Healing people, forging relationships

Roopinder Singh

Indian boys, those of a certain vintage now, have a connection with Texas through the paperback Westerns we read, possessed, exchanged and traded. Here is another book, set in West Texas. Here too the protagonist’s fingers “move like greased lightning” quite like Sudden’s did, except that the latter’s six-shooter has been substituted by the author’s stethoscope. 

Mathur, whose Chandigarh connection is embedded tantalisingly in the book, has written about contemporary Texas, and the life of an immigrant doctor in a small American town. He is thrown into the deep end of a very basic hospital. The emergency-room accounts are fast-paced and dramatic. Exposure to the TV serial House helped this reader to relate to these scenes better.

“The characters are remixed and recreated to provide individual privacy while sharing the overall experience,” in the memoir, a compelling account of how a doctor arrived at Hotspur, a rural town with a delightfully cowboyish name. He had come from India, via London, where he received advanced training as a gastroenterologist and Houston. He wanted a green card, and they wanted a doctor. He got the job and moved in with his architect wife Mishi and two daughters. 

The challenges were many. As a curious cable guy, he encountered in his first few days, said: “I don’t know, Doc! You don’t hunt or shoot or fish or drive a truck or see kids or deliver babies and you ain’t Christian! You sure qualified and trained! We are glad to have you, but you, you’re different! I don’t know, you know, if word gets out, going to be mighty difficult to get people to come (sic) see you.”

The encounters with the locals are funny and insightful. The sense of being the odd one out in a place where everyone, except you, knows everybody and everything, of being judged all the time, trying to fit into a different milieu, all come out quite well. The medical emergencies he faces make for a gripping read. 

Mathur’s struggles during the year also result in the forging of relationships that give him the needed support. Of all the characters, Dr Karl Becker stands out. He is a colourful, competent, prank-loving loudmouth who is both generous and flawed. The rivalry of various doctors, how they guard their practice, and Mathur’s financial struggles, along with those of his hospital, all serve to highlight the human dimensions in this memoir. He also brings out his lack of attention to his family, a rare admission of the typical behaviour of a career-oriented male. The book grows on you, as Texas did on Mathur and his family. They still live there, in Abilene, still serving the people of Hotspur.