Trip to Shodhgram - Day 6 - last day - Part 1 - Breakfast with Dr Bang and family

When I woke up on Sat (15th), I felt: "The last day of my trip is here. As it often appears to happen, it seems to have arrived before I realized it"!

I tried to catch up on emails before joining the Bang family for breakfast, but the Internet played truant again. Luckily I managed to send out one important email. At 8 am I went to Dr Bang's residence. A lovely home, with a nice balcony and a garden. Dr Rani Bang was sitting on a bamboo seat swing. We chatted for a few minutes and then went in for breakfast with Dr Bang and son Dr Anand. Amrut the younger son was out travelling on work.

Over a breakfast of "Pesarattu Dosa" (a South Indian delicay that I love and never make) and some awesome sweet sour hot mango jam to go with it, Dr Bang asked me which medical colleges in Mumbai, I felt were more open to or encouraged interest in research amongst students. Now that was tough for me to answer! So I told him that my answer would be pretty biased because I simply had lots more interactions at KEM and some at Nair. But I told him that I would try to find out slowly and steadily with interactions.

Then he made a special mention about Medicon - as he had attended Medicon 2012 (hear this INFORMER members..) - saying "I was very impressed by the conference, the interest amongst students, Dr Deo starting such an initiative and ICMR supporting it". (Earlier on the first day he asked me how I was invovled with Medicon and I told him about QMed's association with INFORMER). He then told me "I am really happy that you are so involved with the student community and doing all you can to help and guide them.

And then he and Dr.Anand needed to leave to start work. Dr Rani and I chatted for some time more and then she gifted me her book "Putting Women First" - one that she had written with two other co-authors. While we chatted we found an interesting common factor - she and I were much more "people oriented" while our respective spouses were awesome with numbers. My visit ended with an invitation from her to bring my family and visit again. (I did not tell her that I had innumerable adopted kids, lest she changed her mind) :D