BEIJING, Sept. 5 (Xinhuanet, By Xinhua Writer Zhou Yan) -- When Guo Qinglan decided 66 years ago to play her role in China's war of resistance against Japanese aggression, she didn't know she would meet an Indian doctor named Dwarkanath Kotnis, let alone become his bride.

    Not the least had she ever expected their happy marriage was to last for merely a year.

    Toward the end of the 1930s -- when most women in China rarely left their homes, with their feet bound to resemble "three-inch golden lilies", Guo, then a well-grounded and English-speaking nurse at Beijing Union Hospital, left for the warfront in Quyang county, north China's Hebei Province. She was 23.     

    FIGHT AGAINST COMMON FOE

    "I met Kotnis in 1939, shortly after the death of Dr. Norman Bethune, the Canadian surgeon who helped China fight the Japanese intruders," Guo told Xinhua when she was in Beijing to commemorate the 60th anniversary of China's victory over Japanese aggressors. "Dr. Bethune was a most competent doctor and highly responsible man, an idol for both of us."

    Very soon, she came to admire Kotnis, too, one of the five Indian doctors who helped China's war efforts. "He was able to speak and even write in Chinese shortly after he arrived. He enjoyed cracking jokes and making everyone laugh. I thought he wasreally smart and secretly admired him."

    Guo and Kotnis both taught at a local medical school named after Dr. Bethune and step by step, their mutual admiration escalated into love. They got married in November 1941.

    "Kotnis told me he volunteered to come to China because he saw in the Japanese aggressors the British colonists that invaded his home country," Guo told Xinhua in an exclusive interview. "He had finished medical college in India and had a chance to further his education at Cambridge."

    Kotnis soon became a big name and many students at the medical school asked for his autography. "Very often, he wrote 'China is sure to win' -- in Chinese," said Guo.

    The Kotnis family in India also supported him. Before he left for China, his father told him to "carry on till the end", she added. "He told me once that 'papa said I must not leave anything half-done'".

    And Kotnis never let his father down. After he came to China in 1938, he worked in the Chinese revolutionary base Yan'an in the northwestern outback and later in the warfront in the north.

    During a major campaign fought in September 1940, Kotnis and his small medical team rescued more than 800 wounded Chinese soldiers and performed 585 operations within 13 days. "He worked night and day and didn't close his eyes at all in the busiest 72 hours," Guo recalled.     

¡¡¡¡LONG AND ENDURING LOVE

    Guo did her best to take care of her husband: she gave him her only sweater when she saw his cotton-padded army uniform could hardly protect him from the cold, and always saved for him the best food that was available.

    "In fact, everyone tried to care for him, too," said Guo. "A young soldier at the medical school once hid polished rice underneath the millet in Kotnis' bowl, but he soon found out and refused to eat. Why should I be treated differently from everyone else, he asked."

    A seasoned physician, Kotnis knew very well he had come down with epilepsy. But he told everyone -- including his wife -- it was just malaria, a common disease at the time.

    When Kotnis died of epileptic suffocation on Dec. 9, 1942, their little son was only 108 days old.

    Guo left the army in 1957. She worked at Beijing Children's Hospital for a while and was later transfered to Dalian, a seaside city in northeast China's Liaoning Province.

    Wherever she went, Kotnis was always on her mind and their son Yin Hua -- the two Chinese characters mean "India" and "China" respectively -- at her side, until he died in 1967 from a medical malpractice: the glutose transfused into him to treat his flu was far beyond its shelf life.

    The boy was 25 and was just about to graduate from a top medical university in Xi'an.

    "He was a handsome boy: he had his father's large eyes and my fair skin," said Guo.     

    "CARRY ON FOR THEIR SAKE"

    Guo stood up to both grieves. Today, her good health, elegant style and clear-headedness make it difficult for anyone to tell her age.

    At 89, Guo said she exercises in the morning and afternoon. "I have to live well and carry on for the sake of my husband and my son," she said.

    She has paid five visits to India since 1958, and is still in touch with the Kotnis family.

    In Dalian, she visits an orphanage every year and gives each orphan some pocket money on holidays. She's a long-term volunteer at her community, teaching the citizens English and advising them on health issues. She has been invited by nearly every school in Dalian to tell the youngsters about that chapter of China's history she and her late husband witnessed -- the Chinese People's War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression that lasted from 1937 to 1945.

    "The war belonged to the past but our longing for peace has never changed. We must never forget those who fought and laid down their lives for peace," she said.

    On her dainty pink business card, she is still "Guo Qinglan Kotnis". Enditem