The Groan of the Train and a Mother’s Wish

I was eighteen when the train groaned to a heavy, metallic halt in the middle of what felt like nowhere. There was no platform to greet us, no bustling porters—just wild bushes, jagged rocks, and a hot Wardha wind that slapped against our faces as my mother and I stepped down, clutching our steel trunks. This was my introduction to Sevagram in 1972.

My mother was the silent architect of this journey. She was a woman of immense quiet strength, working as a PA to the President of Escorts in Delhi. She had carried our family through the devastating loss of my father while I was still in school. It was her singular, burning wish that I become a doctor. At the time, I wasn’t sure what I wanted. In the Delhi of the early seventies, choices for girls were often narrow, dictated by tradition and parental hope. I sat for the combined medical entrance test after my pre-medical studies at Delhi University, certain that I had performed poorly. I tried to push the memory of the exam out of my mind.

Then, one evening, Ma came home with a look of quiet triumph. “Pack your bags. We leave for Sevagram tomorrow,” she said. As we prepared for the long journey south, she handed me a book on Gandhian philosophy, knowing the interview panel would test my soul as much as my science. I took the book, but in the restlessness of my youth, I never opened it. I didn’t realize then that I wouldn’t need to read about Gandhi; I was about to live his ideals.

The Dusty Road to the Interview

The rickshaw ride from Wardha East station to Sevagram felt like a journey to the edge of the world. The road was a series of bone-rattling bumps that seemed never-ending under a harsh, white sky. As the dust coated our clothes, I looked at my mother and wondered what kind of place she was bringing me to. We stayed in a modest hostel with a gray cement floor and a khatiya that creaked with every movement. I hardly slept that night, the weight of the upcoming interview pressing down on me in the unfamiliar silence of the Maharashtrian night.

The next day, after a quick lunch, I walked into a room where eight people sat in a formidable row. I recognized “Badi Behenji,” Dr. Sushila Nayar, immediately. Beside her were the pillars of the institute: Principal I.D. Singh, Manimala Chaudhary, and Santoshrao Gode. Behenji looked at me over the rim of her glasses, her gaze both sharp and kind. “If you get selected, you must give up non-vegetarian food, wear khadi, and live simply,” she stated. It wasn’t a question; it was a covenant. I nodded, the weight of my mother’s dreams keeping my head high.

When the inevitable question on Gandhiji came, I took a deep breath and chose honesty over a rehearsed answer from the book I hadn’t read. “I don’t know much about Gandhiji’s philosophy,” I admitted, “but wherever I go, I promise to do something, in my small way, for society.” The interview lasted only twenty minutes. I stepped out into the heat, my stomach sinking, absolutely certain I had failed the test of character they sought.

The Handwritten List and the Ashram Month

The next morning, a simple handwritten list was pinned to the board outside the Principal’s office. My eyes scanned the names, trembling, until I saw it: Punam Kohli. We were to join on August 1st, 1972, beginning with a mandatory month-long orientation at the Gandhi Ashram.

Those first few days were painfully slow for a girl used to the pace of Delhi. We spent our mornings in shramdan—sweeping floors, cleaning toilets, and helping in the communal kitchen. We debated philosophy and sat for hours in prayer. But by the second week, something shifted. The boredom was replaced by a sense of belonging. We laughed during the bhajans, argued fiercely in our evening discussions, and felt a strange, vibrant life pulsing through the simple chores. It was here that the “city girl” began to fade, replaced by a student of Sevagram.

Formalin, Steel Trunks, and Shramdan

The transition to medical school was marked by the overwhelming smell of the dissection hall. The scent of formalin hit us like a physical blow the moment we stepped inside. We sat on high wooden stools next to the cadavers, clutching our copies of Cunningham’s Anatomy, pretending to study while the chemical fumes burned our eyes and clung to our clothes. That first evening, I couldn’t bring myself to eat; the boundary between the living and the dead felt too thin.

Since the girls’ hostel wasn’t yet finished, we lived three to a room in the nurses’ hostel. It was a lesson in shared existence. We made space where there was none, sharing notes, clothes, toothpaste, and the inevitable tears that came when we missed home. Every Friday, we performed Shramdan. We cleared a rough patch of land between the J.N. Boys’ Hostel and the college block with our own hands, pulling weeds and picking up stones. We were building the campus as much as we were building our futures.

Barbadi Village and a Life Partner

In our first term, we were assigned to “adopt” Barbadi village. We were expected to visit every fortnight to learn about rural health and community dynamics. I must admit, I was not the most diligent visitor; I skipped many of those dusty trips. However, destiny has a strange sense of humor. The boy who consistently covered for me during those absences, filling in my reports and making sure my lack of attendance wasn’t noted, would later become my life partner, Dr. Tyagi.

As the years passed, the harrowing tension of exams was balanced by the immense moral support of our teachers. Dr. R. V. Aggarwal and Dr. S. Chhabra didn’t just teach us medicine; they treated us like their own children. I remember a rainy afternoon when a group of us cycled to Wardha East just for the thrill of the weather and a cup of chai at the station. Dr. Kolte, the Warden and Head of Anatomy, found out. He didn’t punish me; he called me to his home and spoke to me with the gentle correction of a concerned father. That was the essence of MGIMS—a family of healers.

The Trial by Fire: Punam’s Great Viva Escape

Puman took the Final MBBS examination in 1975. Her viva was less an academic assessment and more a piece of high-stakes theater. For years, the senior-student lore had painted a grim picture: the viva room was described in hushed, dramatic tones as the place where confidence went to die. When the morning finally arrived, Punam stood outside the door dressed in the medical student’s battle armor—a crisp white coat and a stethoscope—with a pulse so frantic it was almost audible to the rest of the candidates.

The waiting area resembled a weary battalion before a charge. Rows of future doctors sat with glazed eyes, chanting the causes of clubbing and differential diagnoses like a desperate litany. But by the time the dreaded call of “Next” echoed through the hall, Punam had reached a state of Zen-like emptiness.

Inside, the examiners sat like a silent tribunal, their expressions famously unreadable. One particular professor looked over his glasses with a gaze that could freeze water. The questioning began with the deceptive gentleness of a summer breeze—a simple prompt on the mechanics of jaundice. Punam started fluently, definitions and classifications flowing with the elegance of a practiced orator. Then, without warning, the brain simply “left the chat.”

The ensuing silence was a physical thing, heavy and suffocating. When an examiner leaned forward to ask, “Anything else?” the question felt less like an invitation and more like an indictment. Punam did what every medical student in history has done: began to speak in slow motion, desperately hoping that inspiration might catch up with the voice.

Fate, however, shifted gears. A hypothetical patient arrived in an imaginary casualty ward, gasping for breath. Moving from textbooks to the bedside, Punam’s answers suddenly regained their professional polish, navigating “clinical correlations” and “differentials” with renewed vigor. When an examiner offered a solitary, subtle nod, the resulting rush of serotonin was enough to carry the day through the remainder of what felt like a geological era.

The trial ended not with a flourish, but with three cold words: “You may go.” There was no smile to offer comfort, no hint of whether the family name had been saved or doomed—only the vast, terrifying unknown.

Punam emerged into the hallway like a soldier returning from a long campaign—dazed, dehydrated, but strangely exhilarated. As the friends pounced with a flurry of panicked questions about ECGs and “grilling” externals, Punam was instantly transformed. No longer the nervous candidate, but the seasoned survivor, Punam looked at the anxious crowd with the gravity of an old monk and offered the only wisdom that mattered: “Be calm.”

It is a lesson that has lasted a lifetime. If one can survive that MGIMS viva, they are prepared for anything—be it the chaos of the wards, the exhaustion of night duties, or the persistent curiosity of grandchildren asking why the sky is blue.

A Legacy Woven in Khadi

Today, when I look back at those years, I know they were the best part of my life. The influence of Sevagram didn’t end with my graduation. The Gandhian philosophy we absorbed—simplicity, honesty, and service—stayed with us. Both Dr. Tyagi and I still proudly adorn khadi today, a quiet tribute to the place that shaped us.

MGIMS gave me more than a degree; it gave me the friends who still guide me, teachers who became my peers, and the partner who has walked beside me through every ward and every challenge. It was in the dust of Sevagram that I learned to stand on my own feet and live a life of simple purpose. For that, I will always remain grateful to the “nowhere” that became my everything.