The Choice at R.K. Puram

I was born on 25 October 1954 in Bahadurpur Jat, a village in the Bijnor district of Uttar Pradesh where the horizon was defined by swaying fields of sugarcane. My father was a small-scale farmer, and my mother was the quiet force that held our modest home together. Like every child in Bahadurpur, my education began in the local Hindi-medium school. However, our village school ended at the fifth grade, a common ceiling in those days. To continue, I had to move to Seohara, 30 kilometers away, where I completed my tenth and twelfth grades at RSP and NQ Inter Colleges.

My path to medicine was paved with narrow misses and sudden turns of fate. In my first attempt at the UP PMT, I was disqualified not by my marks, but by a mere 25 days—I was too young for the age requirement. Unwilling to waste a year, I headed to the hills of Nainital and enrolled in a BSc at DSB College. It was there, amidst the cool mist of the mountains, that a friend changed my life. “Sharma, there’s a medical college in Wardha taking students next month. You should apply.” I had never heard of Wardha, and when he told me the deadline had passed, I put it out of my mind. A week later, he returned with a form his brother had sent from home. He refused to take a single paisa for it.

The real test of destiny came on exam day in Delhi. I stood in the hall ready for the AIIMS entrance, only to be told that the Wardha exam was scheduled for the exact same time. “You must choose,” the invigilator said. I stood there, a boy from a village school, weighing the prestige of AIIMS against a place I barely knew. I chose Wardha. I sat for the exam in R.K. Puram, a decision that felt like a leap into the dark.

The Sugarcane Interview

Days later, a letter arrived: I had cleared the written test. My father and I boarded a train for Wardha. We were people of modest means; we could not afford a hotel, so we spent the night in a humble dharamshala. The next morning, as we walked toward the Sevagram campus, we saw 150 students vying for just 30 seats. My father, looking at the crowd with simple, unwavering hope, said, “You are among these 150. You will get it.” I looked at the polished students around me and felt a pang of doubt.

Inside the interview room, I found myself face-to-face with Dr. Sushila Nayar. She looked at me over her spectacles and asked my name and origin. When I replied “Bahadurpur, Bijnor,” she immediately switched to Hindi, sensing perhaps that my comfort lay in my mother tongue.

“Pitaji kya karte hain?” (What does your father do?) “Kisan hain,” (He is a farmer) I replied. “Kya ugate hain kheton mein?” (What do they grow in the fields?) “Ganna.” (Sugarcane)

She nodded and began asking about the sugar factory in Seohara. There were no complex questions about cricket or current affairs in English. It was a conversation about the earth and the people who tend it. Outside, I heard other students whispering that one needed “connections” to get into MGIMS. I had none. I was the son of a man who grew sugarcane. Yet, when the list was pinned to the notice board the next morning, my name was ranked fourth.

Khadi and the Red Soil of Sevagram

My father’s eyes shone with a pride that words couldn’t capture. Before leaving, he took me to Gandhiji’s Ashram. Panditji, the guardian of the dormitory, took my hand and told my father, “Bapu, leave your son here. We will take care of him.” My father bought me my first few sets of Khadi clothes, hugged me tightly with tears in his eyes, and began the long journey back to Bijnor.

I loved Sevagram from the moment I arrived. It was a village, just like Bahadurpur, and the red soil felt familiar under my feet. I didn’t just study medicine; I lived it in the Gandhian spirit of service. After my MBBS and internship, I completed house jobs in Medicine and Pediatrics, often working late shifts alongside my dear friend Ashish Kulkarni. We were a generation of doctors who learned to diagnose with our hands and hearts as much as with our stethoscopes.

The Dual Life in Pune

When the time came for post-graduation, MGIMS did not yet offer an MD program. Ashish and I headed to BJ Medical College in Pune. While four of our classmates joined the Public Health Services through the Short Service Commission and began earning a comfortable salary, I remained a full-time student with no stipend and no income. To survive, I took a part-time job at a new hospital started by Dr. L.P. Joshi near Kamla Nehru Park.

For nearly eight hours a day, I balanced the rigors of my MD studies with private hospital duty. It was a blessing in disguise. I had the extraordinary opportunity to work under Pune’s clinical legends—Drs. Hanumant Sardesai, Mama Telang, and Shivdeo Bapat. I was exposed to everything from Urosurgery to Obstetrics. This “moonlighting,” born of necessity, broadened my clinical horizons in ways a standard residency never could. It laid the foundation for the versatile physician I was to become.

Returning to the Roots

In 1981, I earned my MD and returned to Sevagram as a senior resident for two years. But the pull of Bahadurpur and Seohara was too strong. In 1983, I went back to the people I had left behind as a young boy with a steel trunk. For the next 42 years, Seohara became my laboratory of service. I have seen thousands of patients, delivered babies in the middle of stormy nights, and comforted families through their darkest hours.

Looking back, I realize that for a boy from a Hindi-medium village school with no “connections,” my journey was guided by destiny and the unique vision of MGIMS. Sevagram didn’t just give me an MD; it gave me a soul. Even today, as I walk into my clinic in Seohara, I feel the spirit of Sevagram walking beside me. It is a reminder that medicine is not a business, but a sacred trust between a farmer’s son and the community that raised him.