Obsession

My wife and I reached Dr. Neudorf’s office at 9.30 am for our son’s appointment. I slowly narrated the story of my son’s ailment and how it all began.

“I am Vikramaditya Upadhyay. I am an Indian and migrated to USA for education in 1994. I have a doctorate in astrophysics. Upon completing my education, I have been working with the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), at Columbia University in New York City, which is a component laboratory of NASA. My work primarily is in the area of global climate change.

A few years ago, I married Mary-Ann Fletcher. We have been blessed with a baby boy, Anveshi. We have been having a strange problem with out our son since the day of his birth, which has become quite obvious and glaring as he grew up. Presently Anvi is  three years old and his complication has progressed from a stage of subdued mental condition to a full blown medical problem. We took him to various doctors over the past two years with no improvement in Anvi. My wife and I decided to take him to a  specialist  with the hope of improving the child’s condition and to find out, what was going on. Hence, we booked an appointment with you and came to visit with you, to get your expert opinion”. Dr. Neudorf listened to everyting very attentively without any expression on his face.

The doctor then gave Anvi a complete physical exam and shook his head and said, “There is no physical disability that I notice in this child. I suggest you get all the tests, that I am going to prescribe”. I nodded in a yes, as my wife looked on anxiously.

A couple of weeks later, we went back to the doctor to get his opinion on all the test results. He took a thorough look at them and announced, “Mr. Upadhyay, your son’s reports are perfectly normal. I am not sure what is wrong with him or how we can handle this situation. I suggest you take him to a psychiatrist” as if, it was beyond his capacity to treat our son.

I replied, “Doctor, we have already done that and none of them know what is wrong with him. We even took him to a speech pathologist with no effect” trying to control my tears from spilling over.

The doctor further added, speaking his mind aloud, “I have not seen any child with this rare state of not comprehending, what we are saying. When I ask him a question, he replies in an alien tounge which, I cannot understand.”

I interrupted saying “It is Sanskrit. He speaks only Sanskrit, inspite of us trying to teach him English, he only speaks Sanskrit.”

The doctor looked surprised and enquired, “Do any of you speak Sanskrit at home?”

 I answered his query with, “No, we hardly know the language, except, recognizing a few words here and there. I am not sure how, he knows the language, as he speaks it fluently for his age.”

The doctor got curious as he continued his interrogation, “When did this start?”

Jumping into the conversation, my wife replied, “When he was about one and a half years.”

“How did you recognize, there was a problem with the child?” Dr. Neudorf questioned looking at her.

Mary-Ann replied, “One day, I was feeding him and he called me mAtR (mother). I didn’t know what it meant. I called Vikky and asked him what Anvi was saying, wondering if it was some Indian word that, he has been teaching our son. And when he came, our son called us mAtApitarau (mother and father).  we dismissed it as baby talk, more on the lines of gibberish of a child.” 

“When did you know it was a problem?” probed the doctor, trying to wrap his head around everything that he heard from Marry-Ann and me.

“When we were trying to teach him simple words such as, names of animals, flowers, and numbers, he would always promptly repeat after us, but, with a translation of the word in Sanskrit. That is when we knew, there was something wrong with our child” Mary-Ann said, looking grimly at the doctor.

Dr. Neudorf did further testing on the child, for about three months, with teams of other doctors, and finally, declared the child to be a prodigy.

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Anvi grew up speaking only Sanskrit, all through his childhood, forcing us to learn the language, to communicate with the child. He used to ask us questions, for which, my wife and I would need to refer to various ancient books, scriptures and research papers, to answer his queries. Over the years, along with Sanskrit, Anvi mastered 14 international and 22 Indian languages.

In 2021, Anvi received a Nobel Prize for his research in the field of Medicine. He was the youngest scientist ever to be conferred this award, at the age of 23. He had invented a new methodology to perform surgeries, where in, his technique was the least invasive, inexpensive and the patient could go home with in a couple of hours, after the surgery. It was called the Dhan-veshi (Dhanvantari + Anveshi) technique.

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OSLO, Norway, November, 12^th 2021 – Nobel Prize Acceptance Ceremony

Anvi went up on stage, to give his acceptance speech.

He cleared his throat and started to speak.

“Honourable members of the Nobel committee, I thank you, for conferring this prestigious award and judging me, worthy of it. I accept it with utmost humility and dedicate this award to my fellow human beings around the world, for whom, medical care has become a far cry. I hope, this non-invasive, inexpensive method of performing surgeries is promoted, so as to ensure equity and social justice, through equality in healthcare, recognizing HEALTH as a RIGHT to every citizen born on the planet, sans borders or barriers of colour, creed, religion or wealth.

I also congratulate all the winners and nominees of this year’s award. I applaud all the distinguished members of research committees all over the world, for their efforts in the field of science, to enhance human well-being.”

He paused for a few seconds and continued, “I have a story to narrate to all of you.”

“When my mother was in her last trimester of her pregnancy, my grand father, Dr. Ramkrishna Upadhyay, a renowned doctor and a neuro-surgeon in India, visited us in the US. He would sit by my mother’s bed, when she was taking a nap in the afternoon and narrate the importance of learning Sanskrit and the vast knowledge tucked away in the ancient scriptures, which is lost in the transition of human evolution and technological progress. Also, he would give examples of research in the medical field, and emphasize its relevance to human wellbeing. He further stressed the point that the answers to many unanswered medical problems could be found documented in ancient wisdom. He would further stress the importance of unlocking this vast treasure of knowledge. He was of the opinion that, to be able to understand research and techniques used in ancient literature, one needs to master Sanskrit. As, most of the wisdom may be lost in translation.

I would silently listen to him, lying in my mother’s womb. One afternoon, he broke down into tears narrating, how he was unsuccessful in instilling interest for Sanskrit among his own children. He blamed himself for this pitiable state of neglect for a language, which is a treasure of knowledge, waiting to be unraveled. He started learning Sanskrit only when, he was in his late 50s and that, it was too late for him to use it, in his own research.

He then silently, urged me to take on this mission of exposing this fortune to the world. He would be there, day after day, speaking to me, and helping me learn the language, recognizing the intricacies in documented medical research, in Sanskrit.

After my birth, he would sit by my cradle and read to me, from various Sanskrit texts, when ever he could, which went on for about a year. The following year, he passed away, after suffering from pancreatic cancer.”

Anveshi, paused for few minutes, took a deep breath and continued, “I thank my grand father for showing me the light. I will use the proceeds of this award to setup a Sanskrit research institute in his honour and continue to conduct research on ancient wisdom, in all areas of science. And call upon all interested researchers around the world to join me in this mission.

And lastly, I know, my grand father is happy, where ever he is, knowing, I have made it binding for his son to learn Sanskrit, even if it was only, to communicate with me. I thank my parents, from the bottom of my heart, for not giving up on me or writing me off as a weird child, but, for nurturing my interest in Sanskrit and research. I will be indebted to them for a life time.

Thank you, one and all.” Anvi bowed to the crowd, and walked down the stairs to meet us, his parents, seated in the audience.

There was standing ovation for 10 minutes after Anvi’s speech. My wife, Mary-Ann leaned over my shoulder, as tears rolled down her gleaming eyes, overwhelmed by the uncontrollable amalgam of emotions.