About Me
General Practitioner · Literary Translator · Writer
I am a general practitioner by profession and a Malayalam-to-English literary translator by calling. For more than a decade, my work has moved between the consulting room and the written page, and I have found that both ask the same things of me: close attention, honesty, and respect for the person on the other side.
Those who know me say I can find a genuine smile in the sternest of situations. I take that as the highest compliment. I am, by temperament, a no-nonsense person, and I prefer substance to show in medicine, in writing, and in life.
Medicine
I graduated from Government Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram, in the 1998 admission batch and worked for a while in private hospitals in Kerala. After a brief stint as an offshore medic, I completed an MBA at Aberystwyth University in Wales and spent two years in a management role in the UAE, where I helped establish a medical clinic in Ajman. Back in India, I worked for almost a year and a half at Ananthapuri Hospitals and Research Institute in Thiruvananthapuram before joining the Kerala State Health Services in 2014. I have since served at the Community Health Centre, Pinarayi, in Kannur; the General Hospital, Thiruvananthapuram; and the General Hospital, Neyyattinkara.
My years as a casualty medical officer taught me how a public health system works at its most demanding hour. Much of what I write about healthcare, the good and the bad, comes from those duties.
My particular clinical interest is in diabetes and thyroid disorders, and most of my private patients lived with one or both conditions. During the Covid-19 pandemic, I took on an administrative role and set up and ran a first-line Covid treatment centre for seven months without a single complaint. I am a life member of the Indian Medical Association.
I owe a lasting debt to Dr Bobby Moses, Consultant Physician at Ananthapuri Hospitals and Research Institute, Thiruvananthapuram. Since I first met him in March 2013, I have not met a better clinician or a more genuine human being. He restored my confidence in clinical practice at a pivotal point in my career, and I can never repay him.
Translation and Writing
I have translated four books from Malayalam into English, including two works by Benyamin: The City with a Dual Face, a travelogue on Karachi, and Silent Journeys, published by Penguin Random House India. My translations also include Magical Mist of Memories, the autobiography of the magician Gopinath Muthukad, and India My Spellbound Love.
Every book I translate opens with a Translator’s Note of my own, because I believe readers deserve to know the choices made on their behalf when a story crosses from one language into another.
On this site, I write about public healthcare, policy, artificial intelligence, history, cinema, books and music. I read non-fiction most seriously, particularly on India, nationalism, Kashmir, Pakistan and the Partition.
Music, Cinema and Books
Music has been my passion for as long as I can remember. I am a trained mridangam artist and was awarded the national CCRT scholarship in Mridangam at the age of thirteen. I am also an untrained but serious amateur singer.
I watch every sensibly made film I can, and always on the big screen. Ranjith’s Kaiyyoppu is my favourite Malayalam film, followed by three films by Shyamaprasad: Ore Kadal, Oru Njayaraazhcha and Arike. I consider Drishyam and Drishyam 2 among the finest screenplays in Malayalam cinema, and I think no director in India visualises a song better than Priyadarshan.
Kalki Krishnamurthy’s Ponniyin Selvan is my favourite work of fiction, followed closely by Benyamin’s Aadujeevitham. In non-fiction, my favourites are Dr. Shashi Tharoor’s An Era of Darkness and Declan Walsh’s The Nine Lives of Pakistan. Dr. Tharoor, Mehdi Hasan and Madiha Afzal are the voices I most enjoy reading and listening to.
Teaching
Beyond medicine and literature, I have a deep love for teaching. For more than a decade, I have taken every opportunity to teach, and I continue to learn from every student I meet.
Words I Return To
“It is a bit rich to oppress, enslave, kill and torture people for over 200 years and then celebrate the fact that they are democratic at the end of it.”
— Dr. Shashi Tharoor
“As circumstances change, we form new bonds and new friendships. The older ones become estranged for us then. We just shred them.”
— Benyamin
“Being nice should never be perceived as being weak. It is not a sign of weakness; it is a sign of courtesy, grace, manners and a woman’s ability to make everyone feel at home.”
— Benazir Bhutto