The new doctor at the Community Health Centre, Upputhara in Idukki is a familiar face for the residents. For Saranya, it's sort of a homecoming.

She took charge as an Assistant Surgeon at the CHC on Monday. The place which marks the beginning of her medical career happens to be the very panchayat where she grew up and went on to become the first doctor from Kannampadi, a remote tribal settlement located inside Idukki Wildlife Sanctuary.

Her journey has now come full circle. A few years ago, Saranya, daughter of K N Mohanan and Minimol, had only one dream — to become a doctor. Today, she is back in her own panchayat, not as the girl who once left home in pursuit of education, but as a doctor treating the people among whom she grew up. Saranya hails from Punnaparakudy, around two kilometres from Kannampadi, in Upputhara grama panchayat.

After completing her MBBS, Saranya appeared for the Kerala Public Service Commission examination and secured the post of Assistant Surgeon in her first attempt. The place of her first posting came as a surprise to her.

The journey, however, was not an easy one. Her parents, K N Mohanan and Minimol, are farmers who spent their earnings and savings on their daughter’s education. When Saranya began studying at a nursery in Kannampadi, her teachers noticed that she was good at studies and encouraged her parents to support her education.

For the family, that meant leaving behind their home on the forest fringes and shifting to Swaraj near Kattappana so that Saranya could attend an English-medium school. The school was around 25 kilometres from Kannampadi, where only two buses operated. Her parents enrolled her at Zion English Medium School at Swaraj and moved into a small house there.

Their days revolved around their daughter’s education. Every morning, they would send Saranya to school and then travel back to their farm at Kannampadi. They would work there through the day before returning to Swaraj by the time their daughter came home from school.

Saranya later continued her education at Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, Kulamavu. She scored 96 per cent in SSLC and 90 per cent in Plus Two. In the 2019 medical entrance examination, she secured the 23rd rank in the Scheduled Tribe category and gained admission to Government Medical College, Palakkad.

She was part of the 2019–2024 MBBS batch. When her MBBS results were announced in 2024, Saranya was at home. Poor network connectivity prevented her from logging in to check the result herself. She came to know that she had passed through the WhatsApp group of her batch.

For Mohanan and Minimol, the moment was overwhelming. After years of putting their earnings and savings into their daughter’s education, they finally saw the dream they had nurtured become a reality. "It is because of my parents that I am here today. It is their sacrifices that made me what I am," Saranya told Onmanorama.

Mohanan, who began with pepper farming and later switched to cardamom cultivation, continued to support his daughter even when he faced setbacks in agriculture. For him and Minimol, every hardship was worth enduring if it meant securing a better future for their daughter.

“We are happy that her efforts have been rewarded. This was what we always wanted for her,” Mohanan had said after Saranya completed her MBBS.