Interview with Dr Mazda Turel, Author of Bheja Fry

Dr Mazda reflects on Bheja Fry, exploring resilience, healing, hope, and the power of human connection.
on Jul 18, 2026

Frontlist: Our July theme is "The Inner Life of Stories." While writing Bheja Fry, how did revisiting these patients journeys influence your own understanding of resilience, vulnerability, and the human spirit?

Dr Mazda: As surgeons, we are trained to focus on outcomes. Tumour removed. Aneurysm clipped. Spine fixed. We like neat endings because medicine is often messy enough already. But writing Bheja Fry forced me to revisit journeys rather than outcomes. And what struck me was that resilience rarely looks heroic when you're living through it. It looks like a frightened mother signing a consent form with trembling hands. It looks like a teenager cracking a bad joke before brain surgery. It looks like a family sharing hospital canteen tea at midnight because they don't know what else to do.

I also realised how vulnerable all of us are. We spend our lives making plans, and then a tiny blood vessel decides otherwise. The brain has a remarkable way of humbling human ambition. Yet, paradoxically, that vulnerability is where much of our strength comes from. The patients in this book taught me that the human spirit is not about being fearless. It's about carrying on despite the fear. As Leonard Cohen wrote, "There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in." Hospitals are full of cracks - and astonishing amounts of light.

Frontlist: Many of the stories in the book are deeply emotional. Was there a particular patient encounter that stayed with you long after the treatment ended and ultimately changed you as a person?

Dr Mazda: There have been many, but the ones that stay with me are often not the most medically dramatic.I remember patients who taught me grace. People who had every reason to be angry at the universe yet remained generous, funny, and kind. One patient woke up after major brain surgery and immediately asked whether I had managed to eat lunch. I had just spent eight hours worrying about his brain, and he was worried about my sandwich. That moment has stayed with me for years. Then there was another couple who decided to go ahead with their wedding despite being diagnosed with Stage 4 brain cancer a week before their date.

Neurosurgery often gives us a front-row seat to humanity stripped of its usual disguises. Wealth, status, ego - none of these matter much when you're lying in a hospital bed wearing a gown that seems specifically designed to destroy dignity. Those encounters changed me because they reminded me that medicine is not simply about fixing anatomy. It's about accompanying people through some of the most frightening chapters of their lives. And often, the patients end up teaching the doctor far more than the doctor teaches them.

Frontlist: As a neurosurgeon, you are trained to diagnose and treat medical conditions. As a storyteller, you explore emotions, relationships, and hope. How did you balance these two perspectives while writing the book?

Dr Mazda: The neurosurgeon in me wanted everything to be accurate. The storyteller in me wanted everything to be true. Those are not always the same thing.

Medical accuracy is relatively straightforward. We can explain scans, tumours, aneurysms, and operations. But the truth of an experience lies elsewhere - in the fear before surgery, the relief afterwards, the jokes families tell to survive impossible situations, and the quiet moments nobody documents in medical notes.

A hospital file might say, "Patient underwent successful surgery." A story asks, "What was he thinking when he kissed his daughter goodbye before entering the operating theatre?"

That was the balance I tried to strike. The science provides the skeleton. The human experience provides the soul. And fortunately, the brain is fascinating enough that I never had to invent drama. Nature had already done most of the scriptwriting.

Frontlist: Several stories highlight extraordinary courage in the face of illness. What have your patients taught you about finding meaning and strength during life's most difficult moments?

Dr Mazda: One of the biggest surprises of my career is that people are often far stronger than they believe they are.

Nobody wakes up thinking, "I hope I develop a brain tumour today so I can discover my inner strength." Yet when adversity arrives, most people somehow find reserves they never knew existed. Patients have taught me that meaning is rarely found in grand philosophical revelations. More often, it is found in small things: a spouse holding a hand, a child drawing a get-well card, a family meal after discharge, a morning when a headache finally disappears.

Viktor Frankl wrote that those who have a "why" can bear almost any "how." I see that every day. People endure remarkable hardships when they have someone to return home to, something to fight for, or simply hope that tomorrow may be a little better than today.

And occasionally, they find strength by laughing at circumstances that seem entirely unfunny. Never underestimate the therapeutic value of terrible hospital jokes.

Frontlist: The book reveals the human side of medicine with warmth and humour. Do you believe storytelling can be a form of healing not only for patients and families, but also for doctors themselves?

Dr Mazda: Absolutely.
Doctors accumulate stories the way old houses accumulate dust. Over years, they settle quietly into corners of the mind. Most of us keep moving because there is always another patient, another emergency, another operation.

Writing forced me to stop and revisit those memories. in many ways, Bheja Fry became an exercise in reflection. It allowed me to process moments that had made me laugh, grieve, worry, and occasionally question everything I thought I knew.

Stories create meaning from chaos. They help us organise experiences that otherwise remain scattered fragments. For patients and families, storytelling can transform suffering into something understandable. For doctors, it can prevent us from becoming emotionally numb. Medicine teaches us how to save lives. Stories remind us why those lives matter.

Frontlist: Behind every diagnosis is a personal story. How important is it for healthcare professionals to understand the emotional and psychological realities of their patients, beyond the clinical facts?

Dr Mazda: It is absolutely essential.
The scan tells me where the tumour is. The story tells me who the patient is. Both are important, but only one of them helps me understand what is truly at stake.

A diagnosis affects far more than a body part. It affects marriages, careers, dreams, fears, finances, identities, and family dynamics. A surgeon may see a meningioma. The patient may see a missed wedding, a postponed retirement, or the possibility of leaving young children behind.

When we understand those realities, medicine becomes more humane and often more effective. Sir William Osler famously said, "The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease."

I would only add that sometimes the patient also has a mother who is more anxious than the patient, a spouse who has spent three nights on Google, and an uncle who knows a miracle cure involving turmeric. Understanding all of that is part of the job too.

Frontlist: Many readers may see parts of their own struggles reflected in these stories. What do you hope they take away about hope, recovery, and navigating uncertainty?

Dr Mazda: I hope they realise that uncertainty is not a detour from life. It is life. We spend enormous amounts of energy trying to create certainty—career plans, financial plans, retirement plans, holiday itineraries that would impress military strategists. Then reality arrives and cheerfully ignores all of them.

The patients in Bheja Fry taught me that hope is not the belief that everything will be perfect. Hope is the decision to keep moving forward despite not knowing how the story ends. Recovery is rarely linear. There are setbacks, frustrations, and days when progress feels invisible. But healing often happens quietly, almost imperceptibly, until one day you realise you've travelled much further than you thought. If readers take away one thing, I hope it is this: human beings are remarkably resilient. We are far less fragile than we imagine and far more capable of adaptation than we give ourselves credit for.

Frontlist: Looking back at all the lives featured in Bheja Fry, what has been the most profound lesson about human connection that these stories have taught you?

Dr Mazda: That none of us gets through life alone. Modern culture celebrates independence, but hospitals reveal a deeper truth. Every patient arrives surrounded by invisible networks of love, friendship, sacrifice, and support.

A successful surgery may last six hours. The caregiving that follows can last months or years. Again and again, I have witnessed extraordinary acts of devotion—spouses who never leave the bedside, parents who move mountains for their children, friends who quietly show up when needed.

Those moments have convinced me that human connection is perhaps the most powerful force in healing. Not because it eliminates suffering, but because it makes suffering bearable.

At the end of the day, patients rarely remember the technical details of an operation. They remember who stood beside them when they were afraid. And perhaps that is the central lesson of Bheja Fry: the brain may be the most complex structure in the known universe, but the thing that sustains it best is still something wonderfully simple - other human beings.