88 Not Out

That's not a cricketer's score. That's how old my Mom will be on 10th August. She retired as a company doctor in an administrative role from Singareni Collieries in Andhra Pradesh, in 1989.

Needless to say, I grew up in small coal-mining towns. We had great fun in the cosmopolitan crowd that we had around us, and our friends are still many of those we grew up with (Kiran, Nisha, Avinash, Aashu, Ritu, Sharat, Shobhna, Shalina, Shonika, Mahesh, Manoj, Subodh, Chitrangi, Shubhangi, Milind, Anant, Shashank, Neetika, Shailaja, to name a few). Small towns have that kind of warmth, and we can still meet anyone from those days, and instantly get along. Same with my Mom and her ex-colleagues-they still meet when visiting each others' towns.

It was an incredible thing for her to become a woman doctor when not many entered the profession-or any profession. She lived in Dhanbad/Katraas, Vellore among other places. Also completed her M.D. after her marriage. Grew up to administer the company hospitals in addition to her Ob-Gyn duties. We remember a lot of patients coming home to consult her or just to give her a gift-mostly wives of coal-miners who couldn't make it to the hospital. She learnt Telugu and conversed freely with all of them.

We were privileged of course to have a mother and doctor at home, and she excelled at both the roles. Education was of course a respected thing at home, but the career choices were entirely left to us- just a coincidence that all three of us (my brother, sister and I) veered into Management. The pic below is from IMT Nagpur a few years ago, and with her is her grand-daughter Prarthana.

2 comments:

Parul said...

Advance birthday wishes to Aunty. Here's wishing her health and happy year ahead. I'm also a small town girl and couldn't agree more to your thoughts. The charm and the warmth is just amazing is small cities.

Rajendra said...

Thanks, Parul..from one small town girl to another, will pass on your good wishes.

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