It is almost two years since the incomparable Dr. Mrs. Vimala Navaratnam died on a late November day in London. Irrationally, I never expected “Mrs Nava” to grow old, much less, die. So, it came as a shock to read that she was 83 when she finally passed away. Perhaps, because she was so changeless, in a white, starched, cotton-voile sari with an oiled plait and spectacles, that I thought of her as perennially late middle-aged, 60ish, maybe 70, but certainly, no more. Yet, she was born in Jaffna in 1931, just after Ceylon was granted universal suffrage, an experiment in colonial democracy that was meant to light the way for Dominion status for India and Ceylon. And, she died in London in 2014, a few months before Sri Lanka returned, after three decades of decimating civil war and authoritarianism, to a relatively thriving democracy once more.
Mylevaganam Paramanandhan, father of “Mrs Nava”, was a station master in British-built and managed, Ceylon Government Railway that served travel and trade in the premier crown colony of Ceylon. A privilege of this transferable post in the CGR was that his five daughters were eligible to receive their education at the top CMS girls’ school in Colombo, Ladies’ College. All five sisters were exceptionally clever, but Vimala Paramanandhan was quite brilliant. After graduating from the Colombo Medical School, she regularly assisted her Professor of Surgery, Dr Noel Bartholomeusz. The Professor had such immense confidence in Vimala’s abilities that he requested her assistance at his most difficult operations. When Nora, his widow, died, Mrs Nava, who had been her doctor throughout, was one of the three executors of Nora Bartholomeusz’ will: Mrs. Bartholomeusz had bequeathed their substantial Colombo 7 house and land to the Colombo Medical College to be used as the new College of Surgeons. Once refurbished for its new purpose, Dr (Mrs) Navaratnam was asked to unveil the portraits of Dr and Mrs Bartholomeusz and declare the College open.
Mrs Nava was therefore no ordinary GP. In fact, she wasn’t ordinary in any way. A Hindu by birth and belief (as the pictures of Hindu Gods and Goddesses in the waiting room of the Navaratnams’ surgery in Colombo 3 appeared to suggest), she once lent me a copy of Sir Edwin Arnold’s “Light of Asia”, a Victorian panegyric to Gautama the Buddha, which she told me had been one of her favourite books as a teenager, and which she still cherished. On the flyleaf, there was the faded stamp of the Chilaw Public Library. This was intriguing. “How come you have a copy of the Chilaw Public Library?” I asked in all innocence. I got a lop-sided, wicked grin in return. “My father was transferred to another station and somehow it was never returned….”
When I first went to the Navaratnams’ surgery for an ear infection caught swimming at Mt Lavinia during monsoon months (Mrs Nava informed me precisely of the contents of sea water at the Mount during the churning conditions of the monsoon – no more out of season dips after that!), there was a stolid black Ambassador car parked in their small driveway. This was as far as the Navaratnams went in terms of luxury in 1973. If a patient timidly or arrogantly asked “Doctor, what is your fee?” or with gauche naiveté tried to leave some money, they would get a snippy remark or peremptory wave of a hand in reply. Sri Lankan or foreigner, upper class or vagrant, sick or blooming with health, loaded or skint, every person willing to wait the hour, sometimes two or more, for the Doctor would rarely, if ever, be allowed to pay.
Later on, when their incorruptibility had become a byword among foreign embassies, the Navaratnams were handsomely paid to perform difficult tasks such as escorting dangerously ill expatriates being flown home or giving medical check-ups to potential emigrants (ever willing to bribe to get a favourable report). These emoluments enabled Mrs Nava to get a small Japanese car which seemed as ageless as herself. She was such a small woman, that as she drove over the speed bumps of Inner Flower Road to her many appointments, from delivering babies to tending to the dying, she could scarcely be seen above the windscreen. In fact, it must have been a shock for a driver coming the other way to see a car approaching apparently driverless, until at close quarters the top of her well-oiled hair and glint of owlish spectacles could be glimpsed above the steering wheel.
Other than for appointments in her surgery, I seemed to meet Mrs. Nava most often at weddings and engagement parties. It was at the engagement party of a favourite patient’s son in the early 1970s that I realized that behind the formidable Dr. Mrs. Nava ‘scowl’ was a wry sense of humour. It was universally acknowledged that she was tireless in selfless service, with a stiletto-sharp mind and titanium will, but self-mockery was not considered one of her attributes. Perhaps, she had a soft spot for artists (her favourite poet was Sarojini Naidu) because when a sculptor friend rebuked her for ‘wining and dining when half of Colpetty must be ill or dying’ because of her absence from her consulting room, her eyes twinkled gleefully as she pinged a retort.
At another engagement party, we got into a deep discussion about euthanasia. While not advocating euthanasia, Dr. Mrs Nava came down firmly on the side of never prolonging life, through use of modern medical technology, beyond its ‘natural course’. A life with nil consciousness or a consciousness of intolerable pain or unwonted misery and depression seemed to her a waste of life, worse than no life at all.
Here I shall quote a passage from Prof Sheriffdeen’s Lucien Noel Bartholomeusz Inaugural Oration, written by Nirmali Hettiarachchi and cited in the Sri Lankan Journal of Surgery 2014. It deserves a second airing. “In the hearts of the people, a healer is second only to the gods. However, the quiet and dignified men (and women), who throughout the centuries devoted their lives to easing the lot of their fellow beings, are often relegated to cursory mention in history books, their achievements viewed with dispassionate objectivity.
To explore the path of a life devoted to service whose only reward is excellence and to place it in the context of history is to say the least a rewarding experience.”
These words from a respected fellow physician and surgeon may stand as the best epitaph to Dr. Mrs Vimalaswari Navaratnam, daughter of Mylevaganam and Ratnam Paramanandhan, wife of Dr. Alalasunderam Navaratnam, mother of Sonny, Kumar and Preshi, doctor to “half of Colpetty” and beyond, cremated London November 2014
Dr. Jane Russell