AHMEDABAD: For four decades, MBBS practitioner Dr Vineet Parikh has treated patients in Nirnaynagar. But for 30 of those years, his clinic has also offered another prescription: books.When Parikh began practice, his clinic had an extra room. Many advised him to place beds there and use them to administer IV fluids.He chose instead to start a public library. “Because of my love for reading, I felt we should do some social service,” Parikh said.The reading habit began at Vidyanagar School, Usmanpura, where literature-loving teachers shaped him. At home, books were part of daily life.“My parents were fond of reading, and my mother worked at Gujarat University library, so many books came home,” he recalled.
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Later, during medical studies, the company of doctor-writer Mukul Choksi deepened both his reading and writing.What began with 100-150 books has grown into a library of nearly 6,000 Gujarati, Hindi and English books.The annual membership, once Rs 20, is still only Rs 100. “It is a token charge so that books are respected and not misused,” Parikh said.The library also hosts reader meets, quizzes and discussions under ‘Vachak Ej Vakta (the reader is also the speaker)’.Its annual literary tours take members to places linked with writers and books.In 2018, they visited the more than 100-year-old Dahilakshmi Library in Nadiad and Govardhan Smriti Mandir.In 2022, they travelled to Bamna, poet Umashankar Joshi’s village.If books became one form of service, blood donation became another.Parikh first understood its urgency while studying at Govt Medical College, Surat, in 1978. “Blood is not manufactured in a factory,” he said.After marriage in 1989, Parikh and his wife Chetna began donating regularly. He has donated 125 times and she 127 times.The Ahmedabad branch of the Indian Red Cross Society certified them as India’s first couple in which both completed 100 donations each.Their children, Dr Meha and Dr Honshil, began donating at 18. Together, the family has crossed around 350 donations.Even Meha’s 2017 wedding was marked with a blood donation camp and thalassaemia awareness programme.
