MF Husain’s surgeon remembers the ‘young’ man fondly

Maqbool Fida Husain was a very lively and active person and truly young at heart. These were the observations of Dr Harinder Singh Bedi – Head of Cardio Vascular & Thoracic Surgery at the Christian Medical College and Hospital, Ludhiana – who had operated upon Mr Husain for bypass surgery when he was a Consultant Cardiac Surgeon at the Escorts Heart Institute in New Delhi in 1989.

Dr Bedi still remembers Mr Husain making a remarkable recovery. He was then 74 years old but even then had a twinkle in his eye and a spring in his walk. Those days we were doing bypass surgery with the heart lung machine – said Dr Bedi (beating heart surgery developed later – and Dr Bedi has been a world leader in the beating heart technique - with his name in the Limca Book of World Records for the Worlds  first multivessel beating heart series with angiograms published in the Annals of Thoracic Surgery USA) . Dr Bedi remembers that in spite of having used a heart lung machine and having stopped his heart for over 45 minutes to do the triple bypass – Mr Husain was up and about in 2 days. He was shifted to the VIP room on the 3^rd Floor. At rounds on the 4^th day he asked Dr Bedi to give him his letterhead and next day gave him a beautiful sketch. It was of Mother Teresa tending to two children.. It was this is still with Dr Bedi and is a prize possession in his office. Dr Bedi remembered that he joked with all the doctors and nurses and was a really model patient.  In fact he offered his help in counseling the other patient’s pre and post op while he was there. Dr Bedi felt that he was fortunate to have met such a lovely and talented personality and was sad that he was no more. --Shalu Arora and Rector Kathuria




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