Life as I know it

The term “Quarter life crisis” is a fairly millennial one. Not to discount anything the older generations had to endure but truth is every generation has had to bear the brunt of their times and in our case, I think our biggest nemesis are expectations. Well, we live in an era where kids as young as seven code for fun, have thriving YouTube accounts with pretty sordid earnings and own actual companies! Literally every third person you meet is either an influencer or a TikTok star. If you don't believe me, Google it and you will be shocked at the number of successful child entrepreneurs. Trigger warning: Seeing kids a quarter of your age earn more than you have ever made in your lifetime may be a teeny bit disheartening! I have to be honest and say I am totally guilty of being one of those people who sees YouTube videos and go "OMG..I can totally do that". Now if you ask me whether I will actually take the trouble to find a spot in my house with ample lighting, declutter i...

Being a dusky skinned child in an Indian society is an experience all by itself. Being branded as one of the lesser fortunate ones, probably from the minute you are born, you grow up being pitied on by most of your community. Not to mention the countless advice you get on what fairness creams and turmeric and milk can do for your complexion. And in all fairness, it becomes hard to question their motives as the entire societal mindset is regressive enough to make these "well meaning" individuals truly feel like they come from a place of love and deep concern for your future. As you grow older, and you have exhausted all the possible traditional hacks and high-end products, you embrace who you are. Not that you won’t get reminded of your ‘misfortune’, at extremely regular intervals but you somehow realize that sometimes, the only way to react to people is not to react at all. But if you think running away from the aunties who ‘say it as it is’ solves the problem, you are in...

Considering the multiple queries that I received asking for advice on how to go about the Indian NEET PG counselling, I thought this would be a good time to write about choosing the right post graduation. An honest disclaimer, this would be a very personal blog with my very biased personal opinions. So please bear with me in case you think differently.   You may have decided to pursue medicine for reasons of your own – continuing a family legacy or having a desire to truly help people or you were just enamored by the profession. Well, ultimately, the reason tends to take a backstage. When your class of 100 students, from multiple backgrounds, graduate as doctors, it means each one of you endured 5 years of pretty hard core studying and survived some really stressful examinations. While one graduates with the weird feeling of having worked hard, yet wondering if one is up to the mark to face the challenges that lie ahead, what you don’t realize is that all the while, your trai...