A Professor Remembers-SM - Vallabh Prakashan

   It was my friend Girija Vijay of Atlanta, USA, who suggested that I write my autobiography. To my reply that “I was no big shot” she commented, “One does not have to be a very important person to write it.”
  My childhood in my father's home, I have described under “Dharmashala” and the years of adolescence in “My Nani” and “My Days in BHU (I)” followed. During all this period the Second World War was in the forefront of our lives and the main characters Hitler, Mussolini, Churchill, Stalin and Eisenhower were all the time in the news. So was Mahatma Gandhi. It was but natural for me to cover whatever I had absorbed of the ups and downs in the fate of those who fought therein.
  I have covered my courtship with a 16-year-old girl from Delhi under “I Saw Her” and “Three Years Later”, my infatuation with a 19-year-old from Karachi in “The Midnight Knock” and a rendezvous with 30-year-old woman in Prague (Czechoslovakia) in “The Journeying Backwards: Maria and the Boat Party”. A very impressionable period which I went through was the independence of the country from British rule; I have included this in “Lucknow”.
  In every country, women are more likely to suffer the pangs of life than men, but in India it can go to extremes. Of the two women, Tara Devi, and Koshal, one succumbed and the other fought it out. I have covered these two episodes in my family under “Nogimama” and “Koshal (I) and Koshal (II)”.
  The Royal Family of Jaipur had a great impact on me right from childhood through adolescence. Even today, I am obsessed with heir physical beauty, spirit of sacrifice and contributions made by their forefathers. I have described that under “The Maharaja's Third Wife”.
  I had plenty to do with Muslims during my childhood. Many years later, I worked with them again very closely for nine years in Libya and at Hamdard University in Delhi. This allowed me to know and understand their psyche better. During this long period, I received a great deal of affection and appreciation from them. This brought me closer to them and I have tried to place some of my experiences in “The Muslim Connection”.
  My three-year stay in Toronto gave me an opportunity to imbibe the work culture of the West and I was able to understand a new perspective of human values and western civilization. It also brought me in contact with top medical researchers. I have incorporated my experiences in “In Canada”. My stay in Toronto helped me to develop a new kind of relationship with my teachers and perhaps this was to become the basis of my association with my students at a later date.
  There are many able persons whose charm, affection, generosity and nobility endeared them to me and enriched my life. These are Shrinath Sharma, Paramjit Rai Pabrai in “My days in BHU (I)”; Pushkar Kaul, Mukund Yelvigi, Prasun Das and Henry Durham in chapters carrying their names.
  I was lucky in having with me, intelligent and highly-industrious students who came to work with me for advanced degrees in pharmacology and allied sciences. I received more from them than I could give them. If I were to enumerate all those, the list will be long but I have been able to include at least three of them under “Jawahar Bapna”, “Shrinivas Kulkarni” and “Nirmal Gurbani”.
  I was and continue to remain highly-fascinated with man's landing on the moon. For me, it has been like a child's fantasy and I have written about this weakness under “The Moon Landing”. All my life I have worked with drugs. A highly-misunderstood substance that I prefer to categorize as a drug is alcohol and I thought it important to share my views in “On Alcohol”. My experiment with LSD given in “LSD (Lysergic Acid)” was self-inflicted for I had to know the truth about the most fascinating, mind-twisting chemical substance ever produced.
  Under “Journeying Backwards” I have narrated some incidents of my simple life. Each citizen has his own views on things, especially if these have gone wrong. Very few express it and in writing, rarely ever. I have not missed this opportunity to express my own grievance against those from whom I expected better performance under “Reflections”.

  If I did not have “Florida: My Second Home”, this book would have perhaps never been written. It was done on Bharati's stationery and Rohit's computer.
  Books of this kind are seen, read and forgotten. The only persons who will hold it dear for the next 50 years are my three grand daughters to whom I am addressing it.

Pharmacy