My best time as a sexologist was while working as the head of the department of sexual medicine at KEM hospital, Bombay.

It was the only department for sexual medicine in the entire Southeast Asia, in the 80s.

The way I treated patients at the hospital OPD for sexual difficulties soon became an object of curiosity for everyone, including celebrities, experts and journalists from the Western World.

I would treat people for sexual difficulties, just like the way doctors would treat patients for diarrhea and stomach aches.

My idea was to simplify sexology and make it accessible to the public. I saw between 150 to 200 patients a day. This in turn attracted a steady stream of VIP visitors and journalists who wanted to interview me and see me providing solutions for problems relating to desire, erection, penetration and orgasm.

One day a towering gentleman from the UK came to meet me from the BBC. He introduced himself as Peter Ustinov. I told him that I charge for my interviews and that he had to wait till I finish with my patients. So he repeated again, “I am Sir Peter Ustinov and I want to take your interview” this time a little more firmly.

Even then I didn’t understand the man I was talking to was a celebrated Oscar award winning actor.

I rarely watched Hollywood movies. So out of my ignorance, I told him again, “Sir, you may be anybody, but whatever interviews I give, I charge.” He didn’t say anything after that and waited patiently at the OPD till I finished with my patients.

The next day I got the shock of my life when I saw the newspapers and realised who Peter Ustinov was. Embarrassed, I quickly rang him up to apologise for the previous day’s faux pas. His response
was quick and witty. 

“Dr Kothari, I am delighted to know that there is one person in the world who doesn’t know who Peter Ustinov is.”

(Continues)

(In conversation with Sangeeth Sebastian, writer and founder of Vvox, a sextech platform. The biography is a part of an AKADialog initiative to capture the lives of newsmakers.)