in the very nose of the supposedly secure establishment at a newly developed posh area of Dholahiti, Patan, with fearlessness, precision, and planning, badly exposes our law and order situation.

Dr. Vaidya's dreadful experience had curiously direct connections with two serious incidents relating to the medical fraternity. There was the abduction on July 26, 2008, and subsequent release on August 3, 2008, of Megha, the 16-year-old daughter of senior neurosurgeon Dr. Upendra Devkota, after payment of a huge amount of ransom money. This was preceded by a heinous attempt to murder leading pediatrician and health administrator, Dr. Hemang Dixit who had a miraculous recovery from the attack on May 4, 2006, even prompting the prolific writer to pen a fresh volume rightly entitled My 2 Innings (memories of a non-cricketer).

Dr. Vaidya also paints a gloomy status of the most cumbersome procedure involved in the return of properties including cash even after appropriation of the stolen goods and amount by the police. He rightly draws a lesson on why so many intellectuals choose to leave the country as they find the law and order situation and approach of the authorities most unpalatable.

The author also laments the casually ritualistic attitude of political leaders and authorities despite being approached for redressal of grievances making it more unacceptable to people especially the professional class to stay in the country for the pursuance of their livelihood in an atmosphere of security and confidence. 

The next nine chapters deal with his family, upbringing, and school and college activities as his father involved in the legal profession had to look after a big family consisting of his spouse and 12 children. Three subsequent chapters are equally interesting as they relate to his saga of completion of the MBBS course including internship from Government Medical College, Amritsar amidst the high drama of confirmation, refusal, and re-confirmation of the seat through the intervention of the Nepal Embassy in New Delhi. Being a former practising diplomat that too with two innings in the same mission apart from a stint in Kolkata, I am pleased to read the best impression of the writer with our Embassy that is normally subjected to criticisms. 

Chapters 16th and 17th deal with his advent in the service as a medical doctor, his wedding on November 30, 1972, with a paltry amount of Rs. 4,200, and the saga of taking a passport at a time medical doctors were normally refused such documents. He not only wrote agriculture as his profession but also used connections to influence the interview for the passport, apart from paying bribes to the Subba of the Chief of Protocol Division that used to issue passports.

Other chapters relate to his stringent schedules of study, struggle, and hard work for the acquisition of coveted degrees of FRCS from both Edinburgh and London. The book gives a good account of his efforts to open the first private hospital in the form of Kathmandu Nursing Home that metamorphosed into B & B Hospital and tireless but fruitless endeavours to start a medical college. 

While he was frequently subjected to cheating by unscrupulous elements, his investments in real estate now give him dividends as a result of soaring values of lands and the establishment of a huge agricultural farm ironically in line with his false declaration as an agriculturist instead of a medical doctor to get a passport for going to the UK. 

The 40th and concluding chapter written in a stop-press manner again borders on pessimism and even mental depression as it relates to the family's serious affliction of the COVID-19 pandemic. While the book is extremely well-written with frank expressions of his views, it has also taken care to write brief obituaries of people who had been near and dear to the family.

(Dr. Bhattarai is a former Foreign Secretary and ambassador. kutniti@gmail.com.)