I don’t know what makes a legend in medicine except one who has spent a lifetime in research and invention, made a remarkable discovery, or worked in communities to bring succor to a large number of patients. There are no such doctors in Kashmir that I know of. When I was much younger, father would relate the stories of a few Christian missionary doctors, and of some local physicians and hakims, known to have performed miracles, so to speak. These were anecdotal cases, nothing on a major scale to create a difference in the lives of people or their health.
Yet, there was a physician who was neither a researcher nor a missionary nor a community activist. He was an astute clinician who sharpened his clinical skills as he grew in stature with time, and went about his work with dedication. He never compromised with quality, abhorred mediocrity, and set a trend that the doctors of J&K still follow. It was to write a brief clinical note of the patient on the prescription, followed by the medication that he prescribed. It was the briefest clinical file of patient, a guide for others with whom the patient might land. It was no substitute for a proper medical file that doctors maintain for every patient in the west but it did not miss the salient points. It is difficult if not impossible for a busy doctor in India to maintain a proper file, what with the lack of infrastructure and the pressure of large number of patients that need to be examined everyday. We had the poorest doctor patient ratio in Kashmir, not to speak of specialists who could be counted on fingers. I remember patients falling prostrate in front of the car of this doctor not allowing him to move unless he agreed to examine them. His name: Dr Ali Mohammad Jan (Fazili), Ali Jan in short.
I had the good fortune of working with him for a year and half before he took premature retirement. Sitting in outpatients together, I mustered courage to ask him why he was retiring early. He was a man of few words; he just smiled. Much later I realized that he felt shackled by the changed administration that had taken cudgels with him. I asked him (and this was deep from my heart), “Sir, whom will we turn to for guidance now?” “I am not going anywhere; I will be in town,” he replied. And true to his word, whenever in difficulty about a patient he gave me his opinion and advice ungrudgingly.
I didn’t see him performing any miracles but I saw perfection. Frankly, there are no miracles in medicine except when you make the right diagnosis where others have failed. Dr Ali Jan was an ace diagnostician A keen listener, a keener observer, quick-witted, and highly intuitive, he possessed that extra sense—the common sense. That made him the miracle man.
Short in size but handsome, he had an intelligent look and exuded hypnotic charm that mesmerized his patients. A doctor of few words, his answers to questions that the patients asked were brief, terse and metaphoric. He was updated with the latest advances in medicine, and subscribed to medical journals. He was a great learner and appreciated the worth of colleagues and juniors. When he realized my aptitude for neurology, he started referring most of the neurological problems for my review – he didn’t have the time to perform a detailed neurological examination in his private clinic – and we would discuss the cases on every Friday in my room in ward 3 which he used to grace with his august presence.
People would travel from distant villages of Kashmir, even from Jammu, to seek his consultation. His prescription was a document of faith with his patients who preserved it at all costs and valued it more than any other material possessions. I have two personal stories in this regard that might give the reader an idea.
The first is of my grand aunt. She had gone for a wedding and on her return found to her shock that her pocket had been picked by someone. The pheran pocket of a Pandit woman used to be a veritable treasure trove, a depository of almost every item of daily utility– coins and currency; buttons, thread and needles; wicks and matchboxes; teknis (astrological chart) and other vital documents. My grand aunt cried foul. She said she wouldn’t mind the loss except for a missing prescription by Dr Ali Jan that she guarded with her life. She wouldn’t rest quiet for days together until my father (a friend, neighbor and contemporary of the famed physician), accompanied her to the doctor, who wrote a new prescription for her. I was still a medical student then and wondered about this celebrity whose prescriptions mattered like life and death to his patients, not knowing one day I would get to know him personally, closely.
I have been blessed with the guidance of wonderful teachers all through my school years and in the medical colleges where I obtained my degrees. I adored them. Ali Jan was not my formal teacher in that sense; he was a senior doctor with whom I worked. But I took instant liking to his style and he turned out to be my best mentor in the short span I worked with him. I can’t forget his mannerisms, his soft speech, and the shrug of his neck, nor his intelligent looks and sharp intellect.
The second instance came to light much later in my life, when Ali Jan was no more, and I had moved to Jammu in the mass exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley. I had taken up residence at New Plots where I happened to see a patient, Somdatt Khanna, who suffered from migraine that was resistant to many of the established anti-migraine drugs. Over the years, our acquaintance grew and he is now like a family member. His migraine attacks have subsided to a large extent, partly because migraine tends to diminish in frequency and intensity with advancing years, and partly due to the new drugs that have come in the market.
The other day, while I was speaking with him about my association with Dr Ali Jan he gave me a meaningful smile and said, “I have been to him once for my headache and he was the first to diagnose migraine. In fact, I have preserved his prescription in my file and also his letter.”
I was surprised. “Really? When was it? ” I asked.
“Way back in 1973,” he replied. That was 46 years ago! And next day he came with both the letter and the prescription. My heart jumped with joy to look at the familiar handwriting, the brief clinical note on the right upper corner of the prescription and the prescribed medication and his signatures. But I was even more surprised with the letter he had found time to reply that revealed him in new light to me.”
There are many facets of legends that unravel only with time. When history of icons and legends is written it is the archives that we fall back upon to tell us a lot more that has remained unrevealed about them. I am in possession of the two documents that are a prized archive on the legendary doctor.