By Danny Pariat
About two thousand years ago, there was a little village where Jesus often spent time as his good friend Lazarus lived there with his two sisters Mary and Martha – some historians say that Lazarus’ sister Mary was actually Mary Magdalene of the Bible. This village was situated on the eastern slopes of the Mount of Olives that was about 3km from Jerusalem and was also the place where Simon the Leper lived. Some studies say it was from here that Jesus made his final journey to his place of crucifixion at Golgotha. The name of the village? Bethany.
Two thousand or so years later and thousands of miles away to the east of Bethany tucked away in the Khasi hills of northeast India, a similar journey was made from a place also named Bethany and many will ask, “who was it who made this journey?” The person who made this journey had, all his life, walked in the footsteps of Jesus and tried, heart and soul, as did Jesus, to give relief to the poor, the suffering and the downtrodden.
This person, born in a small quiet town, was the son of a chief who was the first from his tribe to graduate from the Indian Military Academy. His mother, the daughter of a man who was the first to qualify as a doctor from his tribe, was a very well known educationist and social worker in the town where they lived. Coming from such illustrious parentage, the person I am referring to had made up his mind while at a young age, to become a doctor as his driving force was his desire to follow Jesus’ teachings to heal the sick and to help the downtrodden.
He did become a doctor and graduated with flying colours, being honoured with a gold medal and becoming a Fellow of prestigious organisations connected with health and medicine. His success and fame, however, never affected him and he remained a physician who was soft spoken, polite, hard working, caring, compassionate and jovial. This highly respected doctor had the rare ability of putting his patients at ease no matter how flustered they were and this I speak from personal experience as he was our family doctor for many years.
He started his personal medical crusade with a small clinic near his home and years later, after many years of hard work and perseverance, was able to establish a hospital in his home town – a hospital which, over the years, had catered to thousands of patients and still does.
The doctor though, was not satisfied with one hospital and with great effort, managed to open another branch in a town not too far away which, as someone said, became an oasis of health in the area. OPD centres were opened in other areas to meet the needs of the local people there and sponsorships were also given to many promising students to pursue their education. The doctor was also involved with many charitable organisations, medical outreach programmes and was a resource person at many medical conferences – truly he was a person who was ‘the salt of the earth’.
Yet in a terrible twist of fate, he fell victim to the COVID-19 virus in mid-April and passed away soon after. Sadly, with this threat from the virus, people who loved and respected him could not pay their last respects to him and the burial was conducted by government personnel. Yet, even in death, he provided a last service by pointing out to the powers that be, the defects that needed to be rectified, God forbid, in case of another casualty
The refusal of some residents to allow his family to bury his remains at his beloved farm and the people of a locality blocking the cremation of his remains will forever remain a blot in our memory. Jesus had people abusing him before He died and here our beloved doctor was being treated in quite a similar manner after he passed away – in different circumstances of course but at the same time in some ways, strikingly similar – ill-treated he may have been but, being the person that he was, I can hear my dear friend uttering the words “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do”. I can also imagine Jesus telling him, ‘Come my loyal and faithful servant, you now need to rest’.
May God grant your family strength and may you Rest in Peace my friend John.
(The author is a family friend)