This is an open letter from Padmashri Awardee Dr K K Aggarwal, President Heart Care Foundation of India and Senior Physician Cardiologist at Moolchand Medcity to Mr. Krishan Kumar who represents his own past in the Medical College as a medical student.
Dear Krishan,
I must congratulate and reward you for not indulging in smoking, drinking or taking drugs while you were at school, college or medical college. I know what hard times you had faced in your life. You were 7th out of 9 brothers and sisters and that to living in one room in the crowded old city of Delhi. Your father was handling accounts of a company and living a tight financial life.
You studied in a Government School (ASVJ) located at Darya Ganj. Later you did your first year from Deshbandu College of Delhi University. There all the times you were compared with convent students who used to humiliate you and pass comments at you.
Subsequently you went to MGIMS Sevagram for doing M.B.B.S. and M.D. Throughout your life you were under constant stress with financial crisis, not good in English, stigma of coming from a traditional Hindu Baniya family and from a Government School.
Heads off to you! Even then you did not indulge in any of the addictions. Now I recall what great favours you have done to me as how difficult it would have been for me to de-addict myself. In the last 28 years of my practice at Moolchand Hospital, I have seen people with addiction living a life full of miseries. I have seen people with tobacco chewing dying with oral cancers and smokers getting pre-mature deaths, severe heart attacks, paralysis at an early age and losing their memories in 40s and 50s. I saw one of my friends at age 40 suddenly dying of heart attack just because he could not stop smoking in time.
I even saw those who wanted to quit, how difficult it was for them to quit. I saw people drink and completely spoiling not only theirs but also their families’ health and financial status. I came across people consuming drugs and indulging into the illegal activities. One of my patients was an opium addict and was ridiculed by his wife and children for years and they even attempted to make him stay in a mental hospital.
One of my industrialist colleagues who is just two years younger to me practically ruined his industry, as he could not de-addict himself. He even went to Europe for a de-addiction course which gave him relief only for a few months.
I came across each and every type of cancer in smokers in the last two decades.
You were smart enough not to listen to your colleagues and did not get under pressure or got influenced by the Stars in the Indian Movies or the Politicians.
I now realize the importance as I see many of my colleagues continue to smoke as they have failed again and again after trying quitting.
We belong to a professional community who work late night and under constant pressure and are vulnerable to end up with addictions. The only answer is to say no to the first addictive instance that to when we are still in our youth and that was what you rightly did in time.
I am not only grateful to you myself but also on behalf of my family as if I would have been smoking there was no way I could have told them not to smoke.
Because of my non-addiction, I am today a successful preventive doctor who has received Dr B C Roy National Award and Padmashri.
You will agree with me that if I would have been smoking there was no way I could have asked my patients not to smoke. It is not that I belong to a family of non-smokers. I have seen my brothers smoking and one of them a chain smoker with all sorts of health problems.
Once again Thanks
Regards
Dr K K Aggarwal
Dear Krishan,
I must congratulate and reward you for not indulging in smoking, drinking or taking drugs while you were at school, college or medical college. I know what hard times you had faced in your life. You were 7th out of 9 brothers and sisters and that to living in one room in the crowded old city of Delhi. Your father was handling accounts of a company and living a tight financial life.
You studied in a Government School (ASVJ) located at Darya Ganj. Later you did your first year from Deshbandu College of Delhi University. There all the times you were compared with convent students who used to humiliate you and pass comments at you.
Subsequently you went to MGIMS Sevagram for doing M.B.B.S. and M.D. Throughout your life you were under constant stress with financial crisis, not good in English, stigma of coming from a traditional Hindu Baniya family and from a Government School.
Heads off to you! Even then you did not indulge in any of the addictions. Now I recall what great favours you have done to me as how difficult it would have been for me to de-addict myself. In the last 28 years of my practice at Moolchand Hospital, I have seen people with addiction living a life full of miseries. I have seen people with tobacco chewing dying with oral cancers and smokers getting pre-mature deaths, severe heart attacks, paralysis at an early age and losing their memories in 40s and 50s. I saw one of my friends at age 40 suddenly dying of heart attack just because he could not stop smoking in time.
I even saw those who wanted to quit, how difficult it was for them to quit. I saw people drink and completely spoiling not only theirs but also their families’ health and financial status. I came across people consuming drugs and indulging into the illegal activities. One of my patients was an opium addict and was ridiculed by his wife and children for years and they even attempted to make him stay in a mental hospital.
One of my industrialist colleagues who is just two years younger to me practically ruined his industry, as he could not de-addict himself. He even went to Europe for a de-addiction course which gave him relief only for a few months.
I came across each and every type of cancer in smokers in the last two decades.
You were smart enough not to listen to your colleagues and did not get under pressure or got influenced by the Stars in the Indian Movies or the Politicians.
I now realize the importance as I see many of my colleagues continue to smoke as they have failed again and again after trying quitting.
We belong to a professional community who work late night and under constant pressure and are vulnerable to end up with addictions. The only answer is to say no to the first addictive instance that to when we are still in our youth and that was what you rightly did in time.
I am not only grateful to you myself but also on behalf of my family as if I would have been smoking there was no way I could have told them not to smoke.
Because of my non-addiction, I am today a successful preventive doctor who has received Dr B C Roy National Award and Padmashri.
You will agree with me that if I would have been smoking there was no way I could have asked my patients not to smoke. It is not that I belong to a family of non-smokers. I have seen my brothers smoking and one of them a chain smoker with all sorts of health problems.
Once again Thanks
Regards
Dr K K Aggarwal
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