Dr Anand Moreshwar Raut: A Staunch Proponent of Medical Integration
A pleasant smiling face characterised Dr Anand Raut. Outwardly a fun-loving person, Dr Raut had a strong spiritual foundation. This was evident whenever he faced life and death situations particularly during his last days when he surrendered to the nature through prayopaveshan on 5th November 2017. Most appropriate to his name ‘Anand’ he shared joy to all those who came in his contact.
Born on 30th December 1930 in a family of farmers, Anand was a dynamic and proactive child. Along with his brothers and sisters he enthusiastically participated in freedom movement locally at Chinchani during the pre-independence era. His father Moreshwar Bhaskar Raut was a teacher par excellence having Gandhian values at heart. Kesari, a daily newspaper run by Lokmanya Tilak was regular news read for all siblings. His father had inculcated importance of education in all his children. Anand's all three elder brothers viz. Bhalachandra, Vasudev and Amrut had post graduate education in the fields of accounts, law, and literature respectively. In 1950, Anand took admission in Podar Medical College, Worli. The prime inspiration for Anand to enter into the professional training in medicine emerged from his mother Awadibai, a lady of courage and conviction. She, the inheritor of traditional knowledge of healthcare from her father, used to prepare, dispense and treat the villagers free of cost.
Anand received integrated medical training (Ayurveda with Allopathy) at Podar. Besides having academic excellence Anand had won many medals for his skills in sports. He was liked by his fellow colleagues and teachers as well. After graduation he also took an informal post-graduate training at Lokmanya Tilak medical college, Sion, as an extern. He also had a privilege of assisting and learning from Dr Madhukar B. Raut a then doyen of medical practice from the Dadar-Prabhadevi area. A seed of medical integration was sown-in during this phase of medical training.
Dr Anand Raut started his medical practice at Worli in 1955. His outgoing and pleasant personality helped him in establishing medical practice within a few months. His up-to-date medical knowledge, skills of humane care, and application of Ayurveda principles made him one of the top medical practitioners of the area. Dr Raut also started taking interest in the issues of medical professionals. He was the founder president of ‘Worli medical association’ which included all general practitioners and medical consultants from across the systems of medicine. This reflected his deep rooted interest of bringing together different systems of medicine on one platform for the purpose of medical integration.
Dr Anand Raut was one of the earliest life members of ‘National Integrated Medical Association’ (NIMA) which was founded primarily to integrate western medical sciences with Indian Systems of medicine to offer best possible healthcare services to the Indian community. Subsequently he also served in various capacities such as President, Vice-President and General Secretary at state and national levels of NIMA. In his clinical practice also he judiciously used both the systems of medicine in the best interest of patients. Many times then in the absence of availability of standardized Ayurvedic medicine he would use Ayurvedic fundamental concepts for the benefit of patients. He was a physician of maximum compassion and minimum medicine.
Dr Anand Raut had inherited and imbibed teaching skills from his father. He founded ‘Shikshan Premi Mandal’ and ‘Sanskrit Prachar Sabha’ for the community. His teaching of physiology and hygiene for SSC students of schools in Worli brought the results of schools in that subject to near 100%., Dr (Prof) M.Y. Lele, principal of R A Podar Ayurveda Medical College, invited him to teach a totally new subject, ‘Vishatantra and Nyayavaidyak’ (Jurisprudence and Toxicology). He enthused the Podar students in training in autopsy at J J hospital where a dialogue between the two faculties led to the path of medical integration.
As a part of community education, he contributed series of articles every week in Marathi newspaper; Mumbai Sakal for two consecutive years under two titles ‘Arogyacha Salla’(Health advise) and ‘Swayampak Gharatil Ayurveda’ (Kitchen Ayurveda). Both of these series became extremely popular amongst readers of the newspaper. Eventually ‘Swayampak Gharatil Ayurveda’ was published as a book in 1995. All one thousand copies of the first edition got sold on the day of its release within few hours. Subsequently further editions and Hindi, English and Gujarati translations were made of this book.
Dr Anand Raut, with a nationalistic fervour, was a person of deep social commitment. He contributed monetarily during Indo-china war, Indo-Pak wars and even to those who were targets of emergency in 1975. His contributions to NGOs working in the domain of healthcare, for underprivileged sections of society came in multiple ways. He has extensively served the community through organizing medical camps and medical education programmes at Worli, his workplace and at Chinchani his birthplace. He spearheaded the child immunization community programme for children below 15 yrs in all 121 BDD chawls at Worli in 1974. Conceptually he would always take pride in quoting the rabies vaccine described in Ayurveda. He also had a strong conviction in traditional Ayurvedic methods employed after the birth of a child indicating immunization.
A music enthusiast, Dr Anand Raut had a sweet melodious voice. During medical conferences his ‘Dhanavantari stawan’ was valued by one and all. His ‘Kirtana’ on the subjects of healthcare particularly family planning (Sukhi Sansar-in Marathi) was largely applauded by community and medical fraternity as well. He established ‘Adarsha Kala Zankar’, an orchestra, for Worli youths. They organized professional programmes in drama-theatres and performed during festival seasons. The profit collected from these programmes was used for yet another social cause of running ‘Utkarsha Night High School’ for the working class who could not complete their school education. The school has continued to run for the last five decades.
Dr Anand Raut is survived by his wife Smt Anjani, a follower of Bhakti-yoga, Dr Ashwinikumar a consultant and clinical investigator in the domain of integrative Ayurveda, Mrs Kruttika Nandan Thakur a consultant architect and faculty to several colleges of architecture and Dr Ashlesha Santosh Raut a practicing consultant in Ayurveda and integrative medicine at Bloomington, IL, and Chicago land, USA. He was most fond and proud of his grandchildren, Dr Sushrut, Eshani, Suhrud and Abhiru.
Tribute to such a multifaceted person with unique attributes can only come through us ourselves dedicating to selfless healthcare services, process of medical integration and pragmatic reforms in social welfare.