CHAPTER II
INTRODUCTION WITH TRIBAL INDIA
MY PRE-MEDICAL DAYS AT RANCHI
(1970-73)
I fail to understand the genesis of the word Harijan in
the saintliest possible mind like that of Gandhi as all living creatures (not
to talk of man) are jans of Hari, (in fact, non-living matters too exhibit the natural laws e.g. atomic laws of Quantum),
who are governed by the same Force. But
Gandhi had eit her forgotten or not
laid much stress on the so-called tribes of the country who were living in
several crores in this country.
Personally, I do not like the derogatory
word ‘tribe’ since it would have
probably been better if we all were pure and pious like most of the so called
tribes and I think, the ‘Indian tribe’ or ‘Hindu tribe’ is the correct word for
all of us to differentiate us from the westerners, imit ating
whose pseudo-culture only had made this distinction between ‘tribe’ and
‘non-tribe’.
Yet, I have used this eponym to describe my
contacts wit h the tribal heartland
of the country – Ranchi it s capit al.
After appearing at the examination of the
SSC (Matriculation), I went to my village and from there I went to Munger to
attend the Sangh Shiksha Varg in the summer of 1970. The playground of Karn Chaura was
magnificent and I remember more about it s
date trees and their sweet fruit s
than the training in the camp. Yet, I recall Guruji, Eknathji and some other
towering pers onalit ies and their speeches. Eknathji told us the most
important shloka of Bharat Bhakti Stotram is the last but one – Anukta
ye bhaktah...
I was poor in sharirik (physical) but
my bauddhik (intellectual) paper was examined by someone, may be a
master of sharirik only (I was awarded 44 per cent only, wit hout a single mistake shown in the copy-book which
is still in my possession).
We were camping at the Model School and when
the SSC results appeared in the newspapers ,
I asked a teacher of that school, who had a copy of that newspaper in his
hands, for the result mentioning my roll no. He congratulated me on my result
as I was placed in the first division (which was rare in those days and
exclaimed that such students were also attending the camp!).
I returned to Forbesganj. My father was willing that I should go for higher studies outside to any
town but he had no idea of the colleges. My brother was studying in MSc (chemistry),
at Indore Science College ,
Patna used to be a dream for any good student of
Bihar . Since my elder maternal uncle was a
student of the Rajendra Medical College (RMC), Ranchi ,
my father suggested that I should apply for admission at Ranchi
I went first to Ranchi
I filled up the form for admission to the Ranchi College it ted
there.” I refused flatly to study in any
Christian missionary college. He told me, “If your answer-book will have any
mistake in the Ranchi College , it
will be considered as galati it considering the same as bhul
(error).” I replied, “Whatever it may be, I am not going to even fill up the form,
not to talk of studying there.”
Then I came to Patna it h
the help of a senior student
of my school, Arun Kr.
Sinha, I filled up the form for admission to the Science
College and the B.
N. College
but I did not like the din and bustle of Patna
When I returned to Forbesganj, I fell
ill. I had multiple pyaemic abscesses.
My father took me to the Darbhanga
Medical College
Hospit al it to II Class
wit hout improving any amenit ies.
I
presume, the time is coming when any other popular minister may re-designate it as I Class like the slogan Garibi Hatao.
Whether leaders should follow Gandhi in travelling in III Class or not, all the
same, in my opinion, if one has to know a localit y,
travelling in an ordinary class and that too, in a passenger train helps, which
I love to do.
I was operated upon. During my stay in the hospit al, I read many books from the DMCH Library (now
also there is a library, the same library, but I did not see anyone making use
of it ).
Init ially,
I was asked to lie on the floor, as no bed was vacant. I saw the doctors in aprons and during ward
rounds some could not avoid touching my body wit h
their shoes. My brother-in-law still
recalls, that I used to say, “Pathakji, today they are doing so, very soon I
will be coming in this ward.” There, I
said so to the RMO of the unit , Md.
Shiraz (later he went to Saudi
Arabia Ranchi College it created problems to my guardian in taking up the
case of my admission.
Later, when I took admission to the
Darbhanga Medical College (DMC), I went to meet Shiraz Saheb. On scratching his
memory, he could recall that boy patient in me. In Class II, in the Hindi book,
Navin Bharti, I had read a story Balak Gangaram Ki Tek, where the
boy Gangaram sat on the chair of an engineer unknowingly and the engineer came
and chided him.
But Nature had destined me to writ e this autobiography as a medico ...
Later on another similar incident happened .
In 1975, I read an article on Polypathy by the famous doctor-philosopher of the
state, Dr. Srinivas. I sent my crit icism
on it . In his reply he wanted to see
me. I went to Patna it h me in solit ude. In a prolonged discussion he was not
convinced by my apprehensions on the mutual referral process of patients in
such a commercialized world of ours. At last, he said that I was a young
pre-clinical student and he asked me to come after passing the MBBS
examination.
In 1980, I went to his residence and I told
him about our meeting five years earlier.
He recollected our discussion and he attended the symposium on the Role
of Medicos in National Reconstruction in the First Conference of the NMO,
held a few days later at Patna it h my wife to show an example that I could be
flexible, to convince her while I had been having continued insomniac nights
after she had deserted me.
I left tea not because of Ramchandra Sharma
‘Veer’s oath taken in my childhood but I left taking tea in 1975 in a flooded
house of a Judge, at Laheriasarai, when to offer even a cup of tea was
difficult and I had been getting something better in lieu of it . Vijay Raj told me once that I would take tea
only from my wife’s hand and in that chain I thought to make his prophecy true,
half of which was that I got a wife. Once wit h
her own hands at Dibrugarh (where she was a medical internee), she passed me a
cup of tea. It is no more a matter of
obsession; it has rather become a
matter of prevention of hyperacidit y.
Though the interview letters from the Science
College , Patna
and the B. N.
College , Patna
as well as from the Ranchi College , Ranchi it h my
life than study. At last, my relatives
took my admission in my absence at Ranchi and
when I became well, I went to Ranchi
The Ranchi College it ies of it s
students. The staff was highly
qualified. The hostels, newly built, were marble-floored, and windows were of
beautiful glasses. Dining tables and
utensils were very fine and it
looked more like a hotel. I think a
hostel differs from a hotel in the sense that here and extra ‘s’ stands for
students and study and if study is gone what difference remains?
There is the big Morhabadi ground wit h attractive eucalyptus arcade. I saw people
playing golf for the first time there
and also hockey. I knew later that
hockey sticks had some other use in the time of tension.
I escaped ragging, as I was a latecomer and
a sick boy. I liked the food so much
that when I returned home first time, I did not relish the food to which I was
accustomed so far. Now the qualit y must have deteriorated.
To attend classes in big rooms was
exhilarating but students were most undisciplined. They used to test the
strength of their fists on large glass-panes. Some authors of the books were
also our teachers like Dr. A. L. Saha, whose lectures were sometimes
incomprehensible to my young mind, more so, I was not accustomed to the English
medium of instruction and classroom lectures.
The other face of authorship, I saw after a
few months. My hostel superintendent
called me and asked me to writ e the
answers of some Botany questions. When I
had shown him the answers, he told me, “It is above standard. Writ e
simple.” I rewrote them. He told me,
“Now it is all right and once it is published, I shall give you a copy.” Later I
did not ask him eit her for that
help-book or I ever tried to see any other help-book. Later on I knew my own
standard and I did not like to know the standard of any fellow student.
No
doubt, I had cheated, but I had cheated from his notes dictated to me in free
tuit ion class as I was very close to
him on account of the Sangh activit ies. Had he given me better marks, I would not
have been placed in the II division in ISc (II year) and neit her would have lost merit
scholarship nor the ad-hoc appointment in the Bihar State Health Service in
1983. I missed that appointment for
merely one point and I had lost two points for not being in the first division
in the ISc. Had it not happened so,
I could have completed the tenure of the senior RMO by 1989.
I am not correlating these facts on merely
flimsy grounds. It may be true that I
would not have attained the requisit e
standards. I recalled what mamaji
had told me on the choice between the St. Xavier’s vs. the Ranchi College it y (19th in Bihar*), I went
to take blessings from the same teacher and also said jovially, “Sir, it is the first time a student of the Ranchi College
has scored in any examination of this nature over the students of the St.
Xavier’s College.” He probably did not
remember his old stand and blessed me cheerfully. Of course, he was a dear pers on.
But there were teachers of other varieties
as well. Prof. H.C. Mishra, who later became guide for PhD of my elder brother,
was a man of another temperament. In the
PUC, I knew him. My brother’s teacher
had asked for any reputed man’s name for being the examiner of the PhD. So, I had gone to him. He was a reputed
specialist on halogens. He not only gave
his consent but also asked me to come off and on. I used to visit his residence usually on Sundays.
* including Jharkhand
He
taught me tit ration, air, etc. and
corrected my notes on air and water, etc.
He also gave me some important questions. After sometime he left for the
Tribhuvan Universit y , Kathmandu . By the time he returned, my examination in
Chemistry papers were over. I told him that I could not writ e a note on Weldon’s mud, though he had
instructed me to read that. He said
sadly that in spit e of his hint I
could not catch that. Actually, I never
had the habit of selective study.
Yet, I scored over 75 per cent in Chemistry theory papers .
Interestingly, my fellow senior student had received a chit
on tit ration (during BSc I
examination). I saw it and said it
was wrong. He was furious, “You are a
PUC student, how do you know about it .”
I humbly drew his attention to the value of N, which was 10 times more in the
chit . As such he regretted. Thanks; at least he had this knowledge.
Copying in examination is difficult to
understand like mob psychology. When I discover myself, I confess that I had
done superb class copying in the ISc examination; particularly even other
student drew the sketches for me, as I was not adept in the art of
sketching. But it
did not mean that I did not know the subject. I recall, in a question, a Plasmodium’s
diagram was required to be drawn. While all students sketched whole lifecycle,
I sketched (this pers onally) a
single sporozoit e. So, it is a fancy to copy when everybody is copying.
I had somehow prior information of the essay
that was set in the mother-tongue paper.
I had many blank answer-books of the universit y
examination, which the students had taken out during a walkout. I wrote the
answer beforehand and stit ched it inside the answer-book, removing the same number
of pages and answering the other questions exactly ending in the preceding
page.
Though there were pers ons
who used to take answer-books outside and return them by the next day. Once the
examination could be held only on the verbal compromise wit h
the universit y authorit ies when they allowed the students for copying.
This probably happened in the examination of a Chemistry paper of ours. The examination commenced 2.5 hours late and
the result was – no attempts were made to leak out the question paper.
The people who knew me at Ranchi
My roommate was quit e
apprehensive as to what would happen in the examination? I told him, “You would not copy because you
had not done so in your life but I would not copy, not because I cannot but
because I have decided not to do so.”
Still my friend copied in Pharmacy but I did not.
It was because after the formation of the
NMO, I had the thinking that I should be a responsible pers on;
more so, I had been in contact wit h
great men like Vinoba, Ramanandan and Bala Saheb Deoras. If I used wrong methods during examinations
then who would not?
My professor of Radiology, Dr. H. R. Yadav,
3-4 years later told Ma. Madan Das of the ABVP at Dr. B. N. Das Gupta’s
house; “I was impressed by Dhanakar when
I saw him writ ing from his memory
when nearly all of the examinees had their books on the examination table.”
Prof. Yadav once told us another interesting
episode. Once in the PMT, a son of a very
senior health officer was to appear. The
answer-book was brought outside and the best-known teachers of Physics,
Chemistry, Botany and Zoology of the town were requested to answer the
questions. When they refused to do so
some other teachers were called. They
solved the problems. The boy could only
score 70 per cent and he could not succeed.
Thus
gradually, the standard of teachers had deteriorated, as they themselves were
the products of copying system or using other wrong methods like pairavi
for their success in examinations.
The Ranchi College it ion of having many
brilliant teachers. Dr. Ashok Sinha of
Zoology could appreciate me as I had asked him questions on snake venoms and
the Krebs’s cycle on the basis of articles published in the Science Reporter
that I was regularly reading. Later on, I prepared notes on Krebs’s cycle and
he corrected them. To become known in a
class of 400 students was not a joke. He
was keen that I should join Zoology Honours and I did so. Afterwards I joined
Botany Honours, as I was not adept in
drawing the figures of animals. I
thought cross-sections of plants in Botany could be managed somehow
diagrammatically.
Then I took admission to
the Darbhanga Medical
College and once thereafter, I went to
meet Prof. Sinha in his tutorial class at the Ranchi College it h
full praise for me.
But joining Botany (Hons.) course was not wit hout difficulty.
Though I had the requisit e
marks, the departmental head, Prof. M. Prasad omit ted
my name on the ground that I was already in Zoology Honours. I protested saying that he had already
selected a boy who was also in the Chemistry Honours course. He was angry and
said, “Do not argue. You do not know how
an Honours seeking student should behave?” Later on, I met my brother like
Prof. K. C. Prasad who explained to that Botany professor my difficulties and
thereafter I could join the Botany
Honours class.
When
my PMT results were out, Prof. M. Prasad felt pride in me and also conveyed it to Principal Damodar Thakur, who subsequently
also honoured me wit h a testimonial.
After a year, I came to Ranchi it .
I used to walk for some distance wit h professor of
Physics, Dr. M. P. Gupta, although he was not my teacher but he
impressed me like another professor of English, R. N. Jha. Even many junior
teachers were helping and inspiring.
I passed the PUC in the first division but
took a decision to reside outside the hostel in order to do some shakha
work. I moved to a room at Morhabadi for a brief period and thereafter I went
near damside at Indrapuri, in a place of complete solit ude.
This was the place where I did study as sadhana so much so that when I
returned to Darbhanga, new occupants named the hutment, I had occupied as
‘Shantiniketan’. My sister’s son competed for the PMT from that hutment. Once,
I met another medical student who had also lived there.
The hutment was in the vicinit y of tribal.
The katcha room was later cemented. There, termit es
ate my books. The dam was nearby. It used to be pretty cold there. Later on, I went many times to meet the
landlord and the lady who were looking after me like their son.
I used to cook food myself. I was so rigid in my behaviour that I
never cared to ask anyone for my needs.
Once during night, I had no stick in the matchbox. I could have asked
the landlady for it but I refrained from doing so. That night I slept
hungry. Later on when I told my brother about it , his remark was, “ You are proud, mend
yourself.” Therefore, I often think
whether the rit ual of begging in few
houses in Chhath festival amounts to making a pers on
humble, and devoid of pride.
I appeared in the PMT in 1972 but could not
succeed. Maybe, I was not prepared after the long tiring I Sc examination. But
there was one more factor. I had some
enlarged glands in the neck and I showed this to Mamaji. He took me to
another doctor. He was a surgeon. He saw
my x-ray chest, etc. He said that I was
all right but for certainty, I should complete anti-tuberculosis course. Then started daily injection of streptomycin,
etc.
Later on at Darbhanga, I met Prof. Mohan
Mishra. He said, “Better forget it .” I also saw my real guru, Prof. B. N.
Das Gupta ignoring these glands unless matted severely. I think the surgeon was sensit ive. My
opinion is, a consultant should be specific– ‘No’ means ‘No’. Your simple sensit iveness may cause hurricane in emotional minds.
Anyway, I could not study for many months,
in fact, wit hout having any
disease. Yet, I decided that next time I
would succeed. Not merely this, I decided that in the examination hall, if I
would be unable to solve any problem and others would be writ ing, I would presume that they
all were writ ing wrong. When I had difficulty in pace-balling
questions of Mechanics in the examination centre at the Rammohun Roy Seminary
at Patna it h flying
colours and I was also declared first from that centre.
But this was not wit hout
hard labour. I read and read, continuously.
In the last week of June 1973 alone, my diary records continuously
14-17-14-13-11-11-16 hours day-wise for the whole week spent in my studies.
Something was passing through my urine,
which I thought to be spermetorrhoea, but later on I learnt that it was phosphaturia.
I fell a prey to this again in 1980 at the time of the first conference
of the NMO, which was due to continued exertion at Patna it al, I requested other co-workers to see that the
conference continued even if something happened to me.
Along wit h
studies, my Sangh work was also in progress.
The shakha was started at Sukhdeonagar, Ranchi it hout
prior permission of the Sangh office, which attracted the officials so much so
that the programme of Ma. Devji, the Organiser, Bihar *
State was arranged there but Ma. Shrishankar Tiwarji visit ed and among 88 workers only 8 were from from
other parts of the town. I was offered the post of karyavah to enable me
to attend the programme of Param
Pujaniya Guruji (which happened to be his last public programme). I had an
idea not to hold the charge of any office but to work as a pracharak or
like a pracharak. So, I declined and asked to be allowed to serve as a
worker in the management category. I was
given the work of arranging the dais, and I did the same along wit h others.
The shakha was well organised. The
instructor (mukhya shikshak) Gurudeep left for Punjab
following the 1984 riots after the assassination of Indira Gandhi. When I was
on the tour of Punjab, I asked Gurudeep to come back to Ranchi
There were many other good swayamsevaks. Wit h
the family of Vishwamohan (now an ophthalmologist), I was most close, as if, I
was his fifth brother. Bhuvan, now an
engineer from the IIT, Kanpur Netarhat
School
* including Jharkhand
The other to be mentioned is the family of
Sushil Sinha — his six brothers have the same init ials
— S.K. I was joking wit h them that a single nameplate as (S.K. Sinha)6 would suffice for them all. Hailing from
Munger they were my hosts when I joined the Bihar Govt. Health Services
there.
The story of Prabhu’s family is fascinating. Prabhu passed MTech from Roorkee. When in
1985, I came back to Ranchi it ion. It
evoked my excit ement and I reached
his big house. After we had our breakfast, I asked his mother whether she remembered me.
She said, “Probably you were coming wit h
Dhanakar Babu.” I said, “I am Dhanakar.”
I
had become bald-headed and so she was mistaken. Then she recalled me and that
was my pleasure.
Dam-side days of mine were
full of difficulties. My elder brother
was regularly sending me 15 rupees per month from his meager salary of Rs. 150,
as he was a part-time lecturer. I know it was a token of love. Actually, the money for monthly expendit ures, I was receiving monthly from my father. But at times, I did not have any money left
even for datvan (twigs) to clean my teeth.
I had the habit
of reading The Times of India and at times I recall, I used to purchase
it for 35 paise, foregoing the
second course of half plate of rice, in lieu thereof.
I was active in the academic field. I saw my article being first published in the
Ranchi College Magazine in 1973.
My article on Sri Ram: Vartman Ki Kasauti Par in Hindi was well
appreciated on the eve of the fourth centenary of the Ramcharit manas. My other article in Mait hili was published in the same magazine on viruses
& fo"kk.kq % fo"k ok uothoud fuekZ.k, is presumably the first scientific article in Mait hili.
In the field of debating in 1970, just after
joining the PUC, I bagged a second prize though some of the contenders had
their education at the Milit ary
School , Tilaiya and the Netarhat School India it y.”
It evoked much laughter. Others wanted to be doctors, engineers, etc. At that time, I did not know that the post of
Chancellor or VC was largely a polit ically
appointed one.
In 1978, at Darbhanga, I had an occasion to
preside over a meeting in which the
late-comer Vice-Chancellor, KSDSU, Ram Karan Sharma spoke merely as a speaker.
In fact, he was to preside over it
but the organisers called me from the audience to conduct the meeting. At the age of 23 years, it was an achievement for me. Probably, it
was because of my role in the formation of the NMO or only 17 months earlier I
had conducted a Lokmanch of the ABVP, where three candidates for the
parliamentary election had declared their assets. The candidates included Prof. Surendra Jha
‘Suman’ and Hukum Deo Narayan Yadav of the Janata Party.
I
began to work hard and soon I was ahead of all students. The organiser was a
communist and he was saying that he would send me to Moscow it h the Sangh.
In the examination, I got the best marks wit h
Distinction. I fared very well in the oral examination. The examiner had come
from Delhi it hout that.
Anyway, it was his choice.
I had one more dream at that time. I was willing to be an MP and wished to
present national problems like Vajpayeejee.
But I never thought of entering state polit ics
or becoming a minister.
Among the books that I read, Dr.
Radhakrishnan’s Dharma was my favourit e
and I started roaming in the branch of Comparative Religion for long and I read
the New Testament also in this regard.
Later, I searched for the Koran, which I could not get in Hindi
or English, but I read some booklets on Islam published by Jamat-e-Islami when
I went to Darbhanga.
The life I led in the Ranchi College it h
money. However, I recall, once I lost
Rs.55 while playing game of three cards wit h a gang travelling in train while coming to Ranchi purchase d,
were few and later considering it a
kind of governmental gambling (sarkari jua), I hated it afterwards. I believe one should earn money by labour and
not by chance.
When in the PUC class, my friends asked me
to accompany them to a hotel in the town. I used spoons and forks for the first
time taking dosa in the Madras Coffee House. This was the time that I
started wearing full-pant though most of the time I was in pyjama even
while participating in that prestigious debate where the VC was present.
Though my yajnonpavit
was held in 1966, I used to repeat Gayatri Mantra only 10 times a
day. Vedanand Jha, an income-tax officer
and one of my relatives, advised me to repeat it
108 times a day, a practice that I am continuing till date. He had also given me his Mait hili translation of the Git a.
His sister died at Ranchi it ted suicide by burning herself since her husband
had an affair wit h a nurse. In that case I also appeared for the first
time as a wit ness in any court. I
uttered only the truth. The cremation ground is really conducive to the idea of
the futilit y of the world.
I had also interest in flora. In my PUC class, I used to go along wit h a research student to see pit cher plant (Dioptera), so beautifully described
in the textbooks and also the keshar (saffron), which he had planted for
research. We were monit oring it s
growth regularly. Later, at dam-side,
viewing Chara and Nit ella
was a fun for me. I also asked Prof.
H.C. Mishra to guide me in working on phototherapy for curing diseases not well
described so far, but I could not progress.
In those days, I could have pers onal introduction to the renowned indologist Dr.
Harbans Lal Oberoi but I failed to meet the other legendary figure of Ranchi it er of the Ram
Katha.
The days of 1970-73 were polit ically not of much agony. In spit e
of the war wit h Pakistan , the liberation of Bangladesh it was also the cause
of an easy win for Indira Gandhi in the general elections. Her victory was also on the slogan of Garibi
Hatao.
For me, it
was more an era of knowing my own talents and it
provided me the opportunit y to enter
the field of Medicine wit h a notion
that I could do well if I utilized my stamina. The implications of the PMT
result were that I was better than ordinary students. In spit e
of this, once I had also gone wit h
an unruly mob to force the shops to close down.
Socially, the contact wit h tribal life I had in those years, inspired me to
work for them. The Vanvasi Kalyan Kendra at Lohardaga was in it s early stage. Dr. Shrikant Shiledar of Nagpur who
joined it on 12.3.1969 impressed me
and later on his newly wedded wife, Dr. Shilpa Shiledar (15.6.1944-13.11.2005)
came there in1970. Sharawan Kumar from the VHP, Delhi
I had also an occasion to work for the BJS
in 1971 elections in three parliamentary constit uencies
— Ranchi it nessed
an incident in Maranghada village, near Khunti. A lame Christian came and told
us to go away. Later, they surrounded us
wit h bows and arrows. We escaped
somehow. They caught hold of a senior
worker of the BJS who was having a
briefcase, which he passed on to me. It
was full of money.
As the sit uation
deteriorated, I escaped in the jungle and
I put most of the money in my pockets and was about to throw the
brief-case but seeing the jeeps of the BJS and the Police, I went there and gave the money hurriedly to
that worker of the BJS in the jeep; regretfully, I kept some coins in the
pocket and took a seat in the back.
There was every probabilit y that I
would have been lost in the jungle. The tribal people of that area did not know
Hindi. I returned somehow but had a bad impression of polit ics
as something where one could not succeed wit hout
money.
Once an old man had also told me the same in
a train in Darbhanga district near the village of Suraj Naryan
Singh it came to the Main Road of
Ranchi in 1973, after a brutal lathi-charge on labourers, whom he was
leading).
But I knew the interiors of Chhotanagpur and
this was a posit ive
learning for me. Even now a tribal youth
is seen carrying his wife on bicycle but much has changed...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*He died there
on 2. 5. 2003 when he was to arrange my
meetings wit h doctors and Mait hils on 4.
5. 2003. Dr. Shilpa also died of
road accident at Nagpur
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