Between 1979 and 1982, as postgraduates in Medicine at Government Medical College, Nagpur, we often found ourselves drawn more to the residents and lecturers than to the professors.
They were closer to us in age, but far ahead in skill. They moved briskly through the wards, supervising as we checked vitals, tapped fluids, read ECGs, filled forms—sometimes all at once. And they taught us the beauty of bedside medicine and the art of writing prescriptions.
Among them was Dr Sudhakar Joshi. Quiet, composed, and always a step behind the crowd, he never needed to raise his voice to be heard. When he spoke, we listened.
Dr Joshi belonged to the celebrated class of GMC Nagpur 1969—alongside names like Dr Uday Mahorkar, Dr Sachin Suryavanshi, Dr Harminder Dua, Dr Golhar, and Dr Viresh Gupta. As young lecturers and senior residents, they rounded with us, dictated notes, supervised procedures, and ensured every case paper was complete, every instruction followed. That middle rung of the medical hierarchy—firm, present, and unglorified—held our hands when consultants towered over us. They softened the blows and taught us the hard parts of doctoring.
Joshi stood apart even in that company. He never called attention to himself, never reminded us how much he knew—though it was obvious he knew a great deal. He could quote 𝘏𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘰𝘯 and 𝘊𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘭-𝘓𝘰𝘦𝘣 by heart but never flaunted it. Instead, he would pull up a stool beside the patient, examine the pulse, close his eyes for a moment, and begin speaking softly, as if the case were unfolding in his mind like a prayer.
There was something deeply still about him. He moved gently—humble, self-effacing, and unfailingly polite, almost to a fault. When a resident trembled in front of a professor, Joshi would often intervene, shielding us in ways that only later made sense. If we succeeded, he stepped back. If we failed, he absorbed the heat.
He married Sudha Joshi, three years his junior—also a GMC Nagpur alumna. She carried the healing hands of her mother, Shashikala, who delivered women at Matru Seva Sangh in Wardha, and the discipline of her father, Dr Nana Joshi, who served the marginalized with quiet devotion, caring for patients with leprosy.
Sudhakar was a contrast to the world his wife came from. While she was raised in a home shaped by Gandhian values—rational, austere, and guided by service—he belonged to a tradition steeped in sacred ritual. A well-trained physician, he was also an orthodox, deeply religious, God-fearing 𝘉𝘳𝘢𝘩𝘮𝘪𝘯. He read the scriptures with reverence, performed his daily rituals without fail, and drew quiet strength from prayer. He didn’t reserve his faith like an 𝘚𝘰𝘸𝘭𝘢 worn only during worship—he wove it into the rhythm of his everyday life.
So when he resigned from his lectureship and moved to Bhandara for private practice, we were stunned. The private world seemed at odds with his temperament. It demanded visibility, marketing, a dash of cunning. He had none of that. He surely would fail, we thought. He proved us wrong. He thrived. Patients came. Word spread. Soon, the Joshis—he the physician, she the obstetrician—became a name that echoed in homes across Bhandara.
He carried on quietly. Even in adversity. In 2016, he lost a leg in a road accident in Mumbai. Later, in the last few months, he bore the weight of metastatic cancer. Through it all, he stayed upright—physically, emotionally, spiritually. The end came on his own terms, with dignity, as he would have wished.
He leaves behind Sudha; their son Amey, an endocrinologist in Mumbai; and their daughter Sai, an engineer with Infosys.
But for me, he also leaves behind memories from Wards 13, 23, 25, and the old medicine ICU of GMC Nagpur. I still hear his voice in the Friday 4 p.m. clinical meetings—calm, measured, unassuming. I still see him in those whitewashed corridors, sleeves rolled up, stethoscope hanging loose, quietly changing the way we learned medicine.
Goodbye, Dr Sudhakar Joshi. You were so soft. So gentle. So serene. Almost invisible. But always there.