A woman’s story of courage, hope, resilience and faith: In pictures

The journey began as a quiet one in a rural village in West Bengal’s Burdwan district.
When her father, who had died in the previous year, left her mother, she was only eight years old.
It was a lonely journey for her mother to go out of her way to help others.
“I didn’t know anything about the world,” she told the BBC.
“So I would just sit in the back room of the house.
That’s how I learnt about the spiritual world.
I would spend a lot of time with my parents.
I used to go to the mosque to pray.”
She said she had no idea about religion, but her parents always preached about the love of God.
“My parents always told me that God loves us and that He gives us strength,” she said.
“If God wants us to succeed, He will give us the strength.”
After a series of events, including the death of her father in October, the village was divided.
“They wanted me to go with them.
They didn’t want to go anywhere near the place where my father died.
So they forced me to stay in the house and my mother would take care of the kids,” she recalled.
“And then my mother died.
And then my father too died.
My family was really sad.
So I said, ‘I am leaving, I am leaving’.”
After a while, she realised that she was not leaving alone.
“It took a while for me to realise that I was not a child anymore,” she added.
“But I started working in the family and I was working as a medical doctor.
So when I was studying medicine, there were no doctors. “
When I was doing my practice, there was no doctor.
So when I was studying medicine, there were no doctors.
So after a while I realised that I could do it,” she recounted.
“Once I started doing the practice, I realised I could work for a living.
And I started taking classes.”
In her early twenties, she started to work as a doctor, after her mother died in 2009.
In the meantime, she married and had two sons, and the family was looking for someone to care for them.
After getting married in 2011, she decided to give up her job.
“People often ask me if I am scared.
I always say that I am very scared of my own mind and I am afraid of people who will try to take advantage of me.
I don’t even have a fear of death.
But the way I look at it, I can live for another 25 years.
I know that I will live for the rest of my life.”
In the days following her marriage, she had a son, a daughter, two brothers and a sister.
She then started work as an orthopaedic surgeon at a hospital in Burdwani.
She was also an organ donor and a volunteer for the hospital, she told The Times Of India.
“I used to work at the hospital.
I was a volunteer there for two years,” she explained.
“Then one day I got sick.
I didn’t have the strength.
I got very weak and I had to stay there.
But when I got weak again, I could not do it.
So my wife took me to the local hospital.
They put me on a ventilator and the doctors were very helpful.
They gave me all the medicines that they needed to live for.”
In April 2014, she died from a heart attack.
Her funeral was attended by her family and her close friends.
“We had a good time with her family,” she remembered.
“She was my best friend.
My husband was a very good man.
I had a very loving husband.
She loved me very much.”
After the funeral, she visited the local temple and said, “I have seen miracles.”
The people of the village started giving her blessings.
“The people of my village were very religious.
They believed that I would come back.
But I didn�t.
They said I would never come back,” she narrated.
“After I died, my parents and my brother-in-law came and asked for money to help my wife.
They asked me to give them money.
But at that time I was very poor.
I wasn�t a rich person,” she noted.