When I came back to Patna in 2014 after taking Voluntary retirement from Dr. R P Centre AIIMS New Delhi, I had only one thing in mind and that was to provide state-of-the-art retina care in our home state. I started with Raj Retina Eye Care Centre with perhaps the first Constellation machine of the state and other latest machines for VR Surgery. And now 11 years down the line, I am happy that a good number of VR surgeons are now doing a great job with VR Surgery, and many of them are my students.

With the increasing number of VR surgeons in Bihar, I felt the need for a common platform for academic activities and also to exchange our knowledge and benefit from each other. This led to the culmination of the Vitreo Retinal Society of Bihar (VRSB), perhaps the first state to establish the Vitreo Retinal Society. We are one up from other states in India, but have we really come up to the expectation? This is a very relevant question at this point as we have entered into the 7th year of its inception.

We need to work on our collaboration and collective data analysis which could become a guiding bible for the surgeons practicing VR Surgery. It’s time to gear up and take the challenge in the best and most aggressive way. In the forthcoming VRSB meeting, me and our chief guest Dr. T.P. Das are having a 1-hour session and collaborative research on 1st August evening. Let this be a stimulus and beginning of a joint and robust attempt to take the academics to a logical conclusion.

In the end, I will quote a story of Franz Kafka, an Austrian author, poet and writer who lived in Germany for most of his life:

At 40, Franz Kafka (1883–1924), who never married and had no children, walked through the park in Berlin when he met a girl who was crying because she had lost her favourite doll. She and Kafka searched for the doll unsuccessfully.
Kafka told her to meet him there the next day and they would come back to look for her.
The next day, when they had not yet found the doll, Kafka gave the girl a letter “written” by the doll saying, “Please don’t cry. I took a trip to see the world. I will write to you about my adventures.”
Thus began a story which continued until the end of Kafka’s life.
During their meetings, Kafka read the letters of the doll, carefully written with adventures and conversations that the girl found adorable.
Finally, Kafka brought back the doll (he bought one) that had returned to Berlin.
“It doesn’t look like my doll at all,” said the girl.
Kafka handed her another letter in which the doll wrote: “My travels have changed me.”
The little girl hugged the new doll and brought her happily home.
A year later, Kafka died.
Many years later, the now-adult girl found a letter inside the doll. In the tiny letter signed by Kafka, it was written:
“Everything you love will probably be lost, but in the end, love will return in another way.”

The reason for citing this story is—I may not be with you when VRSB will be riding high and its members bringing laurels, but when you go further, you will definitely find many persons like me to take the VRSB to glory and grandeur.

With best wishes and blessings to all,
Prof. Dr. Rajvardhan Azad
MBBS, MD (AIIMS), FRCSed, FAMS, FAAPPO, FAICO