Somewhere in India today, a patient will hear four words and walk home believing them. There is no treatment. Dr. Rakesh Joshi has spent thirty-five years disagreeing — and has now written two books to prove it.
He is a gold medalist from Maulana Azad Medical College, Delhi, fellowship-trained in cataract and refractive surgery at the Institute of Clinical Thermology, Japan, and a surgeon through whose hands thousands of Indian eyes have passed. He is also a TEDx speaker — and, more recently, the author Retinitis Pigmentosa patients in this country had been waiting for.
The result: two professionally published, internationally distributed books on the same disease — one in English, one in Hindi — both signed for readers in person at the OrangeBooks stall at the New Delhi World Book Fair 2026.
"Blindness is not the end. Knowledge, awareness, and progress light the path forward — and every patient deserves to walk that path with clarity, in the language they think in."
— Dr. Rakesh Joshi, from the books' shared preface
Dr. Rakesh Joshi — eye surgeon, TEDx speaker, and author of two books on Retinitis Pigmentosa
The Gap Between What Medicine Knows and What the Patient Hears
Retinitis Pigmentosa does not arrive as an event. It arrives as a slow narrowing. Night vision goes first — the difficulty finding a seat in a dark cinema, the sudden caution on unlit stairs. Then peripheral vision begins to close in, quietly, over years.
Most patients are told early, by someone, that nothing can be done. By the time they reach an ophthalmologist who understands the disease, they have already made peace with that sentence. They stopped looking for options years ago. That gap — between what the specialty actually offers and what the patient walks out understanding — is what Dr. Joshi watched open in front of him hundreds of times.
🚩 What the Patient Is Told
"There is no treatment."
Four words, delivered as a diagnosis and absorbed as a life sentence — often long before the patient reaches a specialist who could say otherwise.
✅ What Is Actually Available
Genetic testing — identifies the mutation, guides family screening
Low-vision rehabilitation — measurably improves daily function
Nutritional protocols — modest but real effects on progression
Gene therapy — in clinical trials for specific RP subtypes
35+
Years in ophthalmology practice
2
Books published — English and Hindi editions
100%
Royalties retained — author keeps every rupee earned
📚
Signed at New Delhi World Book Fair 2026
Why One Book Was Not Enough
The first book went to the readers he could most easily reach — urban patients, English-comfortable families, and the ophthalmologists who would recommend it onward. Hope in the Dark went into international distribution in paperback and eBook.
But Retinitis Pigmentosa does not check what language you read in. India has more than sixty crore Hindi speakers, and among them are exactly the same patients hearing exactly the same four words in exactly the same clinics. For those families, an English medical book might as well not exist.
So a second book followed — the same complete guidance, rebuilt in Hindi, typeset properly in Unicode Devanagari, given its own ISBN and its own title.
English Edition · Published with OrangeBooks
Hope in the Dark
The Fight Against Retinitis Pigmentosa
The book that started the mission — written so a patient, a family member, or a clinician can understand what modern RP care actually makes possible.
Paperback & eBook · ISBN 978-93-7426-298-6
Hindi Edition · Published with OrangeBooks
रेटिनाइटिस पिगमेंटोसा का नया युग
Retinitis Pigmentosa ka Naya Yug — इलाज़ की ओर बढ़ते कदम
The same guidance, in the language sixty crore Indians think in — so a family in a small town is not left out of the conversation about their own eyes.
Paperback & eBook · ISBN 978-93-7426-470-6
What OrangeBooks Delivered
A medical book carries a different burden than most manuscripts. The science has to stay precise while the language stays readable by a frightened family. And doing it twice, in two writing systems, doubles every production decision.
🩺
Medical Editing
Terminology reviewed so clinical accuracy survives the translation into plain language.
📐
Devanagari Typesetting
Unicode Devanagari throughout — every matra and conjunct rendering cleanly in print and on every device.
🌍
Dual-Edition Distribution
Both editions listed independently across Amazon India, Flipkart, Google Play, and the OrangeBooks Store.
📖
Separate ISBNs & Covers
Each edition registered and designed as its own title, not a translated afterthought.
✅ Author Retains 100% Rights and Royalties
Like every author OrangeBooks publishes, Dr. Joshi retains complete ownership of both works. Every copy sold — on Amazon, Flipkart, Google Play, or internationally — earns him 100% of the net royalty. No middlemen. No hidden deductions. No rights transferred.
At the New Delhi World Book Fair 2026
Both books met their readers in person at the OrangeBooks stall. Dr. Joshi spent hours there — patients arriving with their own copies, families asking specific questions about a father or a teenage daughter, other ophthalmologists picking up copies for their clinics.
For a book written to close the distance between doctor and patient, a signing table is the most honest test there is. Every signature was a small confirmation that the work had reached the person it was written for.
Dr. Rakesh Joshi signing copies for readers at the OrangeBooks stall, New Delhi World Book Fair 2026
The author on the day
"The most rewarding part of the day was not the signing. It was the questions — things patients had never had the chance to ask a doctor, unhurried. That is exactly why the book exists."
— Dr. Rakesh Joshi
Two Languages Was the Starting Point
Dr. Joshi still sees patients, still operates, still teaches. His TEDx talk carried the same argument to an audience that had never sat in an ophthalmologist's chair. Both books remain in active distribution, and families are already using them to walk into consultations better prepared than they would otherwise have been.
Two languages is where this began, not where it ends. Other Indian languages are within reach of the same model — and so are the other eye conditions that get explained badly, or not at all, to the people living with them.
You Have the Expertise. We Build the Book Around It.
Dr. Rakesh Joshi brought thirty-five years of clinical experience to two books in two languages. OrangeBooks handled everything else — medical editing, Devanagari typesetting, ISBN, covers, printing, and worldwide distribution. If you know something worth writing down, there is a reader waiting for it.
📞 +91-810-964-5082 | 📧 info@orangebooks.in
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