Dr. Jagat Ram Clinic : Our Legacy

Dr. Jagat Ram Sud after graduating from the King Edward Medical College at Lahore, was opined by his friends and parents to start a clinic at Shimla. He rented a shop at Rs. 363 a year in the Lower Bazaar. The place was Shimla, the then summer capital of India. The day was 29th April and the year 1932. Indeed a very lucky day for his progeny on both sides, for at the moment there are twenty one doctors in the second and third generation and the fourth generation is raring to have a go. Two decades later, in 1955, he purchased the adjoining property at 192 and made it into what the present day clinic is. He was the first doctor in the family, one of the five Indian doctors in Shimla. The original establishment at 193, Lower Bazaar, is now a haberdashery shop.

The Patriarch was the son of Shri Thakur Dass Sud, a general merchandise and grocery shopkeeper in Kaithoo, whose shop was where the present day Him Sweets shop is located. Mr. Thakur Dass was the third brother amongst four who had come to Shimla from Kangra with the founding of Shimla by the British. This was at the end of the 19th Century. All four of them viz: L. Duni Chand, L. Bahadur Mull, L. Thakur Dass, and L. Jaishi Ram worked together in a shop set-up, supplying grocery to the British and the locals. They were the sons of L. Chiraga Mull of Village Lohara, near Bharwain, near Chintpurni in Kangra, all four of them had shifted to Pragpur an account of a devastating fire at Lohara (Ten miles from Pragpur).

The beginning at 193 Lower Bazaar Shimla was low tone, unlike doctors now, the clinic comprised of about five rooms, the inner rooms, two of them were fashioned into a small make do residence for Dr.Jagat Ram was a recently married man and had to provide for his wife, the young Biasa Devi, a beautiful lass, 17 years old. She too was from Pragpur. Lala Jiwan Lal Sud her father, had a shop on the Mall, at Shimla somewhere near the present M/s Nathu Ram and Son. The shop, a general merchandise shop was providing and catering to British taste of living. Lala Jiwan Lal her father a tall handsome man, very fair, and whiskered, was very popular amongst the British. He was known for his well spoken English, beautiful English handwriting and manners and a British sense of humor. He was righteous, upright and had a judiciously poised mind (as per Lala Amar Chand Sud advocate who will be 103 years this year 2007 on the 27th May. British magistrates, judges and officers of the Empire would visit him for daily needs purchase and for interaction, for he was one of the few shopkeepers who could speak fluent English, and had a trained coterie of servants whom he had taught English manners and etiquette. Mr. Jiwan Lal, otherwise a forest lessee, was involved in timber business in a big way. This was somewhere in the 1918 and onwards.

The marriage of Mrs. Biasa Devi and Dr. Jagat Ram was solemnised sometimes in 1931, perhaps. Dr. Jagat Ram himself a very humble and a meek person, was the commissioner of the first elected Municipal Committee, Shimla. In his wisdom and foresight he had chosen to make his off springs go through the clinical rigmarole of his own daily working. He encouraged his children to help him while practicing medicine, in minor surgery, dispensing medicines, and cleaning up and arranging the surgical instruments in a regular and proper way. He taught them, how to treat wounds, use dressings and get familiar with other little procedures in the art of treatment.


Dr. Jagat Ram added an X-Ray machine to his clinic and was the first and the only doctor to have an X-ray machine in his clinic and in the State then in the late 1940’s. This basic training at the clinic perhaps enthused his children to take to the medical profession. In Picture > Dr. Jagat Ram and Smt. Biasa Devi with the President of India.

Moving with Heads of States of Himachal Pradesh and the Punjab was his privilege. Monarchs themselves sought his company, and patronized him. To have him in their entourage as and when they went out on their hunting sprees and other royal missions was an accepted way of life for them and for his wife, the young Biasa Devi, who would stay home and rear his children, seven of them !