Sutures and Wanderlust

"cheers" "I haven't done any other step but I've done step 4 and that's the most important one" "kuddooooooosi" "look, stay with us, we'll all cry together, ok?" "yawr" "ayesha, no" "you're like the cat you know, you get chased by dogs, and then you want attention but you push away the people who give it to you" "are you agnostic too?" "I will make chai for you but then you have to promise you will be quiet and let me study" "let's go to the cafe, we'll study there" "let's go to the football field, we'll dance there" "do you have milk? no, not for me, for the cat" "you're coffee mug is my coffee mug's baby cup!!" "people can do anything" "am i still fake?" "did he make you cry? we'll go punch him in the face if he did" "you're just like the...

I was a third year medical student. My first clinical rotation was General Surgery. I still remember the first weekend I was on call. I remember the first time I received a patient on call in the OR. I remember his name. I remember his face. I remember everything about him. If he were to walk by I would still recognise him. Except he won't. He won't be able to walk by ever. That night, a single, small bullet had taken away from our patient his ability to walk, forever. And so it had taken from him life as he knew it. He was a young man, with dreams and hopes. He was to be married in a few days before this happened. And all that he was left with was a colostomy bag and wheel chair. Every time a resident, a consultant, a medical student visited him he would say, 'please make me walk again'. It can make one think of all the time we spent on learning the tracts and leminisci in the spine, the pathways travelling in the spinal cord in beautiful nerve bundles. And how a sm...

Dunkin Donuts Harvard Charles River Hera the cat My lovely flatmate My friend Emily How I could just walk everywhere Boston Accent Harvard A lot of other people like me- who were, like me, between places, careers, spaces in their minds and hearts Diversity The T A hospital virtually around every corner Universities every few blocks This amazing feeling, that anything and everything was possible

"This is a city of shifting light, of changing skies, of sudden vistas. A city so beautiful it breaks the heart again and again."   Alexander Mcall Smith  What do you do with such a beautiful city? Do you love it? Do you fall in love with it?  Or do you just let it break your heart, again and again, regardless of everything? Well, obviously you let it break your heart. More than once; twice or thrice, or more. Not because you love the city. No, not at all. Because beauty demands tribute. What better tribute to give, than a broken heart. Karachi is a city of lights. For me it is the city of lights. The city where I opened my eyes in dark and light, like a newborn in this world. I wasn't born here. But I didn't know anything of the world, until I moved here. It filled me with all the bitterness in the world. And then one day it took all that bitterness away. Like the ebb and flow of bitter, salty, sea water.  At first, everything felt rusted. The air smelle...

I was rotating in anaesthesia. Standing in the preop area, waiting for the next patient for our operation room to arrive, I overheard perhaps one of the most significant conversations of my life. There was a young patient, and her OBGYN. There was some talk about removing her uterus, perhaps a cancer or something else threatening her life. I couldn't really hear. I wasn't paying any attention to it. They were going to remove her uterus to save her life. That much I could tell. And then she asked her doctor a simple question. A simple yet bone chilling question. "meray paas bachadani nahi hoge tw mujh se shaadi kaun karay ga?" (if i don't have a womb, who is going to marry me?) The doctor paused. Smiled reassuringly. "Beta shadi bachadani se thori hoti hai." (Child, it's not the womb one marries) I couldn't stop thinking over these words. The day ended. Our operation room list finished. I changed out of my scrubs. I walked my way back...

Dr Ruth Pfau came to a land, far away from her home in Germany, in 1960. And since then she has spent 50 years of her life,serving people, in a strange land, people who don't speak her language, who don't look like her, and who are shunned by the world for their suffering. But she learned their language, and she accepted them, making the world accept them. On a visit to Mary Adeleide Leprsoy Center, we visited her home as well,which is in fact within the center. There is her room, a shelf with some books and a frame of her parents picture, and chirping birds. She has lived here for the past 50 years. How does one do that? Make home in a strange land. Tirelessly remain in servitude to humanity for so long. I wonder if she ever gets tired. I wonder how has she managed to do what she does. I wonder how did she have the heart to give up a life of ease at such a young age and never regret it. When I think for an answer to these questions, I'...