Outside a shuttered shop on Balaji Nagar Main Road in Avarampalayam, motorists and other road users stop by a minute or two to pay homage to Dr. V. Balasubramanian (68), who passed away on Friday. In front of his big garlanded photograph are incense sticks and a number of candles, some lit and many burnt out.
On the sides of the shop — Dr. Balasubramanian’s clinic — are bills and posters that mourn his death. “Our god is no more,” says one.
Among the mourners was K. Karuppasamy from the nearby Pappanaickenpalayam. Wiping his moist eyes, he laments the people have lost a great man.
Known by the moniker ‘Rs. 20 doctor’, Balasubramanian charged very little from his patients and sometimes nothing and this brought people from far and near.
“I know of people from Mettupalayam, Pollachi and even Tirupur visit him for treatment,” says G. Rajendran, who lived in the house, where the doctor had rented the clinic. Affordable fee is just one side of the doctor. “He made us comfortable, heard our grievances patiently, and gave that kind of assurance that you would feel 50 per cent all right,” recalls Mr. Karuppasamy.
His reassurance to his patients that there was nothing to worry about made him as popular as the fee he charged, R. Kalavathy recalls. Once when the Balaji Nagar resident went complaining of dizziness, he made her sit, relax, and asked a few questions. One of those was if she had dug her ears and when she answered in the affirmative, he said nothing to worry and asked her to go home.
C.K. Nazzar says that on a few occasions, the doctor did not give him medicines, but just asked him to take rest. On Sunday, when his family took the body from his house in Singanallur to the clinic — a good 10 km away — thousands gathered to pay homage, a response that surprised even the family members.
