Arastu Yar Jung

I will never have this privilege to walk with him on this earth at the same time, neither the pride to have belonged to his family in blood relation. However my gratitude towards him grows every time I find his name being associated with deeds of immeasurable heights.

I also feel elated to have understood from my mother that he sometime visited my native Udaipur and have known my maternal grandfather. After many decades, I have joined Hyderabad to marry her great great grand daughter Dr. Rubina Arastu. It seems uneasy for my mind to understand that was it a sheer coincidence or something deeply ingrained by destiny.

I am referring to Dr. Abdul Husain, who was conferred as Nawab Arastu Yar Jung. He was the first surgeon to the Sixth Nizam of Hyderabad, Nizam Mahbub Ali Khan, Asaf Jah VI.

I remember an incident my father in law, the great grandson of Arastu Yar Jung, narrated to me. It so happened once, a woman visited Dr. Abdul Husain. She did poke a needle in her eye. One half of the needle penetrated deep inside her eye and the other half looming outside the eye with a thread hanging from the eye of the needle. Dr. Abdul Husain asked her to lie down on a stretcher. He than asked his nurse to keep broom sticks below her head. Meanwhile he tied the thread from the needle, perpendicular, in tension, to the rod on top of the stretcher. He then asked the nurse to remove slowly each piece of broom stick out of the stack one by one. This action lowered her head very slowly and after a couple of hours the needle remains suspended in the air as she moved down. She felt almost no pain or any need for surgery.

This is one of his many famous incidents. Such intelligence and in-depth knowledge of simple and complex surgical procedures helped Dr. Abdul Husain resolve everyday issues with ease.

Every time I involve in any congregation of Arastu family, with my interaction with the family members, I understand that the underlining idea of Arastu Yar Jung that education is supreme, was very well founded. To this day, the tradition of higher education among Arastu family is supreme and uncompromised.

About these ads