Bedside and Beyond: A Doctor’s Story of Change

I was born in the land of snow-capped peaks and glassy lakes — Kashmir — where I spent 17 years of my life surrounded by mountains and the comfort of familiarity. I grew up in Srinagar- where the rhythm of life flowed with the seasons. Our home stood in a close-knit neighbourhood of Habba Kadal, where friendships were natural and boundaries felt like gentle suggestions rather than dividing lines. As a child, I had never truly understood what it meant to be “other.”

Until the day I did.

It wasn’t a stranger who shattered the illusion, but a neighbour. Someone who had once shared tea and stories with us. “Leave, convert, or die,” they said — not in a distant news report, but directly to us. That moment cleaved my life in two: before and after. We left behind the mountains and memory-laden lanes for the impersonal hum of concrete cities and unfamiliar roads. And in that abrupt displacement, the first seeds of resilience were planted.

In a world that had suddenly become unrecognisable, I clung to the values of my KP community and the dream that my parents had. Their strength — silent, enduring, and determined — lit the way forward. And I became a doctor.

Clinical life brought with it a strange sense of peace. The white coat, the rounds, the surgical routines — these were the rhythms I had been trained in, and they gave me a sense of certainty that I’d once lost. There was even a new dream forming — a state of the art- critical care unit of my own, where I could combine empathy with expertise, compassion with care.

And then, change knocked again.

An opportunity presented itself: an MBA in Hospital Administration in the United States. At first, I resisted. After all, wasn’t I already where I was supposed to be? But something stirred — maybe it was ambition, maybe curiosity, maybe just the old habit of adapting when life shifted suddenly. I said yes to a couple of important things at that time- to my husband and to a new degree.

What I didn’t know was that I was not just saying yes to a degree. I was saying yes to transformation.

In the US, I became a student again — older than most of my classmates, carrying not just textbooks but the weight of a loan, a newly married life, then a new baby, and the unfamiliarity of life in a foreign land with no family nearby. Every choice came with a cost. The nights were long, the doubts constant, and the money tight. I felt that I needed to do something pronto— not just to stay afloat, but to give myself and my family a stable today and not just work for a promised tomorrow.