From a doctor's diary by Shri Gopal Kabra is a small volume about the size of the Indian Journal of Leprosy, and like the journal, arrived wrapped in a sheet of plain brown paper tied cross-wise with white string. It stared hopefully back at me from my table for a few days until my curiosity got the better of me, and I cut the string to look inside. The front cover is designed tastefully, giving the appearance of parchment splotched with dried blood-stains, with drawings of a vertebral column, a brain in saggital section, a stethoscope, and fading, cursive text in the background. The back cover details a frightening list of the author's qualifications and interests, ranging from medicine and law, anatomy, surgery and medical audit to medical journalism, and authorship of collections of short stories in Hindi. Not quite certain of what lay ahead, I started reading with some trepidation.