Book Review : Hills of Angheri

Hills of Angheri - Kaveri Nambisan
Book review - written July 15, 2007

I bought this book in mid-April 2007 and ever since, have been on and off this book until today, when I completed reading it. When I first picked it up, I was driven by a desire to buy a book which would kindle the writer in me. Hence, the choice for a book which had Indian author, Indian milieu and virginity of a first time writer without literary lineage (Nambisan is a doctor by profession). Vote for Nambisan as the target was rather random, with equal number of first books competing for attention. I am happy and very satisfied with this turn of destiny. I must admit that the painting of hills on the cover page and the backdrop of the story in an Indian countryside did transport me into my village life, which I crave in my most unambiguous moments.

The story centers around Nallinakshi, her “shared” dream to set up a hospital in her village with a close friend, her bonding with her family – her father, a village school headmaster who was later demoted to be a teacher but who never relented to the unfavorable designs of life and her silent, aimless, lonely journey perhaps to her dreams.

The story has many shades and layers that I can either relate to or, can’t stop appreciating. First, it is the rise of young Nalli from a remote village girl to a surgeon, while being responsible and independent to herself. In India such stories abound, but rarely as distinctly covered where families in villages go beyond their means and resources to dream and realize education of highest quality for their children. In this case, Nalli’s father offered wings to her dreams from his humble profession as a passionate village school teacher. He successfully navigated his daughter’s career from the prowling customs of marriage, which takes away prematurely, dreams of self-determination from young Indian ladies, especially in a more conservative village society. He achieved it by offering the villagers a deal that his daughter would become a doctor and attend to the village’s need for medical care. This kind of vision indeed leads to powerful outcomes.

Nalli not only got admission into a medical college in Madras from her origins in Angheri, but also got an opportunity to do her FRCS in England. This leap is by no means modest. As she grew to realize her father’s dream, life cooked its mysterious recipes. She lost her close friend Jai (perhaps her only close friend) who had agreed to partner in their common dream to return to Angheri and set up the hospital. Jai being senior to Nalli had got through his Medical exams earlier and settled himself in Mumbai as a leading surgeon. He embraced the city and its material wonders. He distanced himself from the hospital project citing better opportunities and financial rewards of being in a city and also crashed Nalli’s hopes by marrying an acquaintance. Perhaps this was a loss, which wrecked Nalli’s future trajectory and hopes.

She later lost her grandmother and her father in quick succession. Recovering from such losses is never easy. She completed her FRCS and gave up a predictable career in England for a very uncertain life in India, consequent to the loss of her father. The hills which were family suddenly looked distant and dark. She battled questions of marriage and settling down, wherever she went. Unable to find a solution, she took up a job in far off Keshavganj in Northern India perhaps for some answers. In the three years that she spent in the Sevashram, where religion blended with untainted service, she discovered her ability to save lives and also to fail in saving lives.

For me, it was very revealing how surgeons fail, get ridiculed in the company of senior surgeons, battle with themselves to master the skills, appear so vulnerable and fragile, display and also digest ego while attending to patients of different hues and moods. The author has presented Nalli unabashedly, pristine and vulnerable human form, where things go wrong but dreams remain and vision persists.

Monotony and perhaps homesickness drove her back to Madras from Keshavganj, where she abhorred the commercial orientation instead of service orientation in hospitals. The Sevashram in Keshavganj, offered medical care for free or extremely affordable rates to the poor country folk. Unable to mold herself in the “commercial only” architecture, she resigned and drifted to a smaller hospital on lower pay, to remain true to her values.

It is in such turbulence of life, Jai returned to her and requested to partner with him to set up a hospital in Madras and eventually lead towards the village project! His decisions in the past did not lead him to peace but, Nalli had outgrown the need for a partner for her dream project.

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Hills of Angheri is no simple book for me. It does not come from the established names in the “trade”. It is a wonderful journey of life – of loss, of hope, of origins, of dreams. It is of hills which speak to you in your happiest hours and of dead, distant, darkness of hills – when things don’t go your way. I will move on with my next book, next client acquisition, next joy and next failure – but in these moments of strength and vulnerability of aimlessness and of control – I will find refreshing anecdotes and antidotes for life.