It was a rainy evening. I was in the back seat of my car, returning home after a long, hectic day at work. It was the 1st of July. Earlier that afternoon, I’d made a journal entry about how eventful June had been. I was simply jotting down incidents, and I realised just how many firsts the month had brought into my life. Then, somewhere during the drive, I found myself listening to songs that I once associated with ‘N’. But something had changed. I wasn’t grieving him anymore. I was simply… cosying up to the idea of him. Love had become a pleasant nostalgia. Even without a partner, love still existed—and it no longer hurt. It felt like a memory. A safe one. One of my own making. A space that felt like a warm hug. Arms that felt like love and safety. And then my mind wandered back to something my therapist had called me a couple of months earlier… “A hopeless romantic.” We processed a great deal after that—work that, in many ways, helped me arrive at the centredness I experience today. I’ll write about that journey another day, in another blog. But for now, that memory […]

“You don’t look like a doctor!” I’ve heard that quite a few times, less and less over the years… People usually mean it as an observation. Sometimes it’s a compliment. Sometimes it’s criticism disguised as curiosity.My response is usually simple, ” I know” or “I don’t want to!”Because to look like a doctor, I first have to conform to someone else’s idea of what a doctor should look like. And I’ve never been particularly good at conforming to norms. There have been days when a patient’s father has looked at me and laughed, “You look like a rockstar.”I smiled and replied, “I am a rockstar that fixes smiles.” I took that as one of the nicest compliments I’ve ever received.Why should medicine and personality be mutually exclusive? Why can’t a doctor have long hair, a beard, pierced ears, tattoos, colourful socks, or a loud laugh? Why is competence so often judged by appearance before character? But then not every interaction is pleasant, though. Once, I was about to consult a patient whom I had already been warned could be rude. As I began taking the medical history, the patient muttered one word— “Gay kahin ka!” —and walked out.Perhaps there was […]