A Passion Born

I was posted at a small hospital in NCR. Work in operation theatre was moderate, just sufficient for a single anaesthetist. Colleagues were pleasant. Surgeon was always full of interesting, amusing, and intelligent conversation.

My daughter was studying for a course of her choice in a college of Delhi University and visited us every fortnight. My son, never too keen in academics, appeared to like the coaching he was taking for IIT entrance. Archana had, for the first time in her career, secured a well-paying job in a NOIDA hospital.

Station was famous for its golf course: a verdant stretch of rolling turf, with rows of trees guarding its distant boundaries. It lay just across our house. I walked its perimeter in the evenings; three rounds fed my diet of nine kilometers. Large ground surrounded our house where we planted a variety of flowers. In winters I read books here, lazing on a reclining chair, contemplating the good turn my life seemed to be traversing then.

Nearness to Air and Command headquarters ensured that hospital administrators were constantly barraged by the petty demands, facetious harangue, and sanctimonious advice of senior officers. Safely hidden behind the sterile environment of Operation Theatre, I lay ensconced in my peaceful world.

A call from a senior officer, second in hierarchy, at Director General’s office of medical services, threatened to destroy my idyll. I was summoned to his office.

Air-transfer of critically ill patients was the latest fad of medical fraternity in Air Force then. Officer wanted me to design a unique transfer-unit – given an insipidly benign name, Patient Transfer Unit (PTU). My specialty, Anaesthesiology, and my geographical proximity to the headquarters, had prompted him to favour me with his attention. 

My heart sank. I saw the life of a slave awaiting me: incessant harrying by the officer, frequent travel to Delhi, bickering over the designs that would be revised every week, and the humiliating blame for a project that appeared doomed from the beginning.

Senior officer, let me call him AVM, would not listen to my mild protestations couched in medical jargon. Such trolleys were available in market, I vouched, – I was not aware of this and presumed he too was not, but I had read about the long-distance transfer of critically wounded American soldiers in the Afghanistan war. I could scour the net for a state-of-art unit. My design would be an abominable facsimile. Do we need to re-invent the wheel? Yes, we do. Objective of the exercise was to display self-reliance. He was sanguine about my, i.e., his success. Yes sir, I would soon contact you with the draft-design.

Back in the hospital, I listlessly descended into the tedium of the job: I made a list of critical care equipment that would be needed, appropriate patient trolley that could be wheeled in an ambulance and on the transport aircraft, light weight, aluminium or carbon oxygen cylinders, government agencies that would certify the equipment air-worthy.

AVM rung me after a week. He seemed satisfied with my initial research. And politely asked me to visit him with the proposal on a day I did not have much surgery. I was surprised by his gentle demeanour; I had, all this while, feared a domineering air.

When I met him, he was exuberant as I briefed him about the aluminium-framed trolley, the long battery-life of the ventilator, and the defibrillator, the sleek oxygen cylinders. He asked me to start the project. I wrote to the Chennai factory that had agreed to build the customised trolley. I began the process of procuring the equipment. When the drawings of the trolley arrived, I forwarded them to AVM.

‘I am sending you to UK for a week. You would soon receive instructions for the visit,’ AVM rung me one day. You could knock me down with a feather. Fortune is never waylaid so grotesquely. It would be my first visit abroad; If I discounted my sojourn in the ragged, war-devastated country, gasping for survival, that was Afghanistan in 2003. I was overjoyed, not least by the serendipity that had landed this opportunity in my lap.

India had ordered helicopters from AgustaWestland for VVIP movement. These were being manufactured at Agusta’s UK facility in Yeovil town. A team of Air Force engineers was going to review the technical features of the choppers. Two of these aircrafts were to be fitted with complete critical care module to cater to medical emergency onboard. Agusta wanted a physician to view and approve the equipment.

Till then my travel was limited to domestic destinations. I was apprehensive about expenditure and difficulties of travel in strange distant lands, but convinced myself that these held no charm for me. ‘Our country is so diverse and huge. One lifetime is not sufficient to see all it offers. Why should one go to other countries,’ I would often utter such lame and frivolous banalities whenever Archana broached the idea of traveling abroad.

My first foreign-travel, courtesy AVM, exorcised these fears and opened a breath-taking vista that grows larger, the more I partake of it.

We stayed in Sherborne, about 10 km from Yeovil town. Sherborne is a medieval town in South West England, about 200 km from London. 

Dusk was setting as we drove into the town. A light rain fell. I was restless to see the town. I dumped luggage in my room, grabbed one of the huge umbrellas hung at a stand near the exit, and rushed out. Lady at the reception could not repress a smile.

I saw the town through my mind’s eyes that had feasted on English literature for decades. The ochre-coloured Georgian buildings, the tall and narrow multipaned windows, potted plants and flower vases on the window sills and mantels, hanging-boxes with flowers pouring out, still streets glistening in the falling rain. It all looked surreal yet familiar.

I left my room at dawn. Air was chilly. Town was still. Glass milk-bottles and a bundled newspaper lay on the front steps of the houses. It was a very small town. Streets were immaculately clean. Each house looked freshly painted. I passed the quaint and small Sherborne railway station. A stream with sparkling clear water – I later learnt this was the river Yeo – ran through the middle of the town.

Beyond the river, town rapidly gave way to woods and rolling heath. I walked towards a large mansion that looked like a castle from distance. This I learnt was the sixteenth-century Sherborne Castle. A board hanging on the gate announced that it was a private property. Gate was open. I did not see a soul around and hesitantly pressed on. A pond stood in the foreground of the castle. Ducks swam in its dark water. Clumps of trees were scattered around the meadow. I grew bolder and clicked snaps before turning back. Prose of Bronte sisters, Jane Austen, George Elliot, Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Bill Bryson rolled in my mind and informed the sights I saw. English countryside strangely felt both near and distant; simultaneously.

I had little job at the Agusta factory. Technical review was the work of engineers. It was difficult to sit through the meetings. I eagerly awaited the evenings. I hit the streets of Sherborne, the moment we reached back. I walked its market place, among the quaint old houses with small immaculately tended gardens, I ambled along the warren of ugly, multistorey flats in the periphery of the beautiful town. Town was dominated by Sherborne abbey. I roamed its courtyards and the adjoining Sherborne school. I did not know then that Abbey and school were founded in 705 A.D. Many years later I read that Alan Turing, the famous English mathematician, who is renowned for developing the computational theory, had studied in Sherborne school.

My engineer colleagues were an old hand at these foreign visits. They finished their work on Thursday and we got to spend three days in London. On way to London, we stopped at Stonehenge.

Indian High Commission had arranged rooms for us in St James’ Court, a Taj hotel, in Central London. Hotel was a few minutes’ walk from Buckingham palace. Houses of parliament, Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar square were all nearby.

I was mad with excitement. I could not waste a minute in the city. For three days, I came to hotel only to sleep. My surgeon colleague at the hospital, one with stimulating conversation, had visited UK many times. He had enthusiastically advised me about the city, and gave me many useful tips. I reached the dining room just as it opened for breakfast in the morning. I asked the concierge about the places I wanted to visit, which he marked on a map.

Next three days I walked more than twelve hours every day. I returned to the hotel only when my legs ached so that another step seemed impossible. My friend had advised me about food. ‘Do not waste time and money at a restaurant. Walk into a Sainsbury store, buy a sandwich combo and eat it on the go.’ I did exactly that, a tuna sandwich one day, ham next and then chicken. Sainsbury is in every corner of London.

The familiarity that Dorset countryside had faintly exhaled in Sherborne, met me on the streets of London too. Baker Street, Oxford Street, Charing Cross, Piccadilly Circus, Covent Garden, did not sound alien. London dazzled me in its magnificence, the extravagant cultural feast it laid for the visitor, and the friendly stance it displayed for the tourist. My friend, a history buff, had advised me not to miss the Victoria and Albert’s Museum, and the National Art Gallery in my first visit. I gaped at the exhibits mesmerised. I learnt how it feels to be overwhelmed. Raphael, Botticelli, Bernini, Van Gogh, Gauguin; I had not imagined that I would ever cast my eyes on creations of these artists. My fledgling passion for travel found wider skies.

I rested for a while in St. James’s Park adjoining Buckingham Palace on way to Trafalgar Square. Sitting on a wooden bench facing the lake, I sipped coffee and sent a mail to my daughter, sharing my awe at the sights that lay strewn around. Children played in the ground, young girls and boys jogged on the tracks, old couples shuffled aimlessly, fat brown squirrels fearlessly scoured for food in the grass near my feet, pelicans stood noiselessly near the water: It was blissfully quiet, and felt like a cameo from a movie with sounds muted.

Back home, I picked up the PTU work. Chennai firm confirmed that a prototype PTU was ready and wanted me to have a look at it. AVM insisted to come along. PTU had come out as I had imagined it would; large, unwieldy, ugly, and threatening to topple with the load of patient and equipment. I waited for AVM’s tirade. ‘Just get it completed in six months. It looks quite impressive. I want Chief to see it in the next Commander’s conference.’

My name was recommended for Agusta’s review meetings thrice in ensuing months. Surgeon colleague diligently planned my itineraries for London. During one visit, we stayed in a beautiful village, a little distance off the Yeovil town. Lanes, the hotel, was a renovated old rectory. In mornings, as dawn broke, I climbed a small hill and walked the moor adjoining the village. West Coker was a picture-postcard-perfect village. There was a tavern, a post office, and a grocer. I discovered my love for rural Europe. Since then, I try to squeeze in as much rural sights during a Europe visit, as my itinerary permits.

Somerset Maugham had been my obsession for decades. In one of the visits, I walked around places in London, I most associated with him: St Thomas’ hospital across Thames near the Westminster Bridge and Lambeth. Maugham studied medicine at the hospital, and his first novel, Liza of Lambeth, recounts his experiences of nursing to poor pregnant ladies in the slum of Lambeth. Hospital occupied a modern multistorey building and Lambeth was a leafy residential borough now.

 

Few months later, weeks before the Commander’s conference, AVM was diagnosed with a grave illness. He was operated and made good recovery. But the illness ended his career plans. I was posted to another hospital. PTU survived for some time and served the career of other AVMs. It proffered a few UK visits on the protégés of new AVMs.

My dalliance with PTU left a lasting effect on me; Love for travel abroad.

 

In a few weeks I would be roaming new shores. I am deep in my plans: I dream and breathe the beautiful landscapes, long drives in the countryside and on the coastal roads hugging the hills, wine-tasting in seaside vineyards, aroma of coffee pervading the city square, sun setting beyond the ocean as I watch the spectacle from the balcony of the apartment.

I am on the wing.