Slice Girls

by Joan Arakkal

  When John was five months old, I started work. I hired a nanny to care for the children and took up a registrar’s position in the surgical division of Canberra’s Calvary Public Hospital. The hours were good and I wasn’t required to be on call. I returned home every evening to the children to spend the happiest hours of my day. Sonia was extremely proud of her new baby brother. Often dressed in my clothes and shoes and bursting with excitement as I walked in through the door, Sonia would tell me all the clever things her brother had done. He had gurgled and laughed at the faces she made. He had drunk all the milk and then kicked the bottle away, he had tried to turn over. On and on the stories went.

  Five months after I returned to work, Sonia asked, ‘Mama, why did the people in your hospital not like Jesus?’ I grappled with her question until it dawned on me that she didn’t realise that the Calvary where the ‘baddies’ crucified Jesus was a very long way, in both distance and time, from the capital of Australia.

  My mother is a writer and a storyteller. Her bedtime stories had always kept Abe and I entertained. My father, who listened surreptitiously, sometimes unwittingly broke cover to ask for clarification. Our mother was our very own Scheherazade and her imagination was rich and inexhaustible. We never tired of listening to her and she never ran out of stories. While sitting in her grandmother’s lap, Sonia had also listened to many stories. She had climbed the beanstalk with Jack, felt the pea under her mattress and danced along with Michelle, the kind-hearted heroine of my mother’s novel. Sonia always pestered for ‘one more story’ and her grandmother obliged, cunningly slipping in biblical stories alongside the fairy tales and sowing the first seeds of Sonia’s Christian faith.

  As a cradle Catholic, I had benefited from the religious lessons provided at home and the church. My urge to question a lot of the church’s practices arose in my early teens. I found the teachings of Christ a good foundation upon which to build my life but an enquiring mind kept me looking further. Buddhism appealed to me. But the middle path was not always an easy one to take. The philosophy contained in the Bhagavad-gita – which calls for action without attachment to results – and the underlying message of our connectivity appealed to me. It is a scripture of life that is as relevant today as it was when Vyasa wrote it around 400 BCE. As the years went by, and I discovered quantum physics, I glimpsed in it the wisdom of the old text. Religion and science were not mutually exclusive in ancient India. In more modern times, Tesla, Einstein, Schrödinger, Oppenheimer and Sagan all reflected on the unity and continuity reflected in the philosophy of the Vedanta. The search for self-knowledge, the highest form of knowledge according to the scriptures, and its attainment seemed possible through the Bhagavad-gita.

  I was happy for my mother to lay the foundations of the religious beliefs into which my daughter was born in a simple and uncomplicated way. In fact, that was something I did not trust myself to do. I believed that a grounding in religion would pave the way to curiosity and a need to seek out a spiritual path that would serve Sonia well when she grew up.

  I was not disappointed. Jesus was already a part of her three-year-old heart. She was displeased with the people who hurt this good man. But she was horrified to think her mother was working alongside those bad people. Temporal and spatial concepts were only just forming in her brain and, as I sat her in my lap and tried to explain, I began seeing the place I worked at through her eyes. Would Jesus have smiled or frowned at what went on there? The caring doctors, the compassionate nurses, the cheerful tea ladies, the selfless volunteers delivering books and magazines and the staff diligently keeping the wheels of the hospital running would no doubt please him. Yet there were some things he may have frowned at.

  The surgical department was hallowed ground. Surgeons saw themselves as special. Orthopaedic surgeons were extra special, or at least they believed themselves to be. Many could be identified in the hospital corridors by their loud voices, self-assured swagger and their irreverence for everything around them. Admission to the club seemed to be easier if one was a beer-drinking, white, male rugby fan. Sexist jokes and lewd remarks were acceptable. Add fast cars and a sense of entitlement and you have a portrait of the average orthopaedic surgeon.

  I was an overseas-trained surgeon. An intruder – perhaps even an invader. They did not much like this incursion. One day, I was unexpectedly called in to assist with a surgical procedure. Standing across the operating table, I began assisting the surgeon with a cervical fusion on a patient who had intractable neck pain shooting down his arms. As the procedure got underway, I offered to harvest a graft from the pelvic bone that could be laid as a strut across the vertebrae. This would relieve the pressure on the patient’s nerves, which was causing him terrible pain that felt like electric shocks. By simultaneously taking a bone graft from the patient’s pelvis while the surgeon continued working on the neck, we could let the patient come out of anaesthesia at least fifteen minutes earlier. This is always an advantage to the patient. At this point, the surgeon seemed to notice my presence. It apparently only then dawned on him that not all the women in the operating theatre were nurses.

  ‘So, what brings you to Australia?’ he asked.

  This was not the reply I had expected to my query about harvesting a graft, so I was initially taken aback. I explained that my husband was an offshore engineer, and that we had been granted permanent residency on that basis. The surgeon was not happy with that response. As he nibbled at the arthritic area in the patient’s spine with a surgical forceps and I diligently sucked away the blood from the field using a narrow steel sucker, he continued. ‘It is people like you who prevent our children from entering medical school.’

  I had not met this surgeon before, but I caught a glimpse of the man behind the mask. Here was a father who was deeply disappointed that his son might not follow in his footsteps and join the guild that he and his friends had a monopoly over. They had the power to decide who would practise in their speciality and who would not. I could only conclude from his outburst that his son had not met the requirements to enter medical school and the father’s dreams were now shattered. It must have appeared to him that one of the obstacles to his son’s success was masquerading as a surgeon on the other side of the operating table.

  I turned the sucker off. As the blood slowly welled up, I told him I was sorry about his son but, as a doctor who qualified without having dipped into the Australian taxpayers’ pockets, I believed I was rendering a worthwhile service. There was no further talk as we continued with the procedure. After the surgery, I went to the hospital chapel. As I sat, bemused, with the blond, blue-eyed Jesus looking down at me, I almost felt sorry for the surgeon and his shattered dreams.

  Unfortunately, this was not an isolated incident. Another conversation in an operating theatre, this time between a male anaesthetist and a female nurse, was just as illuminating. They were discussing a doctor whose surname was Chen.

  ‘He’s Chinese, I suppose,’ said the anaesthetist.

  ‘Mr Chen is Australian,’ the nurse replied.

  ‘But his English is so accented,’ the anaesthetist continued.

  The nurse did not give up. ‘That’s because, unlike you, he can speak another language.’

  The anaesthetist sniggered. ‘How can he be Australian with a surname like that?’

  As the most senior doctor in the room, I was listening intently. The anaesthetist’s assumptions were obvious: if you weren’t a Smith or a Jones, you weren’t a true-blue Aussie.

  Looking up from my patient, I said, ‘My Australian-born son’s surname is Arakkal. Where does he fit in your universe? Is he a real Australian?’

  Apart from an embarrassed look, the only reply was the regular, reassuring bleep of the heart monitor.

  GARDEN OF LIFE

  Two years after we arrived in Australia, Francis was offered a job in Perth. We bought a house in a suburb south of the Swan River, which divides the city. The Narrows Bridge connects the elite northern suburbs to the not-so-e
lite southern ones. It was interesting to see a subterranean class system in operation. This one was based on the location of the suburbs, rather than the less glamorous Indian caste system. It is safe to say that our new home of Bateman would not have made it to the level of a Brahmin.

  When we first moved in, our new home had a manicured garden, neat lawns, shimmering pool and a gurgling outdoor spa. We found that the house – curated and presented with a realtor’s astute touch – suited most of our needs. We settled in with our young children and called it home. Over the years it became a much more relaxed place. It is now full of memories: children growing up, family visits, friends dropping by, parties, salty tears, angry exchanges, hearty laughter and lazy days.

  To me, the verandah of our home perfectly symbolises the merging of my Indianness with my Australianness. In India, our verandah was always a popular place for conversing, resting and hanging out. When friends dropped in for a chat, we sipped coffee and lounged in armchairs. Newspapers and books were read as we leaned against the verandah’s columns. Toddlers learnt to crawl along its length, and mothers oiled and plaited their daughters’ long hair. The verandah symbolised ease, bonding and a connection between the home and the world beyond.

  In Perth, sitting on a chair draped with Indian fabric, I watch colourful parrots flit among golden-yellow she-oak flowers. When my mother and I bought the saplings at a Sunday market, we had no idea they would grow into such huge trees. Nor did we know that an errant seed would become a towering, twenty-metre gum tree. But I love the large trees that sit awkwardly in my small suburban garden. And I love the lives that they host: willy-wagtails jumping from branch to branch, humming birds vigorously flapping their barely visible wings as they suck nectar from flowers, parakeets squawking excitedly to each other – all chirping away in their unique birdsongs.

  My garden is no longer manicured. The lawns have long since been replaced with gravel and mulch. Native plants screen the front, giving the appearance of the bush. Every plant has a story.

  Just like Varghese’s lavenders. At the age of ninety-five, this amazing man taught me the value of faith. He has an infectious, ebullient personality and radiates love for me and our family. His tall erect figure and his youthful exuberance mask his age. He describes his life as an adventure with no remorse or regret.

  Our friendship started when my father was visiting us from India. In a crowded gathering, he recognised a tall man from his days in the Royal Indian Air Force. Varghese was an engineer who had worked on fighter planes. He described with delight the challenges of working on these planes alongside the British officers. He still volunteers at Perth’s Aviation Heritage Museum. Ever-enthusiastic and full of zest for life, he was meditating long before it was fashionable. He is a transcendental meditator who describes the possibility of levitating. Coming from him, I find it hard to dismiss.

  Varghese’s garden was plentiful. He grew vegetables not commonly found in the supermarkets. I often left with bags full of drumsticks, bitter gourds and snake beans. One day I dropped in, upset about a patient who had died on the wards. Varghese described the cycle of life and, as I was leaving, he gave me a potted lavender. The smell would calm me, he said. I planted it on my garden path. Ten years later, its perfume greets me every time I pass and reminds me of Varghese’s wisdom.

  Then there are Chandra’s kalanchoes. Chandra was introduced to us by a church member. She was our saviour, looking after our children through their early years at primary school when I was trying to combine the roles of mother and orthopaedic registrar. John built Lego towers, raced his toy cars across her carpet and watched Play School. Sonia flitted around in Chandra’s garden, which was full of gnomes and fairies, and played with her imaginary friends. Years later, succulent kalanchoe flowers, grown from cuttings I took from Chandra’s garden, still smile at me with her cheeky grin.

  Every spring, when the gladioli rise from the bulbs of the previous year in a tiny corner of the garden, I say hello to my father. He planted the bulbs between boulders in our mossy rock garden. When I look around the garden, I see that some of my most-prized plants are the ones that he has planted lovingly during one of his visits to Perth: the guava tree that fruits every May, the grapevine that is loaded with purple bunches every summer, and my totem jasmine whose soft scent wafts through the garden. Just as he gave my brother and me roots when we were growing up, he watered and cared for the plants in the Perth garden until they were established. Fifteen years later, they continue to flower and fruit. Like his plants, he gives more than he receives. When the orange gladioli burst from between the mossy boulders, reaching for the sun, I think of my father’s advice to always aspire to higher ideals. He dismissed petty gossip and discussions as the pursuit of lesser minds. ‘You can be a scavenging dog or a roaring lion – the choice is yours.’ He tended to his family through hard times, and today I reap the benefits of my father’s efforts both in my life and in my garden.

  I also watch the gum trees bloom. Everything about Australian plants fascinate me. Their features are quite distinct from any I had seen before I arrived here. I rest my cheeks on the smooth layers of the paperbark tree and its softness soothes my troubled mind. I press my palms to the rough and wizened old trunks, and the coarse impressions they leave fleetingly on my palm seem to say, ‘This too will pass’. I sometimes crush a leaf from the lemon-scented gum between my fingers and the whiff of eucalyptus energises me as I go about my day.

  But my favourite is the ghost gum. I admire the way it casts aside its tattered outer bark to emerge clean and smooth, glistening in the moonlight. I know every majestic ghost gum in my suburb. I love them not only for their other-worldly look, but also for the symbolism I see in the way they so willingly expose their inner selves.

  SLICE GIRLS

  Marriage and its commitments had steered me away from the world of leprosy, but my desire to perform hand surgery persisted. Now that Australia was home, I set about the task of entering an orthopaedic training position, becoming a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (FRACS) and registering as a specialist.

  Pursuing a medical career and changing countries do not make for good bedfellows. When I first arrived in Australia, I was well aware of how much hard work lay ahead of me, but I was still surprised at how many hoops overseas-trained doctors had to jump through. In Canberra, I had worked at Calvary Public Hospital with a temporary registration provided by the Medical Board of the ACT. To work unimpeded, like a locally trained graduate, one needed a general registration. This was not an easy process. As I sat the occupational English test in Canberra, hand surgery seemed a long way away. It was almost as if I was back at school with my English teachers gazing down at me. After passing the English test, it took an average of eighteen months to navigate through the licensing exams set by the Australian Medical Council, an independent body for medical education and training, and prove that one could safely practise medicine in Australia. The medical boards would then grant a general registration.

  The Australian Medical Council exams followed the English tests. Overseas-trained doctors are required to prove themselves, not only in the basic medical sciences, but also in the fields of surgery, medicine, psychiatry, paediatrics, obstetrics and gynaecology. These doctors have not only passed similar exams in their home country but have often spent years specialising in their chosen fields. This means other subjects were relegated to the background long ago. Now the clock is dialled back to medical school and their years of specialist work count for nothing. The regulations leave hundreds of overseas-trained doctors in limbo. Well-qualified doctors who are specialists in their fields drive taxis at night and sit English-language exams by day. Even doctors who have trained in the UK have to sit the same examinations.

  The experience I gained in India, the UK and finally Australia had enriched my orthopaedic knowledge. However, the trajectory of my career was not always upwards. Caring for my children while preparing for these arduous exams was too diffi
cult, so I left the children in the care of my parents in India for four months. It broke my heart to say goodbye to them at Cochin airport, but I consoled myself that being in the loving care of their grandparents was better than having a harassed mother who was constantly rushing between day care centres, hospitals, clinics and libraries. I threw myself into exam preparation, wanting to do it in the shortest possible time so I could have my children back with me. During one short break, I turned the television on to see Pauline Hanson deliver her famous ‘swamped by Asians’ speech. As I attempted to get back to the obstetrics textbook that I had left behind fifteen years ago, having had little need for it in the world of broken bones, I suffered a few moments of disquiet. Was this where I wanted to raise my children? I returned to my study of postpartum haemorrhage and prolapsed uterus, reassuring myself that talent and hard work could overcome these obstacles.

  Although I passed the exams within the shortest possible time, the hurdles imposed on foreign graduates were not lost on me. The long delays in passing each component of the exam both deskill and demoralise doctors. In the field of medicine, gap years are professionally disastrous. It is a widely held belief that most Australian-trained graduates would not pass these licensing exams if they were required to take them.

  Doctors who do not pass all components of these examinations are sometimes allowed to provide their services in rural and remote regions of Australia, where local medical graduates hesitate to work. Away from adequate supervision, these doctors often fill an area of unmet need. It is a form of modern-day bonded labour that also keeps them away from mainstream competition. I know of many overseas doctors who embraced country practice and found a place in the hearts of their rural community while continuing to remain compromised with moratoriums on their billing practices.