The shy youngster

[Guest guest]

I'd like to take you back to the early days of MGIMS. The year was 1976. A

shy, diffident youngster had just secured admission to MGIMS. That little

guy was not only shy, but a bit afraid too. He came from a little known

village called Naroli, His father was a small time farmer. To top it all, he

had been schooled in Gujrathi, so English was not his top suit.

On his first day in MGIMS, some seniors cornered this hapless boy and asked

him where he was from. Sure that they would never know Naroli, he replied

that he was from Silvassa. Silvassa is the capital of Dadara and Nagar

Haveli, where Naroli is situated, so he was confident that they would know

where it was.

Unfortunately, those seniors were ignorant of Silvassa, so he had to tell

them that it was on the border of Gujrat and Maharashtra and it was in a

Union territory. The seniors snickered at this and asked him his name. Now

that small boy was on firm grounds. After all he had been named after the

great warrior. He confidently said that his name was Cheetu Singh Chauhan.

All the seniors burst out laughing saying what sort of name was Cheetu. It

sounded more like Chee Thu. The poor little boy was thoroughly demoralized

and went back to his room sobbing.

Cheetu Singh Chauhan was the epitome of 'average'. No one noticed him

anywhere. He was always quiet, probably because his English was deficient,

or he was brought up that way. He barely scraped through his MBBS and had no

extra curricular activities to his credit.

After his MBBS, Cheetu did not bother with post-graduation. He set up a

small clinic in Silvassa. With his innate honesty and hard work, he struck

an instant rapport with the local population. His success was not

spectacular, but enough for him to start a small hospital. Then one day,

lady luck gave him a smile.

A patient, who was grateful to Cheetu for preventing him from wasting his

money on expensive consultations and giving him down to earth advise, put

him on to a plot of land which was going cheap. After that there was no

looking back.

One plot was sold at an enormous profit after development. More plots were

bought. Cheetu was in the lucrative real estate business. After some years,

he did not have time for his medical practice so he closed his clinic and

converted his hospital into a hotel.

Silvassa was just expanding as a tax haven for industries. Cheetu was

present at the right time at the right place. He set up a cosmetics

manufacturing plant and soon had the contract to manufacture Cinthol and

Eezee, two well-known Godrej products.

Today, Cheetu owns a petrol pump, a corrugated box and packaging plant,

Hotel Madhuban, besides large tracts of farmlands and a flourishing real

estate company. His house is not a house but a virtual palace. He is the BJP

corporator of Silvassa and leader of the opposition.

He has a daughter Riddhi, who is doing her MBBS, a son Avadhesh, who has

just appeared for his 12th and a smaller daughter Mukti.

Along with Cheetu's batch mate, Dr. Mridul Panditrao, I had occasion to

visit him on his marriage anniversary this weekend. I was happy to notice

that despite all the material success and the phenomenal growth story of his

industries, Cheetu is still the same shy, unassuming and diffident youngster

who had entered the portals of MGIMS in 1976.

And the seniors who had laughed at his English? One has committed suicide

and the other is languishing in an underpaid job.

Way to go Cheetu. I have uploaded some photos of our visit to Silvassa.

Those who are interested may see them in the photo section of our group, in

the folder 'Cheetu Chauhan- Silvassa'.

Kishore Shah 1974