The Gandhi Deal and the Birbal Joke

I was born in Nagpur in 1958. My father worked as an administrative officer and was frequently transferred. When I was in 10th grade, he offered me a deal: “If you complete one good book this year, you will get a new shirt.” He handed me My Experiments with Truth by Mahatma Gandhi. I read it from cover to cover. I don’t remember if I ever got that new shirt, but I know it was this book that eventually brought me to Sevagram.

In 1974, I was living in a hostel in Delhi. The MGIMS pre-medical entrance test advertisements were out. I didn’t know about it, but a friend who had the newspaper cutting had cleverly hidden it inside a book. By chance, I opened that book and found the advertisement. I applied, took the exam at T Centre, and seemed to have done well because I received a call for an interview.

The interview was held in the Principal’s office at Sevagram. Dr Sushila Nayar was presiding over a board that included Prof I.D. Singh, Dr Manimala Chaudhary, and a gentleman whom I later came to know was Shreeman Narayan.

At that time, I didn’t identify myself with a surname. I just introduced myself simply.

“What is your name?” they asked.

“Ashok Birbal,” I replied.

“Then tell us a Birbal joke,” someone said.

So I told them the famous Akbar-Birbal story, where Akbar asks Birbal to list all the blind men in his kingdom, and the next day, Birbal sits outside the palace, preparing the list. When Akbar asks what he is doing, Birbal puts Akbar’s name at the top of the list to show that even a king can be blind to his surroundings.

The panel laughed. A man in a khadi white shirt with a crisp Gandhi cap told me, “Your interview is over.”

I didn’t know what to make of it. A student appearing for a medical college interview, and all they asked was for him to tell an Akbar-Birbal joke? I left the room thinking I must have performed poorly for the interview to end so quickly.

In the evening, the list of selected candidates was displayed. To my surprise, my name was there.

At that time, I had also cleared the entrance exams of Indore Medical College and AFMC, Pune. Both were prestigious colleges, but there was something about Sevagram—its mail, its message, its unseen pull—that left a lasting impression on me. I told my father I wanted to join Sevagram instead of Indore or Pune.

When I came home and told my father about my interview, he laughed. I couldn’t understand why, and then he explained:

“The man who ended your interview was none other than Shreeman Narayan—the renowned academician, researcher, thinker, and economist. Let me tell you a story.”

Years ago, when my father was serving as Under Secretary in the Education Department in Nagpur, Shreeman Narayan, then Principal of G.S. Medical College, had come to request a grant for his college. My father was impressed by Narayan’s honesty and transparency and approved the grant. Since then, they had developed a deep mutual respect.

“Shreeman Narayan must have seen your file, noticed the name ‘Birbal,’ and remembered his meeting with me. Perhaps, in his own way, he ended your interview and ensured you were selected as a gesture of gratitude.”

Perhaps it was destiny. Even today, I cannot fully explain why I said no to AFMC Pune and Indore Medical College and chose an unknown medical college in a small, dusty village. But this is how destiny shapes your life.

And looking back, I know that coming to Sevagram shaped not just my career, but also the way I live, think, and serve even today.

The Second Seat and the Three P’s

In the second and final MBBS, I was always just a rank below Hari Oam. Both of us had set our minds on Medicine. But there was only one seat. Naturally, it went to him, and I was told to wait six months for mine.

Then destiny intervened. I did not have to wait. Hari Oam and I became co-residents in Medicine. I became Dr. O.P. Gupta’s second postgraduate student, after Asha Ramachandran. I wrote my thesis on a question no one had asked before: could chest tuberculosis also bring on heart failure? It sounded improbable, but in those days we thought nothing was beyond TB.

There were three medicine units then—Dr. Gupta’s, Dr. A.P. Jain’s, and Dr. Ulhas Jajoo’s. The senior residents too came in a neat set of three, all conveniently identified by their initials: Kamal Parvez, known as KP; J.P. Sharma, always called JP; and S.P. Kalantri, SP. Together we were cheerfully referred to as the “three P’s.” The wards sat in the old hospital building, but the OPD had marched off to the new one on the hill, forcing us to shuttle between the two like postmen. The ICU, if it can be called that, had no ventilators, no monitors, no gadgets of any kind. Our proudest possession was a BPL ECG machine that worked when it wished to. The rest had to come from our brains—which, thankfully, were always on duty.

Academics, though, were relentless. The week overflowed with journal clubs, mortality meetings, long and short cases, and endless ECG and X-ray readings. Rounds could last forever, with the entire story of the patient’s life extracted at the bedside. History-taking and examination were everything, for there was nothing else—no ultrasound, CT, MRI, or echocardiography to fall back on. The laboratories were equally frugal, offering a few basic tests and not much more.

Still, we managed. In May 1982, I cleared my MD at the first attempt and became the second physician trained at MGIMS. Looking back, it seems a miracle we produced any doctors at all with so little. But perhaps, with just an ECG machine and our wits, we learned Medicine better than most.

A Secular Match and a Durga Talkies Clinic

My marriage to Aruna was a quiet evolution rather than a grand romance. The only hurdle was my lack of a traditional surname. Her father was puzzled by “Birbal,” unable to place my community or caste until we explained my father’s conviction in a secular identity. Secular to the core, he refused to be identified by sect. Fortunately, no astrologers were consulted to match horoscopes; the moon and mars were left to their own devices. We were married in June 1981 in a ceremony filled with the traditional pomp her family deemed indispensable.

By 1982, my MD was behind me. Aruna and I tried our luck in Delhi, but the city’s pace and pulse never agreed with ours. Before long, we returned to Wardha, and it was there that our first son, Aditya, was born. I started a modest private clinic near Durga Talkies with my batchmate, the paediatrician Dr. Arvind Garg. We rented a small place. We had neither the money for the rent nor the advance, but the landlord, in an act of rare kindness, told us to pay in instalments—when we could, and only if we earned enough.

To our relief, the practice picked up quickly. Aruna too found her footing, setting up a pathology lab of her own. Together we built our life, brick by brick. Our sons, Aditya and Anuj, chose medicine, as did their wives—thus, without much planning, we became a family entirely bound by the same vocation.

In time, Arvind and his wife, Suneela, moved to Delhi—he to the private world and she to academics. I stayed back, consolidating my practice in Wardha. I even ventured into naturopathy, homeopathy, and lifestyle medicine, giving advice on everything from diets to daily routines. Soon I managed to buy a place in Ramnagar, Wardha, where I set up a proper OPD and inpatient practice, strengthened by Aruna’s pathology services. And it is there that I have spent the rest of my life.

In those days, boys and girls were carefully segregated. If one spoke to a girl at all, it was usually one’s own sister. I did not storm in with any grand declaration of love, as in the pages of Marie Corelli or the heroes who won a Victoria Cross. Matters moved along in their own quiet way.

Her father had satisfied himself on all the essentials—class, community, and caste. The only confusion arose from my name. That I was indeed a Jain was clear enough, but I carried no Jain surname. The name “Birbal” on its own seemed unthinkable to them, until we explained that it was simply my father’s name. He had discarded any family or caste surname out of conviction. Secular to the core, he refused to be identified by sect, religion, or faith.

One relief was that no astrologer was summoned to match horoscopes. In those days, the Moon in the girl’s horoscope, if ill-aligned with Mars in the boy’s, could doom the match as inauspicious and even destructive. Fortunately, no such obstacle was raised.

Her parents remained somewhat puzzled and hesitant, but I was firm in my decision. In June 1981 the marriage took place—with all the pomp, festivity, gifts, and overcrowding that her family considered indispensable.

Consolidation and the Integration of Care

The practice grew steadily. While Aruna established her own pathology laboratory, I became a fixture in the Wardha medical community. Eventually, Arvind and Suneela moved to Delhi, but I stayed behind to consolidate my practice in Ramnagar.

Over the decades, my approach to medicine broadened. I ventured into naturopathy, homeopathy, and lifestyle medicine, realizing that healing often required advice on diets and daily routines as much as prescriptions. Our sons, Aditya and Anuj, eventually followed us into medicine, creating a family bound by the same vocation. Today, as I look back at the journey that began with an Akbar-Birbal joke, I know that Sevagram didn’t just give me a degree; it gave me a way of thinking that values transparency, simplicity, and the patient’s story above all else.