At a dusty bus stand in Yavatmal, long before the day had properly begun, a curious scene played out. A man and his wife sat with their heads bent over two thick paperbacks, so absorbed that the buses came and went, vendors called out their wares, and a dog nosed around their bags without either of them looking up.

“What are you two reading with such concentration?” a passerby asked, stopping.

Ashok looked up, adjusted his spectacles, and replied with a trace of mischief: “Rajnish.”

The man’s eyebrows rose. “Doctors reading Rajnish? Come to my house tomorrow. I’ll show you meditation.”

That casual invitation at a dusty bus stand set in motion a transformation that would eventually lead one of Vidarbha’s most established radiologists to step out of his clinic, sell his hospital, and build a meditation monastery. But to understand how a fruit-seller’s son from a neighbourhood of bootleggers reached that point, one must go back to the beginning.

The Market Awakening

Ashok was born on 16 December 1957 in Takli, a small village in Deoli taluka of Wardha district. His parents — Shantibai and Neelkanth Rao — were illiterate. They had no land, no government job, only baskets of fruit and vegetables that they carried to the market in Wardha each day. When Ashok was still small, the family migrated to Wardha, settling in Pulfail — now Anand Nagar — an area that neighbours associated with petty crime and illicit liquor. His parents held one conviction: education would pull them out.

Ashok, for years, gave them little reason for confidence. At his Marathi-medium school, homework was an unwanted guest. He played kanche in the lanes, hit makeshift cricket balls with pieces of wood, and disappeared into the fields until evening. Two years were spent at his uncle’s home in Tapri, where he learned to chase cattle rather than chapter headings.

Then, one afternoon, he wandered into the vegetable market and stopped. His parents sat under the burning sun, their backs bent, their hands roughened, haggling for single rupees over bananas and cucumbers. His mother carried unsold vegetables home in a tattered basket.

That night he lay awake, staring at the dark. “If I continue like this, I will be no better than a burden.”

From the next morning, the same boy who had hated books began to read with hunger.

The Long Road to Medicine

After finishing his tenth standard, Ashok joined JB Science College. His marks in the twelfth were not enough for Government Medical College, Nagpur. He read through textbooks of physics, chemistry, and biology from class eight to class eleven, borrowing where he could, building what he lacked. “If I cannot climb the wall,” he said, “I will dig a tunnel under it.” English, his main obstacle, yielded slowly to persistence.

In 1979, a letter arrived. He had secured admission to MGIMS Sevagram. The fees were ₹1,800 — a mountain for his family. His parents borrowed, begged, and collected from neighbours. Ashok arrived at Sevagram carrying his family’s full weight, and began.

The orientation fortnight in Gandhi’s ashram suited him. Sweeping, prayers, the charkha — the life of simplicity did not unsettle a boy who had grown up without comfort. He moved into the hostel, found classmates who also came from the margins, and held on.

He passed MBBS without losing a year, quietly proud of having completed what most from his neighbourhood would have called impossible. When the time came for specialisation, he chose Radiology — a decision most classmates dismissed. Surgery, they said, was where the action was. Ashok only smiled.

Building from Nothing

His first practice was a rented room in Hanumanpura at ₹500 a month, with a second-hand ultrasound machine that produced hazy, unreliable images. The advanced model he needed cost five lakhs. “Where will you get such money?” his wife asked. Classmates pooled funds. She gave up her mangalsutra; Ashok sold his gold ring and the television set. When they were still short, a bank manager bent his own rules and sanctioned the loan.

The new machine arrived. On its first day, he earned ₹750. Within a month, his income had tripled what he had once drawn at the college. CT scans, Doppler imaging, X-ray — machines accumulated. Patients filled the waiting hall, and referrals came from doctors across Vidarbha. His name travelled. The boy from Pulfail, whose parents had once sold vegetables in the market, was building a practice.

The Books That Changed Everything

But amidst the hum of machines and the shuffle of case sheets, Ashok’s eyes kept drifting to books. He read Ambedkar, the Bhagavad Gita, Jain scriptures, Buddhist texts. Then a friend handed him Rajnish.

“Be careful,” the friend warned. “People say readers of Rajnish lose their minds.”

Ashok laughed. “Let me see what kind of madness this is.”

What he found was not madness but precision — Rajnish’s words cutting through convention with the sureness of a scalpel, asking old questions in new ways. Ashok bought more, read at the bus stand, read at night, read on trains. It was during one such session that the stranger at the Yavatmal bus stand invited him home, and Ashok, on a bare mat, closed his eyes for his first meditation. Minutes stretched. When he opened his eyes, the world felt lighter.

From that day, medicine and meditation walked together in him.

Toward the Monastery

He plunged into Vipassana under S.N. Goenka, studied Ambedkar’s Buddhism, and began teaching meditation to others. Gradually, he understood that his heart lay less in the radiology room and more in the practice of contemplation. He dreamed of a place where the two could meet — a monastery and meditation centre, open to anyone who sought silence.

It took eight years to find the land near Yavatmal, and three more to build. The monastery — first named Mind Meditation Monastery, later Zhhang Bhoomi — rose at Chaparda in Kalamb taluka. Ashok poured his earnings into it. He named himself Abhik — one who is fearless.

He gave twenty percent of his income to his family and the remainder to spreading awareness, meditation, and the contemplative life. “Babasaheb Ambedkar said we must give back to society,” he explained, without drama. “This is my way of returning what life gave me.”

Two Paths, One Direction

A batchmate and friend, Dr. Tulsidas Ghube — a 1978 MGIMS graduate who had come from Deulgaon Ghube in Buldhana district — walked a parallel road. He built a flourishing general practice in Chikhli, then stepped away from it to join the Ramakrishna Mission. After the 2013 Uttarakhand floods, he founded an ashram at Guptkashi, establishing a health centre that became a lifeline for survivors. When the centre was well established, he entrusted it to his devotees. He now lives and serves in Varanasi.

A batchmate who knew Ashok well reflected on what the path of renunciation means: “He sold his hospital and all other property, donating the proceeds to charity. I had noticed certain changes in him much earlier — an inclination for spirituality. But there was no indication he would go this far. Perhaps he also did not know that. He did it because he felt it was the right thing to do. Detachment sets you on a journey of spirituality. The mind is liberated from worldly matters. It is a state of inner peace. But does every monk reach the endpoint of his spiritual journey?”

The question has no answer. Ashok is still walking.

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Dr. Ashok Kamble completed his MBBS from MGIMS Sevagram in 1979 and his MD in Radiology thereafter. He built one of the first comprehensive radiology centres in North Maharashtra. He later founded Zhhang Bhoomi, a meditation monastery in Kalamb taluka, Yavatmal district, to which he has devoted the latter portion of his life.