Dr. Nalla G Palaniswami

I t is the stuff of which movies are made. A charismatic medical doctor, in the peak of his decade-plus long medical practice, surrenders an American life to fly in for good to his homeland, India. He establishes a hospital of international standards that provides affordable health care. Thirty plus years later, the well-attired 78-years old Dr. Nalla G Palaniswami recounts his tryst with destiny as we talk to him and to his wife, Dr. Thavamani Devi, at their ‘home,’ the Kovai Medical Center Hospital (KMCH).

The tale begins in 1941 at Nallampatti, a village in Perundurai Taluk, 20 kilometers shy of the district headquarters Erode. Erode is an agricultural, textile and now a BPO hub. Those days the world was amid a cataclysmic Second World War, and the capital city of Madras lived under the constant fear of Japanese planes. Palaniswami was the eighth child of Nalla Gounder and the eldest offspring of Ilayammal. “My father had sired five daughters in a row, and so married my mother as his second wife! Soon my younger brother and I were born.“ It was a joint family of six sisters, a brother, and two mothers, where happiness and warmth were flowing like milk and honey. The elders worked in the field, and spent quality time together in the evening. In short, Nalla Gounder was a contented upper middle-class farmer who lived a life in the countryside, without much worry.

Little Palaniswami was a happy-go-lucky kid, who skipped and danced on the road, and knew nothing about ambitions and goals. He pedaled his way to school, a good eight kilometers away! While he liked his alma mater, he didn’t care much about studies. In a packed house, he was the lucky kid!

It all changed when he got into class VI. That year, 1954, his teacher, Ramaraj Naidu, spoke high about a classmate, Dastagir. And almost 65 years later, Palaniswami remembers as though it happened yesterday. Dastagir was economically weak. His father was a tailor who stitched clothes for the town but could not provide a proper dress for his son. But, nothing, absolutely nothing, stopped him from studying. He would study hard and top every single exam with monotonous regularity.

One day, listening to his teacher recount the travails of Dastagir, Palaniswami was overwhelmed. He told himself, “I’m fooling around and wasting my time, although I am so better off than Dastagir. When Dastagir with all his shackles can come first in class, why can’t I?” Palaniswami’s success journey began that day with that realization. From then on, every exam became important.