Koppa was a small village town in Kodagu. The only government departments there are the ubiquitous Police Outpost and the Post Office. The government hospital was 20 kms away in the Taluk Head Quarters at Virajpet. The village town was in dire need of a doctor. When a young man Narayan from Kodagu completed his MBBS medical degree after 10 years of hard study, it was like crossing the Rubicon. And thereafter another two years of internship at the K.R. Hospital, Mysuru. Realising that he would not get a government job, he decided to return to Kodagu and open a private clinic in his village town Koppa. By now he was past his youth. His old parents got him a bidara, a small shop-cum-residential accommodation in the town to set up the clinic. A chair, a small table and an old almirah were put in place. Of course, a wash basin was placed on a wooden tripod with a bucket for water and a dipper for the doctor to wash his hands. The old parents and their only son Narayan began looking for an assistant for the clinic with some experience in a hospital or a private clinic or a druggist’s shop, generally called a “compounder.” Soon they found one Seenappa, as old as the doctor and a personality that made the patients difficult to distinguish the doctor from the compounder if it was not for the stethoscope that dangled from Narayan’s neck.
