BY Sattar Choudahry
The dust was still flying in the village that day. A poor farmer was sitting outside his house on the dirt road of Gorkhi village. The house was rough, resources were limited, but there were children’s voices in the courtyard. There were seven daughters and then one day the news that had been awaited for years came to this house. A son had been born. As soon as Vathalbhai Braiya picked up the child in his arms, all the deprivations ended for a moment. There was happiness in Devbin’s eyes too. The only brother of seven sisters, the only son of his parents. He was named Ganesh. Ganesh now ruled the house. The seven sisters would walk around holding him by the hand. Mother would hold him close to her chest and whenever father saw him, a smile would come on his face as if he had the greatest wealth in the world. But four years later, one morning, mother looked at Ganesh carefully. She felt something strange. Ganesh’s head seemed bigger than his body. After a few days, her concern started to grow. Then the doctor, then the tests, then the reports… And then she heard the word that cast a shadow on the happiness of this house for the first time. Ganesh’s height would not grow normally. He was born with dwarfism, later his physical disability reached 72%. Somewhere it was said to be a growth hormone deficiency. In simple words, the only problem was that Ganesh’s body refused to grow. Children in the street would laugh when they saw him, and when he reached school, the benches were not according to his height. The children in the class would call him by different names. Sometimes someone would make a noise, sometimes someone would block the way and start laughing, but Ganesh would remain silent. His father would carry him to school on his shoulder. The sisters would be with him. The house was poor, but Ganesh was not alone. Then one day a circus owner met his father, he offered five lakh rupees… Five lakhs… For a poor farmer, this money was probably the biggest wealth in his entire life, the circus owner said, hand over the child to us, Vathalbhai looked at his son, then at five lakhs… and shook his head… No… He did not want to make his son a spectacle, he wanted to teach him, Ganesh also wanted to study… He completed his primary education from the village school. Then in the ninth grade he reached Nilkanth Vidyapeeth (Talaja). There, one day, a strange dream was born in his heart. He wanted to become a doctor, many people must have laughed and said how is this possible. But Ganesh did not let anyone’s laughter decide his dream… He continued to study. He worked hard. He passed his matriculation with good marks. Then he scored 87% marks in FSC. In 2018, he also passed the medical entrance test. Now there was only one door left. The door of the medical college, Ganesh knocked on the door, but the door did not open. The Medical Council of India refused to give him admission. The reason was his three feet height and physical disability, it was said that he would not be able to handle emergency patients. Ganesh returned, this time he had two teachers with him. The school principal Dr. Dalpatbhai Kataria and teacher Rewat Singh Saroya. They told Ganesh, fight… A case was filed in the Gujarat High Court… The case was lost, but Ganesh did not consider defeat as the final destination, now he has reached the Supreme Court… In October 2018, the decision came, the Supreme Court said that no student can be stopped from medical education just on the basis of height or disability. A door had opened…. In 2019, Ganesh got admission in Government Medical College, Bhavnagar. The same Ganesh, who was once laughed at by street children, was now walking in the corridors of the medical college wearing a white coat. There were friends in the college and professors who stood by him. In anatomy class, he was made to sit in the next seat. Sometimes, when there was an opportunity to watch a surgery, he was lifted on his shoulders so that he could also see it. Ganesh watched. He kept learning… and kept moving forward… In 2024, he completed his internship at the General Hospital in Bhavnagar… Then November 2024 came, on that day Ganesh became a medical officer in Bhavnagar. The same Ganesh who was once offered to give it to the circus for five lakh rupees. The same Ganesh who used to face the jokes of the class children. The same Ganesh who was told that he could not handle emergency patients. Now people came to meet him. His story had reached all over India. He also appeared in Amitabh Bachchan’s program “Who Will Become a Millionaire?” He won the fastest buzzer round and reached the hot seat and won about twenty-five thousand rupees… And then one day his name was registered in the Guinness World Records. The world’s shortest doctor. Ganesh’s house probably still has the same soil. The same simple people. The same seven sisters who once supported him and took him to school. The only difference is that now when Ganesh wears a white coat and enters the hospital, no one notices his height. People see the stethoscope he is holding in his hand. And perhaps Ganesh still remembers the day when a circus man was holding five lakh rupees in front of his father and saying, “Give it to us.” His father refused that day. Today, the world looks at Ganesh and wonders what would have happened if he had accepted five lakhs…? Perhaps a child would have become a circus spectacle. But a father saved his son from becoming a spectacle. And today that same child is a doctor saving people’s lives. Dr. Ganesh’s story is a perfect example of courage, determination, continuous effort, family support, a historical fight against the country’s system and overcoming difficulties. History is written only through courage, determination, patience and continuous effort. A man’s position is not determined by his height. A person’s status is not determined by his height, but by his character. I have seen thousands of tall “dwarfs”, hundreds of tall “dwarves”. Just look at President Asif Zardari and Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif. Dr. Ganesh became a big man despite his small stature, but Asif Zardari and Shahbaz Sharif could not make their height bigger than their positions even after reaching big positions.