Reflections on Medicine and Life by Dr. S.P. Kalantri
Arriving alone from the Gujarat coast with 27 doctors already in his lineage, Dr. Dilip Chotai became the quiet academic anchor of the “Gujarati Republic” at MGIMS—a surgeon whose hands were later forged in the high-pressure wards of Mumbai’s KEM and the resource-constrained hospitals of post-independence Mozambique.
After a journey of a thousand miles from Kerala, Dr. Jolly Mathew nearly abandoned his medical dreams at the sight of Sevagram’s modest wards—only to find, during three transformative hours in Gandhi’s Ashram, that the “visual grammar” of medicine mattered far less than the quality of a doctor’s listening.
From a missing admission form found in the Sevagram dark to standing her ground as Medical Superintendent during the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks, Dr. Saroj Taksande’s career was defined by a steadfast presence—a woman who learned early that a doctor’s post is never abandoned, no matter the hour or the cost.
From an interview dominated by questions about banana cultivation to a legendary standoff involving a half-bottle of rum, Dr. Mangalsingh Rajput’s journey through the inaugural batch of MGIMS was defined by a cheerful defiance of convention—proving that the “Sevagram spirit” had room for both the disciplined scholar and the resourceful rebel.
Once a battalion sergeant who dreamed of an army uniform, Dr. Girish Mulkar redirected his sense of discipline toward medicine after a quiet conversation with his father. Over thirty-two years at a cement plant in Chhattisgarh, he proved that a doctor’s stethoscope could be a more powerful tool for peace than any command, transforming a landscape of industrial unrest into one of community trust.