humans of leap - dr. anjali kumar
a gynaecologist, surgeon, doting mother, and the force behind maitri. from serving in the indian army to building a WHO-verified information health portal – this is dr. anjali kumar's story.
there are moments in life that change everything. but sometimes, the biggest transformations don’t come with grand realisations. they come quietly, in the spaces where duty meets passion, where instinct meets action, where you simply keep going until one day, you realise—you’ve built something bigger than yourself.
for me, that moment wasn’t when i first stepped into a hospital, or when i was posted in a remote valley as an army doctor, or even when i held my own child in my arms for the first time. it came much later—when a group of women from the middle east wrote to me saying they gather every week to watch my videos. to understand their bodies. to unlearn what they had been told. to make sure their daughters don’t have to suffer the same silence.
that was when i knew—this was about more than just medicine. this was about reclaiming knowledge, reclaiming autonomy, reclaiming power.
i grew up in a home where my mother carried the weight of everything – our home, our family, and the invisible expectations that followed her like a shadow. she was a teacher, my father a clerk, and between them, they built a life that was ordinary but full of quiet strength. i can’t recall a single day when i didn’t see my mother working relentlessly without a complaint, and somewhere along the way i absorbed that lesson: you show up, you do the work, you give your best, no matter what.
but, every generation learns and unlearns in its own way. for me, it was realising that love didn’t always mean sacrifice or having to ‘let go’. so, when i had children of my own, i knew i wanted them to grow up with the liberty of choice. but choice, as freeing as it is, comes with responsibility. if you choose something, you own it. three decades later, my heart soars when i see my kids living by that—diligently, unapologetically.
medicine chose me before i chose it
there was no grand “aha” moment in my life. my parents wanted me to be a doctor, and i simply said yes. sometimes, the real blessings come from paths you never question. but, medicine has a way of pulling you in. it rewires how you see the world. i remember stepping into the hospital, and everything else became white noise. the long hours, the impossibly tricky decisions, the moments where life dangles by a thread – none of that was theoretical anymore. it put me in a spot that was as real as ‘make or break’ gets and let’s just say the latter of the two stopped being an option.
very recently, i was in surgery with a woman – nine months pregnant, haemorrhaging, a massive fibroid threatening both her life and her baby's. in those moments, there is no space for doubt, no time to hesitate. you move. you act. and if skill, and sometimes fate, is on your side - you save a life.
but, as a doctor, you carry the weight of the ones you lose, the ones who never make it to your table, the ones whose faces you remember long after the workday ends. and yet, you show up again because there are far too many lives to help to call it quits.
the indian army, and learning to live with the unknown
but love has a funny way of rewriting your plans. i fell in love with an nda cadet at 23, and before i knew it, i was not just married to the army, but a part of it myself.
in 1997-98, i was posted in tenga valley, a place i had to locate on a map before i got there. i had to go on frequent field visits. i was the only woman. and on top of that, i was on my period. i had no idea where i could change, where i could rest. there was no infrastructure for something as simple as that. but the indian army can teach you survival :)
and then there was ‘operation parakram’ in 2001-2002. my husband called me, his voice steady, his words simple— “from now on, no news is good news.”
my heart sank then. the army is a different kind of battle, the one you fight in your mind. it teaches you how to live with the unknown, to hold your breath without compromising on your duty, to make the most of what you have.
for the five years i was serving, i juggled my career and motherhood, raising my two-year-old daughter and six year-old son while my husband and i were stationed in different parts of the country. there was no room for regret—only resilience.
those years truly built me. they taught me that you cannot be a good doctor at the cost of being a bad mother. both things have to co-exist. prioritisation, delegation—these are not just management skills; they are survival skills.
maitri: rewriting the conversation on women’s health
for the longest time, my work was confined to hospital walls. but in 2020, my daughter sat me down and said “mumma, you need to create content to reach more people”. i laughed. you can imagine how unrealistic that sounded to me. what i was hearing was that a 56-year-old gynaecologist with 24 hours falling short in a day was being asked to create content.
then i thought—what is the point of knowledge if it doesn’t reach the people who need it most? and so, i took the leap.
my son helped me name it, my daughter set up the domain and as a family, we built maitri—a digital platform designed to do what medical textbooks and traditional clinics never did: create a safe, stigma-free space for women to truly understand their bodies.
no shame. no judgment. just real, honest conversations about health, sexuality, pregnancy, contraception, menopause, and everything in between.
our mission? to remove the misinformation, silence, and fear that have controlled women’s health for far too long. and then, the unthinkable happened : we got verified by the world health organisation.
it was a full-circle moment. recognition not just for me, but for the thousands of women who have trusted maitri, who have found answers in our work.
so much of our lives have been dictated by these unspoken rules. i refuse to let the next generation grow up with the same silence.
i work 14-hour days.
i head the gynaecology department of a hospital
i hold one of the highest qualification in my field.
i am a mother.
i am a wife.
i am a founder.
and i am human.
the least i can do is promise myself one thing—i will never make myself feel guilty.
because this work matters. because knowledge is power. because one day, women will no longer whisper when they talk about their bodies. one day, we will be truly free. until then, we keep showing up.
and to my younger self?
you have no idea how good it’s going to get. life has so much magic in store for you. keep at it!
leap.club is a network for ambitious women. the impact we make: love.leap.club