Science, Stories and Sevagram: A Physician-Teacher's Reflections
Reading Time: 6 minutesThe images flashing across our screens over the last three days are grim. The skies over the Middle East are streaked with the exhaust of ballistic missiles. The geopolitical chess match between the USA, Israel, and Iran has escalated into intense bombardment, leaving cities damaged, civilians terrified, and world peace hanging by a dangerously frayed … Read more
Reading Time: 7 minutesI have known Ulhas Jajoo for nearly five decades, and in all that time I have never seen him wear a shoe. This creates a problem at retirement. The usual cliché — he hung up his boots — simply does not apply. For days I searched for the right phrase and found nothing that fit. … Read more
Reading Time: 2 minutesYesterday evening I watched India vs New Zealand (T20) at VCA Stadium, Jamtha, with my son and my granddaughters. Three generations, one match, and my mind full of old memories. It took me back to another India–New Zealand game I saw in Nagpur long ago, in 1969, at the old VCA ground at Sadar. I … Read more
Reading Time: 5 minutes(4 February 1937 – 19 January 2026) I have just learnt that Dr. Madhao Dattatraya Khapre passed away this evening in Nagpur. He served MGIMS as Professor and Head of Pharmacology for many years—from February 1971 to August 1987. Outside the campus, he was a devoted senior member of the Shri Dnyaneshwar Madhuradvait Sampradaya. In … Read more
Reading Time: 7 minutesI call her Badibai—the elder mother. It is a heavy title, perhaps, for a woman who is my sister, but from the moment I opened my eyes to the world, her affection has been as encompassing and natural as a well-worn cotton sari.
Reading Time: < 1 minuteNostalgia. I use this word often. Perhaps it comes with age, a habit of looking back, of holding on to the past. But sometimes I wonder. Am I using it right? The ending -algia makes me pause. In medicine, algos means pain. Every day, I prescribe analgesics to my patients, medicines that take the algia … Read more
Reading Time: < 1 minuteLast week, I shared a post about Surendra Gujar—the ever-present photographer who arrived in Sevagram in 1970 and went on to serve MGIMS for more than two and a half decades. In 1997, he turned off the flash and walked into the light. He was more than just a photographer. With a simple camera, steady … Read more
Reading Time: < 1 minuteSevagram, 1970. Dr. Sushila Nayar, 𝘉𝘢𝘥𝘪 𝘉𝘦𝘩𝘦𝘯𝘫𝘪, stands among medical students, passing a basket of waste from hand to hand. This was 𝘴𝘩𝘳𝘢𝘮𝘥𝘢𝘢𝘯. Not an occasional gesture, but a way of life on campus.She arrived in Sevagram in 1938, fresh from Lady Hardinge, to treat Gandhiji’s high blood pressure. But what she truly learned here … Read more
Reading Time: 7 minutesIn August 1969, the first batch of medical students arrived in Sevagram. Sixty of them, to be precise—forty-six boys and fourteen girls—armed with dreams, duffel bags, and probably very few clues. But there was one small problem: Where exactly was the college? And more urgently: Where were they going to live? The answer lay just … Read more
Reading Time: 3 minutesDr. Shivnarayan Acharya and I share a bond from our days as alumni of GMC Nagpur. We both did MBBS and MD around the same time, though our paths took different turns after that. He became a nephrologist in Nagpur, while I focused on teaching and serving in a rural medical school in Sevagram. Over … Read more