Dr Maharaj at the hospital

The esteemed Dr Maharaj was the only cardiologist at St Agatha’s Hospital. Although I met him many years after he first arrived from Kashmir, the nurses told me everyone had taken to him right away. How could they not? There was a sincerity in the way he spoke; a strength in the hand he put on your shoulder. And when a patient’s heart was beyond repair - because there was no way he could save them all - he held their hand and promised to help them through until the very end. Dr Maharaj was the doctor that patients would kneel next to their children and point to, saying "that doctor there - he’s the kind one”. Yet it was quite something to find a heart specialist who knew so little about the heart

Yes, when I first met Ravi, he was still in the industrious, clueless vigour of his forties. He used to bustle through the wards like a portly bowling ball; white-coated junior doctors would scatter in his wake with murmured apologies. His evenings were spent at the hospital seeing extra patients and writing clinical letters. It was ingrained in him from his medical training in India and the challenges he’d endured to become a cardiologist - there was no time to pause, no time for life - and in the process he had become a physician of surpassing quality. Though, as I remarked to him years later, if someone spent that much time at work, you’d expect them to be pretty damn good at their job.

Sometimes the mind keeps itself busy to forget what hides underneath, and I’m sure that was the case in Ravi’s middle years. In all the photos from that time, he cycles between two or three different work shirts, and his moustache is bushy and untrimmed. He was never tall and his waistline grew slowly but steadily. If he did look in the mirror, I doubt he liked what he saw - so it was no wonder his romantic confidence lay down in his boots. I was told it was shameful in his culture to reach his age unmarried.

Our first encounter was when we were sharing the care of Mr Patel. Oh, Mr Patel was delightful. An elderly gentleman who had survived two heart attacks and three stents and was now taking a bucketload of heart pills each morning. He had come into hospital for shortness of breath and leg swelling, and I brought my medical team to see him on the ward round - only to find Ravi already at the bedside. They were deep in conversation in Hindi.

“Hiren’s shop sells the best chicken korma I’ve ever had. Just another reason why we need to get him back on his feet as soon as possible,” Ravi said when he saw us, flashing a smile. I felt his eyes linger on me a little longer before he excused himself and left.

(⊃｡•́‿•̀｡)⊃to be continued (⊃｡•́‿•̀｡)⊃

the story is from mr.Shuvayon Mukherje

on blog.reedsy.com

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