She epitomises the quintessential ‘woman of substance’. She has served humanity amidst cataclysmic violence, healed the wounded in some of the worst conflict zones around the world, ensured mothers and their newborn survive post-delivery complications in Haiti, gifted smiles to hundreds of children in India and abroad and redefined the paragon of social service. Meet Dr Shobha Varthaman, the regional president of Eastern Air Command’s (EAC) Air Force Wives Welfare Association (AFWWA), the core organisation of Indian Air Force (IAF) that is responsible for the welfare and well-being of the ‘sanginis’ (spouses of air warriors).
She is also the proud mother of IAF pilot Abhinandan Varthaman and was widely interviewed. In fact, the couple got a standing ovation on a flight when they were on their way to receive their son. But long before she came into limelight on television as Abhinandan’s mother, she was well known for her work in war-ravaged areas.
Her’s is a persona with a mission, transforming lives of sanginis with her vast experience in the field of healthcare, education and empowerment; so that air warriors go about doing what they do best, serve the nation.
She is also the proud mother of IAF pilot Abhinandan Varthaman and was widely interviewed. In fact, the couple got a standing ovation on a flight when they were on their way to receive their son. But long before she came into limelight on television as Abhinandan’s mother, she was well known for her work in war-ravaged areas.
Dr Varthaman, the officer’s wife
A graduate from Madras Medical College, and a post-graduate in anesthesiology from the Royal College of Surgeons of England, Varthaman could have easily landed herself a job at any of the reputed hospitals in the country with a hefty pay package. Instead, she chose to adopt life with her fighter-pilot husband and travelled everywhere he got posted. She would, however, go on and make the inspiring journey of her life count, in a manner few could have ever imagined or achieved.
Practising medicine remained her way of life even while in the air force. “I was specialist in anaesthesia, intensive care and pain management but I have gone to places where I have worked in SSQs (Station Sick Quarters), in small mission hospitals, in small little private nursing homes or anything semi-urban, semi-rural, limited resources settings. I have worked in very sophisticated, big state-of-the-art hospitals also,” Dr Varthaman says of her varied experience.
She turned down an offer to train anaesthetists in Trinidad and Tobago with the UN because she felt her obligation as a wife of a senior IAF officer on a diplomatic mission in Paris was more important. It was a personal choice she consciously made and says: “You do make some decisions, which I think in the long run benefit by holding the family together than individual achievements, actually.”
The path less travelled
All the world’s a stage, and Varthaman performed her role to the best in different parts of the globe. Life in the air force gave her opportunities to delve in social-work including building confidence and empowerment of women, offering them hopes and opportunities of self-employment. Eventually, she would volunteer to serve gratis on the world stage as a member of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), literally translated ‘Doctors Without Borders’. MSF is an international humanitarian organisation that delivers emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, natural disasters and exclusion from healthcare. MSF work exposed Dr Varthaman to some of the most troubled places in recent times.
Ivory Coast
Her baptism with MSF healthcare service in conflict zones started with a mission inside a rebel country, in the northern territory of Ivory Coast in 2005, where she recalls, only AK-47s and machetes ruled. “I went into the rebel country which was about 300kms from the peace-keeping corridor set up by the UN. We had taken over an abandoned hospital and set it up to serve people for a radius of 200-250 km,” Varthaman recounts.
Liberia
Her next mission the same year took her to Liberia. Elections were impending and a large number of healthcare personnel were stationed there in case of a conflict. The UN kept peace thereafter the civil war, but the situation remained very unstable. “Thankfully everything went off well there, but you could see a lot of internal strife,” says Varthaman.
Nigeria
Dr Varthaman then went to Port Harcourt in Nigeria in the southern belt where the marshes are, that’s where they mine the petroleum. Here the conflicts are plenty. Amidst perennial conflicts between the villages and the oil companies, government and the villages, oil thefts, intra and inter-tribal fights comprising an astounding 61 tribes, she accomplished setting up of a theatre comprising an emergency section for casualties, a blood bank, and an intensive care.
Iraq
It was in her second mission during the Second Gulf War, in Sulaymaniyah, Iraq, where Dr Varthaman encountered a near life-threatening experience of a suicide-bomb blast. “While I was going back home from work at around 5:30 in the evening, I heard a noise and suddenly fire flared rising up to the height of a three-floor building,” she vividly recalls. For security reasons, those outsides of the blast area were radioed to remain indoors in their hotels. Having been the only anesthesiologist, she had no easy options. “Since I was the only anesthesiologist they thought of utilising me for work, which was more important than security,” Varthaman explains, of the perils of healthcare volunteers.
Iran
In Iran, she taught Pranayama to promote healing, the uniqueness of which found a good following. Her forays as an MSF Medical Director on the Iran-Iraq border also gave her an insight into the Persian civilisation and the Iranian attitude to life. She wonders how the Iranians, who were at war with Iraq for 11 years, were willing to accept, that the common Iraqis were only suffering the consequences of a bad decision by a leader.
She was also witnessed to the raw courage of Iranian youths who lost their lives to Iraqi-laid landmines. Yet she wondered as to what was it that made them volunteer in hordes for an encore! Her interaction with an Iranian mother who lost her 18-year aged son to a landmine gives her goosebumps. “It is my country, I have to protect it and if I have a son who can protect, I will send him. And if our supply of sons falls then we will go next but we need to stay back to make more sons,” was the distraught mother’s reaction on the loss of her youthful son.
New Guinea
As the chief medical coordinator, three vastly different projects — surgical, sexual violence and an HIV project — had to be overseen by her. Women often got raped and did not get medical aid. She was there to alleviate their sufferings. The stay in Papua New Guinea gave her an opportunity to live in tribal areas where people still wear grass skirts, have feathers in their hats and carry a scabbard, chopping people without a second thought.
“It was an absolute anthropological treasure,” she describes, adding “One can’t see that kind of life in today’s world. Papua transported me to a place that is thousands of years behind. Fighting with each other is their pastime.” The place came with its share of unique experiences. “One of my oft-repeated job there was to fish out arrowheads from people’s body, from their legs, their hands and suturing them.
“Nowadays the use of guns has made these conflicts more dangerous,” she states. As a result, the work of treating gunshot wounds also got added to the long list of healthcare activities besides treatment and surgery for burns.
Laos
Her next exploration mission assigned by MSF was in Laos. She travelled about 1,800 km in a four-wheel drive in the northern parts where there were no roads and discovered that despite World Bank and Asian Development Bank’s presence, many areas did not have access to healthcare. “A woman has to travel in a wheelbarrow if she had to go to her hospital to deliver a baby because they don’t have roads for bullock carts to go,” describing the apathetic conditions in which she was to accomplish her healthcare tasks.
Haiti
When nearly 3,00,000 died and an equal number got injured in 2010 Haiti earthquake, Varthaman was there offering healthcare services and hopes amidst rubbles and despair. “I went to Haiti as a medical coordinator in June and I stayed there for three-and-a-halfmonths,” she says. Running an orthopaedic hospital, a pediatric hospital, four health camps and a mobile camp one in the most dangerous area of Haiti cluttered with crime groups was no easy place to work, “We only went at 8 in the morning and came out by 5:00 pm,” she says.
Her expertise as an anaesthetist came in handy in maintaining a sterile environment and controlling infections. Haiti experience was also remarkable for other reasons. “I negotiated with the government and spoke in many places to convince people because we were starting a hospital for pregnant women.”
Committed to Operation Smile
In all of these works, commitment has been the essence: “You have to have it in your heart to commit yourself. The main thing in volunteerism is commitment. In our country, we hesitate to dedicate ourselves to the cause most of the times,” she feels.
Despite her full-time role as the President AFWWA, she also remains committed to Operation Smile, a voluntary initiative started by a plastic surgeon and his theatre-nurse wife from Norfolk, Virginia in the US, 25 years ago. The dedicated team of volunteer doctors and medical and paramedical staff, operate on children born with cleft lips and cleft palates, restoring smiles on their faces, free of cost. Juggling her responsibilities as President AFWWA, she manages to come down to Guwahati to work in their centre as part of the team of international volunteers in Operation Smile.
She says, “I think I am one of those free birds who don’t want to work from 8 to 5, day-in and day-out. It might have killed me actually. And in doing all these things, thankfully, I have a husband who supports me financially, mentally and emotionally. He is my great support and source of energy,” and adds, “Even if he doesn’t give advice on my problems, he at least becomes a good listener.”
