Forty years in a small town was a life’s work. Manik Laxman Hedau arrived in Sanagadi, a village in Sakoli Taluka of Bhandara district—114 km east of Nagpur—in the early 1980s. He cleared the Maharashtra Public Service Commission examination, joined government service as a medical officer, served three and a half years, and then left to open his own clinic. He named it after his daughter, Ashwini. There, he practiced for four decades.
Manik was born on 10 March 1953 in Achalpur, Amravati district, where his father, Laxmanrao Hedau, raised him. He attended primary school in Achalpur, then City High School, and completed his pre-medical studies at Jagdamba Mahavidyalaya—one of the college’s early students after its founding in 1969. He entered GMC Nagpur in 1973. In his first year, he rented a room in Raghujinagar with Shailendra Kale and Prakash Bhatkule. The housemates shared a bicycle and often arrived at Biochemistry classes drenched from monsoon rains, drawing Professor Tiwaskar’s ire.
After graduation, he completed his rural internship in Mohadi and his urban internship at the district hospital in Amravati. Government service in Sanagadi followed. When he left the PHC to open his private clinic, he remained in the town—a small place that stayed that way. His son, Amol, ran a pharmacy nearby.
When SP Kalantri reached him by telephone on 12 February 2021—while contacting nearly every classmate from those years—Manik remembered several batchmates vividly, though he had not seen most in decades. He remained in Sanagadi, tending his clinic and his patients. The work had changed little; the town had grown modestly; the patients kept coming.
He never attended reunions or chased opportunities in bigger cities. He stayed where he had planted himself and served where he had started. That steadfast choice answered the question every doctor must face: what is medicine for?
After a three-week battle with multi-organ failure in a Nagpur intensive care unit, Hedau passed away on 22 December 2024. He is survived by his wife, Asha, and his son, Amol, who reside in Sangadi within the Bhandara district.