I am a physician at MGIMS Sevagram. I have been here since 1982. These essays are what that life has taught me — about patients, colleagues, institutions, and the slow, quiet work of medicine practised far from the centre of things.
Where to begin
A dying woman and her devoted husband, both poor, both believers. She has end-stage cancer. She is not afraid. He knows he is about to lose her. He is not anxious. Vitthal holds them both steady. I watched this and understood, for the first time, what palliative care really means.
Read the essayFour years my senior at GMC Nagpur. My registrar when I was a fumbling MD resident. Gentle, unhurried, deeply religious. He taught medicine the way he lived — without noise, without drama. When death came for him, he met it the same way.
Read the essayA water crisis in Sevagram forced classes to seven in the morning. A railway crossing threatened to make even that impossible. What the students and teachers did next is a small story — but it tells you everything about the spirit of this place.
Read the essayThese three essays are a beginning. Behind them sits an archive of writing spanning twenty-five years — on patients, colleagues, institutions, and the ordinary life that runs alongside all of it.
Browse the full archive →The longer works