The story of Dr George Varghese or Dr Laji as most people know him is one of faith, love and passion for Christ. One that radically changed communities and defined the very essence of Christian missions in India.
Born and brought up in Kerala (Alleppey), Dr Laji was surrounded by the traditions of the Syrian Orthodox Church, which his family followed. It was in his teens (pre-degree) that he heard about Jesus Christ through the Billy Graham ministries. It sparked a curiosity in him to know more about Jesus, and so began his spiritual journey.
At around the same time, Dr Mary Mathews (Dr Laji’s aunt) who was in Christian Medical College, Ludhiana motivated him to take up medicine as a vocation. Though under the impression that he ‘was not an intelligent guy’, Dr Laji felt that there was no harm in trying. And so, in the summer of 1971, he entered into the world of medicine.
“Life in hostel was fun!” said Dr Laji. Back then he had already possessed the strong determination to become a life saver. He thoroughly enjoyed dissection in Anatomy and was good at it; so much so his teachers asked him to dissect the entire middle ear with its ossicles which he successfully accomplished! Dr Laji even cultivated a passion for teaching by helping his juniors in understanding things in another way.
Dr Laji accepted Christ as his personal saviour in his 2nd year of college. He says that Jesus is such a wonderful and unique person, that he had the absolute conviction that he was God. He learnt to take God’s word more seriously and so studied it on a regular basis which created in him a special love for the word.
Led by Mr P.T. Chandapilla, he and his friends started CMCL’s first Evangelical Union (EU) with the motive of having students gather together for fellowship and worshipping God; which exists to this very day.
It was in this college where Dr Laji met Dr Sheila. Being batch mates they got to know each other quite well and became rather fond of each other, although they broke apart four times! Dr Laji states: “a word that could describe her best is her middle name- Grace.” Dr Sheila says that she felt understood in her conversations with him and what attracted her towards him the most was his compassion for the poor and his love for Jesus. This adorable couple even then had similar dreams of working in rural areas and burned with a desire to follow God wherever he’d take them. They were both challenged by the fact of there being fewer doctors in rural areas.
In his fourth year, Dr Laji attended the UESI conference in Nagpur where he stepped forward during the altar call, making a firm decision to stay in India and serve the people here.
In his time, or perhaps even now; doctors would rather serve in other countries or higher centers in the cities of India than serve in a small mission hospital. This was partly due to the fact that they had bad experiences during their bond period where they endured a derogatory attitude and there was no planned program, which enabled them to see their potential in such a place. Also most senior doctors in big institutions had never worked in mission hospitals and looked down on those who went to Mission work.
Dr Laji however feels that a lot can be done with good basic education. “It all depends on your teachers and your interest” He said. He had the pleasure of being taught by Drs Betty Cowan, Mary Mathew, Howie, Feiraband, Deodhar, Prior,Chatterjee, and Dr Satow later on in Herbertpur. He not only learned medicine but also major life lessons through these mentors. He also learned a lot by staying over with friends during the holidays.
In his final year Dr Laji topped medicine and though intending to be a physician, he left his post graduate studies four times to work in mission hospitals!
After MBBS, he even travelled around North India to see the country. Through this he realized how wonderful India is and his heart for the needy Indian people grew. This concern for people and loving them as Christ loves us was taught to him early as a child, and he was greatly inspired by Drs Mary Mathew and Betty Cowan who openly portrayed this trait during his college days. He enjoyed his time in Kotagiri and realized that Jesus did not come to start a religion but to give His life to replace our old life and its habit patterns. “Living out His life through my body in this world is the meaning of being a Christian. This was a revolutionary thought. It meant saying ‘no’ to my plans and desires and opening my life to another kind of life, serving the needy of rural India.”
In 1977, he joined CMCL intending to take up medicine but had to leave soon after to Herbertpur as Dr Satow (who ran the place) had to go on leave. Before leaving, Dr Satow prayerfully blessed Dr Lajis hands which he believes to have made a difference in his work as a surgeon. Seeing that there was an enormous need for surgical skill in the rural population and encouraged by the fact that he had good hands, he decided to take up surgery instead but decided to postpone it.
In 1979 Dr Laji married Dr Sheila and so started their beautiful life together. He says it was a patient, growing conviction that made him know that she was the one to marry. As many of us face or will face the question of whom to marry, Dr Laji simply- believes in ‘no sign business’, but marriage requires a lot of self death for it work in a meaningful way. This is hard but possible. He waited, and his love grew.
After marriage, they left for Pune to the Pandita Ramabai Mukti mission hospital, Kedgaon, to relieve Dr Sheela Gupta who had not taken leave for years. It was there they heard about Manali.
Fully intending to resume higher studies in CMCL, they still wrote to the Lady Willington hospital in Manali (Himachal Pradesh) that was about to close down due to the lack of doctors for the past year and a half, not knowing what to expect. Before long even before their letter reached, a lady nurse from the UK who was running the place wrote to them asking for help in reviving the hospital. At around the same time, a friend who knew nothing of the invitation also wrote to them simply mentioning ‘Manali will welcome you with open arms’. Having prayed about it for quite a while before this, the receptive couple decided this was God’s way of telling them to go to Manali. And so, they left to a desolate place with just an MBBS to show; were offered food for work and no salaries. This they believed, was what faith is all about. They intended to go back to CMCL but stayed on in Manali due to the workload and lack of other doctors in the region.
This meant that they couldn’t complete their higher studies which invited a lot of criticism from family and friends. While most of his contemporaries went forth pursuing higher studies and some moved on to other countries Dr Laji stayed back in India with just an MBBS, not acknowledged for the surgeon he was and was often thought of as old fashioned. It was sad to realize that for many out there, degrees matter more than abilities.
Dr Laji himself felt like giving up: as a doctor due his lack of training, when he felt the economical constraint and when his colleagues looked down on him. But with his faith and love in Jesus, his love for the people of Kulu valley, Dr.Laji stuck his ground. He says, Jesus redefines life, and you can’t walk away from it.
Greatly supported by his wife, friends and senior doctors who visited the hospital from time to time, He mastered his surgical skill to be one of the very best in the country. “He is one surgeon I know who can see or watch one surgery and then be enabled to do it!” says Dr Sheila. “He has a good imagination and imagines his surgeries before he goes and does them.” He became so good in a variety of surgeries ranging from orthopedics to pediatric surgery to gynecology that the University of Glasgow recently bestowed him with a FRCS.
With his growth in surgery came a passion to teach it especially to those who had a fear of surgery. He spent time in Nepal, Uganda, Nagaland and the Burmese border training young doctors and taking away this fear and passing on his skill. If he has taught one doctor one skill, it makes him very happy.
Becoming a surgeon, Dr Laji believes was simply conforming to a need which was crying out when he started his mission work. Surgery is not his passion but people are. To aspiring surgeons: “Learn all you can, really understand basics, have a heart for those who do not have the means. Look at the need rather than what specialty you’d like, study a variety of things!”
With the help of the NRHM scheme of the Himachal government, Dr Laji conducted a number of surgical camps along with others to benefit those who are in remote places. The team would go to a government hospital, take over the OT, and do 50- 90 surgeries in 4 days! Camps are an example of good teamwork and an opportunity to train young doctors and nurses.
In 1984 Dr Laji began to visit a small village called Lahaul -Spiti located at 12,000 feet near the Chinese border, which he reached by trekking and hiking. Here there was no electricity, it was -30 degrees Celsius, and was snowed in half the year. The people were very poor, unaware of health resources and hygiene practices, and there was a gross insufficiency in the distribution of Hep B vaccines.
Dr Laji stepped up and cleared 3 problems:
Installed solar powered fridge to store vaccines
Encouraged parents to give children bath and installed a solar water heater as kids suffered from nephritis and stupor during school hours due to scabies and head lice.
Motivated parents to stop feeding under 5years old children magi and kurkure and asked them to switch to ladoo or muesli from locally available grain flour.
In 1985, Dr Laji started what he believes to be his greatest achievement: the Day Star School, Manali
When his eldest daughter was 3 years old, he decided to start a small school which he conducted in an open courtyard with his children and others which made up the first 9 kids of this school. Gradually nearby villagers asked if their children too could enroll and so this school grew to what it is today- a senior secondary school with around 500 children and a variety of faculty! The first batch of 10th grade students passed out in 1997.The school-
Led a social change in the attitudes of environmental protection and drug/ alcohol abuse in the community (reached top ten in Design for Change Ahmadabad)
Led a campaign to establish a library in a poor school in manali by collecting English/ hindi books from the public
Children who got used to the toilets at school went back home and insisted that a toilet be built at home, thus abandoning the practice of open field defecation.
Produced students into various fields from medicine to lawyers and even actors.
It is a perfect example of how Dr Laji reached out to what the community wanted and desperately needed instead of focusing on his own preconceived goals. In fact Dr Laji believes that more salaries should be given to community doctors who prevent disease in the community than curative physicians/ surgeons at the hospital.
A question arose during our conversation: “people are people whether rich or poor, and so there shouldn’t be a difference if you save lives in a village or in a tertiary care centre. Then why should there be a preference for the poor?”
‘The poor’, Dr Laji explained ‘are at a disadvantage as the rich have means to get what they want and it would not make a difference if a doctor was missing for them as they could easily get another one. However it makes all the difference to a man in the rural area who has already had to travel miles before reaching even a Primary care center. Oppression by the rich is very real and is one of the main reasons for poverty. Emergency admissions make borderline people really poor.
The poor are in no way better people but are open, more grateful, and respond to kindness. God sees them as sheep without a shepherd and looks at them with mercy. ’Our job is to care for them and be a voice, to echo their plight and be a healing balm, to help them rise above their misery and find some happiness’.
Another dimension was added to this answer when Dr Sheila explained that people do not have to be financially poor to gain our service. “Many people are poor in emotions, physically poor, intellectually poor, poor in relating to people (and still be financially rich).” So the question is not God help me serve the poor but should be what do you want me to do? As God may want you to work with people who are financially rich but are poor in other ways.
Drs Laji and Sheila gave up their position and all that they started a few years ago and became just ordinary people in the village. Dr. Laji believes that the greatest challenge was and continues to be – “to show kindness and grace to people who don’t like you and treat you as a burden”. In fact his regret is his own inability to love people all the time.
“One can truly love only through self denial. The cross is the ultimate weapon for this. As long as I want to preserve self, to that degree I will be a poor lover”
He says the totality of love is only in God, but we can be partakers of this divine quality in some small ways. Love is an act of will but also a decision of the heart. It’s easy to love people, who love you, but the opposite is tough and to be able to do that without a selfish motive is almost a supernatural act! Then why do it, against such a strong inclination of our flesh to hate?
“Contemplation of the man on the cross till my heart is melted away is the beginning of such love.” This is how we are to know what love is, experience it from the truest, purest of lovers, and then be able to share that with others. “I must get sick of my emptiness to love before I get filled.”
‘A mission hospital’ by Dr Laji’s definition is- a hospital run by a group of committed Christians not for monetary gain or power play but to incarnate God’s love through their service.” He describes ‘mission’ simply as to deny yourself, go to a small village, become part of that community, make a difference and die there. Now people are looking for ready-made hospitals where everything is available for them. Many are looking for various benefits from the mission rather than giving themselves to bring God’s kingdom to their place of work.
This has become a very difficult reality, as not everyone has the same vision. ‘Most mission hospitals have become just become another business and are power centered. Trust level is zero both vertically and horizontally. It is sad to see Mission hospital’s reason for existing change from serving, to, being served.’
Only a few hospitals exist in India today, and I pray that we can work to restore the image of these hospitals to what was once meant to be ‘our work, for a king’. Mission Hospital work ought to be an expression of Churches’ concern for the world around.
Currently Dr Laji and Sheila help some patients during the week, who usually come for reassurance or insist that he is the one to do their surgery. He still travels to Nagaland to train young doctors and take out the myths of being a surgeon.
He enjoys not just being a doctor. His hobbies include: photography (nature and children), watching good movies, listening to music, and writing down thoughts. He spends a great deal of time just talking to villagers about life, purpose, love, hope, death. He enjoys story-telling to kids.
He says there is no greater joy than talking about Jesus of Nazareth. He also teaches health and spirituality to Buddhist monks and nuns in Spiti.
Unfortunately 10 years back he was diagnosed to have Sjogren’s syndrome, which caused all his teeth to break. He finds it difficult to eat or speak, read or even do long surgeries. Despite all this, he never complains and has learnt to accept it as a part of life and finds joy in being alive otherwise!
Dr Laji is a rural doctor in its truest sense. He was ever ready to heed his call from God and made a difference in enumerable lives through his openness to let God in and spread His love to others.
This man exemplifies the greatest commandment our lord has given us and continues to fight the good fight.
“He is a rebel and a non- conformist who asks hard questions to himself and others forcing us to challenge the status quo fervently seeking to have the mind of Christ.”- Dr Vineet Jaison (Laji’s nephew)
“He makes people laugh and has a great sense of humor
Half the patients recover from their aches and pains by the jokes he cracks and makes them laugh!”- Dr SheilaThis man was able to deny himself, take up the cross and follow Christ. Shall we aim to do the same?
Eric Williams
