“I’m a doctor by profession. I believe that my job is to provide service for those in need, to make the world free of diseases and ill health. Of course, I can’t change the whole world. But I always wanted to do my bit. One day, I came across a tribal village (Bhadradri Kothagudem) on a news channel. I saw that they were facing many medical issues. On visiting the village, I realised that they had nothing – no water, no electricity, no clinics. I left everything behind in the city and moved to that Forest reserve. My wife supported me in every possible way. I formed a team and we had to start from scratch. It took me about 2 months to understand how the village is spread because these tribal people live in small parts in 60 km radius. So I’d take my bike and travel to each place and do some medical check-up. But they wouldn’t trust me, which is understandable. I was a random man from the city trying to live with them. Almost 3 months later, a severely malnourished baby, who should’ve ideally weighed 12 kg, was 4.2 kg and she was sick. It was time for us to give her immediate treatment because her life was in danger. Although they were hesitant to let me help them, I convinced them to give me a chance and took the onus of treating her. We took her to the nearest hospital and started giving her a lot of nutritious food and supplements. She survived and she’s about 9 kg now. This incident helped the villagers trust us. It later became easy to talk to them and bring them out of misery. But it’s not just medical needs. We had to start working on development that would, in turn, help us prevent diseases. We spoke to the head of this district and got them electricity. So snake bites decreased. We also got a small school set-up for kids. We’re now working on water, which is one of the major issues.

During summer, all the water bodies here dry up and they walk for about 2 km. Our idea is to provide them with a motor that can help them with underground water. But it’s not that easy. Everything here is rocks and trees. We’re living in a reserve forest land, that’s completely untouched by human exploitation. We want to provide them with everything but also be careful in not destroying nature here. It’s been about 2 years since I’m working with these people here. This is home now. Each day is an adventure but it’s the best adventures I’d ever do in my life.”

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