Father’s Love

The story dates back a few years. The that time Director rang me up. “Dr. Parulkar” the Director said, pronouncing my name without an ‘e’ as usual “we have one Dr. XXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX doing residency with us. Her father is a sercrtary of the Government. He rang up, requesting that she be placed in our institute and not in the sister institute where she is placed currently.” “Madam, we have a set pattern of rotation of resident doctors. One of our APs looks after it, and I normally don’t interfere.” “I know” she said. She should know, because it was she who had assigned that job to that AP as per advice of my predecessor, without consulting me. I had been too glad to accept, because I never wanted to manipulate the rotations, and would not interfere unless there was a manipulation. “See what you can do.” I checked the scheduled rotations, and found that this resident doctor was actually scheduled to be at our hospital. There would be no need of manipulating and causing injustice to another resdient so as to accommodate this one. I informed the Director about it. That should have been the end of it, but it was not. Two weeks later the Director rang me up again. “Dr. Parulkar” the Director said a little apologetically, “you remember the resident doctor whose father had requested that his daughter be placed in our institute? Well, he rang up again. His daughter wants to be placed with Dr. YYY.” I knew Dr YYY was the MS teacher of this resident doctor. I also knew he was quite lenient and generous with allotting operative work.” “Well, the placement schedule has already been displayed on the notice board and its copies have been sent to concerned officers here and in the sister institute. It would invite trouble from the concerned residents if we changed the schedule without any sound reason. I cannot see any sound reason. This resident will be placed with Dr YYY in the next three posts as per rules. It is best she does not request a change now.” “It is all right. I will inform her father about it.” The said resident worked in the department for two years. There were occasions when she messed up like all residents do. I had occasion to correct her time and again. But I did not broach this subject. Then she appeared for MS examination and passed. When she came to take my signature on her clearance, I asked her to sit down while I signed her document. When she tkanked me and got up to go away, I stopped her. “Dr. XXXXXXXXXX, I want to ask you something” I said. She sat down again. “Now you are qualified and have left this institute. Now that I have signed your clearance certificate, I have to hold over you. Now I want to ask you something that you may or may not choose to answer.” She looked at me expectantly. Then I told her about the two phone calls from the Director, and what the Director had asked me to do. “I did not know my father made those requests” she said. “Your father does not know about residency rotations in two institutes. He is unlikely to want you to be placed with a particular unit head specifically, unless you ask him.” “He might have heard me talking about it” she offered. “You are married,” I pointed out. “Do you stay with your parents or in-laws?” “In-laws” she said. “Then how likely is your father to hear you say these things when you go for the occasional visits to his place?” She kept quiet. “You can tell me the truth. I postponed asking you about this until today because I wanted an answer from you without any inhibition.” “I did ask him to see if he could do it for me” she admitted. “A father will do whatever he can for his child. I can understand that. But don’t you realize that when you get something using unethical means, something that is rightfully of someone else, you are doing a wrong to that person?” She kept quiet. “I have wanted to tell you this all this time. Now I have done that. Think carefully about it. If you will change your thinking and refrain from taking advantage of your father’s position in society, it will be a great thing.” “I won’t do it again” she promised, got up quietly and left. That was a couple of years ago. Today I was conducting interviews for appointments of Assistant Professors, when this same doctor walked in. She must have known I would be there. She kept a blank face when she faced us all. It seemed she had been away from the obst-gynec scene for having a baby, and now was back again. I asked her some questions and we gave her appropriate marks. Then the other expert sitting next to me said, “our ex-director asked me to select her when we were conducting interviews for appointment of doctors in that government hospital. I wonder why.” He was talking about the same Director who had rung me up for this resident doctor’s residency placement. “It is paternal influence” I said. I had thought I had changed her for better by my counseling. I did not know whether to feel bad about my inability to change people for better, or to feel good about being able to witness a father’s efforts to help a daughter that continued well beyond her marriage and having a baby too.