As she finished her undergraduate work and prepared to enter Harvard Medical School, Kamala Dansinghani was also ready to leave behind an illness that had defined the end of high school and her college years.

“So many people have asked me ‘How did you become anorexic?’ that I’m about ready to tape-record my life story and play it back the next time the question comes up,’’ she wrote to open “Falling From My Pedestal,’’ a lengthy essay full of insight and heartbreak that she published under a pseudonym more than 20 years ago in the book “Adolescent Portraits.’’

There were many setbacks between those first days — when she began to cut back on eating during high school — and her healthier senior year at Dartmouth College. While approaching graduation in 1994 as the valedictorian with a perfect 4.0 grade point average, a mark that wouldn’t be equaled at the school for seven years, she wrote that she had “finally beaten this disease,’’ and added: “I’m optimistic about the future, for if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that I’m a fighter . . . and, more importantly, I’m a survivor.’’

Dr. Dansinghani became a physician and researcher before the eating disorder returned and altered the rest of her life. She died Oct. 14 in Tufts Medical Center, a week after she collapsed during a yoga class and never regained consciousness. She was 44, had lived in Boston, and her family said her death resulted from complications of anorexia.

“Her body was so run down. She was so tired during the summer,’’ said her mother, Mary of Hamden, Conn. “And in August, she said to me, ‘Ma, I wish there was a way out of this.’ She said, ‘I’m tired of fighting this disease every minute of every day.’ ’’

That wasn’t always the case. Since childhood, Dr. Dansinghani had brought an abundance of energy to everything in life, and to thinking her way through every challenge — particularly in school.

“I saw I could do well and if I worked really hard, this could be something I could throw myself into,’’ she said during a 1995 interview with the Los Angeles Times, speaking about how she excelled as a student while in East Hartford, Conn.

Her mother and father had a troubled marriage, though. “I erroneously believed I could bring my parents together by sheer force of will,’’ she wrote in “Falling From My Pedestal.’’

“Being achievement-oriented in school was my answer to many of the problems I faced,’’ she wrote, adding that “because my family life was like an emotional roller coaster ride over which I had no influence, I turned to school for comfort and security. I knew that by working hard, I could do well — in the classroom, I could exert complete control.’’

Still, being “the girl who had it all together (at least on the outside) caused me to feel increasingly empty on the inside,’’ she wrote. A high school romance and a first kiss eased some social discomfort, until she learned that another student had edged her out as valedictorian of her high school class. Anorexia soon set in.

“Everyone expected me to be number one — what would they think when they found out I wasn’t? . . . I felt duplicitous and deceitful, as though I was projecting a false image that was just waiting to be debunked,’’ she wrote. “I was falling from my pedestal, and I knew the fall would be a long and hard one from which I might never recover.’’

Born in Indianapolis, Kamala Devi Dansinghani was the daughter of Lachman Dansinghani and the former Mary Mead.

“I always thought babies just looked like babies,’’ her mother said. “But when she was born, several nurses came down and said, ‘Are you the woman who had the beautiful Indian baby?’ They said, ‘Oh, she’s one of the most beautiful babies in the nursery.’ So I guess she was attracting attention from the minute of her arrival.’’

Dr. Dansinghani, though, came to view her ethnic heritage though a different prism. “My parents could not be more opposite in their histories if they tried — my father is East Indian and my mother is a typical WASP,’’ she wrote. “As for me, I’ve gone through my entire life not knowing exactly what I was. . . . I ended up the perpetual ‘Other,’ an unclassifiable anomaly.’’

When she was very young, her family lived in Jamaica for a year before settling in East Hartford. She won a spelling bee in fifth grade, and a $25 prize, only to lose when she represented her school in a larger contest. In her valedictory address at Dartmouth College years later, she said “the stinging memory’’ of the defeat remained with her.

After learning she would not finish first in her East Hartford High School class, Dr. Dansinghani’s weight dropped to 85 pounds. She was 5 foot 4. The photo with this obituary is from when she was 16, the last taken “before she developed anorexia,’’ her mother said.

“I failed to recognize the self-destructive path I was following,’’ wrote Dr. Dansinghani, who eventually was admitted to an eating disorders service at a nearby hospital.

She recovered and became well enough to attend Dartmouth College, where during her junior and senior years she began doing volunteer work and opening herself to experiences beyond classes and studying. She even spoke in her valedictory address about her eating disorder.

After graduating in 1994, she went to Harvard Medical School, from which she graduated with a medical doctorate and a master’s in public health. She worked as a researcher in Boston for a couple of years, “and then she just disintegrated,’’ her mother said. “It was very hard. She was someone with so much potential.’’

Dr. Dansinghani had two daughters, Arya and Soraya. Her marriage ended in divorce. For emotional support during those years, she turned more to her mother, who is a chaplain.

“As she got older we got much, much closer,’’ her mother said. “She was not only my daughter and best friend, she was my soulmate.’’

Dr. Dansinghani’s father died in 2012. In addition to her daughters and mother, Dr. Dansinghani leaves her brother, Raj of Middletown, Conn.

A gathering of remembrance will be held at 1 p.m. Saturday in the Stockyard restaurant in Brighton, a favorite place for her daughters.

“Falling From My Pedestal,’’ the essay Dr. Dansinghani edited down from a 77-page draft, was written at a point of great hope in her life, when Harvard Medical School and a career as a physician beckoned, when it seemed as if she was at last done with the illness that had defined her life.

“Within the past year alone I have undergone a complete metamorphosis, beginning with my revealing my anorexia to the world,’’ she wrote 23 years ago. “I had wondered for so long whether I would ever be able to overcome this wretched disorder, and finally I have reached the point where I can eat when I’m hungry and stop when I’m full.’’

Marquard can be reached at bryan.marquard@globe.com.