" But look - in the sky/ Two great eagles appear.../ On one sits the doctor/ Of world-famous skill -/ The doctor, their saviour/ The dear Powderpill."- Kornei Chukovsky, "Doctor Powderpill" .
As a child, I was once told that the family physician was none else but Powderpill. I had agreed to swallow paracetamol tablets only after being given such an assurance. For Powderpill, who flew or rode to the ends of the earth with the help of friendly animals and birds - many of them his patients - was one of my childhood heroes. Later, in my teens, I discovered that those who take care of animals can also be women. Zoo Babies, Vera Chaplina's remarkable book, chronicled her love and quiet dedication for the residents of the Moscow zoo in the Soviet era. Finally, on being initiated into James Herriot's world, I was taught to sift fact from fiction in a veterinary doctor's life.
Compassion for and knowledge of animals - wild or domesticated - are not the only qualities that bind Chaplina and Herriot. Both writers showed that the veterinary doctor can be the pivot of the conservation enterprise. Yet, vets remain relatively obscure in the public consciousness. The obscurity of vets interests me. Is their anonymity a reflection of the collective - subcontinental - apathy for conservation and its ethics? What explains the political resistance to integrate them into institutions such as zoos? Given the commercialization of medical education, and its handsome returns, are meritorious students keen on making a living as a vet?
For some of these answers, I turned to history. The prejudice against veterinary science appears to be rooted in its marked preference for the treatment of equine diseases ever since the first veterinary institutions were set up in Lyon in the mid-18th century. The pre-eminence of the horse in veterinary science was on account of the animal's utility in agriculture and war in pre-industrial Europe. Ghorar daktar, a Bengali euphemism for a vet, is a classic example of the genteel class's disparaging opinion of such doctors. It is instructive that the literature produced by veterinary practitioners - Calvin W. Schwabe's works and those of Herriot are two examples - was also an attempt to earn respect for the profession.
Some of my other queries were put to Swapan Ghosh, one of Calcutta's most experienced, but unassuming, vets. Ghosh's endurance at the notoriously bureaucratic Alipore zoo can be attributed to his patience. Inside a clinic in Meher Ali Road - Ghosh spends his retirement treating animals in a private capacity - he enumerated some little-known facts with similar fortitude. Not much is made of the veterinary doctors' role as one of the pillars of rural health. Their responsibility does not end with treating farm animals. Rural communities, especially those that rear livestock or are dependent on animal products, benefit from the vets' battles against contagious diseases. The bird flu outbreaks in West Bengal's Murshidabad and Burdwan could not have been managed by the government without the intervention of the veterinary fraternity.
Vets, at least the conscientious ones, also serve as registers of the complicated transformations that are taking place in the rural economy. The over-vaccination of rural livestock remains under-examined in the media. A similar silence prevails on the insistence on productivity - increasing milk yields, for instance - and its impact on animal and human health. Debates on animal welfare usually focus on the existence, or the absence, of modern veterinary infrastructure but seldom acknowledge the chain of corruption and poverty that poses significant challenges. The replacement of effective surgical tools with cheaper variants, which hints at the misuse of government funds, is something that most vets have had to accept. Ghosh's experiences in the Sundarbans also show that there is a strong case for expanding the role of veterinary doctors in minimizing man-animal conflict. The dissemination of the knowledge about wild animals and their habits - crop depredations, food preferences, and so on - by vets among vulnerable communities can change their confrontational attitude to one of accommodation.
In the city, the vet is also a witness to a different kind of transformation: that of owner to consumer. Some of those who visit Ghosh's clinic are undoubtedly loving owners. Yet, not all of them are sensitive towards animals in their public conduct. A visit to the zoo - that melancholy ark that was once Ghosh's workplace - captures the the owner-consumer dichotomy. The adoption scheme - affluent citizens sponsored an animal in return for certain privileges - is already floundering because of the menagerie's dubious credibility as an institution of learning about the wild. Ghosh is also scathing about the culture of 'trophy pets'. As a practitioner, he often has to rely on information provided not by the owner but a 'handler', a salaried employee or domestic help, while planning treatment.
Ghosh is a chronicler par excellence. Before leaving, I asked him whether he plans to write a book. Before he could reply, a lady walked in with her Great Dane. The majestic animal - its coat was scruffy and it had a limp - sniffed my shoes and then looked up at his doctor. Ghosh put the plate in front of the light and turned grim. He asked the woman to put her pet down. It had metastatic bone cancer.
After they left, Ghosh answered my question. His training and experience notwithstanding, he still does not have the words to describe some experiences.
