My Majorel Uncle

The only doctor I was not scared of, as a child, was Ghai uncle, my best friend, Mintu’s, father and a gentle, mild-mannered man, with heavy specs, a ready smile, easy laugh and a very kind face.  Though he was an ophthalmologist - an apt qualification for one with such benign eyes -  I would refuse to go to any other doctor, and he’d happily treat coughs, colds, stomach upsets and about everything else, at times in that little white room in Digboi hospital, at other times in their home in Muliabari and sometimes over the phone.  In Carmel School, most of the children knew and loved him and he and Baruah uncle, a pediatrician whose son, Sandeep, was my classmate too, were the most popular doctors in that hospital.

I use to fall ill with fever often and Ghai uncle would prescribe Majorel, a little yellow, sugary tablet that was for kids (adults had some horrible stuff called Analgin).  So, of course, I knew him as Majorel uncle.  And he knew me as a finicky, scrawny little fellow who could not stomach good Punjabi food that Aunty made, but would instead yearn for rice, curd and sambar at their dinner table.  

One day, at the age of nine, I had a rather horrific accident while playing football in school and was rushed to the hospital.  There had been blood and flesh, fainting classmates and screaming children, but I did not see the crisis.  After a quick clean up, Dr Sharma (another marvellous doctor, an orthopaedic surgeon) announced to my parents that a surgery was needed, an immediate one at that, but I did make quite a fuss, which, on reflection, must have driven all of them quite nuts.   

Finally, it was time to make a deal with my utterly panic-stricken parents – I would agree to the operation, provided Ghai uncle did it.  

There was hurried, hushed consultation amongst them, a call to Uncle and then my dad announced that, Yes, Ghai uncle would perform this ortho surgery.  As I was being wheeled in, he came up and walked into the theatre alongside me, putting on his mask, above which I saw the kindest eyes in the world.  As the anesthesia took its effect and I blanked out, my last memory was of Uncle standing beside me and holding my right hand with his large, gloved fingers, his cheeks expanded in a broad smile…….and when I came to, many hours later, there he was in the patient room, chatting away with my parents. 

So, obviously I believed that he had done the surgery until Dr Sharma removed my stitches weeks later and presented them to me with panache.  It only strengthened my belief that I would never go to anyone else.  

Three years later – that is forty five years ago - we left Digboi.  I thought of Ghai uncle and his wonderful, warm family on occasion - the odd conversation with someone, a reflection somewhere - but Time does something to you, it takes you away from the important to the urgent, it teases your instinct for fond memory with the present, it prioritises the traffic light over a conversation.  Yes, Time does something to you.....

In 2019, as I was due to travel to Delhi, I thought I'd see him again.  Through friends I got in touch with Rajiv, Ghai uncle's son and learnt that my Majorel Uncle was in the winter of his eventful life, in a world beyond people, pasts and patients.  To not see him now would preserve a sepia image, a script I had had for Life’s journal, a hugged slice of an enchanted past, so, much as I yearned to meet him, I did not do so.  

Thank you, Uncle, for lighting up a thousand lives with those kind eyes.  If compassion is a standard in medicine, you were the best ever.