Dr P Namperumalswamy: The Eye Surgeon Who Brought Light But Never Asked For Spotlight

It began with the name.

Dr Perumalswamy Namperumalswamy. There is a lyrical and fun loop to it. When I first met him, as a barely out-of-teens silly young man, I tried a weak joke with his name. I didn't know any better. But he, already a veteran in the field, did. He just saw past my transgression with an avuncular easiness that was, as I came to know later, his hallmark.

I got to meet him a few times, and on each occasion, I came back and wondered within myself: How could a man who was pulling off a minor revolution of sorts be so unassuming of that.

Dr P Namperumalswamy, who passed away in Madurai today at the age of 85, was one of the most quietly transformative figures in Indian medicine.

A veteran of Aravind Eye Hospital, which is one of the foremost ophthalmic centres in India, he was a pioneering retinal surgeon of exceptional skill.

He was also a mentor, and above all, a believer in the idea that healthcare must reach the last person, in the last village, without asking for anything in return. Yes, he was the kind of figure that Tamil film directors like Shankar would dream of for their barely-believable movie scripts.

But Dr Nam, as he was mostly known, was every bit real. If Tamil Nadu is now a world-renowned hub for eye treatment, it is thanks to two titans: Dr SS Badrinath (of Sankar Nethralaya)  and Dr Namperumalswamy. Together, their tireless commitment has lifted standards of ophthalmology in these parts and brightened futures for millions.

Pioneering spirit

Born (appropriately on August 15, 1939) in a modest farming family in Theni district, Tamil Nadu, he didn’t inherit privilege. But right from his young days, he was keen on studying medicine and came to Madurai for that, a city that made him in many ways.

Details about his journey from Madurai Medical College to Boston, and back to Madurai are sketchy, but it must have been arduous, as he had set out to do what was practically unattempted in that young India: To be a retina surgeon. Eye care was at its infancy here then, but he was already looking at the future, as it were.

That spirit to be a path-finder always stayed with him. After a few years at the Madurai Erskine government hospital, Dr Nam pioneered India’s first Low Vision Aid Clinic in 1967, and later established the Vitreous Surgery Centre, again a first of its kind.

But his genius wasn’t just clinical. It was structural, too. He would go on to help design a model where paying patients subsidised the poor, where rural vision centres brought care to the doorstep. 

His work in diabetic retinopathy surgery showed that he wasn’t just a doctor, he was a systems thinker and a public health visionary. In the words of Time, which named him among the 100 most influential people in the world in 2010, he brought 'assembly-line efficiency to eye surgery.' 

His claim to greatness unfolded at Aravind eye hospital, where he joined in 1976, the year of its founding. At the time, it was a small eye hospital run from a rented house with just 11 beds. But with Dr Nam’s operational genius, the hospital expanded quietly, sustainably and ethically. As Director (1991–2010) and later Chairman, he oversaw Aravind’s transformation into the world’s largest eye care provider.

The numbers and achievements of the hospital today are staggering: Over 70 million outpatients served. More than 6 million surgeries performed, a majority free or subsidised. An entire generation of ophthalmologists trained, especially women from rural backgrounds. And the creation of Aurolab, a manufacturing arm that made intraocular lenses and eye care devices affordable.

Dr Nam wasn’t just the protégé of the legendary Dr Govindappa Venkataswamy (Dr V), the founder of Aravind Eye Hospital. Dr Nam was also his brother-in-law, married to his younger sister Dr G Natchiar, a formidable force in her own right.

Together, the three of them formed the spiritual and operational trinity of Aravind. Where Dr V dreamt big, Dr Nam ensured the systems worked. Where Dr Nam planned and led, Dr Natchiar revolutionised training and outreach.

This was nepotism (if that is the word) of the noblest kind, a family enterprise not for profit or prestige, but for public good. They created one of the most ethical, efficient, and replicable models of medical service in the world.

A pioneering ophthalmologist herself, Dr Natchiar founded Aravind’s Human Resource Development wing, where she recruited and trained thousands of young women from rural villages as eye care technicians.

Today, many of them serve as the backbone of Aravind’s patient care system. In a country where rural girls are often discouraged from higher education or careers, Dr Natchiar and Dr Nam changed the script. They showed that a hospital could also be a force for gender justice, economic upliftment, and community transformation.

A karma yogi at heart

Despite international recognition, including the Padma Shri in 2007, multiple global awards, and invitations from Harvard and WHO, Dr Nam remained a man of quiet habits and near-ascetic simplicity. He didn’t believe in celebrity medicine. He believed in consistency. In waking up every morning and doing the same thing a little better than yesterday.

In his final years, even as age slowed him down, he continued to visit the Aravind campus whenever he could. 

Dr Nam not only leaves behind his wife Nachiar and sons Venkatesh Prajna and Vishnu Prasad, but also millions of patients who saw the world because of him, and thousands of doctors who see medicine differently because of him.

The world-class institution he helped create remains a benchmark for compassionate scalability, and a blueprint for a kind of leadership we desperately need more of.  

Dr Nam gave light. Not just to eyes, but to the very idea of how medicine should be practised.