Namita Mukherjee is bedridden at her Southern Avenue highrise apartment. Picture by Amit Datta

The hurt of having his lifetime’s research rubbished and the humiliation of being branded a liar drove a scientist to death — in the bedroom of his Southern Avenue highrise apartment.

That was 23 years ago. Today, his ailing, grieving widow can do little but stare at the ceiling from which Subhas Mukherjee had hanged himself.

Close to the iron bed to which Namita Mukherjee is confined is a large picture of the scientist, later credited with creating India’s first test-tube baby, Durga, in 1978.

Mukherjee’s widow is suffering from “undiagnosed” ailments. She has used up most of her savings on sustaining the research institute on reproductive biology that she and some of her husband’s friends had set up after his death.

“I am counting my last days. With no hope of recovery, I only wish that the state government accepts our proposal to introduce an award in memory of my husband and set up a research centre on reproductive bio-medicine,” says Namita in a feeble voice.

It is Namita’s last wish now that the Subhas Mukherjee memorial award and a research centre named after him be set up by the state government.

“I would like to see in my lifetime that the government of West Bengal has given some recognition to my husband’s outstanding research,” she barely whispers.

It was first the scepticism and then the refusal of the state government to give credit to Mukherjee’s scientific work that drove the pioneer of the test-tube baby in India to despair.

Besides preventing him from attending a conference in Japan and presenting his work at scientific meetings and in journals, the state government had transferred Mukherjee — then posted at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital — to the Regional Institute of Ophthalmology as a teacher of electrophysiology on June 5, 1981.

Unable to bear the humiliation, Mukherjee took his own life on July 19, 1981.

Since then, the attitude towards Mukherjee and his work have changed, slowly but steadily, at Writers’ Buildings.

This follows the recognition of Mukherjee as the father of test-tube baby research by the Indian Council of Medical Research in 2002.

Director of medical education C.R. Maity admits having received the proposal for the research centre named after Mukherjee from Namita.

“We have already introduced a lecture named after Subhas Mukherjee and we are sincerely considering the introduction of an award after him, as well as a research centre,” says Maity.

That could give Namita a glimmer of hope in her dismal days. A history teacher at a Christian missionary school in Howrah till her retirement in 1996, she is close to penury, having spent “a large amount” on her treatment over the past few years.

She has been admitted to hospital several times, but her condition has steadily deteriorated.

“She is bedridden and has lost the strength even to sit up in bed,” says Sunit Mukherjee, a close friend of the scientist, who is now looking after Namita.

A biochemist, he is the lone survivor of the three-member team Subhas Mukherjee had set up to conduct research and give life to Durga, India’s first test-tube baby born on October 3, 1978.

That was 67 days after the world’s first test-tube baby, Louis Browne, was born in the UK.

According to Sunit Mukherjee, Namita gets little support from the medical fraternity. Instead, a group of her colleagues visit her regularly and try to help her out.