AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY GANDHI MEDICAL COLLEGE, BHOPAL
कितनी यादें कितने किस्से नक्श है इन दीवारों पर ,
चलते - चलते देख ले मुड़कर कौन यहां फिर आएगा
अखतर सईद खां
Salute you readers for asking about myself now when I have added a golden feather in my cap. My fifty years of age in 2005, the golden jubilee as you all call and celebrate with a lot of fanfare and gusto. I know in the modern era of hurry, worry and curry you don't have much time so I shall be brief. This is all because of Dr. N.D. Gargav who keeps on pestering me to talk. I love him because you know he "lives" in my heart and is like a papered child. Although every stone of my campus has a story to tell but I shall ask them to wait for their turn. You all know life started from an amoeba and you living beings came from Adam and Eve after spending a comfortable nine months and odd in your mother's womb. As for me my adobe before inception was " in dreamland" of many sufferers and aspiring students. It all started soon after India gained independence. Bhopal was then a small sleepy town though the capital of Bhopal state under Nawab Hameedullah Khan. There stood a fort overlooking the upper lake in Fatehgarh built by his forefather as early as in 1722 in the memory of his wife Fateh Bibi, hence the name. It was here where form they fought the invaders where I stand today to fight disease, the modus operandi same but targets different. May! remind you that this fort was singular in the way that it was walled only from three sides, the fourth side being open towards the lake as can be seen even today.
may be it was meant to be an escape route in case of siege which history will tell you, never happened. No army ever captured the Fatehgarh fort. I shall endeavors to live up to this tradition and God willing shall ever remain a victor over disease and medical ignorance.
I was distressed since even after independence the patients of Bhopal were dependant upon Bombay (now Mumbai) for ailments which were serious beyond the basic. I mean medical facilities though adequate yet left much to be desired.It was clear eight years later in 1955 that the then CM of Bhopal Late Dr. Shankar Dayal Sharma thought of setting me in Bhopal and my "delivery" was conducted by late Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri on 13th August 1955.
The others who attended my " Birth were late Maulana Tarzi Mashriqui, the then - Health Minister of Bhopal State and Late Mr. Jameel, 
the then Health Secretary. For want a proper housing a part of the present Polytechnic building was selected as my “Creche". You know I had then just two departments, anatomy and physiology (like two parents) and my progeny as a" Primi" numbered 50. They were" Founder Students" and I feel they deserve to be named. Their last known locations is mentioned along.
- A.K. Haritwal (Gwalior)
- B.M. Nemani (USA)
- Mrs. C.K. Kapoor/ Banati (NewDelhi)
- C.K. Agarwal (USA)
- Mrs. Charnjit Ghooi/ Kochar(Bhopal/ Puttapurti)
- G.P. Saxena (Bhopal)
- Grish Shrivastava (New Delhi)
- H.C. Pant (Noida)
- K.D. Bhargava (lndore)
- K.N. Sharma (Bhopal)
- Mrs. Kamla Mathur/ Kalra(Faridabad)
- V.S. Mathur (Faridabad)
- P.P. Mehta (U.K.)
- S.N. Kaul (New Delhi)
- S.D. Mishra (Agra)
- S.K. Talwar (New Delhi)
- S.D. Vijay (Dehradoon)
- Mrs. Savitri Kakkar/ Karnani (U.K.)
- V.V. Kakkar (U.K.)
- S.P. Verma (U.K.)
- S.A. Ansari (Bhopal)
- V.K. Jain (Noida)
- S.C. Jain (Bhopal)
- T.N. Consul (Khurja-U.P.)
- V.K. Maheshwari (lndore)
- Mrs. Shobha Sharma (Rajpur)
- Mrs. Rama Goyal/ Bansal (Ujjain)
- J.H. Jethi (Ahmedabad)
- Bahubal Kumar (U.S.A)
- Nawnath Prasad (Gorakhpur)
- K.L. Saraf (Gwalior)
- Darshan Singh (New Delhi)
- J.K. Tuli (New Delhi)
- Mrs. Janak Sadhna (U.S.A)
- K.N. Singh (Kanpur)
- P.C. Rastogi (Meerut)
- Mrs. Santosh Bagle/Kaur (New Delhi)
- Mrs. Tejwant Kaur (U.K.)
- V.M. Bagle (New Delhi)
- Manoj Mathur- Transferred From Gwalior Bhopal) (Present location not known)
- D.K. Malhotra
- Jacob Joseph
- Mrs. Naima Akbar Ali
- R.K. Shrivastava (Left Medical Studies after 2nd Year) (Alas, Not in this World with us anymore)
- B.M. Dhoot
- C.M. Kapoor
- Gursarwan Singh.
- K.K. Agrawal
- K.N. Shrivastava
- N.K. Goorha.
- S.P. Gagrani.
- Shankar Lal-Transferred From Gwalior
I vividly remember a few faces who frequent my locale even today, to mention Dr. S.C Jain, Dr. S.A. Ansari, Dr. Mrs. Charinjit Ghooi, Dr. G.P. Saxena, Dr. K.N. Sharma and Dr. Manoj Mathur. There are a few like Dr. V.V.Kakkar an international authority in vascular surgery who I “wishfully" think because of their international commitments never bother to visit me or even ask my welfare. "Ayesa bhi hota hai" To see the through my teething troubles was the then Director of Health Services, late Dr. Gopal Krishna Saxena, who later in 1956 became the Principal as well. The first Principal in 1955 was Dr. S.C. Sinha.
Being with the foster mother of Polytechnic building I was never at rest and craved to be weaned to my own
surroundings and luckily for me the Nawab of Bhopal lent the Fatehgarh fort to act as my cradle. None else was happier than me when late Shri Govind Ballabh Pant, the then Union Home Minister laid my buildings' foundation stone on 15th Sept. 1956. I was to be housed at the highest point of vantage in Bhopal in the lap of the fort and coincidentally my architect and Chief Engineer major Mirza Fahim Beg was of contemporary height (the great man is alive and going strong today- touch wood).One can watch for his stature if one sees the photographs of my opening ceremony functions. For me the seven year a long period of construction was a long wait and I felt sorry that the first couple of batches or so got out without even setting a foot in my new home.For long the classes were held in the old barracks and sheds of the fort and in makeshift halls of asbestos sheets. My children were often confronted with" Cannon Balls" in the barren surroundings of their so called classrooms. Even after shifting to the more cozy lecture theaters of my new building they kept company with " Cannons" but this time from the billiard table and " Shots and Volleys" from the tennis court of the adjacent "Fort Club" where the elite of the town spent their 
afternoons and evenings. The office of the Principal of the college and my NCC wing shared a part of the old heritage building and believe me my Principal enjoyed a majestic view of the upper lake from his office in " Baradari" which gave him an unobstructed view oat only of the lake but also of the distant Shamla Hills beyond, that too right from his seat. Late Dr. R.P. Singh, Principal, really ruled the college like a " Monarch" form the Right settings". Wasn't that great as ill luck will have it the present Dean can barely see daylight, least the sky from his / her seat today - isn't that bad.
The boys hostel was till then the present Jehanuma Palace Hotel and the girls hostel was bracketed with the MLB college girls hostel at Banganga.
The mention of the tennis court reminds me of a historic event in my life when President Sanjeeva Reddy inaugurated the National conference of Physicians in 1978 horn its service area. This was the third national event within the space of five years, the first two being in one calendar year, namely Pathology national conference in January 1973 and Physio-pharmacology national conference in December 1973. Doesn't that speak of my popularity as a venue thanks to my scenic surroundings? This was the forerunner of numerous national conferences and International satellite seminars that followed between then and now.
My new/ present building was inaugurated by late Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the then Prime Minister of India on 13th March 1963, when a galaxy of celebrities were on the dais- Begum Sajida Sultan of Bhopal, Governor Shri H.V. Pataskar, Chief Minister Shri B.R. Mandloi, Health Minister Mr. M.P. Dubey and Principal Dr. R.P. Singh. No wonder it was a great day. Some say 13 is unlucky but for me it was luck all the way and God willing shall remain so till eternity. By now my corridors still smelling of fresh paint were bustling with students and doctors. The first batch of house surgeons, though not from my " womb" came in 1956, (the author was in this batch of house surgeons). The problem of housing patients in the small lap of Hamidia Hospital and students in far flung make shift hostels had become acute by now and so new wards and hostels were planned. True to the tradition ' Ladkiyan paraye ghar ki hoti hain" (Rem writ sa St& g) the girls were shifted to a "Paraya Char' namely the nurses hostel and if I am permitted to say like true infiltrators they edged out the nurses from the " Paraya Char" and made it Apna Ghar". The nurses hostel had to be shifted to another building though just opposite where it stands today.
As for wards the foundation stone of " Kamla Nehru block", (not the Kamla Nehru gas relief hospital), was laid by late Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, the then Union Health Minister on 6th March, 1955.
Innovative Principal with new ideas that Dr. R.P. Singh was, he designed the layout of the boy's hostel on the pattern of a two tier system which was probably the first of its kind at that time. The foundation stone of this brain child of Dr. R.P. Singh was laid by King of Nepal Maharaj Mahendra Bir Vikram Shah Deo on 18th Nov. 1955.
Tradition goes that the new generation lives amongst old legends and right enough what remains just behind my auditorium near the back gate of the college is a white mosque which houses the tomb,(the white canopy/ chattri of which can be seen from outside) of Sardar Dost Mohammad Khan, the founder of the dynasty of Bhopal. I often near a mysterious voice in the green room of the auditorium reciting the verse :-
Likewise there is a marble plaque in the big old fort gate (now within the hospital stores and obscured to view by empty boxes) which carries statics known to few. It says" From this fort 1994 men went to the World War, (1914 -1919), out of which 36 never returned." Heritage is nostalgic and I boast of one more landmark in housing beyond the basketball court the smallest mosque, " dhai sidhi ki masjid" (2 ½ , steps mosque) which , overlooks the biggest mosque of the sub-continent, The Tajul Masajid". You must have learnt and read the story " Gulliver and the Lilliputians" in your early classes, here you see the analogy in architecture. Isn't legendary!
The word legend strikes yet another chord in my teed, " Laila Manjnu". Imagine the days when the main gate 
ET my foreground wore a desolate, deserted, forlorn look after the college hours. The fort watch tower at this site which is now flanked by a "mazar" on the West side and a" mandir” on the East side was a favourite meeting place of "friends and future couples (successful or otherwise)" and rightly called "Laila Majnu ka tilla". I doubt in the present place?
I will be too selfish if I don't lament over the loss of some of my beloved students namely Miss Sarla Dhar, Mr. V.K. Kak, Dr. Captain Yadur, Dr. Javed and many others who kik us in their bloom. I may also mention the only death of a hospital superintendent, Dr. Agnihotri, who died while taking rounds of the hospital stores. He lived to the tradition of the fort, since "a true soldier dies in his boots". The second such" death in office "was that of Prof. of surgery, Dr. A.M. Ghooi, and the third also of the Surgery Department (Plastic Surgery Unit), that of Dr. B.P. Dave. Dr. C.B. Seth who was just promoted as Professor and transferred died soon after leaving us. Gear up your heart since I am going to narrate the sad demise of Dr. J. R. Verma, blood bank officer of the college who saved hundreds of lives by providing compatible blood day in and day out as he himself died of a blood transfusion reaction.
Let us come back to the brighter side now since I can seen the gloom on your face. I came to the voting age and then started formations of College Unions and Societies and to crown all the routine college Annual day functions and sports. I had no playground of my own and had to borrow from all and sundry a place for my functions and sports. Undaunted they celebrated my 25th birthday (Silver Jubilee) in December, 1980. Dr. Shankar Dayal Sharma who was then a union Minister and Mr. Arjun Singh, C.M. of M.P. graced the occasion. I was bedecked like a bride and believe me, you all never made me feel" old, although by then I had given birth to 2549 graduates, 525 post graduates, 230 diploma and had 20 and odd multifaceted faculties. I was really a great grand multipara. I wish you were there to see that function and if you had been there you would surely say" WOH DIN MUJHE YAAD HAI" (The photograph on the outer back cover of this book was snapped by the author on that occasion)
I had hardly got over the ecstacy and hangover of the celebrations that on the fateful night between 2nd and 3rd December 1984 hell broke loose over Bhopal in the form of a 40 ton MIC leak inform of a deadly cloud from the Union Carbide factory. The Bhopalis were caught in their sleep as the cloud burst of MIC spewed death and destruction killing 13 to 20 thousand and injuring 10 lakh innocents. This was sufficient to break the bones of my offsprings. These faithful fought like true soldiers of the Fatehgarh fort and burnt the candle at both ends in the care of the dead and dying. My foreground and background yards were choked with dead bodies while vail of the searching relatives reached sky high. My walls still shiver and quiver on every MIC anniversary of that' 84 December. The episode then and its memories now are enough to melt the steel nerves of any living being. I think the less I talk about the tragedy the better it will be, lest I should spoil the taste of this narrative.
It is said, "every cloud has a silver lining" and has happened. Time being the greatest healer, my family came out with flying colours and went along the road to progress. Fresh courses were started and new faculties came up which include a Medicolegal institute, Regional Eye Institute, Cardiac Science Center, Trauma center in addition to the already existing Plastic surgery, Paediatric surgery, Cardiothoracic, Urology and Radiotherapy units.
The story now unfolds towards a fresh and unexpected tragedy true to the verse of a poet,
Morning, 9 A.M of 1 7-08-1994 brought yet another misery. The entire toilet wing of surgical ward KNB 5 caved into the H.O.D. 
Anaesthesia's room below with a loud bang. Dr. Mrs. Singh, H.O.D. anaesthesia was just then leaving the room. My God, she had just her second birth day! For hours chaos and commotion reigned supreme and phones in my Dean office and adjacent hospital office rang like mad. A trigger/ shutter happy consultant in plastic surgery readily captured the whole scenario in his camera while the building was still bleeding. Don't be carried away by thinking that it was his handy work and he was ready for the occasions. Photography is his second nature. Fortunately there were no causalities and no injuries. You know that it could have been worse or worst. Speculations and fears ran high since some labour was supposedly working near about and till the fire brigade searched the entire debris my breath remained in my throat. After all being a parent body I had a large chunk of responsibility.
All tragedies have some feed backs and mind searching sessions and in this case it came up in the form of "Astha Abhiyan" in 1995, when all KNB blocks were dug up and redone and so also the Out Patient Block (a blessing in disguise). The entire hospital went into a camp life for a couple of years that followed for the completion on the "Astha Abhiyan".
The story of the hospital events in an altogether separate chapter which I dare not enter (I can tell you all some other time if you have the endurance to listen or read) otherwise it will be like entering a labyrinth and cochlea and your vestibular vertigo will land you into my grandson Dr. N.D. Gargav's clinic (the barka ENT surgeon). So let me stop short here on the hospital story.
You know when I came to lodge myself in the Fatehgarh fort, Hamidia Hospital and Sultania Zanana Hospitals to which I was asked to be attached were not only my senior neighbours and guardians but also "friends in need". They housed patients who were "the under study" of my students. While I housed the “books and theory", the hospitals provided the "livestock" for trial, error and treatment. As I put it in every patient there is preface for a new book since, "books are written according to patients, the patients don't come according to books". Not only this, in the early phase lot many of the hospital staff graciously and thankfully took classes for my students. To mention Late Dr. S.K. Bose, Superintendent Hannidia Hospital and Dr. Hafeez Ahmed (Ophthalmologist ) took lectures and conducted examinations in Forensic Medicine in the early days. You can say I chugged on borrowed steam"- ultimately, "my Fairy Queen" became a " Rajdhani-Shatabdi Express". Surely and soundly I reached and important junction. In my school days I had read a couplet from a famous English poet, " Old order changeth yielding place to new" and "God fulfills himself in many ways". True to this tradition there was a Change of guards" at my door, the chronology of which needs mention and is as follows :-
Permanent principals and Deans GMC Bhopal 1955 onwards.
Dr. S.C. Sinha Principal 1955-56 
Dr. G Krishna Principal 1956-57
Dr. R.P. Singh Principal 1958-63
Dr. Narendra Singh Principal 1964-65
Dr. S. M. Mishra Dean 1967-71
Dr. M Kumar Dean 1971-72
Dr. S.M. Mishra Dean 1973-75
Dr. S.S. Gupta Dean 1075-78
Dr. Santokh Singh Dean 1979-81
Dr. R.P. Bhargava Dean 1981-84
Dr. B.B. Mathur Dean 1984-85
Dr. 0.P. Sharma Dean 1985-88
Dr. V.K. Agarwal Dean 1988-89
Dr. S. Bose Dean 1989-91
Dr. N.P. Mishra Dean 1991-92
Dr. G V. Rangnekar Dean 1993-94
Dr. T.N. Mehrotra Dean 1994-95
Dr. R.G. Singh Dean 1995-95
Dr. P.K. Jain Dean 1995-00
Dr. M. Tankwal Dean 2000-01
Dr. M.P. Singh Dean 2001-02
Dr. Mrs. S. Biseria Gupta Dean 2002 till date
While the credit of the longest tenure in the high office goes to Dr. P.K. Jain, the present incumbent needs a mention since she is the first lady to become Dean. Not only this but she was a student who was admitted to my fold in 1963 batch and I am proud to say that she holds the prime post of the Dean in her alma mater from the year 2002. History was thus created on the above two counts. I have seen all these happenings over this long span and I can sportingly say that "she" stretched from " Primary- 1963" to "Premier-2002", in 39 years. Hats off to you madam. May you being an ophthalmologist be bestowed with a wide vision, eyeing everybody equally; may you have "teeth" to fight every problem, and may you always ride " Cloud-9". I wish you many years of happy Deanship to come. As if I had saved the best for the last, I am proud to say that some of my students have held Ministerial portfolios in the M.P. state Government too- Dr. Gauri Shankar Shejwar (1969 batch), late Dr. Bhanwar Singh Porte, Dr. Vijaylaxmi Sadho (1975 batch). What an honour, lot more if you are interested in your time off from the hustle bustle of the Golden Jubilee Fanfare, you can log on to my website www.gmc@memorabilia. com, (Don't try to waste your time surfing, it is fictitious). So much about me the selfish because I do not often get many interested readers or listeners. Tell me my children some of your stories and legends, your achievements, your sad and sweet moments. I can assure you in me you will find and interested listener. True my walls are stones but I am not stone deaf and my 50 years have not made me opaque. I admit, since you are my secret keepers, I too have my shortcomings and pitfalls. I do a lot of introspection in the late hours when after the day's activities are over, the air is somber, sober, serene and silent, I am left all to myself. In fact then I am with the dead in the morgue and the anatomy tanks. Often a contemporary of my age comes/ is brought there and after formal exchange of condolences we spend hours listening to each others woes and stories and exchanging notes (not currency). the dead do tell their tales as
forensic experts always tell you. I often take them round my halls with their howling emptiness, the auditorium, the corridors, and the long flight of stairs. The going up is Dainful for both of us age being the bottom line. (You know the lifts do not operate at night).
Very often the tiny tots from the anatomy and pathology museum jars join the arty. They, from their submerged abode, are amused to see a" Piece' in ' one Piece". This goes on till the day breaks, when we part company and I am left to mourn my night zompanions' fate facing torture and dissection that is inevitable, post mortem. The mornings' aura and aroma must be mind boggling for you though you are not unfamiliar to IL Yet you must be wondering," who the last nights visitor was."
Though the waves of the upperlake beyond the V.I.P. Road sing a lullaby for me every night, "I have miles to go before I sleep".
Howl wish I would be the old silent" Fatehgarh Fort" again.
Enjoy yourself the show must go on.
Prayer: God may bless the golden year of your function(2005)
Angles may hymn," To ye no harm may come" (Amin)
Bye Bye for now. See you at 75, 100, and beyond
Goodluck and God bless you.
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