Reflections on Medicine and Life by Dr. S.P. Kalantri
This afternoon I sat in a mall in Wardha and watched Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. Near the end, Odysseus picks up the old bow that no suitor in his hall could bend, and strings it in one unhurried motion. The theatre went quiet. I had not expected that a film shot across six countries, on … Read the essay
A woman of forty walks into my OPD. She complains of “gases.” Some acidity, she says, a little heartburn, the odd burp that will not come up and will not go down. She has had this for years. It comes and goes with worry, with weddings, with festival food. Nothing about her story is alarming. … Read the essay
Two respected doctors in Nagpur died within little more than a year of each other. One was a radiologist, the other a neurosurgeon. Both were young, at the height of their careers, well known across the city. The radiologist was tall, soft-spoken, and loved by everyone who knew him. He went in for a routine … Read the essay
An invitation to address 400 NCC cadets on careers became an unexpected lesson in public speaking. Stories worked better than lectures—and twenty minutes would probably have worked better than forty.
“Enough.” It was the only time I heard Mamta Tiwari refuse treatment. For almost three years she had accepted everything that cancer demanded of her — major surgery, chemotherapy, repeated hospital admissions, drainage tubes into both kidneys, powerful antibiotics, pain, uncertainty, and nearly eighty journeys between Wardha and Mumbai. Each time a new complication arose, … Read the essay