It was the summer of 2011 at NIMHANS, Bangalore. Dr. Shah had come there to do his MD. He advised me to get admitted for a month as I had a very strange kind of OCD. He visited me every day (routine visit) to diagnose

It was the summer of 2011 at NIMHANS, Bangalore. Dr. Shah had come there to do his MD. He advised me to get admitted for a month as I had a very strange kind of OCD. He visited me every day (routine visit) to diagnose my condition and help me overcome anxiety. I had been on clonazepam and Zolpidem (sedative) for quite some years now and he advised me to taper them off slowly. He assured me that he would even pick up my calls at midnight so that I could get medicines from the nurse (we were not allowed to keep medicines) if my condition worsened. He was a doctor who not only carried Latin words in his brain but also empathy in his heart. I was a 32-year-old man then and he was quite young. I tried to befriend him but he always maintained the difference that a professional psychiatrist needs to maintain with his patients. However, he treated my mother as if she was his mother. The day before I was about to be discharged, I offered him a pen as a token of our 'friendship' which he accepted with his innocent smile. Dharav has played a big role in reinstating the sound sleep that I enjoy nowadays.