In the early 1970s when the lure of foreign shores triggered a major wave of brain drain out of India, a young Doctor, who had freshly graduated from Delhi`s prestigious Maulana Azad Medical College, crossed the proverbial seven seas to start her professional journey in UK. Dr Veena Kapoor, our featured resident for this column this month and an S Block GK-2 resident for over three decades fondly recalled the key phases of her life during our interaction with her.
Born in Ludhiana, she moved to Delhi in her early childhood where she did her schooling from Queen Mary`s Convent and thereafter went on to study medicine specializing in Pathology. After completing her medical education, she married her classmate much to her parents’ initial disapproval due to Caste differences. During their stay in the UK, her husband specialized in Nephrology while she worked in the domains of Pathology and family planning. It was here while counseling with families that she felt that this was her calling and pursued Psychiatry in an Analytic institute in the USA.
After Residencies they both got into private Practice for some years. She was also involved with the Indian Community and became its President. It was now that the couple began to have some marital problems and she took the bold decision of returning to Delhi with her young son while her teenage daughter and husband stayed on in the US. Delhi was in turmoil shortly after her arrival due to Indira Gandhi`s assassination, and she started counseling the victims of the aftermath. In a short time she became the Consultant in charge of Psychiatry at Batra Hospital. It was then time to have her own setup and cater to both inpatients and outpatients.
She felt that getting into Psychiatry was the best that happened to her and ‘this’ was the best place where she worked to get into the mysteries of the ‘Mind’ with clients coming from all strata of Society. Mental health issues are traditionally viewed with stigma which is an area that still needs acceptance like any other medical problem. The younger generation is going through a generational cultural change. As a result, many youngsters now seek help to sort out their minds. Also, being a woman herself and getting aware of women’s lives in India, dealing with women centric issues became another crucial area of work. By then she opened the Delhi Chapter of the Indian Psychiatry Group and became its President. It had been a somewhat tough life with Depression becoming the main suffering worldwide. She took the decision of moving into the next phase of her life by gradually stopping work.
Socially, she had already started a support group for Single women and then a book club for the literatures in South Delhi. She joined the ‘forum for Senior citizens ‘which offers a lot of Fun activities and Dignity Foundation, a Day Care Centre for 70+ years old Dementia patients. She preferred and relied more on discussion based psychotherapy than placing too much reliance on medicines. She continues discussions on the related subjects in a talk program called ‘Talk over a Cup of Tea’ in the senior citizens` forum.
Talking about parenting she says her daughter is an Artist who is also married to an Artist and settled in the US. Her son successfully manages a Data Analytics company after having done his MBA from the coveted IIM, Ahmedabad.
An octogenarian, Dr Veena Kapoor looks back at her life, which grew within a mix of conservative and liberal values while encompassing the Eastern and Western world views. She has lived and dealt with human emotions and has chosen to live life on her own terms. Team Samvada salutes the truly enterprising spirit of Dr Veena Kapoor and wishes her many more successes in all her future endeavours.
