It was December 2019. A young ophthalmologist was lying down on the cold, hard surface of the operation table. Her eyes were wide open and she was conscious of the fact that there were surgeons and nurses standing around her head.

  She knew it was going to be a long surgery of over 10 hours and she had to brave it with no anaesthesia, but she was determined to beat the odds. As thoughts whirled around her mind, she suddenly felt the driller crack through her skull that first plunged her into a tunnel of darkness and then hurtled her towards blinding bright light.

  “Light that nearly felt like rebirth, a new beginning,” says Dr. Shanthipriya Siva, as she reminisces her surgery for deep brain stimulation.

  A passionate ophthalmologist by profession, Shanthipriya was in her late 30s when in 2010 her husband and son noticed that her right arm wasn’t swinging. But being a medical practitioner and a fitness....