Penbugs
InspiringShort Stories

Au Revoir [Book Review]: The Pain and the Glory of Being a Doctor

You turn on any news channel today, you witness the rigorous labour of our health care workers to fight this pandemic situation, to do their best to save people from their sufferings while a loud mob, unruly group still cry how doctors are out to get people’s blood and money, how it’s only been a profitable business for them. I invite, who lend their ears to such accusative slams, to learn about the time when Dr. Sara took the responsibility, in one of her cases, to lie to a little girl to stop her ordeal because Sara didn’t want the girl to believe that she might be the reason behind her own mother’s death. Doesn’t it shake your ground?

Au Revoir by Dr. Sara Jothi is an uncompromising memoir of her first-hand experiences of being a life-saving doctor. It contours the explosive ordinariness of her undulating medical profession which tells us it’s not at all a smooth sail. She is honest, vulnerable and proudly admits that she is a learner, a wondrerful one at it. Sara inspires you with her cleverness, her wry exasperation and her penchant to do what her heart set out to do. Here, her heart tells her to accept the unfairness in life and be grateful for the little kindness that’s there in the corner of our lives. The pain, in her life, is woven into the very fabric of her relationship with her profession. She reveals the pain and glory that surround her work.

Dr. Sara offers an excellent pageturner with her beautiful 104 pages memoir without any artificial gimmicks or dramatic moments even when all the things she deals with are larger than one’s life. She takes the stage not to boast her achievement but to proudly bow down after surviving it all. She allows us to live along with her painful, emotional moments. Her persuasive reflection upon the crucial moments of her life when all she wanted for her mother to survive her cancer. Her morose is easily transformed to you when she says she was relieved to see her mother is still alive while sleeping, relieved to see her taking every breath.

This book is lyrical, tall and impressive. It reveals and exposes the moments of collapses within and around Dr. Sara. She takes us on a little journey where she shows how Dr. Sara has learned to empathise with and understand the human nature, which integrates the anger, the fear, the courage, the fragility and the morose. Au Revoir is a must read.

Leave a Comment