The Doctor Who Took To Her Passion Of Knitting – #WATWB
Mala Srikanth has seen it all, the heady heights of success and the despair of hitting rock bottom. She has braved the odds and has fought against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune like a brave warrior. Mala Srikanth was born to an army doctor and moved from city to city and consequently school to school as children of army personnel usually do.
She joined medical school and joined the army and became an officer in the north-east. She fell in love and married, left her job to take care of her two children. She resettled in a desert village in Oman and lived there amidst challenging circumstances for twelve full years. She mastered Arabic during this period and became the ‘Darling Doctor’ of the local masses who could cure any ailment they suffered from.
She returned to India for a more meaningful life and joined the WHO. This is when fate or destiny decided to give her life a twist. She suffered a serious life-changing accident that resulted in severe loss of memory and also affected her physical looks. But this did not deter Mala. It only resulted in her starting a second more meaningful innings in her life.
She left her family and friends and shifted to Ranikhet, a quite hill-station in Uttarakhand. In this remote corner of India, Dr. Mala turned again to the first love of her life viz knitting. Before moving to Ranikhet Dr. Mala had associated herself with an association of 1000 knitters in the hill-area called ‘Umang’.
This was the period when she decided to concentrate on quality. With the help of a friend and her daughters, she set up a pilot project for producing woolen and cotton shawls and stoles. The girls in the hills have benefitted immensely from Dr. Mala’s initiatives. They have learned to knit intricate lace patterns and learned the science and art of good knitting which has helped them earn a livelihood.
Dr. Mala is unassuming and says, ‘More than my helping them it is they who have helped me…
Read more about Dr. Mala Srikanth’s inspiring story here.
Thank you so much for sharing Dr. Mala's story and participating in WATWB. This is a wonderful story of how someone took life's hardship and turned it into a positive force for herself and the community.