A noblesse oblige

One such patient is Madan Mandal,a thirty two year old rickshaw puller who lives in Salt Lake. He is grateful to Dr Chowdhury for paying for his treatment. “I was hit by a car from behind when I was standing near the rickshaw stand. My head got injured. Dr Chowdhury treated me for free. He also paid for my CT scan. He takes care of all of us,” says a visibly emotional Madan.

Apart from his philanthropy in the city,Dr Chowdhury,a specialist in neuro-medicine,is also engaged in treating the poor in various villages of the districts of Burdwan,Hooghly,Howrah and Nadia. “I go to around twenty-four villages twice a month. I visit remote places like Kamarkundu,Gudap,Kalna,Bagula,Samudragarh,Nadanghat — places were medical care for neuro-problems are not generally available,” says the doctor in his late fifties. It has been a long term effort and in the last three years alone,he has treated over one lakh patients.

But the list of his charity does not stop here. Every Monday,in his chamber at his residence,he treats senior citizens on payment of only half his usual fee,irrespective of the income bracket that they come from. “Most of the senior citizens are neglected by their family,or even when they are not,they feel so due to the void in their life post retirement. This is a small effort from my side to pay them respect for whatever they have done for us all,” he says,while getting ready to go out for another visit to the villages.

Interestingly,unlike most cases,his efforts to reach out to that section of the population which is most neglected,has been an individual effort. He is neither associated with any non-governmental organizations,nor with any governmental schemes,despite the fact that he is the Vice-chief Medical Officer of the Governor of west Bengal. He prefers to set up his chambers in these villages with the help of various pharmaceutical companies. “They help me in exchange of their medicines being sold there,” he said.

Recently,a book written by him,Science,Universe,God and Global Peace ,was inaugurated by renowned Bengali Actor Soumitra Chatterjee at the Press Club in kolkata. In this book he talks about how global peace can be achieved if only human beings realize their position in the universe as nothing more than a speck. This book has been a fruit of his experiences in his professional life,his lecture tours on Stress Management across the globe and his philanthropic activities.

To fulfill his long term dream of forming a Peace Institute to promote global peace,Dr Chowdhury is going to visit the United States soon to meet the President Barrack Obama,on May 15,2011.