Healing, Humour &; Humanity: A Doctor writes!

  Every doctor has to be a beginner before becoming an expert.

I failed. All three subjects—Anatomy, Physiology, Biochemistry. So did 22 others. In all, 53 students out of 107 didn’t make it through First MBBS that year. But when your name is on the failure list, it doesn’t matter how many others are there with you. It feels solitary. Sharp. A personal verdict. At AFMC, failure isn’t just academic. It’s almost moral. We were told to report to the Dean’s conference. Everyone knew what that meant. Not a conversation—an indictment. The man we were about to face wasn’t just the Dean. He was a serving General. A towering figure—by position, presence, and reputation. He walked in with a file and a fixed expression. The room braced itself. One by one, he called out names of those who had failed. When he reached mine, he paused. “Atul Jha,” he said. His gaze lifted. “You’re the son of Col Jha, aren’t you?” “Yes, sir,” I replied. A flicker of familiarity crossed his face—recognition not just of the name, but of its weight. He and my father had ...

     It had been a long, draining day. My head was full of problems that seemed impossible to untangle — deadlines pressing like weights on my shoulders, half-finished tasks piling up, and a gnawing sense of frustration that no amount of planning seemed to ease. Even the simplest decisions felt exhausting, and every step forward seemed to be met with resistance.  Out of despair and helplessness, I just got up and left. I walked aimlessly, hoping the evening air would quiet the noise inside me, though the tension in my chest refused to relent.      That’s when I noticed her. A little girl stood beneath a tree, tugging at a kite hopelessly knotted in the branches. She pulled and pulled, but the string wouldn’t budge. I moved forward to help her. Probably one soul that I can help today. Probably one task, that I could achieve. She seemed to understand and stepped back with a smile inviting me to try. Curious, I stepped forward and tried myself, but the ki...

  What can Nestle teach us?  Apparently a very important basic lesson....      I n the early 1970s, Nestlé faced a serious challenge in Japan. Their core product, instant coffee, was met with resistance in a culture deeply rooted in tea consumption. Early marketing efforts failed, and conventional strategies to convert adult consumers proved ineffective. But instead of pulling out, Nestlé took a long-term view. They got in Clotaire Rapaille, a child psychiatrist.  What?  A child psychiatrist for coffee makers?  Yes!!! Its true.     They redirected their focus — not toward immediate sales, but toward the generation.  Rather than pushing coffee on adults, they introduced coffee-flavored sweets and desserts to children and families. One of their most culturally impactful moves was the introduction of KitKat, branded with the phrase “Kitto Katsu” — a pun meaning “surely win.”  The campaign linked KitKat with academic success a...

       They say golf is a good walk ruined. I say it’s a controlled mental breakdown — and that’s exactly why I needed it. Let me explain. I’m a doctor. Which means I spend my days juggling patient charts, calls, and the kind of stress that makes your eye twitch involuntarily during meetings. A few months ago, I found myself sitting in the call room at 2 a.m., staring at my 12th cup of coffee and trying to remember if I had eaten that day — or yesterday. My phone buzzed. Another consult. Another day saving lives and losing mine, one “urgent” call at a time. Then something strange happened: I remembered my golf clubs. They were in the garage, under a pile of old journals and broken dreams. I hadn’t touched them since residency, back when I thought I’d have hobbies and a spine that didn’t ache when I sneezed. But something in me — the part that hadn’t completely burnt out — said, “Screw it. Let’s go whack something.” So I took a Friday off. (Yes, doctors can do th...

     You could grow a beard on civvy street. No one would care.  In the army, a clean-shaven face isn’t just expected—it’s enforced. The day begins not with the sun, but with the sound of running water and the scrape of a razor. It doesn’t matter if you’ve had three hours of sleep, stood night duty in freezing rain, or are recovering from viral fever—if you can lift a hand, you shave.  It’s not vanity. It’s muscle memory. A ritual that prepares you for the uniform, the salute, the responsibility. The moment the razor touches your skin, the civilian is gone. The soldier stands ready.      And then there are our brothers from the Navy.  God bless them. They can keep beards. Real ones. Groomed, shaped, elegant. I once told a naval officer, “You’ve cheated the system, sir. Beard and uniform—too much style in one man.”  He smiled, tugged at his magnificent salt-and-pepper beard, and said, “Sea air demands insulation, my friend. And dignity.”...

     It was a bright Sunday morning, and I was armed with my sacred document—the boarding pass. Seat 18C. Aisle. The seat that offers freedom, dignity, and the ability to visit the loo without pleading with strangers or climbing over knees. I reached my row. Lo and behold! I find it already occupied. A family of three had taken up the entire stretch—uncle at the window, aunty in the middle, and a young man (clearly their son) lounging comfortably in  my  aisle seat.  I stood at the seat and checked the seat number with my boarding pass. There was no mistake. But when I looked down, none of the three passengers occupying the row seemed to notice me. You know the feeling you get when you walk in the interview room and the examiners are talking to each other without looking in your direction (like you were not there). I felt the same. The son, bless his cochlea, had earphones in—with music blaring so loud, I briefly wondered if it was meant for him or for publ...

     It started quietly—an idea that formed not in a lab, but in the mind of a gastroenterologist. Anand had been noticing something strange: patients with gastrointestinal cancers were already wasting away before starting treatment. CT scans showed muscle loss even when body weight seemed stable. He dug deeper—sarcopenia. A name for the silent decline. Sarcopenia was evolving as a determinant of prognosis in frail patients. So, o ne afternoon in the hospital café, he ran into Dr. Nathan Sinha, a medical oncologist. Slightly junior to him, they had been together during MD. An energetic physician, he had gone to complete his DM from a prestigious institute. He had started to be known for translating clinical insights into research papers with impressive speed.      “I’ve been thinking,” he said, stirring the tea. “Sarcopenia might be a silent predictor in GI malignancies. We don’t screen for it, but it could affect chemo tolerance and survival.”  Nathan...

     A six-year-old boy moves through his day with the gentle rhythm of childhood—waking up to familiar voices, dressing in the comfort of routine, eating breakfast with sleepy-eyed calm, and setting off for school where the hours unfold with predictable cadence: lessons, chatter, a lunch break under the sun. But on this particular day, amidst the ordinary, something unexpected disrupts the flow—he falls. Children fall often, skinning knees and brushing off dust, but this fall is different; the pain is sharp, deep, and immediate, striking a note in him that he’s never heard before. He knows instinctively that something is wrong—terribly wrong—long before the adults around him catch on, and the tears come more from fear than from pain. His teacher, startled and sincerely concerned, rushes to his side with comforting words and anxious eyes. She cradles his small shoulder and calls his mother, offering calm but cautious reassurance: “He’s had a fall, but I don’t think it’s a...

     Hyderabad greeted me with its usual blend of chaos and charm. The traffic was as unpredictable as ever, and the heat? Still enough to make you question your life choices. But this time, I wasn’t attending a conference with a group—I was on my own. And yet, my mind was still full of the memories of the last time I was here, back in 2010.      At that point, I had just completed my MD in Medicine. I was freshly minted, a bit dazed, and, frankly, still trying to figure out how to be a real doctor. So when the opportunity arose to attend a two-day gastroenterology conference in Hyderabad with  VK sir, I jumped at the chance. He was a teacher we all looked up to —calm, confident, and a veritable fountain of knowledge. Meanwhile, I was just trying not to panic whenever someone asked me a question.      What made it even more memorable was the fact that we flew to Hyderabad together from Pune. I couldn’t help but feel a mix of awe and ...

They called him Doc Not just because he fixed stomachs in the city hospital, but because he had a way of diagnosing a defect in a golf swing with surgical precision. But out here, among dew-draped greens and wind-swept fairways, he wasn’t a doctor. He was a seeker. A man among friends chasing rhythm and stillness.  But something was off this past week. His swing lacked soul. His presence—usually so grounded—felt scattered. On Sunday, he chose solitude, as he had on a few occasions before. No scorecard, no stakes, no audience. Just a bag of clubs, a mind crowded with memories, and a heart full of questions.  The first hole did not offer any comfort.  The swing was stiff. The rhythm felt foreign. Shots veered to the left or the right. Putts lipped out.  Small flaws—but enough to unravel the thread. The silence, usually soothing, only echoed his unrest. . The quiet, usually soothing, only echoed his doubts. By  the seventh hole, he considered turning back. Tir...