May 15, 2011 | By KNews | Filed Under News
“I enjoy my life. I enjoy working with the people I come into contact with. I enjoy the farmlands. I can’t say there is a thing I can complain about.”
By Neil Marks
On weekdays, he runs his clinic in downtown Georgetown, but on weekends you can find 82-year-old Dr Cecil Harricharan commanding the attention of wild cattle aback of Mahaicony with a signature call that makes him the envy of neighbours.
You’d be excused if you couldn’t differentiate which is Dr Harricharan’s greatest love – the medical profession or being on the rice fields and cattle farms. He finds it hard set apart himself.
Dr Cecil Harricharan
Becoming a doctor was certainly not what his parents envisioned for him. They had more in mind than him working the sprawling farmlands that he loved, but an uncle thought he could make more of his life…and did he!
To date, Dr Harricharan has chalked up 50 years in the medical field, and counting. When one considers the fact that he had easy access to “greener pastures,” being licensed to practice in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the Caribbean, it’s easy to see how he fits unquestionably in the category of those who have dedicated their life to the service of their country, and doing so largely unnoticed.
A man who has served his country unswervingly, who dared to go where other doctors refused to, Mahaicony’s ‘Noble Son’ Dr Cecil Harricharan is indeed a ‘Special Person’.
Growing up
Dr Cecil Harricharan was born Cecil Edgar on March 6, 1929, at Little Abary, Mahaicony, in the home his mother, Joaquin Liliah, used to live before she married his father, the elder Harricharan.
His parents were living at Novar, Mahaicony, where the Harricharans reared cattle and planted rice, but as was the custom, his mother returned to her parents’ home to give birth.
Cecil was born the first of six children, and grew up on the thriving farmlands at Novar. He quite enjoyed the farms, milking cows and then dropping off container upon container at the train station in Mahaicony. The milk would then be taken to Georgetown for sale.
He also worked the rice fields at a time when bulls were used to plough the lands.
“It was hard work, but I had a good time,” he reflects.
As a young lad, he attended the Catherine Ville and Novar Presbyterian Primary Schools. After securing impressive scores at the School Leavers Examinations, his father’s brother, Cecil Bishoodyal, insisted that he move to Georgetown to further his education.
It was a move that you could say was a culture shock for the raw country boy, settling into the chaotic life of the city.
He would peddle his bicycle from his uncle’s place in Kitty to the Modern Educational Institute, run by the Lutheran Church, at the junction of Camp Street and North Road, where today stands a Lutheran Church.
It was a literal fight to stay in school, when school bullies tried to force the country boy into submission.
“You had to fight or you would be left with nothing,” he recounts.
Cecil passed the Junior and Senior Cambridge Exams with flying colours. And then came decision time. What would he do with the rest of his life?
Ideally, he had a place waiting for him on the farmlands at Mahaicony. But his uncle had other plans in mind.
The uncle suggested that he should study medicine abroad. It was not an easy decision for his parents to make, but they agreed.
At age 19, the young Harricharan set out for Halifax, Nova Scotia, in Canada, to pursue studies in medicine at the prestigious Dalhousie University.
Of course, moving to the North had its challenges, but he dedicated himself to his studies and in 1953, he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree. While studying, he thought about where he wanted to study medicine proper, and sent out applications for scholarships that were being offered.
With the family: From left Tanuja, Priya, wife Chandra, and Kalpana.
His parents decided that he should stay at Dalhousie. And this he did. In five years, including a one-year internship at hospitals in and around Halifax, he graduated with an M.D., C.M degree (Doctor of Medicine and Master of Surgery).
He was offered fellowship opportunities to study specialist medicine, but he decided to return home.
In the nine years that he studied to become a doctor in Canada, there was hardly any communication with his family back in Guyana. There was the occasional letter, but returning home for visits was out of the question. It was just too expensive.
You could imagine the awkward encounter at the airport when he returned home. He had difficulty recognising some family members, including a sister he had left as a baby, and of course, they had trouble recognising him too! But it was a moment filled with much joy for the Harricharan family.
The young man who should have been in the farmlands was now a doctor. Yes, a doctor!
Unlikely assignments
Soon after his return to Guyana, he started practicing when he was assigned by the Ministry of Health as a General Medical Officer at the New Amsterdam Hospital.
However, he was soon asked to travel to the North West District. It was an area that many doctors had refused to accept, choosing to resign instead of following through with the government’s request.
The North West was mainly covered by foreign doctors, but Dr Harricharan decided that he would go. He had no problems working “in the bush.” It could not have been a more ideal assignment, putting him back in touch with the life he lived as a boy.
The assignment would take him along the rivers of the North West District, travelling to Mabaruma, Moruca, Matthew’s Ridge, Morawhanna, Port Kaituma and Hosororo.
“I was the surgeon, the dentist, the midwife, and everything else that people expected doctors to be able to do.”
It was not unusual for him to arrive at some communities at night to greet large crowds awaiting his arrival. It would not be strange either for him to be called out at the middle of the night, trekking through the bush to help with a delivery. But it was satisfying work.
“In the night I would tie my hammock, and have a good sleep.”
The assignment gave him the “privilege” to work with world renowned Italian malariaologist Dr George Giglioli, who is credited with loosening Malaria’s grip on the inhabitants of the North West District and Guyana’s coastland.
That meant trapping a lot of mosquitos “and doing all sorts of things with them!”
What was supposed to be a two-week assignment turned out to be six months. The government eventually secured the services of a Polish doctor to work the District.
His next placement would be at the Georgetown Public Hospital, working along with various physicians and surgeons. He spent three years there and then he was assigned to the Essequibo Islands.
Dr Harricharan became the first resident local doctor on the island of Leguan. The residents perhaps thought it too good to be true, and so they decided to test him out.
There was a wedding taking place at the time of his arrival, and so local residents decided that they would see if he was really a doctor.
They turned up at the hospital with a man acting “stiff up.” The doctor promptly asked that he be put to lie down. As soon as Dr Harricharan flicked the “patient’s” eye he knew nothing was wrong with him and that he, the doctor, was in for a good trick. So he decided to play along – he ordered surgery! The word alone was enough medicine for the residents to fess up.
Our ‘Special Person’ and his wife on their wedding day.
By the time his next assignment would come around, Dr Harricharan caught sight of the beautiful Chandra (sister of well known businessman Toolsie Persaud) at a family function. The two of them were married in August 1961.
In 1962, newly married, and after six months on the island of Leguan, Dr Harricharan was asked to take up an assignment as the District Medical Officer for West Demerara.
He was based at Leonora, and was really starting to enjoy the assignment, particularly because he was able to make some money on the side when he was off duty from the hospital. His pay as a government doctor was $380, and so the supplemental income was much needed, even though that pay was “good money” in those days.
But that excitement would be short lived. The Chief Medical Officer sent instructions for him to be transferred to the New Amsterdam Hospital to serve as the resident surgeon there.
He protested the transfer, but he was told that he could either take up the post or resign. He was pacified when he was told that he could return to Leonora as soon as the surgeon, who was expected from India, arrived to serve at the New Amsterdam Hospital.
Upon the arrival of the surgeon, Dr Harricharan was told that he was not being sent back to Leonora, but would in fact be sent to serve the Mahaicony District, where he was born. The very thought paralysed him and he protested.
“I don’t think I could take up that assignment; I don’t think the people would accept me,” he recalls explaining.
Why was he hesitant? It was sort of the Biblical thought that a man is despised in his own hometown.
He decided to go anyhow, with the promise that if he didn’t like it, there was a post at Springlands on the Corentyne Coast, awaiting him.
It just took a few weeks at Mahaicony for him to start to enjoy working there.
But his arrival at Mahaicony would be at the height of one of the most tumultuous periods in the country’s political history that spawned race riots and bloody murders.
The year he arrived in Mahaicony – 1964 – saw the infamous Mahaicony tragedies which started when seven members of the Jaikaranan family in their village were shot dead.
That resulted in a sort of mini-partition, Dr Harricharan recalls, with the Indians and Africans at war, and leaving their villages if they were not part of the dominant ethnic group. The young Harricharan couple watched as several businesses, including one belonging to the family of assassinated Agriculture Minister Satyadeow Sawh, were burnt to the ground.
His posting at the Cottage Hospital in Central Mahaicony meant him having to live in the hospital’s compound. But when British troops were called in to quell the disturbances, Dr Harricharan was asked to give up his home for use by the British soldiers.
He went to live three miles away at the Harricharan family house. He was escorted by the British troops whenever he was needed at the hospital.
At one time while he was in the Police vehicle being taken to the hospital, shots were being fired all around. He escaped unharmed.
Dr Harricharan stuck it out during that time and continued to serve at the Mahaicony Hospital for 17 years.
Thereafter, he retired, having served the government for 25 years. He then entered private practice and today still operates a clinic at Middle Street, Georgetown.
It is not strange for Dr Harricharan to be greeted by persons who say he had treated their parents or grandparents. He also still operates a clinic at the family home at Mahaicony. That serves a double purpose. He gets to go into the farmlands.
Every Sunday he would head out to the farms, with his signature hat and a call that commands the response and respect of head upon head of wild cattle.
Today, while he operates his clinics in Georgetown and Mahaicony, Dr Harricharan has the support of his wife of five decades. Their union produced four daughters, of whom one (Kamla) is now deceased. Their other daughters are married and live in Canada. They are justly proud of the accomplishments of their daughters. Tanuja is a family doctor, Kalpana is an optician and Priya is a French language teacher.
In 2008, the residents of Mahaicony honoured him as the community’s “Noble Son” and just recently, the Indian Commemoration Trust honoured him for his longstanding work in the medical field.
“I enjoy my life. I enjoy working with the people I come into contact with. I enjoy the farmlands. I can’t say there is a thing I can complain about.”