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Thursday 12 December 2013

A FRIEND OF THE POOR

Deep in the Himalayas, in India, there is a picture-postcard town named
Almora.

It has a settlement on both sides of the ridge of a mildly curving five thousand feet high hill which runs in a somewhat east- west
direction.There are villages here and there in the misty valleys down below.

Once upon a time, in one of these villages down there,lived a poor lanky
boy. He was then in his early teens. This was a good hundred years ago,
in the British colonial period. Even in the town of Almora, then, medical
facilities were limited even though the town was very 'modern' for that period


because of the long years of dedication of one great British officer named Sir Henry Ramsay(1816-1893) Outside the town no medical facilities exsisted.

And so it came to pass that when the boy's old mother fell seriously ill, there was no way she
could be helped. He saw his only hope, high up in the sprawling town far above the village. He set out to climb the narrow long meandering track and arrived in the town in the misty morning. There were many doctors
in the town but none was willing to come with him to the village for he had little
money to pay for their services.

" And so my mother died for lack of medical attention as I stood there watching helplessly. And it was then that I resolved to become a doctor so that I could render free service
to those who had no means to pay."he concluded as he refused to accept more than a token fee from my father
for rendering a first rate personalised medical service to a sick member of our family.

This narrative dates backs to the misty past, in my childhood, when we were in Almora for a brief respite from the raging summer of the dusty planes below.
.
This messiah of the poor was then a very well known and respected man. He was Dr.Thapa M.B.B.S. who dedicated his whole life to the service of the poor as he had resolved in his childhood. He was blessed with a long life and long years of service to the people of Almora. And yet today he is a totally forgotten man, swallowed in the whirlpool of time !!

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