As a young medical student in his early twenties, he vowed that one day he will be running a mission hospital in an interior part of the country, helping the poor and the needy there. It was in the early 80s when he was asked the question, “what was he planning to do in his life”. Almost 30 years has passed and here he is, in an interior part of the country working hard, day in and day out for the poor and the down trodden, as he promised that day to his friends.
Dr. Vijay Anand is brilliant by nature and extremely hard working (That is a rare combination, I presume!). He talks about the latest release of Linux, just as easily he talks about the latest technique of surgery. He got his first job, (definitely as a doctor) by making a blood storage cold refrigerator for a hospital. His face brightens when he talks about the latest photography techniques and the birds he took photos of. Sometimes you really have to tell yourself, hold on, you are really talking to a doctor and not to an electronic wizard or an Ornithology geek. His hobby strangely is photography and not surgery (Though he does around 1000 surgeries a year). Just for a second, my mind asks, Is he in the wrong place? Would it not be better had he chosen engineering or photography as his profession?
But all those doubts are put to rest, when you go around, the serene, green 300 acre campus. You can see people thronging to meet the doctor. “We have been waiting for almost two hours to meet the doctors here”, says an old man. Just to think that it was just an old dilapidated building, which had been closed for 20 years when he first took over, is mind boggling. “My first nurse was blind, second one deaf and the third a disabled, He says with a wry smile. Now there are around 40 nurses running around to every sound of pain. Just when you think that you have seen the entire campus, you are reminded of a high school and the nursing school being run in the campus.
The campus is buzzing with activities. A piggery, agricultural fields, a high school, a nursing school and add to that the hostels for both the high school and the nursing school and all those nurses and doctors and the families staying inside the campus, it is a small village out there. You meet the people living in the campus and everybody has words of appreciation for him. Everybody talks of how they are touched by the love and affection which has been showered on them by his family. From the principal of the school to the drivers talk about the influence they (Dr. Vijay and his family) have on their lives. Even the village head and the district head cannot stop talking about the works being done by the hospital and the school in the community there.
We are very contended and happy here, he says with a smile. Probably more contended than most of my classmates who have settled down in the big cities of London and New York. Yes! He could have earned much more than what he is earning now.Probably, yes!He could have lived a much more comfortable life and for sure a much easier life (Electricity goes off here for days together). But he chose what his heart told him that day, and probably yes! Contentment is much better than living lives in a comfortable stable.
Nearly 300 outpatients are seen every day, more than 300 deliveries conducted a month, more than 6000 ultrasounds done, in a remote place in the north eastern part of a country where debit cards are still unheard off, computers and internet are for the educated upper class and the previous day's newspapers are read the next day. I wondered what could have made this happen? Even dreams in films don't account for such success in lives. It is all God's will, He said and went for his work.
Another day of toil beckons!But toil that gives him contentment.
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