‘You boy!’ the foreigner, whom I later came to know as Dr HT Mahler, told me, ‘You have made a mistake. You have wrongly spelt the word pulmonary’.

I wanted to be annoyed but couldn’t, because the face was amiable. I was not interested in the job but was persuaded to consider it by our family friend, Dr Iyengar, the State BCG Officer.

I replied: ‘It is a new word for me. I am not well versed in medical words’. Why couldn’t you ask for a dictionary’?

‘Dictionary! In India we don’t ask for a dictionary in an interview’.

Both the officers had a hearty laugh. Then one of them told me: ‘Okay, from tomorrow you are hired’!

His voice now was so earnest, I couldn’t utter any other word other than nodding my head. I was unaware of who was hiring me, whether WHO or GOI and on what salary.

Though I did not understand many things they did, I knew they were available for consultations and were possessed with the idea of building up some concrete programme for our country. On every important issue, they would consult others and finally Dr PV Benjamin.

Today, after serving the Institute for 34 years, I consider that I was privileged to be hired on that day, by those two WHO officers. Where else could I have seen giants like Mahler, O’Rourke, Raj Narain, Nagpaul, working at such close quarters? Their very functioning would enthuse the staff. It is in such functioning the institute’s glory lies.