The Road Less Traveled

I was born in November 1956 into a Delhi family that was a unique blend of orthodox tradition and military discipline. Daily poojas were the fabric of our lives, yet we were a family of army people—with at least half a dozen relatives serving in the forces. Their stories of service shaped my early understanding of duty. My father worked in the Ministry of Environment and Health, and my mother was a public health supervisor. We were taught early on to accept life’s challenges without complaint and to find contentment in the simplest of things.

My preparation for medical school was an exercise in grit. I enrolled in the Delhi Public College of Competition in Karol Bagh. I remember the long walks from the coaching center to catch a bus at Dhaula Kuan, carrying my dreams in a simple cloth bag. We were not pampered children; we were used to managing with what we had. When the telegram arrived from the Principal’s Office at MGIMS asking me to appear for an interview, I set off for Maharashtra with my father, prepared for the Gandhian thought paper we all believed would decide our fates.

Choosing Sevagram Over the Familiar

The interview itself was surprisingly gentle. While my batchmates faced rigorous questions on rural health, I was asked a few technical questions that felt almost like a formality. I have often wondered if the panel was simply being kind to a girl student who looked so eager and hopeful. Initially, I was waitlisted. We returned to the crowded lanes of Delhi, only for another telegram to arrive a few days later: I was selected.

A week after I joined the orientation camp at Sevagram, a third telegram arrived—this one from a UP medical college informing me of my selection there. It was a crossroads. I could have returned to the familiarity of North India, to a culture and language I knew perfectly. But I had already fallen in love with the quiet simplicity of the village, the rhythmic hum of the ashram prayers, and the unhurried pace of life in Wardha. I chose to stay. I chose the road less traveled.

The Seamless Transition

Many people asked how a Delhi girl, raised in the capital, could adjust to a small, obscure village where Marathi was the primary tongue. But the transition was seamless because the values of Sevagram—self-reliance, washing one’s own clothes, cleaning one’s surroundings, and communal spinning—were already ingrained in me from my childhood. It felt like a natural extension of my home life.

At MGIMS, I didn’t just earn my MBBS and MD in Community Medicine; I found a way of life. Taking that “road less traveled” in 1974 made all the difference in the woman and physician I became. To this day, the memory of that first telegram and the peaceful fields of Sevagram remains the most cherished chapter of my history. It was there that I learned that medicine is not just a profession, but a philosophy of living simply so that others may simply live.