My
story
I
was interviewed by the Canberra Times more than 2 years ago. The
story read “Doctor makes dough to pay medical fees”, or something
to that effect. A month or so before that, I had just walked out of
the university, where I had been since the summer of 2001.
I
sent in my (immediate) resignation letter at 5.45am to the John
Curtin School, then started working with John and Rosemary. The warm
and friendly couple run a grocery store at the ANU. I have known them
since 2004, when I was still a student. Very nice people, they
understood my “plight”. This is paltry (really), compared to poor
kids anywhere, that don't have food for days on end. Rosemary, once a
nurse, still cannot understand why it has been so difficult for me to
get to work as a doctor here. John is a calm and collected, all
round-nice guy/golfer. A mad Geelong AFL fan, he completely detests
the system. He mutters, “It's all about
the money”
and simply shakes his head.
My
story (if one could call it a story) begins way back in 1968. I was
born to two high school teachers who'd never been to university. My
mum, who taught me how to read (yes, in English), instilled in me
noble values: truth, hard work and kindness. Hell, even now (she is
73) I still have problems hearing what she says. She is just so
soft-spoken. So was I, till I came to Australia. More about that
later...
My
late father was a strict disciplinarian. The first time I dropped the
“f” bomb, I was fighting with my brothers (as kids at the age of
10 do). So I yelled out “XXXX you!!!”. Mum was nearby. “What
did you say?”, she asked. I looked up proudly at her (thinking I
could show off a new word) and said “XXXX you”! I had no clue
what the word meant, but had heard that it was handy to use when
fighting. “Wait till your dad gets back”. She left it at that and
I get triumphant. Finally. I'd leaned a new word, or so I thought.
Dad had gone, once again, to umpire hockey, badminton or some other
game. Dad was a sportsman through and through. So were all 3 of us.
At
5.30pm, Dad walks in. Mum, who was in the kitchen, yells out “Cha,
come here”. She addressed my dad as “cha”, which is short for
Pancha, which in turn, is abbreviated from Panchanathan. “Ask you
great son what he said”. Dad looked at me. I looked up and blurted
out “XXXX you!!!”. Bang!
My cheeks stung so hard and I fell to the floor. Tears welled in my
eyes . As I ran upstairs he said “Don't use any word you don't know
the meaning of!”. Pretty succinct, I thought, years later. And that
was that. For that moment, at least.
Ever
the
scholar, I creep into the small library at home. Gingerly, I reach
for the Oxford English Dictionary. The look on my face afterwards
could win medals at Cannes.
Two
years later, I won the state (albeit a small one, quite a bit like
the ACT) Under-12 badminton championship. We were driving home, 20
mins away from the badminton hall. “So, you 're a champion now. You
must be so proud of yourself, son”. “Oh no, something's coming
up”, I think to myself. What
had I done wrong now? Dad never called me son,
unless something was really, really wrong. “If I were you, I would
give up all games and just concentrate on your studies” (as I type
this tears are in free-flow down my cheeks). I had come first in
class for the entire duration of my primary school. I (thought) I had
no reason to worry. As usual, I was wrong.
The
next year, I stopped playing all sport. In 1994, I graduated from
medical school. As I received my scroll from whoever
it is that gives out scrolls,
I look for my parents in the audience. There, in the midst of the
crowd, I spot my Dad. Dressed in his only coat, he is the only one
standing, taking a photograph of me. I never did get a chance to see
that photograph.
My
first posting was as a medical officer was in Penang Hospital.
Starting at 7 am, I go through the ropes, etc. that need to be gotten
through when interns are “inducted”. First day on call, I am
called down to Casualty to see a 15 year old girl from an All-Malay
residential college nearby. She is in pain and her skirt is soaked
with blood. It is now 7.30pm, so school would have finished hours
earlier. She has this embarrassed look all over her face. Together
with my female chaperone, we establish that she had tried to please
herself “down there” (her words, not mine) with a glass test
tube. In the midst of all that, the tube broke and cut into her. We
nearly lost her.
A
month later, I had delivered 4 babies every night I was on call.
Calls were 3 to 4 times a week. I thought this doctor thingy was
quite enjoyable..
Then,
disaster struck. I was doing (what was meant to) a be simple routine
delivery. I had to" break the waters" of the mother. She'd
had 9 deliveries prior to this and 3 of them did not turn out well.
So, I preform the procedure confidently but to my horror, not only
did liquor come out, but fresh blood as well, lots and lots of
it...OMG! I immediately summon my seniors. They call their superiors.
In no time, the Consultant is there, gowned up, delivering the baby.
The baby was blue and could not be revived. I had quite literally
killed the baby. The worst was not over. I had to do my professional
duty and explain to the mother what had happened and worse still,
why. Good God, I had turned white, but I still had a job to do. The
consultant called me aside and was very kind. All of us doctors and
nurses knew exactly what had happened and why. By the way, I had
leant everything I knew as a doctor from the nurses. I was sent home
and given the week off. Instantly I hit the bottle, but not after
doing the rounds in my ward and working till noon. My superior senior
Medical Officer Bala picks me up and off we wander into the sunset.
Another
incident was hilarious. I'd been on duty all night at Casualty and it
was fairly busy. Six in the morning, we change shift. I walk back to
my quarters and suddenly feel the need to relieve myself, of the
“big” kind, if you get my meaning. One, as you can imagine, does
not get much time for such luxuries when working in Accident and
Emergencies.
So
I sit, and strain, and strain. Suddenly,crack!! The commode breaks
and cuts deep into my butt. Ow!!! Shit splatters all over the floor.
I quickly get a towel and stop the bleeding. Then I put my shoes back
on and limp, with the towel and only a T-shirt on, back to Casualty.
On sighting me, everybody there is falling over laughing. That went
on and on and on, for what seems like forever. My face, had I been a
wee bit fairer, would have been plum red. Ten stitches was the result
and it hurt for almost a month. I shuddered every time I "went"
during that period..
Nine
months later ,I head back to KL to work with Professor Tikki Pang, my
lifetime role model, the only person to date that I still call
“Prof”. By the way, he grew up in Canberra. An extremely smart
man, he taught me microbiology, more specifically, immunology, in
medical school. Those days, our medical students considered
“microbiology” and “immunology” as one and the same. How
wrong they were.
His first tutorial went like this. He comes in
with his tennis gear and pulls up a chair and sits, the wrong way
round. “Any questions?” he asks. No one budged- everyone was
afraid of him. So he gets up and leaves. Not another word. We
students look at each other in shock. The next tutorial, my hand went
up straight away. “Yes?”, he asks. “What is the meaning of
life?” Everyone laughs. Tikki and I end up having a one on one
conversation on Schopenhauer, Bach, tennis, Fred Hoyle and you name
it. Everyone else is silent- they still are, God help them! This went
on for the next 5 or 6 tutorials. When someone else took over his
place, I skipped microbiology tutorials. I knew then that my life was
to be in research.
Sometime in 1995, Prof (as I still call him)
met me at the E & O Hotel in Penong. I told him I wanted to come
do research with him. He quipped “WHY????” But, he managed to get
me a scholarship and off I went, back to KL, to work with this
so-called genius
in research in Malaysia. I had fun in his laboratory, where I
(literally) stayed. I slept on the ng -20 degree freezers at night,
with a T-shirt rolled up to fashion a makeshift pillow. That did me,
it was luxury at the time. Made friends with the security guards, who
came in to the labs late at night to play donkey-Kong or whatever
video games were “in” then. I'd do my washing in the side room in
a pail with bleach and hang it up to dry on the balcony. One day I
got into deep trouble. My underwear blew off and landed smack bang
on the Dean's window. Guess who gets summoned. No , not me, but
Tikki. HE was not happy when he came back. “Can't you find
somewhere else to hang your laundry???”, was his only response.
Ooops.
At
lunch, I'd swim 40 laps of the swimming pool daily and perhaps more
at night if I had the energy. It was literally, my home (“Home is
where the heart belongs”). Twice a week, I gave my Boss lessons on
how to play badminton properly. He was, in hindsight, insofar as
badminton is concerned, quite a slow learner, with his so-called
tennis background-bias.
We
used to buy him chocolates for his birthday, the 30th
day of October {1904} (Halloween for you Americans). But he
nonchalantly put them in his drawer, his typical professional
self. One night we got hungry at the lab (everyone worked late, way
in to the wee hours of the morning). We ate it all. It was not my
fault- the troops were hungry and needed to be fed and the simplest
option was...One of the famous questions I used to ask him was “Does
a bacterium have a mind?”. He barked, “Ask me when I am sixty!!”-
I am still waiting for the answer – only one or maybe 2 years to go
now...Postscript: It turns out he is 62 now, but still no answer
forthcoming.
Whilst
doing my Masters with Tikki, I worked as a locum GP in a remote town
called Dengkil. One patient I remember fondly was the local Imam,
who was well into his 60s. He'd heard of Viagra, the long blue pill
that had then been just released. Of course, such a remote clinic had
no such drug. I told him to wait. So I walk out of the consultation
room, into the in-house pharmacy. I grab a handful of Vitamin C pills
and shove them in an envelope. Then I go back to him and explain
“This is better than Viagra- I got this from the local university”
(everyone in the town of 50 knew I worked at the uni). After that
shift, I went to Europe to visit my then girlfriend and stayed for
close to 5 months with her. About 8 months later, this same Imam
comes in with his
wife, now heavily pregnant, for a follow up visit. He winks at me
when he walks in with his wife. After the consult, he sends his wife
out and pleads with me “Could I have some more???”. Whoever said
that the placebo effect didn't work? Hey, you Cochrane guys.....
In
the year 2000, Tikki headed for the glory of WHO in Genf. I came to
Sydney. No, no, not for the Olympics, but to start a PhD in
Immunology with Guna Karupiah and his wife Geeta, who also grew up in
Canberra. They introduced me to the Aussie way of life and literally
took care of me like another son. I spent most weekends at their
place and most of my cutlery at home now is still theirs. I loved
research. The 2Gs, as we called them, were very good teachers and
complemented each other. I learned heaps. In 2001 we moved from
Sydney University to the ANU.
The
scene now is Llewellyn Hall, ANU. It is graduation day. Circumstances
are different from my graduation from medical school. Very. This
time, in the audience are my two mates, Mick and Warren, both
ex-Sydney University from the late 1960s. S Warren was the first
person I met at the pub in Sydney and Mick came later that night.
Mick brought me a fridge the next day. Together they taught me all I
needed to know to survive here.] This fine graduation day, Mick has
his shoes on, a rarity - probably borrowed. They did and still do
warn me about how low temperatures can get in Canberra. As I type
this it is zero Celsius outside.
So,
I graduated with a PhD. Things changed again, overnight. Suddenly I
was a junior researcher expected to perform, i.e. publish. Anyone in
research would fully understand my predicament. My career in research
slowly but surely went from bad to worse, to
psychologically-unbearable.
In
2010, I went to Europe for a conference and visited a few labs. I
gave a few talks and met lots of our collaborators (and some very
nice girls). I had a lot of time to think during the journey, but I
was still very distressed by work. My partner Melissa almost left me
as I drank and drank, in a vain attempt to ease the tension at work.
So, I quit. Didn't complain. Didn't fight back or anything like that.
Just walked out.
Like
magic, I changed, literally overnight. The stress was gone. So was my
research career, but I simply didn't give a rats. I had agreed
earlier with John to help him out for the month of June and the
timing was perfect. His wife Rosemary was going to Europe and he
needed someone to stand in for that period. John was and still is a
super-Boss.
One
Friday, my friend Torsten (TJ) takes me for a drive. He says, "It's
a surprise, don't you worry". The next thing I know, I meet Owen
Saddler and Marilyn Chalkley. They are blown away by my
qualifications and wonder why I want to work at Dream Cuisine. I say
simply that I am out of work and need the cash. That was my first
day. I had heard of macarons but did not have a clue on how to make
them. I learned fairly quickly, as there were only the 3 of us. I
learned to pipe macarons, to make crème brulee, to make different
kinds of pastry, etc etc. These were fun tasks. Marilyn was very
experienced had just retired from The National Health and Medical
Research Council. A fellow Piscean, she has such a motherly
nature. She is kind and fair, open to discussing just about anything.
Owen, the very definition of top bloke, did not finish his
Engineering degree and could not find a job. This, to this day, don't
understand why - Owen is one of the smartest people I've ever met. It
was Owen, that in a way, got me the interview with the Canberra
Times. This was mid 2010.
I
soon delivered macarons to wholesale customers. I sold our products
at the local farmers market. I met more and more people, almost all
of them nice people. Our team expanded, first with Lowie the chef,
then Dan the Face, then Samara his wife. No, sorry, I stand
corrected. Samara came first, then Danface. Later, Leon (the quiet
one) , Rachel (the sportscar girl) , Cristal (the hard-working one),
Callum (the cool tattooed chef), Zuzanna (the mad barrista) and
Angelique (the French pastry chef, who does not mind a pint of two of
Wild Rabbit after work) came on board. One big happy family, we have
so much fun at work. I get up from bed so looking forward to
going in to work.
Two
years after joining, Vijay Panchanathan is now the business manager
of the
patisserie called Dream Cuisine. He is madder than a cut-snake. He
has attempted to be a medical doctor (again) but Big Brother (The
Australian Medical Council) won't let him take the exams. So he tells
them to kindly take their business where
the sun don't shine.
He has an Aussie wife from Young (who he met at Moose)
and absolutely adores Canberra (and her too). He swears like a
trooper, especially after he's had a few cold ones (Thanks,
Canberra). He thinks he is mates with and admires (from afar), a roo
called Skip, who visits his backyard when the sun goes down. He loves
Slim Dusty, Paul Kelly, Barnsey, SplitEnz, Jane Rutter, Philip Glass,
666 ABC Canberra: Willow and Baylow, Macca, Ross Solly, Genevieve
Jacobs, Louise Maher, Alex Sloane, MJ Tate, Richard Fiedler, Margaret
Throsby, Adam (Shirldog) Shirley, not to mention The “Butch”
Lindbeck and The 2 Tims: Tim the Yowieman and Tim Gavel. He is
Raiders and Brumbies-mad; except when Crusaders play Brumbies. He
probably is the only one who is forgiven for turning up clad in his
AllBlacks guernsey at Edgar's Inn in Ainslie. Don't even bring up
Skywhale-
he's helped roll it up. Canberra is his home and he ain't goin'
nowhere any time soon.
He's
just got back from a business networking meeting, where he did not
get to tell his full story. Two or three weeks ago, with his mate
Pravin, he started a bioscience consulting company, P & V Bioscience Consultants. Last week, they
created a subsidiary, Ace Editors, to take care of the science
editing aspect of the company.
If
he got flattened by a semi-trailer tomorrow, never the matter. He has
never been happier. A lifetime supply of nice people and there are
just so many more to meet in Canberra. Thank you Canberra. So, folks,
that's my story. Well, at least so far.
Thank
you.
My future:
http://vijaypanchanathan.wix.com/vijay-foundation
