Amazing Doctor of Sundarbans (English Book)
(The biography of Dr. Gopinath Barman,Former Secretary, Sir Daniel Hamilton Public Trust)
Sundarban was a distant place at that time. The nights were filled with the chorus of the jackals, rants of the tigers and whispers of the snakes from the hay sheds of the huts. Magical remedies, plants’ roots and amulets were all for medical treatment. Snake-bitten dead bodies were seen floating through the river on a banana stump boat as the shaman’s verdict. Those who had enough energy and time, only they could reach at the Nilratan Hospital in the dusk, provided they had started from their home in the dawn. Although, most of them would take a ‘right’ turn to the burning ghats.Where one harvest in a year was the destiny of the people of the land, they were bound to enter into the deep forest in search of wood, honey, fishes and crabs for their living. And in the forest, tigers,crocodiles and alligators were eager to welcome these people, and it was not necessary that everyone who entered into the forest, would return his home safely. In every village, a few widows were found who would narrate the same story that their husbands were taken either by the tigers into the forest and or by the crocodiles or alligators into the rivers. Very few who could return after being half eaten or with torn-up bodies, their fate would hang breathless in the hands of either a sorcerer or the Van Biwi(the Goddess of the forest)!
A fresh fragrance of independence was still hovering throughout the lands of the country. Herds of starved and homeless people were seen in every village.To reach Gosaba, one had to take a train from Sealdah and to board down at the station called Canning.From Canning in a boat, crossing the whirlpools of Purandar River and billowy waves of Matla and Vidya rivers, one would reach at Gosaba at the day end.
The doctor, leaving his peaceful government’s job at Kolkata, has been here at Gosaba for last 3 years. One day, in the evening, one unknown person came to his dispensary at Gosaba market place and asked him for a pain killer. The doctor said, “Pain can be of several types; abdomen pain, headache, joint pain…, what sort of a pain are you suffering from?” The person was not ready to answer his question. The doctor did not want to give him any medicine unless he knew about the nature of his pain. After keeping quiet for sometimes the person said, “We live in Masjidbari and one of our team members was attacked by a tiger when we went to bring down the bee hives to gather honey in the forest. It’s only he who needs the medicine.” The doctor said, “Okay, let’s go to there, I give medicines only after I visit the patient.” The person was scared to hear that and conjured, “The shaman will be angry if he sees you there.” The doctor did not hear any of his words and started to walk for the place. After he reached on the river bank where the patient was in a boat, he peeped inside the shed of the boat to find a man almost dead and having the wounds of sharp teeth and paws of the tiger throughout his body. It was a 3-day old incident. The whole body was just torn-up by the tiger’s paws and teeth. And his shoulder, where the tiger had pierced its teeth to eat him up, was started to rot. The whole place was in reek. His body was shivering in high fever.“Take him to my dispensary at once.”
The shaman sitting beside the man snarled out, “His body is covered with the sacred mud of the Van Biwi. Never even dare to touch him!”The doctor said to the patient’s brother, “We will not touch him, but I think, the Van Biwi will not be angry if we take him to the house.”
His team mates took him to the dispensary by carrying the bamboo deck of the boat itself which he was lying on. The doctor immediately administered him with morphine and penicillin injections, and sent his team mates to have their meals. As soon as they went out, the doctor sent for hot water from his house and washed off all the muds from his body. Then he cut-off the rotten parts of the wounds and asked the compounder to put medicines on the wounds and to tie them up safely with bandages. After a few while when his team mates were back, the doctor said to them, “He is sleeping, don’t go to his room now. You people take rest also. If I need you, I will call you.”They went and slept on the outside floor of the house. The doctor was sitting awake beside the patient with an oil lamp. He again gave one injection to the patient at midnight. At the day break, when finally his fever dropped, he stopped shivering. Subsequently, the patient regained his consciousness. When the doctor was giving him another injection, this time he screamed in pain. His team mates ran in from the outside.
The shaman became furious having entered the room.The sacred mud of the Van Biwi was vanished!Instead, he was having bandaged in his body. His brother and the team mates having seen him coming into consciousness, ousted the shaman from the room.After a prolonged treatment for about one month and a half, the young man could recover his health and returned to his home.
After this incident of 1950, people of that village, may or may not call a shaman to treat a person being attacked by a tiger, but sure to take him at least once to the ‘great doctor’. Only within three years, Dr.Gopinath Barman, for his successful treatments, became the ‘great doctor’ to the people of the Sundarban.During many a night, his neighbours used to get up from their bed due to the loud noises coming from the doctor’s house. And when they peeped through their windows to see what was going on, they would find the saline bottle was hanging from one branch of a trees in his courtyard and the doctor was busy in operating on some patient. His wife Manu, who was holding a lamp beside him, was shocked at the blood-sheds and the doctor was scolding her for not being able to hold the lamp properly as she was trembling to see all these. “Oh, can’t you hold the lamp properly?”, the doctor would grumble.The tiger had just scratched one’s throat with its nails, and his windpipe was out. The doctor stitched the wound as a primary medical care and sent him to the hospital in Kolkata. Why?“Tiger nail injuries get septic very quickly. We don’t have necessary medicines, blood, proper operation theatre, what should I keep the patient here for?”
There is no record, and even if anything had been there, they all are now blown away by the time. On an average of 10 every year throughout his life as doctor in the Sundarbans, he had treated at least 500 people attacked by tigers and out of which 90 percent were saved of their lives. It is hard to find out if there is any second doctor exists in the whole world who would have treated more people attacked by tigers than he did.His admirers believe that if proper records were kept, Dr. Barman’s name would certainly have been enlisted in the Guinness Book.
***
Before about three hundred years, Dr. Gopinath’s ancestors migrated from Punjab and receiving Zemindary from the Sultan of Bengal had settled at Jagatballvpur of the district of Howrah in West Bengal.
Gopinath was born at that village in 1923. Although the village was almost a desolate place due the malarial epidemics. The poor collection of taxes had turned his Zemindar father almost into a beggar. At that time,after losing his mother in the early age, Gopinath was moving about crying for help and he fell senseless for about three days without having been received any medical care. He recovered later and after this illness,he promised to himself that he would become a big doctor in future and would serve the poor.
What more would this be than a reverie at that time for a helpless poor boy!
At last one of his aunts, who was window, took him with her. His cousin arranged for his schoolings. With their love and blessings, Gopinath successfully completed his Matric Exams and came to Kolkata. He would work in a medicine shop, dine in a pais hotel and yet succeeded to clear the exams of Compoundership from the Campbell Medical School (at present Neel Ratan Sarkar Medical College) in 1941.
He was still persistent in becoming a doctor. In the Nineteen Forties, medical study was all about completing a four-year LMF (Licensed Medical Faculty) course. Poor Gopinath secured his admission in the Campbell Medical School with financial help from his would be father-in-law. But he re-paid his father-in-law’s due just after a year when he secured the second position in the first year’s exams and achieved the scholarship. While studying in the third year, he married his engaged wife Manurani as the number of contenders to get him married with their druthers were considerably increasing. In the very next year, i.e. in 1946, he passed the MLF with a Gold Medal.
The new doctor was appointed as a Medical Officer in the relief camps of cyclone-hit Tomluk, but he could not join there since a riot broke in Kolkata at that time.He joined at the Bhavanipur Police Hospital as temporary Sub-assistant Surgeon.
In the meantime, Manu gave birth to two little fairies, Manju and Anjali. Gopinath had enough of slander of living in others houses, now he wanted his own family in his own house.In response to a newspaper advertisement, he got employed as a Medical Officer in Sir Daniel Hamilton’s Estate at Gosaba, which was a desolate place in the Sundarbans.His salary in the Police Hospital was Rs.250, whereas in this estate, he was to get only Rs.130-135. But here, he could fulfil his dream of serving hundreds and thousands of poor people who had no means of medical care when they fell sick. He would have his own family. On 17th September, 1947, he boarded on the Canning Local train from Bollygunj railway station. He set off for Gosaba, a desolate place in the Sundarbans.
***
In the beginning of the 20th Century, Sir Daniel, a citizen of Scotland had taken three islands of Sundarbans on lease to implement his dream of building up a cooperative-based society there. In the following 3 decades, drinking water, health services, transportation, postal services were built up in every villages of those islands. Cooperative banks, cooperative repositories, animal farms, fair store-houses, modern rice mills, weaving and other small industries were also established. Rice Selling Committee for saving poor farmers from the middlemen, night schools for adult education, mobile library for spreading education into the every nook and corners of the villages, grow more crops movement through Ideal Agricultural Farms altogether, a very exceptional self-reliant Zemindary system of this country.
There was no discrimination in the name of caste or religion. There was no domination of money lenders. Maintaining the law and orders and redressing the disputes among the subjects were in the hands of the Cooperative Panchyats. Free general education for making honest humans. As a measure of special care for the health of the subjects, free medical treatment facilities were provided to them.
After the death of Sir Daniel in 1939, the effects of the world war, famine and the wave of Tevaga movement also spread up to Gosaba, at the bank of river Vidya. Together with the weakness among the administrations, the employees became utterly corrupted and in consequence of all these, severe mass movements broke out. Under such a topsy-turvy situation, Dr. Barman entered in the scene.
You have to be like an all-rounder, when you are going to treat people in far-off villages. Starting from thunder-hurt to malaria, broken bone, people rush to the big doctor for remedies. The big doctor is there for all remedies either it is a tiger-bite or a snake-bite or cholera or chicken pox or be it tuberculosis. In this way he had opened up the way of scientific treatment to the people of this marshy land and jungle by throwing off the age old customs of magic remedies with plants’ roots or amulets.
A stethoscope and a blood pressure measuring devise were the mere equipment that he had to diagnose the diseases for this long period of sixty years of his life as a doctor. There was no such scope to make use of modern medical equipment for expensive investigations. All he could avail of was an assistant to help him out; and the role was sometimes played by his wife, sometimes by his compounder or sometimes by his neighbour and sometimes by the family members of the patients themselves. Treating a cardiac patient lying him on a broken bench, plastering of a patient’s broken hand or leg without having an X-ray report in hand and even plucking tooth were all included in his treatment schedules.
Needle, bandages, saline bottles handing from the branches of the trees and a blend of snub and consolation as the anesthesia— depending on these things, he was the only person in the world who could amputate off the part of hand or leg left half-eaten by a tiger or a crocodile. Sometimes the patients were half-cured by mere an affectionate touch on their heads of their beloved doctor. And sometimes, they got scolded for not following the medication schedules, neglecting the medicines or being indiscipline. Among all these, his patients and his friends could find a lot of affection in him for others.
He could remember all the members of thousands of families by their names of large area of the Sundarbans. Their financial conditions, life-style, superstitions, every detail was known to him very conspicuously. The ‘Big Doctor’ used to visit patients riding on a horse in the beginning and then riding on a cycle and subsequently on a motor-fit cycle, on a boat, launch or on a motor-boat, be it a stormy night or whatever. He would not only treat the patients but also treat their problem of not having a spoon with which they were required to measure the medicines and to take it. They did not have a spoon in their homes. How then they would be able to take 2 tea-spoon of medicine during a day as was prescribed by him? Not only this, there were full arrangements of foods and lodging in the anti-chamber of his dispensary for the whole family members of serious patients who would come to him from far-away villages. If the main bread-earner of a family fell sick, the other family members were not even able to arrange their foods. The helpless wife would look blank at his husband’s face sitting by his bed with her children. To feed them twice a day and to provide the patient with his diets, doctor’s wife Manu would be there all the time.
Saturday was the market day. The patients on this particular day used to surround Gopinath from all sides like the bees in their hive. He had to visit more or less 200 patients throughout this day. He would return home only at four or four-thirty in the evening to eat some rice and lie down for a while and would again start his chamber from about 5 O’clock in the evening. Thereafter, the flow of patients would continue till 10 O’clock at night. He did not even attend his elder daughter’s marriage reception and went to Gosaba as the day was Saturday. The market day. When the family members requested him not to go, the answer was,“They are also my dear ones, who would look after them?
”Sometimes he would hear that someone was shouting “doctor, doctor” and being annoyed he would say, “No more today, please come tomorrow.”For a few minutes, everything was stand still. Experienced Gopinath was aware of the fact that they had left the patient in his verandah and ran away and therefore he used to get up a little later. Actually, they were pretty sure that the doctor would soon get up and start treating the patient and at maximum, they would get some snubs in the next morning for this.At the sight of the huge crowd outside his dispensary, people would think, “Dr. Barman is having pretty good income!” But at night, entering into his room when Gopinath used to bring out the moneys from both of his pockets that he had earned that day, his wife Manu, would laugh covering her face with her share as she would count them. Some had given him half a rupee or a quarter or even two paisa. A mound of loose changes. A few eight-folded one rupee notes might be there also. About a hundred rupees in all for the whole day!
But Manu never questioned about it. It was only she who knew that treating patients was her husband’s mission. He could never forget about his childhood days and of those days that he had been lying senseless without any medical care.
One day her husband had taken one burnt housewife in his chamber. As he entered into the chamber he could hear one comment of an old man who said, “Oh, you have brought almost a roasted woman!” The woman was burnt to 90%. The doctor treated her and brought her out from the primary dangers and then sent her to the Kolkata Medical College. She could ultimately survive. The Medical College authority wanted to know how he could manage to keep the blood composition of the patients intact. The doctor replied, “Even my America-settled doctor daughter often asks me, how. I cannot explain. I can show you this by treating only. I would love to leave you people to research on it with my prescription.”
In fact, diagnosis was the work of his sixth sense. His clinical ideas were too good. He knew very well of the climate, soils and nature of his locality. In the backdrop of the diseases, food habits, life-style of the local people, the diagnosis was actually performed by his X-ray eyes.
The people of Gosaba have never seen Dr. Bidhan Chandra Ray, but they have seen Dr. Gopinath Barman and they believe that mere touch of doctor can cure a disease. Diseases are actually cured by the faith of the patients and by the capability of the doctor to diagnose the disease from specific symptoms. The better you master this capability, the greater the doctor you are. And hence, the elderly persons of Gosaba can easily proclaim, “He is our Bidhan Ray.”
Most people had a thought that the doctor spent more time with the patients and listened to the patients’ and their family members words paying so much of importance as if they were his own family members. He used to take fees after explaining fully about the disease in simple understandable language and considering the financial condition of the patient. And that’s why he was a good doctor.Even today, the people here at the market place eulogize their beloved doctor. “Vanbiwi in the jungle and Gopinath in Gosaba are the ultimate support for the people here”, commented Mr. Amal Bhattacharya, the former teacher of Gosaba School.
***
On request of the District Magistrate, he agreed to become the Secretary of the Gosaba School Committee. At that time the school was all about a tin shed, a large number of students and a few broken sign boards. There were no fund, no teachers and no classrooms. Searching through the village,he brought out educated boys and girls and by recruiting them as the teachers of the school solved the problem of paucity of teachers. The new building of the school was made by organizing opera shows.
A dynamo was installed. He gave loan to the school in its financial crisis. Upgraded the school from 10th to 12th standard. It is a rare incident, if not single, that a person remaining as the Secretary of the School Administrative Committee for long 33 years at a stretch.
In 1969, Gopinath was appointed the Trustee of the Hamilton Trust.
The political situation of the state was totally like a smudgy whirlpool at that time. But within this, a dim flame of welfare image hovered throughout Gosaba due to the efforts made by the doctor. He purchased power tillers and power spray with the monetary grants from the Department of Agriculture. With these, Cotton and sunflower cultivation was started. At the same time, he took initiative to set up a branch of the State Bank of India at Gosaba, through which poor farmers got agricultural loans and some employments were generated as well. He had formed fishermen’s cooperative society. Life insurance policy was taken on every fisherman’s life so that when they were out to fishing, if any death was occurred due to tiger attacks or for other reasons, the family member of the concerned fisherman could get some monetary compensation. Tiger Projects Office, Agricultural Research Center etc. were opened at Gosaba due to the initiatives taken by Dr. Barman. Unfortunately, due to political animosity and legal technicalities all the initiatives stood still in the midway. After a long legal battle with the government, ultimately during June, 2002, the government took initiative to take over the Estate. Until now it was Hamilton Charitable Trust, where Dr. Gopinath was the Trustee as well as the Manager of the Trust. Now, the Trust was transformed into Sir Hamilton Public Trust and Dr. Gopinath was the Secretary of the Trust.
Dr. Gopinath Barman wanted to reconstruct the dream villages of Sir Daniel from the core of his heart. He had spent the lion’s share of the valuable times of his life for this purpose too. But, due to political disputes, he was not able to complete his works even though he had started them with full commitment. By virtue of his huge popularity as a great doctor, he had taken the helm of many organizations at Gosaba one after another— the Union Board, Gosaba School, Housing Cooperative Society, Fishermen’s Association etc. and also withdrew himself voluntarily as and when he deemed this fit to be done.
He had also to pay for his such popularity. Once in the year 1947, their home, which the husband and wife had built up gradually with their love and care, was wiped off due to a devastating but uncanny conflagration when this couple were out to somewhere. All his certificates and medals, which were the marks of recognition of his sustained perseverance, were burnt to ashes in the fire of their quarter. He had given shelter to a Naxalite young man in his quarter and treated and cured him. When he recovered from his illness, he insisted on the doctor to help him to run away from there. The doctor tried to make him understand that it was an island, there were two policemen outside guarding his quarter and it was not possible for him to flee from there. But he would not listen to him, he would flee at any cost. At last, the police had sent him to the Presidency Jail. This event had made Dr. Gopinath a ‘class enemy’ of the Naxalites! Once they had even attempted him to murder.The Medical Officer as well as the sole Trustee of the Trust and subsequent the Secretary of the Trust,Dr. Gopinath Barman made all sincere attempts throughout his life to preserve the memories of Sir Daniel. He always protected the properties of the Trust like the ‘sole guard’. On the 5th of February, 2007, the most beloved ‘Doctor’ of Sir Daniel Hamilton had died of cardiac arrest at Gosaba at the age of 84 years.
This book, ‘Amazing Doctor of Sundarbans’, is all about this noble man. It includes relevant photographs also.
For more information on the English book "The Amazing Doctor of Sundarbans"
Please contact
Dr.Manju Chatterji
815-353-0087 (USA)
(The biography of Dr. Gopinath Barman,Former Secretary, Sir Daniel Hamilton Public Trust)
A fresh fragrance of independence was still hovering throughout the lands of the country. Herds of starved and homeless people were seen in every village.To reach Gosaba, one had to take a train from Sealdah and to board down at the station called Canning.From Canning in a boat, crossing the whirlpools of Purandar River and billowy waves of Matla and Vidya rivers, one would reach at Gosaba at the day end.
The doctor, leaving his peaceful government’s job at Kolkata, has been here at Gosaba for last 3 years. One day, in the evening, one unknown person came to his dispensary at Gosaba market place and asked him for a pain killer. The doctor said, “Pain can be of several types; abdomen pain, headache, joint pain…, what sort of a pain are you suffering from?” The person was not ready to answer his question. The doctor did not want to give him any medicine unless he knew about the nature of his pain. After keeping quiet for sometimes the person said, “We live in Masjidbari and one of our team members was attacked by a tiger when we went to bring down the bee hives to gather honey in the forest. It’s only he who needs the medicine.” The doctor said, “Okay, let’s go to there, I give medicines only after I visit the patient.” The person was scared to hear that and conjured, “The shaman will be angry if he sees you there.” The doctor did not hear any of his words and started to walk for the place. After he reached on the river bank where the patient was in a boat, he peeped inside the shed of the boat to find a man almost dead and having the wounds of sharp teeth and paws of the tiger throughout his body. It was a 3-day old incident. The whole body was just torn-up by the tiger’s paws and teeth. And his shoulder, where the tiger had pierced its teeth to eat him up, was started to rot. The whole place was in reek. His body was shivering in high fever.“Take him to my dispensary at once.”
The shaman sitting beside the man snarled out, “His body is covered with the sacred mud of the Van Biwi. Never even dare to touch him!”The doctor said to the patient’s brother, “We will not touch him, but I think, the Van Biwi will not be angry if we take him to the house.”
His team mates took him to the dispensary by carrying the bamboo deck of the boat itself which he was lying on. The doctor immediately administered him with morphine and penicillin injections, and sent his team mates to have their meals. As soon as they went out, the doctor sent for hot water from his house and washed off all the muds from his body. Then he cut-off the rotten parts of the wounds and asked the compounder to put medicines on the wounds and to tie them up safely with bandages. After a few while when his team mates were back, the doctor said to them, “He is sleeping, don’t go to his room now. You people take rest also. If I need you, I will call you.”They went and slept on the outside floor of the house. The doctor was sitting awake beside the patient with an oil lamp. He again gave one injection to the patient at midnight. At the day break, when finally his fever dropped, he stopped shivering. Subsequently, the patient regained his consciousness. When the doctor was giving him another injection, this time he screamed in pain. His team mates ran in from the outside.
The shaman became furious having entered the room.The sacred mud of the Van Biwi was vanished!Instead, he was having bandaged in his body. His brother and the team mates having seen him coming into consciousness, ousted the shaman from the room.After a prolonged treatment for about one month and a half, the young man could recover his health and returned to his home.
After this incident of 1950, people of that village, may or may not call a shaman to treat a person being attacked by a tiger, but sure to take him at least once to the ‘great doctor’. Only within three years, Dr.Gopinath Barman, for his successful treatments, became the ‘great doctor’ to the people of the Sundarban.During many a night, his neighbours used to get up from their bed due to the loud noises coming from the doctor’s house. And when they peeped through their windows to see what was going on, they would find the saline bottle was hanging from one branch of a trees in his courtyard and the doctor was busy in operating on some patient. His wife Manu, who was holding a lamp beside him, was shocked at the blood-sheds and the doctor was scolding her for not being able to hold the lamp properly as she was trembling to see all these. “Oh, can’t you hold the lamp properly?”, the doctor would grumble.The tiger had just scratched one’s throat with its nails, and his windpipe was out. The doctor stitched the wound as a primary medical care and sent him to the hospital in Kolkata. Why?“Tiger nail injuries get septic very quickly. We don’t have necessary medicines, blood, proper operation theatre, what should I keep the patient here for?”
There is no record, and even if anything had been there, they all are now blown away by the time. On an average of 10 every year throughout his life as doctor in the Sundarbans, he had treated at least 500 people attacked by tigers and out of which 90 percent were saved of their lives. It is hard to find out if there is any second doctor exists in the whole world who would have treated more people attacked by tigers than he did.His admirers believe that if proper records were kept, Dr. Barman’s name would certainly have been enlisted in the Guinness Book.
***
Before about three hundred years, Dr. Gopinath’s ancestors migrated from Punjab and receiving Zemindary from the Sultan of Bengal had settled at Jagatballvpur of the district of Howrah in West Bengal.
Gopinath was born at that village in 1923. Although the village was almost a desolate place due the malarial epidemics. The poor collection of taxes had turned his Zemindar father almost into a beggar. At that time,after losing his mother in the early age, Gopinath was moving about crying for help and he fell senseless for about three days without having been received any medical care. He recovered later and after this illness,he promised to himself that he would become a big doctor in future and would serve the poor.
What more would this be than a reverie at that time for a helpless poor boy!
At last one of his aunts, who was window, took him with her. His cousin arranged for his schoolings. With their love and blessings, Gopinath successfully completed his Matric Exams and came to Kolkata. He would work in a medicine shop, dine in a pais hotel and yet succeeded to clear the exams of Compoundership from the Campbell Medical School (at present Neel Ratan Sarkar Medical College) in 1941.
He was still persistent in becoming a doctor. In the Nineteen Forties, medical study was all about completing a four-year LMF (Licensed Medical Faculty) course. Poor Gopinath secured his admission in the Campbell Medical School with financial help from his would be father-in-law. But he re-paid his father-in-law’s due just after a year when he secured the second position in the first year’s exams and achieved the scholarship. While studying in the third year, he married his engaged wife Manurani as the number of contenders to get him married with their druthers were considerably increasing. In the very next year, i.e. in 1946, he passed the MLF with a Gold Medal.
The new doctor was appointed as a Medical Officer in the relief camps of cyclone-hit Tomluk, but he could not join there since a riot broke in Kolkata at that time.He joined at the Bhavanipur Police Hospital as temporary Sub-assistant Surgeon.
In the meantime, Manu gave birth to two little fairies, Manju and Anjali. Gopinath had enough of slander of living in others houses, now he wanted his own family in his own house.In response to a newspaper advertisement, he got employed as a Medical Officer in Sir Daniel Hamilton’s Estate at Gosaba, which was a desolate place in the Sundarbans.His salary in the Police Hospital was Rs.250, whereas in this estate, he was to get only Rs.130-135. But here, he could fulfil his dream of serving hundreds and thousands of poor people who had no means of medical care when they fell sick. He would have his own family. On 17th September, 1947, he boarded on the Canning Local train from Bollygunj railway station. He set off for Gosaba, a desolate place in the Sundarbans.
***
In the beginning of the 20th Century, Sir Daniel, a citizen of Scotland had taken three islands of Sundarbans on lease to implement his dream of building up a cooperative-based society there. In the following 3 decades, drinking water, health services, transportation, postal services were built up in every villages of those islands. Cooperative banks, cooperative repositories, animal farms, fair store-houses, modern rice mills, weaving and other small industries were also established. Rice Selling Committee for saving poor farmers from the middlemen, night schools for adult education, mobile library for spreading education into the every nook and corners of the villages, grow more crops movement through Ideal Agricultural Farms altogether, a very exceptional self-reliant Zemindary system of this country.
There was no discrimination in the name of caste or religion. There was no domination of money lenders. Maintaining the law and orders and redressing the disputes among the subjects were in the hands of the Cooperative Panchyats. Free general education for making honest humans. As a measure of special care for the health of the subjects, free medical treatment facilities were provided to them.
After the death of Sir Daniel in 1939, the effects of the world war, famine and the wave of Tevaga movement also spread up to Gosaba, at the bank of river Vidya. Together with the weakness among the administrations, the employees became utterly corrupted and in consequence of all these, severe mass movements broke out. Under such a topsy-turvy situation, Dr. Barman entered in the scene.
A stethoscope and a blood pressure measuring devise were the mere equipment that he had to diagnose the diseases for this long period of sixty years of his life as a doctor. There was no such scope to make use of modern medical equipment for expensive investigations. All he could avail of was an assistant to help him out; and the role was sometimes played by his wife, sometimes by his compounder or sometimes by his neighbour and sometimes by the family members of the patients themselves. Treating a cardiac patient lying him on a broken bench, plastering of a patient’s broken hand or leg without having an X-ray report in hand and even plucking tooth were all included in his treatment schedules.
Needle, bandages, saline bottles handing from the branches of the trees and a blend of snub and consolation as the anesthesia— depending on these things, he was the only person in the world who could amputate off the part of hand or leg left half-eaten by a tiger or a crocodile. Sometimes the patients were half-cured by mere an affectionate touch on their heads of their beloved doctor. And sometimes, they got scolded for not following the medication schedules, neglecting the medicines or being indiscipline. Among all these, his patients and his friends could find a lot of affection in him for others.
He could remember all the members of thousands of families by their names of large area of the Sundarbans. Their financial conditions, life-style, superstitions, every detail was known to him very conspicuously. The ‘Big Doctor’ used to visit patients riding on a horse in the beginning and then riding on a cycle and subsequently on a motor-fit cycle, on a boat, launch or on a motor-boat, be it a stormy night or whatever. He would not only treat the patients but also treat their problem of not having a spoon with which they were required to measure the medicines and to take it. They did not have a spoon in their homes. How then they would be able to take 2 tea-spoon of medicine during a day as was prescribed by him? Not only this, there were full arrangements of foods and lodging in the anti-chamber of his dispensary for the whole family members of serious patients who would come to him from far-away villages. If the main bread-earner of a family fell sick, the other family members were not even able to arrange their foods. The helpless wife would look blank at his husband’s face sitting by his bed with her children. To feed them twice a day and to provide the patient with his diets, doctor’s wife Manu would be there all the time.
”Sometimes he would hear that someone was shouting “doctor, doctor” and being annoyed he would say, “No more today, please come tomorrow.”For a few minutes, everything was stand still. Experienced Gopinath was aware of the fact that they had left the patient in his verandah and ran away and therefore he used to get up a little later. Actually, they were pretty sure that the doctor would soon get up and start treating the patient and at maximum, they would get some snubs in the next morning for this.At the sight of the huge crowd outside his dispensary, people would think, “Dr. Barman is having pretty good income!” But at night, entering into his room when Gopinath used to bring out the moneys from both of his pockets that he had earned that day, his wife Manu, would laugh covering her face with her share as she would count them. Some had given him half a rupee or a quarter or even two paisa. A mound of loose changes. A few eight-folded one rupee notes might be there also. About a hundred rupees in all for the whole day!
But Manu never questioned about it. It was only she who knew that treating patients was her husband’s mission. He could never forget about his childhood days and of those days that he had been lying senseless without any medical care.
One day her husband had taken one burnt housewife in his chamber. As he entered into the chamber he could hear one comment of an old man who said, “Oh, you have brought almost a roasted woman!” The woman was burnt to 90%. The doctor treated her and brought her out from the primary dangers and then sent her to the Kolkata Medical College. She could ultimately survive. The Medical College authority wanted to know how he could manage to keep the blood composition of the patients intact. The doctor replied, “Even my America-settled doctor daughter often asks me, how. I cannot explain. I can show you this by treating only. I would love to leave you people to research on it with my prescription.”
In fact, diagnosis was the work of his sixth sense. His clinical ideas were too good. He knew very well of the climate, soils and nature of his locality. In the backdrop of the diseases, food habits, life-style of the local people, the diagnosis was actually performed by his X-ray eyes.
The people of Gosaba have never seen Dr. Bidhan Chandra Ray, but they have seen Dr. Gopinath Barman and they believe that mere touch of doctor can cure a disease. Diseases are actually cured by the faith of the patients and by the capability of the doctor to diagnose the disease from specific symptoms. The better you master this capability, the greater the doctor you are. And hence, the elderly persons of Gosaba can easily proclaim, “He is our Bidhan Ray.”
Most people had a thought that the doctor spent more time with the patients and listened to the patients’ and their family members words paying so much of importance as if they were his own family members. He used to take fees after explaining fully about the disease in simple understandable language and considering the financial condition of the patient. And that’s why he was a good doctor.Even today, the people here at the market place eulogize their beloved doctor. “Vanbiwi in the jungle and Gopinath in Gosaba are the ultimate support for the people here”, commented Mr. Amal Bhattacharya, the former teacher of Gosaba School.
***
On request of the District Magistrate, he agreed to become the Secretary of the Gosaba School Committee. At that time the school was all about a tin shed, a large number of students and a few broken sign boards. There were no fund, no teachers and no classrooms. Searching through the village,he brought out educated boys and girls and by recruiting them as the teachers of the school solved the problem of paucity of teachers. The new building of the school was made by organizing opera shows.
A dynamo was installed. He gave loan to the school in its financial crisis. Upgraded the school from 10th to 12th standard. It is a rare incident, if not single, that a person remaining as the Secretary of the School Administrative Committee for long 33 years at a stretch.
The political situation of the state was totally like a smudgy whirlpool at that time. But within this, a dim flame of welfare image hovered throughout Gosaba due to the efforts made by the doctor. He purchased power tillers and power spray with the monetary grants from the Department of Agriculture. With these, Cotton and sunflower cultivation was started. At the same time, he took initiative to set up a branch of the State Bank of India at Gosaba, through which poor farmers got agricultural loans and some employments were generated as well. He had formed fishermen’s cooperative society. Life insurance policy was taken on every fisherman’s life so that when they were out to fishing, if any death was occurred due to tiger attacks or for other reasons, the family member of the concerned fisherman could get some monetary compensation. Tiger Projects Office, Agricultural Research Center etc. were opened at Gosaba due to the initiatives taken by Dr. Barman. Unfortunately, due to political animosity and legal technicalities all the initiatives stood still in the midway. After a long legal battle with the government, ultimately during June, 2002, the government took initiative to take over the Estate. Until now it was Hamilton Charitable Trust, where Dr. Gopinath was the Trustee as well as the Manager of the Trust. Now, the Trust was transformed into Sir Hamilton Public Trust and Dr. Gopinath was the Secretary of the Trust.
Dr. Gopinath Barman wanted to reconstruct the dream villages of Sir Daniel from the core of his heart. He had spent the lion’s share of the valuable times of his life for this purpose too. But, due to political disputes, he was not able to complete his works even though he had started them with full commitment. By virtue of his huge popularity as a great doctor, he had taken the helm of many organizations at Gosaba one after another— the Union Board, Gosaba School, Housing Cooperative Society, Fishermen’s Association etc. and also withdrew himself voluntarily as and when he deemed this fit to be done.
He had also to pay for his such popularity. Once in the year 1947, their home, which the husband and wife had built up gradually with their love and care, was wiped off due to a devastating but uncanny conflagration when this couple were out to somewhere. All his certificates and medals, which were the marks of recognition of his sustained perseverance, were burnt to ashes in the fire of their quarter. He had given shelter to a Naxalite young man in his quarter and treated and cured him. When he recovered from his illness, he insisted on the doctor to help him to run away from there. The doctor tried to make him understand that it was an island, there were two policemen outside guarding his quarter and it was not possible for him to flee from there. But he would not listen to him, he would flee at any cost. At last, the police had sent him to the Presidency Jail. This event had made Dr. Gopinath a ‘class enemy’ of the Naxalites! Once they had even attempted him to murder.The Medical Officer as well as the sole Trustee of the Trust and subsequent the Secretary of the Trust,Dr. Gopinath Barman made all sincere attempts throughout his life to preserve the memories of Sir Daniel. He always protected the properties of the Trust like the ‘sole guard’. On the 5th of February, 2007, the most beloved ‘Doctor’ of Sir Daniel Hamilton had died of cardiac arrest at Gosaba at the age of 84 years.
About the author who wrote the original Book in Bengali :-
Soumen Dutta was born in Kolkata in 1954. He was the Asst. Editor of a well known Bengali daily.
Some of his books in Bengali are:
Sir Daniel O Gosabar Akhyan (Sir Daniel and the story of Gosaba) --
The life of Sir Daniel Hamilton and the origin of Gosaba
Prekhyapot Sundarban (In focus : The Sunderbans) -- A collection of essays on various aspects of the Sunderbans,
Bhanga Pother Ranga Melay (The colour of the countryside carnivals)
A guide to the lesser-known village fairs of West Bengal,
Shishu Shramik (Child Labour)-A compilation of articles by various authors on Child Labour
Dr.Manju Chatterji
815-353-0087 (USA)
