Since when did you want to become a doctor? Since I was a child in Chittagong. My father wanted my elder brother, whose schooling was being taken care of by a well-to-do family, to be a doctor but I too dreamed of becoming one.
But you weren’t even going to school… Yes, while my friends attended school, I used to sell fruit in the market but I made sure I progressed too. When they were back, I’d take their class notes and copy them. This went on till I was 13 or 14, when I became a tutor to some four- and five-year-olds and could pay the fees. So, I managed to go to school in classes IX and X and did well in matriculation. It got me a scholarship and took care of my Class XI and XII fees. I continued to be a tutor, and that was the time I began to believe that I could become a doctor. Though I had good results in the intermediate exams too and was eligible, I was told it wasn’t possible to get into medical studies in Chittagong, in what used to be East Pakistan.
And you decided to come to Kolkata… That the standard of education was much higher in India was motivation too. I arrived in 1955, all but penniless and armed with a letter from Mrs Nellie Sengupta and permission to stay at the zamindar’s Kolkata home for a few days. I discovered that Mrs Sengupta’s contact had fallen on bad times and was saddled with graver problems than mine. That’s when my struggles began. I went from one medical college to another but without any success. One day, overwhelmed by a sense of hopelessness, I was at College Square, when a man sitting on the same bench pulled me into a conversation. He literally dragged me to the famous Sarbadhikari house on Amherst Street and told me to seek an audience with Dr Kanak Chandra Sarbadhikari the next morning. I managed to meet the influential orthopaedic surgeon but he told me that I couldn’t get into a government college because I had no papers. He arranged for me to face the board at National Medical, which was then a private college. The interview went off well and I was in.
But you still had no money… I couldn’t afford hostel fees but managed somehow. Among things I did was carry the stretcher up and down buildings for St John’s Ambulance Brigade. It was hard work but it allowed me to stay at Netaji Bhavan. Later, when I started receiving refugee stipend, I moved to the hostel.
How did you end up in Newcastle? My life has been like a ship with a captain, dragging me from one place to another with the sole aim of making me a good surgeon. I had no resource to get into postgraduate education in Calcutta and the refugee stipend was also stopped. While I was contemplating all this, I fell in love and got married in secret. That was the best thing I did in my life. Leaving her behind at her parents’ place, I went to England in 1961 with very little money and without doing internship. After a month of going from one place to another, I finally landed a job at the Berry General Hospital in Manchester. The one year there got me the registration number, and after drifting from one speciality to another, circumstances had me landing up in the neurosurgery department. Gradually, I grew fascinated by what the neurosurgeons were doing — their fight between life and death, working on the pulsating brain to cure patients. I told myself I should be a surgeon for the most precious part of the body.
So, the struggle continued in England? Yes, it was hard. I had no holidays, working even on weekends to make ends meet for the growing family (son was born in 1963 and daughter in 1965).
How did you stay focused and pursue a high ambition despite poverty and other problems? Struggle has always spurred me to strive harder. I am sure it is largely because of my childhood moorings. In Chittagong, even as my mother somehow kept us alive, my father filled us with teachings of the great souls. They sounded hollow initially but became a source of great strength later. Swami Vivekananda’s words in particular provided the answer whenever I was confronted by doubt and dilemma. Soon, I knew nothing could stop me from achieving my goal.
When did you consider settling in India? The moment I passed FRCS from Edinburgh and England, my wife was keen to come back to India. I too wanted to serve here. It was 1971 by the time I could save enough for plane tickets. However, I couldn’t find a job here and we went back. A second attempt, in 1973, got me a job in Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi but they were only into head injuries. I was doing a much higher level of work. I failed to get a suitable placement and realized a job in India was not for me. I went back and worked harder to try to get a career in England. It was difficult for an Indian doctor to get a consultant’s job there at that time. During this period of despair, I got a call from Dr William Sweet, the famous neurosurgeon of Harvard University. I worked with him at the Mess General Hospital but I did not quite enjoy it and went back to the National Health Service in Newcastle.
You became a world famous surgeon… At that time, the success of aneurysm surgeries was very poor and I decided to take it as a challenge by making it my area of work. I travelled the world at my own expense to get better at it, meeting doctors, writing in publications.
You treated several VIPs. Can you tell us about it? On one occasion, in the mid-80s, I received a call from the PMO and later came to know it was Gopalkrishna Gandhi (who would later serve as governor of Bengal) at the other end. I had to rush to Delhi to attend to President Venkataraman’s wife, who had a brain haemorrhage. She insisted she be treated in Newcastle. After she had recovered sufficiently, she didn’t want stay in the hospital or move to a hotel. So, she came to stay at our house, and it became a fortress. They were charming people and strict vegetarians, so my wife and I became vegetarian chefs for a while! Soon, VIPs from different parts of the world wanted their loved ones to be treated by me. When I reached retiring age (65) in 2002, the Newcastle hospital named the OT ‘Robin Sengupta Theatre’ in a rare gesture. They wanted me to continue and I finally stopped in December 2012. I am now an emeritus consultant there.
You’ve had other honours as well… In 2003, the BBC did a programme ‘A Day in the Life of Dr Robin Sengupta’, which was a part of their ‘What is best in NHS’ series. Then, because I have trained so many Indian neurosurgeons in England, the Neurosurgery Society of India named me ‘Neurosurgeon of the Millennium’ in 2000. The National Academy of Science made me an honorary fellow. I was really moved when former President APJ Abdul Kalam gave me the Vivekananda Samman at the ‘World Confluence of Humanity, Power & Spirituality’ organized by SREI.
Why did you choose Kolkata for the Institute of Neurosciences Kolkata (I-NK)? Apart from an emotional connect with the city that made me a doctor, I also saw the urgent need for neurological services in eastern India. I had attained a great deal but I asked myself, ‘Should I now slip into a comfortable life in England, enjoying the fruits of my struggle and hard work, while people continued to suffer?’ Friends and relatives tried to dissuade me from such a task but Vivekananda’s words reminded me that it was better to wear out than rust away. My wife and I donated all our resources and so many others helped raise the funds, but I built I-NK with the support of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and the government of West Bengal. I am looking for a bigger campus to set up facilities for top-level education and research and extend world-class services to more people. I-NK already has an association with the Newcastle hospital and more doctors from around the world will want to work here. There is no dearth of cases here. I am hoping the state government will join in this effort and we’ll do wonders.
What have you learnt and unlearnt in these 15 years of I-NK? I learnt that handling patients and their relatives here is a different art. In the West, they want to know the truth. Patients too want it, even if means asking ‘Doc, how long do I have?’ Here, not only will relatives insist that you not tell the patient, they often don’t want the truth themselves. All they want are false assurances.
What do you see when you look back? I see my struggle but also the sacrifices of people around me, particularly those of my family. The struggle may have been tasteless and painful at that time, but it’s like vintage wine now. That’s what time does. When I lost my only son, who too was studying medicine, in an accident in 1983, I was overcome by a sense of guilt at not having spent enough time with my family as I chased my goal. I still do surgery; it seems I’ll never be able to rest. There’s still so much left to do.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Kolkata / by Arup Chatterjee & Debasish Konar, TNN / October 17th, 2014