I was born into a financially comfortable doctor’s family in South India, so naturally we looked to the medical establishment for an explanation of my seizures. In the years after I had my first seizure at the age of 11, I spent a lot of time in and out of hospitals, waiting for doctors and test results.

The barrage of invasive and uncomfortable tests eventually bore fruit and the doctors were able to establish that my seizures were due to epilepsy, originating in ‘foci’ of electrical activity in the brain.