Skeleton in the cupboard

The two middle aged women exchanged worried glances. They had been sworn to secrecy. “It’s just for one night!” insisted their niece. When the young medical student announced that she was bringing a skeleton home for the night, they were taken aback. As members of an orthodox Tamil Brahmin household, they prayed silently that the stern family patriarch wouldn’t find out. How could they carry this off? The women found themselves wondering even as they acquiesced with their niece.

Before that night, the two women had always insisted on their niece having a bath before entering the home every evening. “As long as she adheres to our rules it doesn’t bother us.”

My septuagenarian mother, one of the two conspirators, still feels the goosebumps when she recalls the incident that happened decades ago. “It was probably one of the most frightening nights of my life. I was so scared my father-in-law would discover the skeleton!”

The ‘special guest’ that memorable night came wrapped up in cloth and spent the night under the cot in the niece’s room. Before sunrise, the guest left the house shrouded in secrecy, no drum rolls in the background. The two women did not sleep a wink that night. But then my mother had no idea how progressive her in-laws had been when it concerned another family member from the medical fraternity.

It was the 1930s and a young girl was playing hopscotch with her friends outside a sprawling house. When a relative dragged the reluctant girl inside the house she was at first annoyed at the intrusion. On hearing an elderly aunt utter the words, “Come inside, your husband is dead!” she became bewildered.

She was yet to grasp the ramifications of the incident on her life. In the next few years she was made to stand in a corner or separated from the others whenever there were festivities at home.

Despite the tribulations in her life, the 11-year-old blossomed into a beautiful teenager with one goal in her mind. She wanted to heal others. “Let her study medicine. I will support her financially.” The girl’s brother, a high ranking official in the Indian Audit Service was determined to provide for his young widowed sister and encouraged her to apply to the prestigious Madras Medical College.

After her medical degree, she set up a private practice in Trichy. ‘Dr Athai’ (aunt in Tamil) as she came to be known in the family rather than her first name, carved a path for herself in the town. Her brother and sister-in-law who were my grandparents, were proud of the young doctor’s accomplishments.

What was really ironical to the other family members was that my grandfather was a staunch believer in homeopathy and had a deep abhorrence to allopathic doctors. Until the end of his life he shunned the conventional method of treatment yet was adamant when it pertained to his sister’s medical training!

As the mother of two daughters I feel inspired by these real life stories of my relatives overcoming odds and blazing a trail as doctors.