Gandhi Raj Kafle

Are men destined to die by suffering deadly diseases like cancer, AIDS, heart attacks and brain strokes, among others?
Not exactly. The causes of deaths are heterogeneous if we look at human mortality figures. Any disease can be deadly if it is not treated in time and properly.
The lack of well-equipped health centres and the absence of professional medical staff hampers the quality of medical care, which ultimately takes its toll on people's health.

On the broad spectrum, we often hear a lot about health issues in our own country, where a large chunk of remote citizens still lacks access to quality health services. However, the context to add here is not this, but the book under review with health themes by Dr Arjun Dev Bhatta. The title of his book is “Samaya Yatra” (Journey of Time).
Why did Dr Bhatta choose this title for his book, which has no words related to health? So, let’s talk about the words ‘time’ and ‘travel’ as per the themes described in this memoir book. Understandably, the author wants to interpret both of his professional and humanitarian feelings in a literary vein in his writings here.

For that, Dr Bhatta has his reasons. He is a person who hails from the country's remote part of the Far West's Baitadi District and memories from there are unforgettable for him. That is why he does not want to miss this opportunity to remember his roots in a literary vein through this book. Similarly, he fondly remembers his older brother and noted litterateur Dr Anand Dev Bhatta (who passed away recently) while presenting this under review Memoire Samaya Yatra.

However, the subject of this book is health. Dr Bhatta recalls he had returned to Nepal with not only medical degrees like MBBS and MD, but he had also completed courses in PhD in the subject. Furthermore, he had already been married to Russian bride Aksana. Where would he use his technical expertise and would his wife adjust to the new socio-economic environment of Nepal in his journey of medical life here? Dr Bhatta personally wrote about the challenges before he was enormous then.

But, times travelled with the author and he tried to walk ahead sincerely and confidently. Surprisingly, Dr Bhatta feels proud to note that his wife, despite being a non-native Nepali, did not only encourage him to go even to any remote places in the country to serve patients but also happily struggled to cope with the different social environment for support of her husband. Here, we can also remember the famous lines that behind ‘every success of a man is a woman’ or ‘man and woman are the two wheels of life’s chariot’.

This book, however, has been built with Dr Bhatta’s five-year memories from 2031 to 2035 BS, which he gained while working at two major hospitals Jaleshwor and Janakpur more than 42 years ago. Was everything all right like working in the Capital city of Kathmandu for him and the medical staff? No doubt, Janakpur was one of the major towns of the country even at that time and Jaleshwor (in Mahottari District) was the Zonal Headquarters in the Panchayat Regime. But the health problems mentioned by Dr Bhatta in this book were worse in metres of infrastructure and socio-political awareness.

His subject to serve patients is Urology and the diseases under it are many – blockage of urine, prostate problems and improper diagnosis of urine infection etc. However, had it been possible for Dr Bhatta to limit himself to his areas of specialisation in Janakpur and Jaleshwor? No, he wrote that he had treated all kinds of patients sincerely. He also recalls memories of home visits for treatment and earnings, which boosted his income level to meet daily expenses and livelihood.

The urologist stated that his monthly salary of Rs 650.00 at the time could hardly have met the costs of house rent for a doctor like him. Here, with the inputs of Dr Bhatta, we can still be curious to know regarding the low salary and remuneration in the country: Why is the Government unwilling to pay enough salaries and maintains no serious attention to receive optimum utilisation professional manpower? Is it not a chronic problem?
After talking about the professional experiences of Dr Bhatta in this book, his description in it also contains the value of literature. First of all, he has tried to describe himself, and the second important thing which he has done in this book is he has beautifully described Janakpur’s environment – tall and big trees of Tad and mango, huge Barahbigaha open field, magnificent Janaki, Ram and other temples and sacred ponds. But despite all these potentials, what have been unlovely for Dr Bhatta at the time in Janakpur areas are superstitiously hesitant patients, male-female discrimination, social disparity and poverty.

Before concluding this review, let’s also note a few of his views, which are personal and interesting:
Dr Bhatta writes: 'Like many professional doctors, he has many stories of successes in his medical life and it gives him strength and satisfaction.' However, despite all such sincere efforts, a doctor also happens to confront with a few unsuccessful cases of health services, and, he too, has had some such dilemmas. For it, he remembers his Guru of surgery class in Russia who had said – ‘a surgeon might have some unsuccessful cases’. Dr Bhatta regrets such cases and commits to better service to patients.

Finally, what we can read in this book is: A boy of Baitadi District came to Kathmandu for study, went to Russia and came back to Nepal with all the high degrees of medical faculty and served numerous patients and hospitals in the country. Life's beauty is that same Baitadi boy is now a noted urologist, Arjun Dev Bhatta. He has written this book from his long experience in surgery and medical services.