Prof. Nandan Kushum Das

Four degrees just for the eyes. MBBS, MCPS, FCPS, MS. Prof. Nandan Kushum Das is the head of the ophthalmology department. That means he probably spends half his morning just signing leave papers for the junior doctors. His desk is usually covered in those thin yellow files. Then he goes to the dark room. Eye clinics are always pitch black. Heavy curtains pulled tight. He sits behind that big white slit lamp machine. People come in with blurry vision. Older folks mostly. Cataracts. He tells them to put their chin on the plastic rest. Shines a bright light right into their pupil. They blink too much. He just waits. Writes down some numbers on a small card. Six by twelve. Or worse.

He teaches the medical students too. They stand around in the dark trying to see what he sees. He points out the optic nerve. Just a pale disc at the back of the eye. Up in the operating theater, things are pretty quiet. Eye surgeries are fast. He uses numbing drops. No big needles. He breaks up the cloudy lens with a tiny machine. Sucks it out. Puts a new plastic one in. Takes maybe fifteen minutes. He has done it thousands of times. He tapes a clear plastic shield over the eye. Tells the relatives outside to buy the antibiotic drops from the pharmacy downstairs. He goes back to his office to finish the paperwork.