“Protein metabolism!”

The invigilator’s voice cut through the examination hall, announcing the first question of Narayan Marathe’s very first MBBS examination. Half an hour earlier, in desperation, he had borrowed a tattered textbook from a classmate and skimmed the very same chapter. As if the exam had been listening to his panic and chosen to reward his nerve, he scribbled furiously for two hours, filling page after page.

When the results came, he had not just passed. He had stood first in Biochemistry. They gave him a gold medal.

That medal — tiny, gleaming — meant more to him than almost anything that followed. It was proof that the son of a poor farmer from a small village in Khandesh could come to Sevagram with nothing but stubbornness, and leave with something to show.

Five Kilometres to School, Barefoot

He was born on 1 June 1958 in Naigaon, a village in Muktainagar taluka. His father owned a single acre of land — a stubborn patch on which he grew crops and raised a family of four sons and two daughters. They knew poverty not as a condition to be described but as a daily arithmetic problem: how to feed this many people on this amount of grain, and still have something left over for school fees.

From Classes One to Four, Narayan studied in the Zilla Parishad Marathi-medium school in his own village. For Classes Five to Seven, he walked three kilometres each day to Pimpri Nandu. From Class Eight to Eleven, five kilometres daily to Karki. Chappals wore out quickly on those mud tracks. Many days he walked barefoot.

“Why do you study so much, Narayan?” his friends teased.

“One day I will wear a stethoscope,” he would reply, puffing his chest, knowing how improbable this sounded in a village where becoming a doctor was, in material terms, about as likely as catching the moon in a well.

He carried the dream silently, step after dusty step.

The First Setback, and the Second

After school, he managed entry to Moolji Jaitha College in Jalgaon for BSc. He had no money for coaching classes or supplementary books. He scraped through, but the marks were not sufficient. Medical college was closed. He enrolled in a BAMS course at Shree Gurudev Ayurveda College, Gurukunj Ashram, in Mozri, Amravati, studying Ayurvedic texts while his heart remained in modern medicine. Every night, after finishing the assigned reading, he prayed at the samadhi of Tukdoji Maharaj: “Give me strength. One day I must become a doctor.”

He attempted the MGIMS entrance examination in 1977. He cleared the theory paper. He appeared before the interview panel. They asked where he was from. “Naigaon,” he said, the word carrying both pride and hesitation. They asked whether he would serve in rural areas. He said yes — it was, after all, the only life he had known. The admission letter never came.

He tried again in 1978. Rejection again.

In between, a chance he never even knew about dissolved quietly in his father’s hands. A telegram had arrived from Banaras Hindu University — confirmed admission to MBBS. His father had read it, calculated the cost of travelling to BHU, of maintaining a son in Benares, of the years of fees and lodging, and had slid the telegram under his mattress and said nothing. He told no one. He could not carry that burden. Narayan learned the truth only a month later, when his own MGIMS admission finally came through. He had nearly been a BHU graduate. Poverty had made the choice for him, and Sevagram had benefited.

In 1979, Chief Minister Sharad Pawar abolished the interviews that had for years allowed influence and political connections to shape admissions. Merit alone would decide. Narayan’s marks finally spoke for themselves. His name appeared on the list. He walked through the gates of MGIMS, his struggle vindicated, his dream fulfilled at last.

The Long Way to Medicine

Life at Sevagram was not frictionless. He had come from a Marathi-medium school. His English was halting, his confidence in group discussions low. Students from convent schools spoke with the ease of those who had always expected to be heard. Narayan found his refuge in the library. Hour after hour, he bent over thick books, copying notes, underlining words, memorising lines. If he could not speak like the others, he could know more than them.

The examination results confirmed this. He stood consistently near the top. The Biochemistry gold medal was the first signal; subsequent papers reinforced it.

His classmates had developed a system for the university papers. They knew that theory questions were usually set by professors from GMC and IGMC Nagpur. When those colleges held their preliminary exams, carbon copies of the questions sometimes circulated. Students who obtained them memorised the questions, knowing at least half would reappear in the finals. Narayan watched this method with the suspicion of someone who had earned every mark by reading the whole book. He chose the longer road — reading Davidson, Hutchison, and Harrison cover to cover, lingering on details that interested him. When the theory papers came, his classmates relied on memory while he relied on understanding. He was always well prepared.

A Calculation Goes Wrong

By the final MBBS, he had set his heart entirely on MD Medicine. He wanted to be a physician.

In the Obstetrics and Gynaecology paper, there was a long essay question on fibroids. He had studied fibroids thoroughly, and in his enthusiasm wrote page after page, filling supplement after supplement. When he looked at his watch, horror struck: he had spent an hour and a half on a single question. He scribbled the remaining answers hastily. When the results came, he had barely passed, and the marks were fractionally below the cut-off for Medicine.

Then a chain of small decisions by others cascaded through the postgraduate seat allocation. A classmate who had been planning to leave for Ophthalmology changed her mind at the last moment and claimed the Paediatrics seat. One who had wanted Paediatrics shifted to Medicine. One who had wanted Surgery turned toward Ophthalmology. By the end of the reshuffling, Narayan — who had wanted only Medicine and had the marks for it in every other paper — found himself facing an ENT seat he had never sought.

He reminded himself: “A doctor heals, whatever the branch. Do not complain.”

Twenty Years Later, the Dream Returns

He completed his MS in ENT, served as a postgraduate for three years, worked part-time in his village and as a casualty medical officer to cover expenses. He qualified. He practised ENT in Muktainagar, but kept Harrison’s textbook open on his desk throughout. His stethoscope wandered beyond ears, noses, and throats. Medicine never fully left him.

In 1996, a phone call from his batchmate Dr. Chandrashekhar Bole changed everything. A few MD seats were opening at Sevagram, with preference for candidates who had served in rural areas. Marathe had served in Muktainagar for years. Apply immediately.

He applied. At the age of thirty-eight — married, with two daughters — he returned to Sevagram as a postgraduate in MD Medicine. People asked whether he could manage it. “I have waited nearly two decades for this,” he said. “Do you think I will stop now?”

For three years, he studied alongside colleagues twenty years younger. They treated him with respect, never as an outsider. He cleared his MD in the first attempt.

Returning to the People

In 1999, he returned to Muktainagar with his MD in Medicine and opened a small hospital with an ICU. His fees were a fraction of what city doctors charged. The contentment, he says, was greater than any salary.

Two memories drove him to this choice. The first: as a child, ill and feverish, he had been treated by an Ayurvedic practitioner who was more quack than healer, whose powders and decoctions seldom worked. The second, sharper and more lasting: in 1976, his elder sister went into labour. A BAMS doctor attempted the delivery and failed. She bled heavily and died. She was young. That loss carved a wound in him so deep that only one resolve could fill it: he would go back to the places where sisters like his died helplessly, and be the doctor who was there.

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Dr. Narayan Marathe completed his MBBS from MGIMS Sevagram in 1984, his MS in ENT thereafter, and his MD in Internal Medicine from MGIMS in 1999. He practises in Muktainagar, Maharashtra, where he has served the community for more than two decades, keeping his fees deliberately within reach of the people around him.