Briefly...

 

 

 

A good friend whom I asked for advice about setting up a blog, told me that the best way is go for it and not spend too much time analysing the HOW.

 

The briefest of briefs to discribe me would be: "A Quack turned Hack." In today's world, where money dictates every profession, that is only a mild pejorative that close friends would use to describe a surgeon-cum-novelist. Right now I earn only from my words but continue to treat patients. Until a few years ago, it was the other way round. Please do not ask me which of my two pursuits is more important. I might say something foolish and then have to eat my words, which would be disastrous since I'm trying to make a living from those damn things.

 

I had a good childhood. Nothing special. Except that when I first made my appearance, in my mother's village home in Coorg, my father happened to be peeping through the window of the small dark room. He watched me 'Come Out'. I feel rather special when I think of it. In that small home lived two families with four parents and nineteen children, ten of them female. My mother was the oldest among the girls. The young father needed some pluck to take the risk of watching his daughter being born.

 

I grew up like any village girl. And being from Coorg (Kodavas or Coorgs and not Coorgis, please)  I was reared on a diet of wild meat, crabs, river fish, mushroom, bamboo shoots and the like; I went barefoot to the village school and generally had a merry time. My later years took me to Delhi and then to medical college in Bangalore. I did my higher training in UK and took the fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons, London.

 

My surgical career has mainly been in rural India -- Bihar, UP, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. For seven years I worked for Tata group of hospitals in the south, and won the Tata Excellence Award for my work in 2001. As a member of the Association of Rural Surgeons of India, I've been on their governing council from 2004 to 2007. I now help in editing their journal.

Alongside my fascinating and full-time profession, I started to write. Mainly fiction, first for children and then adults. (My doctor friends used to be a bit embarrassed:  "You write stories?")

 

 My latest work, The Story that must Not be Told  was shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2008. It will be published in July 2010 by Penguin India.

 

A quick list of my adult novels:

 

Most recent first.

The Hills of Angheri. Penguin India 2005: the story of a surgeon battling the conflicts between city and rural practice.

On Wings of Butterflies, Penguin India 2002: a feminist farce about the war between women and men

Mango-coloured Fish, Penguin India 1998: a young woman studies the marriages of those she knows while wondering about her own choice

Shortlisted for the Crossword Book Award, 1999

The Scent of Pepper, Penguin India 1996: the story of three generations of a martial community deeply influenced by British settlement

Reprinted in the UK by Penguin, 2001; translated into Malayalam 2002; will appear in a new, revised edition in July 2010.

The Truth (almost) about Bharat, Penguin India 1991: a medical student takes off on a wild motorcycle journey across India, meeting bandits, politicians – and doctors

Reissued by Penguin India 2002

In the 1980s I wrote a number of short stories, three picture-books and three full-length stories for children. The books were all published by Children's Book Trust, New Delhi. Two won CBT awards and one a UNICEF award; one story was serialised on the National TV channel.

 

 I also write for the media on a variety of medical issues but my first love is fiction.

 

I now devote more time to my writing. I run a medical centre for migrant workers in Tungarli, Lonavla. Along with my husband and some friends, I also run the Nalanda Learning Centre and Library Project. (www.nalandatrust.org)