2.18
Tryst with Dr B.S. Chaubey
The Clinician I Wanted to Become
Six months passed quickly. By August 1979, I began my second house job—Internal Medicine, Ward 23. The department was headed by Dr. B. S. Chaubey. The thought of working under him made me feel two things at once: thrilled and slightly afraid. His reputation arrived before he did.
Mondays were sacred—and dreaded. OPD began at eight sharp. Dr. Chaubey lived in a palatial bungalow on West High Court Road, a few metres from Shankar Nagar Square, and drove a blue Fiat. My classmate—and then co-registrar—Ramesh Mundle still remembers the registration number: MH 32–8829. We had trained our eyes to spot it the way a sentry watches the road. The moment that Fiat turned into the parking lot, we knew the grace period was over. Dr. Chaubey arrived a few minutes before eight, unhurried and exact. He tolerated many things in life, but not lateness.
So Monday mornings began before dawn. We dressed fast, often skipping tea and breakfast, and rushed to the hospital with one aim: to be inside the OPD before Dr. Chaubey. The waiting area would already be overflowing. Patients came from all over Vidarbha—and even neighbouring Madhya Pradesh—having travelled overnight for a consultation. Many were examined by interns or first-year residents, yet they left satisfied, reassured that their OPD card carried Dr. Chaubey’s stamp. Authority, we learned, could be delivered in ink.
Ward 23 was the male medical ward. The female ward—Ward 25—was on the first floor, with its own house officer, Archana Srivastava, who would later become my Rakhi sister. Admission days were relentless. Forty to fifty patients was routine. We took histories, examined patients, wrote notes, drew blood, estimated haemoglobin, examined peripheral smears, tested urine sugars—then prepared for rounds that moved upward through the hierarchy: registrar, lecturer, reader, professor.
Among the nursing staff, Brother David and Sister Lalamma stood out. They had served in Ward 23 long enough to anticipate Dr. Chaubey’s preferences before he voiced them. Sister Lalamma took a special interest in me. I weighed barely forty kilograms then, and she worried quietly. She brought me lunch or dinner, sometimes even helped with blood samples. Years later, in 1984, I invited her to my wedding. She came.
After rounds—especially the sterner ones—the unit drifted instinctively to the Indian Coffee House on the ground floor, close to our ward. Tea arrived quickly. Masala dosa vanished even faster. Dr. S. M. Patil was the associate professor, and Dr. Viresh Gupta our lecturer. As per GMC tradition, juniors never paid. Seniors insisted on settling the bill. It was an unwritten rule, followed with the seriousness of a posted order.
Once a month, we had a unit party at Hotel Ashoka or Moti Mahal in Sadar. These gatherings marked milestones—completion of house job, submission of thesis, impending weddings. Dr. Chaubey attended without fail. I was usually the only vegetarian and the only one who did not drink. It never seemed to matter.
Around this time, a new two-storey postgraduate hostel was built. Each resident was allotted a single room—girls on one side, boys on the other. I chose Room 99 on the first floor, facing the dental college. I had always liked the number. The room was clean, quiet, and ideal for study.
A telephone stood a few metres away—our lifeline to the wards and to one another. The common mess, however, tested our endurance. Every vegetable seemed to contain potato. The rotis were thick, dry, and cold. By the time we arrived, the dal had lost both heat and hope. One friend summed it up perfectly: “You have to be a yogi to taste hostel food.”
Mornings improved matters slightly. For twenty-five paise, the Indian Coffee House offered salvation—idlis, uttapam, or yet another masala dosa.
And then, almost without warning, the house job ended.
We had lived in a tight loop—sleep, wake, work, eat, sleep again—with little time for reflection. Only later did I realise that Ward 23, with its discipline, fatigue, kindness, and quiet rituals, had taught me not just medicine, but how to endure it.