My Journey as a Blogger!

“Mom, you are such a good storyteller. You should start writing these stories down.” When my son said this to me, I brushed it off, saying it was impossible; I do not have any writing skills. Storytelling is different from writing. At that moment, I did not know that my son would make me a blogger. He kept on insisting that I write. He explained that I should start by writing just a few lines and revisit them whenever I feel. I was hesitant to write my story about becoming a licensed physician in the USA. In my opinion, everyone works hard and has their own story, so what is the big deal about my story? But my son kept insisting, and he told me that my story is a little different and can be inspirational to mothers who want to start their careers while raising their children. Finally, I agreed to try writing.

One weekend, I decided to write a few lines in my primary language, Marathi. I was curious to know how much I could write. It was difficult at first, the first few lines are always the most difficult. But once I started writing about my journey I could not stop. Before I knew it, I finished the whole article in 3 hours. I was so involved and went into flashbacks while writing and did not realize that I wrote the entire story in a single stretch. My husband and children do not read/write Marathi, so they could not give me feedback on what I wrote. My son helped me to use BlogSpot to publish and share my article. And so, my very first article got published on 13th July 2019. My family, friends, and readers showered me with comments, compliments, and praise, which encouraged me to continue writing in Marathi. I recollected my patient stories from 25 years ago when I practiced in India and penned them down. Non-Marathi readers requested an English version of those interesting patient stories, and so I gave them what they asked for. One by one, I slowly started publishing and sharing my articles in both languages. While writing about my parents, I was very emotional and overwhelmed by memories from my childhood. I am so glad I wrote down their stories so people can know how great they were.

On my 25th marriage anniversary, 25th December 2019, my son gifted me a website domain Drsavitra.com. It was a pleasant surprise because I did not expect it. My son and daughter helped me design the website and taught me how to use it. In March 2020, COVID entered our lives. Everyone was worried and desperate and was looking for information. In mid-March, I wrote a simple article about COVID in Marathi to help people understand the basics. It went viral with more than 6,000 page views within days of publishing. It was a gratifying experience to feel that my small effort was helpful to thousands of people. It was my small contribution to society during the pandemic. At people’s request, I wrote about COVID precautions, Corona variants, and vaccines. I learned the power of writing. With one article, I could reach tens of thousands of people. As a doctor, I can greatly help a few hundred patients a month, and with my medical articles, I could help thousands. This is not to say one is better than the other, but that with writing I can interact and inform people all over the world.

When I realized that this is a good platform to educate people about health, I started writing articles on good sleeping habits, adequate water intake, screen time usage, healthy diet, physical activities, mental health, omega-3 fish oil benefits, the importance of screening tests, vitamins & minerals, how to boost immunity, diabetes, cholesterol and the list goes on. Initially, I wrote those topics in English. Later, I translated them into Marathi for my readers. I had to put more effort into writing in Marathi than in English as I needed to search and find Marathi words for medical terminology. Translating information, especially medical information, is not easy. It is not as simple as replacing English words with a Marathi equivalent. If you did that, you could easily lose meaning and nuance. With the feedback I received from my Marathi readers, it was clear there was an underrepresentation of good medical information available to them. Only because we all have access to the internet does not mean we all have access to the same quality of content. The languages we know can make a huge difference. I also wrote on time management, inferiority complex, alone Vs. lonely, emotional intelligence, super brain yoga, inspirational quotes, and a collection of jokes in Marathi.

As Marathi is my first language, I can express my feelings better in Marathi. Hence, I wrote about memories of my siblings, nephews-nieces, and other life events. I have an extended family and to include them in my articles, I asked them to pose for my article cover photos. Now, whenever I go on my website and look at all my articles, I get to see my wonderful extended family being a part of something that I worked very hard on. I am a child neurologist, and I see children with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder), ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), migraines, concussion, febrile seizures, and epilepsy (recurrent convulsions). I wrote on these topics to spread awareness in society which will benefit children to get a timely diagnosis and help for a better prognosis. Those articles are helpful for my patients and their parents too.

I was getting close to making a century of articles; when my children asked me to write down my recipes for them. My children said that they wanted to have my recipes so that they could use them to cook for themselves when they move out. So, I created a new page, “Savi’s Kitchen,” in January 2022. As I cook, I take pictures of the ingredients and steps and write down the recipe whenever I get time. I started sharing one recipe every week on social media with the hashtag #weekendrecipe. Cooking is a way I connect with my family and Indian heritage. I wanted to expose others to the types of food I was taught and learned, but to also get recipes from others. I continue to learn how diverse the cooking landscape is in India. I hear from my readers the interesting twists in ingredients and other tips and tricks. I grew to appreciate how much of our ‘regular’ dishes are influenced by where we are born and the culture we have.

My journey as a blogger started in July, 2019. Since then, I have learned much more about medicine, life lessons, and myself. I learned a lot of technology, new apps, and software and have been using them effectively. I have relatives in different parts of India; some of them can speak Marathi but cannot read/write it. I made Audio versions of my Marathi articles for them. I also created myYouTube channel and uploaded a few videos too. We even started celebrating “blog anniversary”. ☺

I received so much love and encouragement from my readers. I was able to connect with so many people. It is very satisfying to receive comments like: “If you want to activate your brain cells and stay updated, visit DrSavitra’s blog”; “Your articles helped me to improve my health during the pandemic”; “I have been looking for information on diabetes, and this is the best article in simple language I encountered so far”; “Thank you for caring for us and for taking the time to prepare the articles; “You explained the complicated topic in very easy language and shared a lot of important information”; “You have the talent of making any topic simple and understandable” and so on.

The viewership on my 250 articles is more than 100,000 page views! All the credit goes to you, my readers. I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart! 🙏It was not possible without you. Last but not least, thanks to my family 💖 for supporting me during this journey. Thanks to my son, daughter, coworker for proofreading some my English articles and my school friends for proofreading few of my Marathi articles. And my son, whom I consider my guru, it was not possible without him! 💗