The Thread of Destiny from Kharagpur

“You must come to Wardha,” said Savarkar, handing my father a medical college application form. “A new medical school has just opened in Sevagram—it’s different. It will suit Devi.” It was a quiet afternoon in Kharagpur when Savarkar—one of my father’s former students—suggested the idea. My father, Dr. Parimal Sen, was a professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at IIT Kharagpur, and Savarkar had known me since I was a child. He was a frequent visitor to our home, someone who shared tea in terracotta cups on our front verandah while discussing the world with Baba.

At the time, I didn’t give the suggestion much thought. I simply filled out the form, and before I could process the magnitude of the change, I was boarding a train with Baba to appear for an entrance test at a little-known institute in rural Maharashtra. It was 1971, and I was about to leave behind everything I knew for a destination I could barely find on a map.

Escaping the Fire of the Naxalite Movement

I was born on October 11, 1954, in Kolkata, but my formative years were spent in the intellectual cocoon of the IIT Kharagpur campus. However, outside those gates, West Bengal was burning. The Naxalite movement had taken a violent hold of the state’s heart. Strikes, murders, and political unrest were the daily bread of the news. The education system was in shambles; paper leaks made exams a mockery, and the brightest teachers were fleeing for their lives.

“You want to become a doctor, don’t you?” Baba asked me one evening, his voice heavy with the weight of the era. “Then West Bengal is not the place for you right now.” My dream of medicine had been sown years earlier during my mother’s long illness. In those days, there were no doctors in Hijli or Kharagpur who could perform a simple surgery; we had to travel miles for basic care. That sense of helplessness had stayed with me. I wanted to be the person who filled that void. To protect that dream, Baba sent me to Jabalpur to study Home Science while we waited for a medical seat. It was there that the thread of destiny finally pulled me toward Wardha.

The Interview and the Question of Peace

I must have performed well in the Sevagram entrance test, for I soon found myself sitting across from Dr. Sushila Nayar for my interview. Her calm, piercing eyes scanned my records—Kolkata, Kharagpur, Jabalpur. She saw the journey of a girl trying to outrun a revolution. Then, she looked up and asked a question that has echoed in my mind for fifty-four years: “What are your views on the Naxalite movement? And how do you think this unrest can be resolved?”

I don’t remember my exact words, but I remember the feeling behind them. I had lived through the fire. I had seen neighbors whisper in fear and classmates vanish into the night. I spoke from the heart about the need for stability and the healing power of service. Perhaps it was that raw honesty that secured my place. I was selected, and the girl from Bengal was about to become a student of Gandhi.

Chants and Puranpolis at Paunar

The first fortnight at Sevagram was a cultural metamorphosis. We stayed at Vinoba Bhave’s Paunar Ashram for our orientation. It was a world of khadi, dawn prayers, and communal chores. We recited the second chapter of the Bhagavad Gita every morning. At the time, I didn’t understand a word of the Sanskrit—I simply memorized the sounds. But the rhythm stayed with me. When I finally went home for a break, I bought a Bengali translation to understand what I had been chanting. The Gita became my quiet companion, a manual for living that has guided me through every delivery and every difficult clinical decision since.

Because our formal hostels weren’t ready, we were housed in modest village homes. I shared a room with Medha Kulkarni from Pune and Karuna Thapar from Punjab. This was the magic of the 1971 batch—we were a melting pot of India. Our “local boy,” Dilip Jobanputra, became our lifeline. Every weekend he would return from Hinganghat, and his mother—whom we all called Baa—would send back tins of laddoos, bhakris, and steaming puranpolis. Those Sundays, piling into a jeep to visit his home, were the happiest days of our youth. Sevagram wasn’t just a college; it was a community that replaced competition with camaraderie.

From the Railway Hospital to Retirement

After passing my MBBS and completing my internship at MGIMS, I returned to Kolkata to specialize. I pursued my DGO and MD in Obstetrics and Gynaecology. It was during my residency that I met my life partner. We were both training in the same high-pressure department—he was the calm to my storm. We married in 1979 and embarked on a shared career in the Indian Railways.

For thirty years, we served side by side at the Chittaranjan Locomotive Works Hospital. It was a deeply satisfying life. We cared for railway families through generations, often delivering the babies of women we had once brought into the world ourselves. It was the ultimate fulfillment of the dream I’d had as a child in Kharagpur—to be the doctor who was there when someone was in need. Interestingly, our daughters chose not to follow us into medicine, perhaps tired of a household where obstetric emergencies were the primary topic of dinner conversation. They both became successful lawyers, finding their own way to serve society.

The Soil of Sevagram

Now that I have retired to Baruipur, the pace of life has slowed, but the memories of Wardha remain vivid. I often think back to the unplastered walls of the hostel, the scent of neem leaves, and the warm hands of Baa feeding us puranpolis. I marvel at the odds of it all—how a student of my father’s led me to an unheard-of village in Maharashtra, and how that village gave me the roots I needed to survive the storms of life.

Sevagram did more than just grant me a degree; it gave me a moral center. It taught me that healing is as much about the spirit as it is about the body. Whether I am reciting the Gita or reflecting on my decades of practice, I know that the girl who left a burning Bengal found her peace in the red soil of Sevagram. For that grace, and for the friendships that continue to bloom today, I am eternally grateful.