I grew up hoping to be a doctor someday. I had the test scores and the drive but not the financial backing that is integral if you are going to medical school in India. Sometimes, I think, it was a desperate decision, premature abandonment of a dream. Maybe I could have done it even without the money – with the help of scholarships and some support from extended family but back when I was 16, I was led to believe it was just impossible.

I now am a struggling hypochondriac, following the prolonged illness and death of my grandfather, so much so that walking into a hospital for a skin allergy test makes me more nervous than speaking in front of a crowd. So maybe a profession that needed me to practically live in the hospital examining people in pain who I wouldn’t always be able to help, was not best career choice for me.

But I just can’t help wondering if medical training and the power of all the knowledge that comes with it, would make me a stronger person, someone who would be more emotionally equipped to handle pain and uncertainty. Maybe, just maybe, I wouldn’t be a hypochondriac at all! Well, it’s all left to just wonder now that the time has slipped away. It is one of those questions in my life that will have to remain unanswered I guess…