India Science Book Fellowship 2025-26

My book, Working Staff: The Life of a Forensic Medicine and Toxicology Resident in India, is a chronicle of life as a Forensic Medicine and Toxicology resident in India. It is built around the patients, deaths, investigations, ethical dilemmas, and human stories I encountered during my medical training in Delhi, Bhopal and Raipur—the experiences that challenged my assumptions, shaped my thinking, and influenced the physician I became.

It offers a glimpse behind the doors of mortuaries, courtrooms, and toxicology units, through the eyes of a young doctor. It explores the pressures of medical education, the emotional burden of witnessing suffering, and the social and healthcare realities that surround illness, injury, poisoning, and death which make you realize why forensic medicine is a necessary part of the real world. Behind the label lies a remarkable collection of individuals: educated, skilled, curious, and deeply observant people whose faces are rarely remembered even as their contributions remain indispensable. It is a reflection on medicine, morality, and the people who work at the intersection of medicine, law, and tragedy. Their lives, ambitions, frustrations, humor, and peculiarities are as much a part of the story as the cases they investigate, the questions they answer, and the lives they help save. In doing so, the book argues that forensic medicine is not just about the dead – it is for the living: the patients, families, professionals, and communities whose lives are shaped by the subject.