What the doctor saw

Forty years ago I read the diaries of Lord Moran, who was Winston Churchill’s physician. Since then I have wondered why more doctors to Heads of State and governments don’t write about their patients. Imagine what an education that would be.

It was Moran who revealed for the first time, much to the fury of the Conservatives, that Churchill was a sick old man who had had a stroke in 1942. No one was told. Then there was The Private Life of Chairman Mao by Li Zishui, Mao’s personal physician for two decades. Li wrote the book in the early nineties after he had emigrated to the US, revealing what a monster Mao had been. He slept with younger and younger girls as he grew older, bathed rarely and never brushed his teeth.

I leave it to you to imagine all the ways in which we would learn about how our great leaders aren’t what their propagandists would have us believe.

However, as they say, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. So my desire for such voyeuristic delights have remained unfulfilled. But the other day I came upon a book called The Unseen Indira Gandhi: Through her physician’s eyes.

It is by Dr K P Mathur, whom I knew ever so slightly. He could often be seen in India International Centre and whenever I saw him I would “pay my respects”. He always spared a few minutes to chat.

But, much to my everlasting shame, I had no idea till a few weeks ago that he had written this book. So I immediately bought a copy and read it at furious speed. It is a fantastic glimpse into the world of Indira Gandhi.

Dr Mathur had joined Safdarjung hospital in Delhi 70 years ago in 1953. He was in great demand and treated many celebrities including Feroze Gandhi, Indira Gandhi’s husband, during his last days.

In 1966, when Mrs Gandhi became prime minister, he became her personal physician, in an honorary capacity. That association lasted for 18 years till 1984 when she was gunned down by her own bodyguards on October 31, 1984.

He had met her that morning. She complained of a cold and he gave her a tablet. A few minutes later, as Mrs Gandhi was being made up for a TV interview, Dr Mathur told her that Ronald Reagan, the US president, never had make-up put on him. He had read this in Time magazine.

Mrs Gandhi then told him that Reagan used to wear an earpiece via which he would be told how to answer questions from journalists. So much for that “great” American president.

That was the last Dr Mathur saw Mrs Gandhi because by the time he reached his office, she had been shot. He turned his car around and went back, only to find that she had been taken to AIIMS.

How he became her doctor is a story in itself which Dr Mathur tells in his usual self-deprecating way. Mrs Gandhi was only 49 when she first became prime minister in 1966 and in excellent health. She refused to have an attending doctor at first.

But a few months later the aircraft she was in ran into severe turbulence and some of those who were with her were hurt quite badly. With the 1967 general election approaching it was decided that she needed a doctor in attendance.

When Dr Mathur’s name was suggested to N K Seshan, who was her private secretary, by the Medical Superintendent of Safdarjung hospital, she told him that she “vaguely remembered one Dr Mathur who used to come to see her husband when he was admitted to Willingdon hospital”.

He says he was asked to see her that evening. When she arrived in the room where he was waiting, she asked him who he was. Dr Mathur says he was so nervous that he “mumbled” that he was the doctor.

“Oh, you are the doctor? Why not say so?” She asked and that, more or less, was that. He looked after her from then till 1984.

Mrs Gandhi had the habit of scribbling notes on pieces of paper. Some of these have been kept by Dr Mathur. In one of them, referring to something that had gone missing from the house, she had written, “That congressman must have taken it with him.”

In another she wrote, on a Lok Sabha notepad, that she was “sleepy as a bear in winter, eating like a pig and constipated like a cat”. Then she added in parenthesis that the last was only because of the alliteration. This note forms the frontispiece of the book.

There is one very touching story. He says the day after Sanjay, her younger son, died, he went to see her in the morning according to his usual schedule.

“Doctor, hamara dahina haath kat gaya hai,” she said to him (my right hand has been cut off). But she was back at work within three days.

This is just a tiny sampling of the stories in this book. What is striking is how discreet Dr Mathur has been in regard to Mrs Gandhi’s health. He could easily have written a completely different book 30 years after her death. But he didn’t.