Tempest

Friday 1 June 2007

Dream in White & Green

She is a little short, about 3 inches and 5 feet. Shy, a sweet smile, an unglamorous boycut, simple and unaffected. Speaks only when spoken to; Capt. Pragati Patil is someone who can easily get lost in a crowd. You wouldn’t notice her in a party. In a serious discussion among more vocal or even among most people she would simply disappear. Until in a soft steady voice she says something that makes complete sense and adds absolute value to the conversation. I met her a week ago, I have spent hours listening to her and watching her at work and I have grown to admire her with each passing moment.

In bits and pieces she told me her entire story; her dreams, her aspirations, her journey and her arrival. First tentatively and later animatedly with untampered original emotion to an awestruck audience; me. “I have always wanted to be an Army officer through out school and even in college I would think that it would be the next step,” she said with unfaltering conviction as she looked back.

MBBS was over and done with. It was just another day on a hot summer afternoon that she got a call. “It was the moment I had been waiting for my entire life.” The interview was in Delhi at the DG AFMS office. By some stroke of extreme bad luck she came down with one of the worst cases of viral fever with an almost constant 104 degrees just five days short of the interview. She was on drip and had to be given anti biotics intravaneously. Both her younger brothers were on their way to becoming doctors themselves. The entire family was aginst her making the 2 day journey to Delhi. Her parents told her it cold be put off until next year. Not to be detered, Pragati decided to go ahead with it unprepared to let go of her opportunity. Together with her younger brother, she taught her youngest brother who was in the first year of MBBS how to inject anti-biotics. She dragged him with her promising her disgruntled parents that she would take care of herself. They made some curious friends on the train as he kept giving her cold compressions and anti biotics and by the time she reached Delhi the fever had subsided. The interview went off well and the DG AFMS, impressed with the girls determination told her to expect her call in November.

Pragati highly excited left home for the first time ever to become an Army officer in January 2006. Her centre was Nagpur and the moment she landed her olive adventure began. She had to get a full medical done to get commissioned. But the ENT specialist in Nagpur was off sick so she had to go to Deolali (“Deo what?, I had asked. I hadn’t even heard of such a place. Imagine how remote it must have been”, she told me. “I was born there”, I ruefully replied). Now, since she wasn’t commissioned, they could not get her a reservation but it was imperative that she leave immediately. She bought a ticket on waiting and got onto the train. After the first 45 minutes or so the TT showed up and told her he couldn’t allow a lady to travel without reservation and she must get out. Scared to get off in ‘No-man’s land’ (“I was as it is going to some no-man’s land,” she said with an apologetic smile) and indignant about being told to get out inspite of having a ticket she told the TT she would stand the whole night if she had to but she wasn’t getting out. And so Capt. Pragati stood. Thus began her journey in olive green. “I have always dreamt of wearing the uniform with the stars. I didn’t just want to be a doctor…I wanted to be a doctor nursing the wounds of soldiers of my proud nation”, she says to me. Lines like these have been said before but the honest coinviction in her voice without a hint of emotion…yet soaked in it, captured my romanticism.

Her first posting was Kamptee, a small town in Maharashtra where she was stationed as General Practitioner. They were possibly the worst 6 months of her life. She now looks back and says she learnt a lot in those 6 months…but this is exactly what any brave person says after facing an ordeal when the memory is just a memory and the pain has already been fought. She was the only female officer there. She was lonely, depressed, and harrassed, “yet I never once thought about leaving,” she says, her voice mirroring well earned pride. The senior doctor would humiliate her in front of her juniors almost everyday, highlighting and hacking mistakes and never once explaining as a fair mentor should. The nursing staff was hostile. “I had asked a nurse to come on rounds with me my first time and give me the proceedure for diagnostics but she refused point blank. They have ranks among the nursing staff as well and it is a sore point for them to have to listen to a young officer just because she is an officer. They rebel against you. I guess it wasn’t just aimed at me, I guess all new officers go through it,” Pragati explained. She took it all in stride. Her parents would call and she would lie to them about the wonderful place she was living in and how nice her colleagues were. She would almost choke on her words and there would be a constriction in her heart. There was no one to talk to, yet she was determined to find her own way as this was her dream. “I had’nt been forced into it, this was my dream and I was not going to let anything ruin it for me,” said Pragati, controlled passion in her voice. And she warmed my heart by smiling again.

Finally it was over and she was sent to training camp in Lucknow for two months. She had the time of her life there. Here she was not a doctor. In fact she forgot that she had ever been a doctor. She was just another kid who was being gruelled like hell by a physical education instructor! They went for 2 km runs in the mornings, followed by work out sessions and then games. She was among the only 10 girls on camp among 70 guys. They were told that they were ‘also men’ here in the Army, she told me with a giggle. They ran and played equally. She didn’t know if they were equally exhausted but she knew she was tired enough to sleep through class everyday without fail. They would go for day long excursions into the nearby jungle in the middle of summer with just a bottle of water each. Their aim and mission was to find the perfect spot to set up a medical camp in war, next to a water body, well away from firing, hidden from enemy exposure etc etc. She had dreamless nights of 5 hours sleep a day for those two months.

‘A minor infection, that was all it was’, she laughed and said to me. Her toe was cut and the nail was taken out to squeeze the puss out. It was the day of the passing out parade and Capt. Pragati refused to take to bed. She wore her DMS boots and ran to the Passing Out Parade, forcing herself not to wince at each step. Unfortunately she was late and there was only one spot left and she had to hold the rifle to be in that spot. Capt. Pragati was the only female officer to be holding a rifle and marching that day. She passed out on a ‘surgical foot’ as she puts it and went on to become a proud officer of the Indian Army.

She is now posted as GP in Naushera Brigade as the only female officer. I asked her how she manages to hold respect being the lone wolf. ‘It’s the way you treat yourself. If an officer is what you are, that is exactly what they will treat you as, neither lady nor man”.
She lives her life content and confident dealing with high pressure office hours with calls later than 11 some nights. I accompanied her today and watched the easy confidence with which she dealt with the men. It is tough to command respect being the only woman around and she does it with aplomb; no shouting, no acting gruff to sound tough. Just a steady soft voice asking the right questions when needed and giving the right instructions as required with dignity. And they listen and respond in silent respect. Watching her in office I felt as if a plug has neatly fit into the right socket with a soft click. She is in her place, as if she was made for the Army.

She lost a life last week as a young jawan cut his femural artery and blood replacement in her small hospital could not be done in capacity. The man was evacuated and he died in the chopper before help could reach him. She saved a life today as one jawan almost gave up due to heat exhaustion. It didn’t make up for the loss but she’s back on her feet, no denial…the pain she accepted…the job she does with a quiet passion

I always believed that there are only two kinds of doctors in this world…those that have lost patients and those who will. But, now I realise there is also a genre that will never stop. ‘I would like to be God but in spite of all the knowledge I cannot be. I can’t save the world. Sometimes it hurt a lot, but at least I can save some.’ Today, Pragati is not only a doctor but also a proud Army Officer and regardless of what many might have said…

She does have it in her.

A salute and thanks to Capt. Pragati for allowing me the privilege of writing this.

Posted by Pavitra :: 12:32 :: 14 comments