Personal Narratives Archives

The Conversation Continues

From the Classroom We Shared A talk about dying is supposed to end when the microphone goes off. Mine didn’t. I wrote last week about what it took to get in front of a camera in the first place — the failing light, the dog, the whole clumsy business of learning new tools at seventy. … Read the essay

Learning to Talk About Dying at Seventy

Four minutes into a talk about how to die well, the light went out. A physician’s account of scripting, filming, and uploading a talk on ageing and end-of-life conversations for family physicians across India — and what the gadgetry, at seventy, turned out to teach him.

Three Mayas, One Batch

In 1973, GMC Nagpur had three Mayas. Maya Khati. Maya Wanjari. Maya Bhaskarwar. Call out the name in the corridor and three heads turned. Fifty years later, it is worth asking what became of them. Maya Khati was a farmer’s daughter from Warora. Her mother had rented two rooms in Wardha so her daughter could … Read the essay

The Quiet Wit of Ward 13

Yesterday, the news reached me: Dr. Vinod Adbe is no more. It was a simple, heavy message that pulled me back forty-six years to the corridors of Ward 13 at GMC Nagpur. I was an MD resident then, and Dr. Adbe was my teacher.

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Jiji

I always called her Jiji; her first name never seemed to fit the space she held in my life. Pushpa, my second elder sister, was born on May 17, 1946—fifteen months before India stepped into independence.

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