(December 9, 1931 – April 19, 2025)
Dr. Keshao Narayan Ingley—known to all as Dr. K.N. Ingley—was born on December 9, 1931, in the dusty heartland of Buldhana. As the eldest of five siblings, he learned early what it meant to lead, to share, and to wait his turn. The home was always full—voices echoing through the corridors, meals shared on long steel thalis, and stories told under flickering lanterns. In a joint family that often outnumbered the fingers on both hands, life pulsed with energy and warmth.

His father, Dr. Narayan Maruti Ingley, was a surgeon whose name travelled far beyond the town limits—a man of calm words and steady hands, known across Vidarbha. With each government posting, the family packed up and moved: new towns, new chalk-dusted classrooms, new neighbors. Young Keshao watched and absorbed. He saw his father open wounds with precision and stitch them with care. He watched how people waited patiently at the gate, not just for treatment, but for trust.

In those moments—standing quietly in the corner of a clinic, watching pain soften and dignity restored—something stirred in him. Could he learn to do this? Could he walk the same path, wear the same coat, and carry the same responsibility? Somewhere in the quiet shadows of his father’s footsteps, a young boy’s calling began to take shape.

In time, he did wear the white coat—but not in the way everyone expected. The scalpel lay untouched. Instead, he reached for the chalk, the blackboard, and the silence of deep thought. Surgery, though noble, didn’t call out to him. What stirred his soul was understanding, not incising—the why behind the how, the hidden currents of the human body. He didn’t open chests or suture wounds. Instead, he opened young minds, tracing the elegant rhythms of physiology with a teacher’s patience and a scholar’s wonder.

In 1953, he stepped into the grand portals of Government Medical College, Nagpur, joining the sixth batch of students. The course was long—two years spent mastering the scaffolding of life in Anatomy and Physiology, two more unravelling the puzzles of Pathology, Pharmacology, and Forensics. The final year brought the weight of the clinic—Medicine, Surgery, Ophthalmology, and Obstetrics. His batch was the first to taste rural India’s raw pulse through an eighteen-month internship—nine months in the wards of a district hospital, nine more in the primary health centres.

And when the time came to choose a specialty, he leaned into the wisdom of his father and selected Physiology for his MD. It was a decision that did not turn heads—but one that shaped his entire life.

He wasn’t alone. With peers like Dr. J.N. Kher and Dr. J.N. Deshpande beside him, he applied for the postgraduate course, cleared the hurdles, and earned his seat. But it was Dr. Shukla, the venerable Professor of Physiology and Biochemistry, who gave that choice its quiet force. “If you want to build an academic life,” he said, “get an MD.” Young Ingley didn’t argue. He simply listened—and followed.

On February 1st, 1960—Dr. Ingley walked into a classroom at Government Medical College, Nagpur, chalk in hand, heart steady. His journey as a teacher had begun. The path seemed sure, paved with lesson plans, white coats, and slow promotions. But life, ever full of turns, surprised him.

A bureaucrat’s pen sent him, not to a university department, but to an Ayurveda college. The posting felt misplaced—like asking a flautist to drum. He declined. Respectfully, firmly. “I’ll wait,” he said, “even if I must wait long.” He chose patience over position.

It was a decision that would change everything.

Nine years later, in 1969, a letter came—not with an order, but with an invitation. It was from Dr. P.S. Vaishwanar, his mentor and guide, who had been asked to assemble faculty for India’s first rural medical school. The Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences in Sevagram was still a dream on paper. No buildings. No laboratories. Just dust, fields, and a stirring idea. Yet behind that idea stood Dr. Sushila Nayar—visionary, reformer, Gandhian to the core. And when she spoke, people listened.

But Dr. Ingley hesitated. Rural life was no stranger to him, but starting from scratch? That took more than resolve—it demanded faith. Still, something in the rawness of it called to him. He agreed to go—on deputation, just to test the waters.

On the morning of Thursday, 10th July 1969, he arrived in Sevagram, alongside Dr. B.V. Deshkar, Dr. M.G. Kane, and Dr. G.M. Indurkar. There were no gates to walk through, no lecture halls to enter. They weren’t stepping into a college. They were building one.

It wasn’t comfort that kept him there—it was conviction. In the dust and disorder of those first days, he found purpose. This was no longer a deputation. It was a calling.

Together, they rolled up their sleeves and got to work—Dr. Ingley and his comrades, the early torchbearers of MGIMS. The Departments of Physiology and Anatomy began not in marble halls, but in modest rooms, where chalk dust mixed with the black soil of Sevagram. There were no grants, no grandeur—just borrowed benches, second-hand instruments, and a stubborn resolve. What the place lacked in equipment, these men compensated with sheer will.

Jagdish and Sahebrao, two lab attendants from those early years, remember how he stayed behind long after others had left. Those were days of quiet labour—unpacking crates, arranging instruments, setting up the lab piece by piece. Every pipette, every kymograph, every stimulator had its place, and he ensured it found it. By the time students stepped into his lab, it was not just ready—it was waiting.

By the time the first batch of students walked in, the lab wasn’t just functional. It was waiting for them—polished, ready, and alive.

Lectures, meanwhile, were held wherever a blackboard could be propped up—the Gandhi Ashram, the Adhyayan Mandir. Chalk was precious, blackboards makeshift. But the learning was real. The days stretched, the nights blurred—but the foundation had been laid.

From 1969 to 1989, Dr. Ingley taught Physiology to twenty batches of MGIMS students. For each of them, he wasn’t merely a teacher—he was their first encounter with the human body’s hidden rhythms and rules. In December 1976, he briefly returned to GMC Nagpur, but the pull of Sevagram proved stronger. He returned as an associate professor.

When he came back, it felt less like a return and more like a homecoming.

In the classroom, Dr. Ingley didn’t just teach—he performed. He entered briskly, a paan tucked in his cheek, and headed straight to the board—no notes, no slides, only a piece of chalk and a surge of energy. His fingers moved with certainty—drawing, shading, outlining. The nervous system took form stroke by stroke: the brainstem curved into view, spinal tracts unfurled like railway lines, and synapses sparked to life in arcs and arrows. Watching him draw was like watching the human body being born on a blackboard.

His power lay not only in what he knew, but in how he made others feel it. He revealed the beauty of a reflex arc, the poetry of a heartbeat. His voice filled the room—deep, deliberate—and when he taught a disease, he embodied it.

Parkinson’s? His face stilled, his limbs trembled, feet dragging with tragic precision. Stroke? He slumped to one side, an arm limp, his gait halting. Cerebellar ataxia? He wobbled across the floor, arms outstretched, missteps exaggerated—eliciting chuckles that turned into quiet admiration. He didn’t ask students to remember. He made them feel. And they never forgot.

His tools were simple—Samson Wright, Guyton, Ganong, a chalkboard, a pointer—but the experience was unforgettable. To him, Physiology was not a subject but a living force, and he let it speak.

Outside the classroom, the lab was his other sanctuary. Every shelf spoke of order. Electrodes coiled neatly, kymographs aligned, the frogs anesthetized and respectfully handled. No clutter. No confusion. Just precision.

There, first-year students—nervous, tentative—found themselves doing the unimaginable. They pithed frogs without trembling, clipped electrodes with exactitude, and watched in awe as the faint twitch of a muscle danced across a soot-blackened drum. Those inky waves told stories. And under his quiet tutelage, they learned to read them.

The room buzzed gently—the hum of cardiographs, the tick of stopwatches, the scratch of pens on record books. It was a place of order, discipline, and quiet discovery. At the centre stood Dr. Ingley—not just a teacher, but a conductor in full command of his orchestra.

But he offered more than knowledge. He modelled integrity.

In an age when private tuitions flourished, when some teachers in Nagpur were known to trade their lessons for cash and favours, Dr. Ingley stood apart. He never charged a rupee outside his salary. He never turned away a student who needed help. And he never bent his values—not for money, not for popularity.

He believed teaching was a service, not a commodity. And by holding that line, he protected the nobility of his craft.

His colleagues respected him not only for his intellect but for his warmth and camaraderie. He forged genuine bonds with everyone he encountered, regardless of rank. He could command a lecture hall with ease yet remain approachable beyond it—a rare blend of authority and humility that earned him admiration across the board.

Outside the classroom, Dr. Ingley laid the foundation for a reproductive biology lab that brought together minds from different disciplines. He mentored Dr. Pradeep Sambarey from Obstetrics and Gynecology and Dr. K.S. Bhat from Physiology, urging them to investigate the causes of male infertility in Vidarbha. Under his guidance, they discovered that semen held deeper clues than conventionally believed—insights that would shape their doctoral work and earn them PhDs. He also established pulmonary function and basal metabolic rate (BMR) laboratories, expanding the scientific landscape at Sevagram.

Traditionally, Physiology does not attract many postgraduate students. But Dr. Ingley’s stature changed that. Among his early mentees were Dr. Deshpande and Dr. Ajay Chaudhari, who later led departments of Physiology at JNMC Sawangi and MGIMS Sevagram, respectively. Dr. Chaudhari, his second postgraduate student, trained under him from 1983 to 1988 and later served as his junior colleague. He remembers Dr. Ingley not merely as a teacher, but as a mentor, a godfather, and the guiding light who shaped his professional journey.

Dr. Ramji Singh, another colleague, recalls him as a compassionate leader—deeply committed to his students and peers, generous with his time, and unwavering in his dedication. His legacy is etched into the lives of those he mentored. It lives on in the classrooms he animated, the labs he built, and in the generations of doctors who continue to be inspired by his brilliance, humility, and boundless generosity.

The tea club in his department wasn’t just a daily pause—it was a rhythm that held the department together. At exactly eleven in the morning and three in the afternoon, the pulse of lectures and lab work would quiet. The clatter of teacups, the rich scent of cardamom, and the low murmur of voices would take over.

Dr. Ingley always arrived with his signature paan tucked in his cheek, a sparkle in his eye. He would lean back in his chair, laughter bubbling up from deep within, setting off a chain of chuckles around the room. Professors M.L. Sharma, M.D. Khapre, S.S. Patel, and R.S. Naik would pull up chairs, drawn to the warmth of his presence. The talk was wide-ranging—examinations, politics, cricket scores, the latest campus murmurs. At times, the conversations flared into spirited debates—hands gesturing, voices rising—only to dissolve into shared laughter over a clever pun or a gentle tease.

These tea breaks were sacred. They held no agenda. No hierarchy. Just people, cups in hand, stories spilling freely. They were pockets of ease in busy days, where friendships ripened and the heartbeat of the department quietly found its strength.

But Dr. Ingley’s world was never confined to the lab or lecture hall. He believed that a campus without culture was a building without a soul. Under his gentle guidance, Sargam—MGIMS’s annual cultural celebration—blossomed into a vibrant stage where students danced, sang, and acted their hearts out. He watched them with pride, always front row, clapping hardest.

Music was a constant in Dr. Ingley’s life. A devoted fan of Bhimsen Joshi and Jitendra Abhisheki, he never missed a concert in town and always brought his children along, insisting they sit up front with him. When Bhimsen Joshi sang an abhang “माझे माहेर पंढरी । आहे भीवरेच्या तीरी”, Dr. Ingley would sit upright, eyes closed, fingers tapping gently on the armrest, as though in silent prayer. And when Jitendra Abhisheki’s “नाथा घरी नाचे माझा पांडुरंग ” played, he leaned in, quiet and still, fully absorbed in the emotion of the moment. The music seemed to still time—his breath slowed, his mind softened, and in that stillness, he was not a Physiology teacher, nor a administrator, but simply a rasik, a lover of melody.

Even in his nineties, the pattern held. Each evening, he settled into his chair, closed his eyes, and let the notes of Marathi classical sangeet wash over him.

He brought the same passion to sports. A badminton champion in his youth, he later teamed up with Mr. Tupkar to create the institute’s sports department. It wasn’t just about trophies—it was about bringing students together, getting them to run, cheer, sweat, and bond. Football and volleyball thrilled him, and he never missed a match by the Brotherhood Club of Wardha. He didn’t just follow the score—he lived it.

And as recently as the IPL of 2025, when the matches started, he transformed into a different kind of fan—tracking players, predicting scores, and debating strategies with the zest of a teenager.

Dr. Ingley’s journey at MGIMS was shaped not only by its lecture halls but also by the soil of Sevagram. In July 1969, his first home was in the Guru Nanak Colony, where snakes slithered and scorpions lingered under stones. Then came a modest house at 10, Martin Luther King Colony, followed by a stint in the girls’ hostel quarters. Next, he built his home in Dhanwantari Colony Sevagram before finally settling into the sixth- floor flat in Khamla, Nagpur. Every home was a sanctuary— filled with books, laughter, music, and memories.

On July 11, 1959, Dr. Ingley married Sindhu Solao from Shendurjana Ghat in Amravati district. Years later, she became the warden of the MGIMS girls’ hostel, a role she held from 1981 to 1988. Even today, Sindhu Tai speaks with affection of their time in Sevagram—days filled with purpose, peace and happiness that remain vivid despite the passing years. Their children—Anjali (1977 batch), Sanjay (1982 batch), and Sonali (1985 batch)—followed in their father’s footsteps, graduating from MGIMS and pursuing distinguished careers in medicine: Anjali in Anesthesiology, Sanjay in Orthopaedics, and Sonali in Pathology. The family’s dedication to the medical profession continued into the next generation—his daughter-in-law Aradhana (1984 batch) specialized in Paediatrics, and his son-in-law Muthu Kumar (1985 batch) in Radiology.

After retiring from MGIMS in December 1989, Dr. Ingley began a new and equally meaningful chapter. He joined the medical college at Sawangi, serving first as Dean from 1990 to 1992, then as Director from 1993 to 2006. From 2006 to 2016, he led the university’s examination and evaluation department. He concluded his long and distinguished public career at the age of 86.

Even in his mid-nineties, Dr. Ingley retained a quiet vitality and mental sharpness that belied his age. “Yoga and pranayam keep my spine straight and my mind alert,” he would say with a smile, tapping his temple. On June 5, 2023, as part of my efforts to document the stories of MGIMS teachers from the 1970s and ’80s, I rang him up—expecting perhaps a brief exchange. What followed was an hour and a half of effortless, engaging conversation. His voice was steady, laced with laughter and warmth. He moved through time with clarity—recounting his childhood, his years in medical school, and his two transformative decades in Sevagram. Each story was told with precision, his memory sharp as ever, and his affection for the past unmistakable. He painted scenes, not just shared them—of classrooms, colleagues, and moments that shaped generations. When the call ended, I found myself quietly moved. He wasn’t just recalling the past—he was still teaching, still inspiring, still embodying the spirit of physiology.

In Nagpur, his children told me, his mornings began with a quiet ritual—a shared cup of tea downstairs. Each day, he descended from his sixth-floor apartment and took his place on a worn wooden bench beside the electrician, the auto-rickshaw driver, the plumber, and the shopkeeper. The conversation was light—weather, cricket, rising prices. He chuckled at their jokes, passed the kettle without fuss, and never once spoke of the colleges he had built or the positions he had held. To them, he was simply “Doctor Saab”—a neighbour, a listener, a friend.

In October 2024, Dr. Ingley was admitted to a hospital in Nagpur after a series of seizures. Though already on maintenance haemodialysis for chronic kidney disease, his spirit remained quietly luminous. Recalls Dr. Kalantri, “When I met him, he was surrounded by Sanjay, Sonali, Anju, and Shreya—his granddaughter—all gathered close, their affection filling the room. He looked tired, his voice faint and faltering. Yet, as I stepped in, he opened his eyes, recognised me, and smiled. He greeted me warmly, asked about my health in sentences that came slowly, as if each word had to be gently coaxed. We exchanged a few pleasantries. Then, his eyes grew heavy, and he drifted into sleep. It was a quiet hour, but one I will always hold dear—an encounter with a man whose grace and presence endured, even as his body grew weak.

Quickly thereafter, Dr. Ingley grew frail. On 13 April 2025, he became unresponsive. After a brief hospital stay, his children made a decision both brave and tender—they brought him home, choosing comfort over machines. No monitors beeped, no catheters tugged. Instead, there was peace, quiet, and care.

Though unconscious, they knew what touched him most. They brewed his favourite tea and let a warm spoonful rest on his lips—he could barely sip, but the familiar aroma seemed to stir something within. Then, gently, they placed earphones in his ears, Bhimsen Joshi’s voice rising in a soulful abhang: “Teertha Vitthala, kshetra Vitthala…” They were certain—and they were right—he could still hear it, still feel it. In those final hours, he was wrapped not in hospital sheets, but in the sounds and scents he had always loved. He passed away in the early hours of April 19 as he had lived—surrounded by his family and loved ones.