The Byculla Beginnings: A Seed Planted in Bahrain

I was born on 12 January 1956 in Bombay, into a Bohra Gujarati family where tradition and education walked hand in hand. My father, Mr. Rahi Kapadia, ran a modest shop, and by the time I was ready for medical school, my two older siblings were already deep into their own college years. My childhood was shaped by the stern but loving discipline of the nuns at St. Agnes High School in Byculla. They were the guardians of our grammar, correcting every misplaced comma and insisting on a standard of English—and conduct—that became a second religion to us.

The dream of becoming a physician wasn’t something I debated; it was a seed planted early by my maternal aunt, a doctor practicing in Bahrain. That seed grew silently, never needing the water of alternative ambitions. However, the path was not easy. I applied to the heavyweights—AFMC Pune, CMC Vellore, and AMU Aligarh—but the doors remained closed. Even the local medical colleges in Bombay, usually the refuge of city students, were out of reach.

It was through local contacts that I first heard of a fledgling medical college in a place called Sevagram. I prepared for the entrance exam with a gravity I hadn’t felt before, reading Gandhi’s The Story of My Experiments with Truth from cover to cover. I suspect that immersive reading was what finally tipped the scales in my favor. At seventeen, shy and frightened, I made my first trip to Nagpur. My mother and I found shelter with a Bohra family in Wardha, and when I saw my name on the admission list for the 1975 batch, I knew my life had truly begun.

The Sevagram Atmosphere: Accepting the Air

Sevagram in the mid-1970s was not a place of “adjustment”; it was a place of acceptance. The khadi clothes, the vegetarian mess, and the Sarva Dharma Prarthana (all-religion prayers) were not mere rules—they were the very air we breathed. I grew to love those prayers, reciting them by heart even now. I remember a Gandhian line that became my quiet compass: “When in trouble, open the Bhagavad Gita. The first verse you read will guide you.” Coming from the sensory overload of Bombay, I found the lack of city comforts surprisingly liberating. There were no paved roads, no autorickshaws, and certainly no cinema halls or fancy restaurants. But we were so profoundly grateful to have been granted the privilege of medical school that these “shortcomings” simply vanished. My closest bond was with Nikita Bedi, a fellow Mumbaikar. In the absence of city distractions, our batch became an extended family. Your parents became mine; our joys and anxieties were communal. There was nothing to pull us away from each other, so we grew together, rooted in the red soil of Wardha.

Neurology in a Hostel Room

During my first year, the physical toll of the environment hit me—I was struck down by a severe bout of hepatitis. I lay in my hostel bed, yellow-eyed and nauseated, watching the days slip by while my batchmates attended the critical neurology lecture series. I felt I was falling behind, a fear every medical student knows.

That was when Krishan Aggarwal, my brilliant classmate, appeared at my door. “Don’t worry, Nafisa,” he said with that steady calm he was known for. “I’ll teach you.” And he did. He sat by my bed and walked me through the complexities of the nervous system. To this day, I believe Krishan taught me neurology better than any professor ever could have. This was the soul of Sevagram: you were never allowed to stand alone.

Chappals in the Slush: The Lessons of Dr. Jajoo

One of the most powerful influences of those years was Dr. Ulhas Jajoo. He was a striking figure in khadi, a young lecturer with a deep, unwavering commitment to rural health. Every week, rain or shine, he would lead groups of us on bicycles to the nearby villages.

I remember the monsoon treks specifically. The mud would be so thick and the slush so deep that our chappals would get stuck and snap. We would simply abandon them and continue barefoot. It was in those villages that I received my real medical education. I saw why a father would choose to spend his meager savings on a daughter’s wedding rather than a life-saving treatment; I saw why they trusted the local traditional healers over the “big doctors” from the city. Decades later, when I read about the “Social Determinants of Health” in Western textbooks, I would smile—I had seen them all as a teenager, barefoot in the mud of Karanji Bhoge.

From Tata Memorial to the Canadian Heartland

After four years, I returned to Bombay for my internship and married my childhood sweetheart. My career path followed the trend of the time: I took the seat that was available. I ended up in MD Radiology at Tata Memorial Hospital. While I worked as a radiologist for fifteen years, that deep professional “click” remained elusive.

In 2000, our family moved to Canada. I had to repeat my residencies—a grueling task for an established physician—but it led me to my true calling: Family Medicine. Today, as a family physician in Canada, I finally feel the contentment that eluded me in the darkrooms of radiology.

When I look back, the contrast between my Canadian residency and my Sevagram student life is sharp. Canada provided structure, efficiency, and professionalism. But Sevagram provided humanity. In Wardha, you were never lonely. Whether it was a friend, a teacher, or even a local shopkeeper, there was always someone to share a cup of tea and a moment of comfort with. Those four years taught me empathy and the value of community—lessons that make me the doctor I am today. I carry a quiet debt to MGIMS that I can never fully repay, but I carry the place in my heart every time I walk into a patient’s room.