Life can throw anything at you but the choices you make in a certain situation leads you on the most interesting path of all. When you look at the initial life of Dr Mukesh Batra it may come across as a set of haphazard steps but his compassion towards people made him create his own path and achieve what nobody had ever before.
Born to doctor parents, Mukesh was surprisingly not inclined towards choosing medicine as his career. The idea of charging people to treat their illnesses did not appeal to him but as he grew up he chose medicine for the rest of his life. He chose to study homeopathy despite the fact that it was less respected by the society then. But he believed that he should go deeper to understand his patients for more effective treatment.
As uncommon it may sound, Mukesh pursued a BA in psychology to understand his patients from a mental and emotional perspective alongside studying homeopathy.
He got married the very year of his graduation and financial pressure started building on him. He was offered a teaching position at his college for Rs 450 per month which was considered a good amount in 1973 but Mukesh declined the offer. This certainly disturbed his parents but Mukesh wished to gain some clinical experience.
He began interning with a clinic at a stipend which was only Rs 150. He was happy at this position because he said it gave him the experience which would help in the future. But the money was not sufficient to support his household. Their struggle is heartbreaking because despite being a doctor he had to live a life with minimum resources.
“There have been so many times when I didn’t get what I wanted. But I never let that bring down my positivity. I have a lot of internal strength”
For nine long years, he lived in a one-room congested apartment which was arranged by one of his friends. His home was far away from his workplace and he spent hours on commute and changed 3 buses to reach the clinic. Often situation went so bad that he and his wife had to share a vadapav and one cup of coffee. But these were the days that pushed him to strive harder for a better life and change his current situation.
Life took a turn when he decided to open his own clinic in 1982. He had become self-employed now and was gaining his patients’ trust. It was an extremely risky step for which he was left with no option but to obtain loans for interest as high as 36%. “It was a risk I had to take because that is the path an entrepreneur takes,” he says. The field of homeopathy was not considered a full-fledged science and to change this mindset Dr Batra wrote numerous articles for newspapers and magazines.
He invested heavily in making his clinic give a posh feel with all information now stored in a computerized manner. This approach was unique at that time and the results started showing and the growing number of patients made him understand the value of humility and dedication as it was a big responsibility when people are solely dependent on you for their well-being. The waiting list began to run full for one year and he did not have to look back ever again.
“I have been a dreamer all my life. The only difference is that I worked hard to make my dreams come true”
Dr Batra’s clinic has around 250 clinics all over the world now with branches even in Dubai, London and now aims aims to operate 450 clinics globally in the next five years and invest Rs 20 crore in international expansion in 2016-17. This one man is known to have treated many Bollywood celebrities and politicians. His clinics are raking in an annual turnover of around Rs 150 crore!
For his extraordinary contribution in the field of medicine, he was awarded Padma Shri in the year 2012. His talent to win trust of his patients has brought him a long way from the days of struggling in a small Mumbai apartment. His journey shows that one can make their own path without waiting for benchmarks to be set.
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