A Portrait of a Medical Generation

Classmates

The Profiles

Meet the 204 classmates. This is our shared history, starting from the day we entered medical college in July 1973.

Roll No. 151

Dr. Rooplal Lanjewar


Public Health Specialist  ·  Nagpur

They gave him a nickname — Sher. It had nothing to do with ferocity, though Rooplal Lanjewar was not a man easily pushed around. It came from his childhood fascination …
Roll No. 152

Dr. Balkrishna Tayade


Pulmonologist  ·  Nagpur

Balkrishna Tayade holds a distinction that no other student from the GMC Nagpur class of 1973 can claim: he has two MDs. Not two degrees in the same subject — …
Roll No. 153

Dr. Prakash Kataria


Pathologist  ·  Riyadh

Prakash Kataria was the first in his family to go to college. He came from Chandur Bazar, a small town in Amravati district where his father and uncles ran a …
Roll No. 154

Dr. Narayan Umale


Surgeon  ·  Amravati Maharashtra

One afternoon during his MBBS years at GMC Nagpur, Narayan Umale held out his hands to Khemraj Wankar — Roll No. 171, a batchmate who had taught himself palm reading …
Roll No. 155

Dr. Sudhakar Dupare


Radiologist  ·  Nagpur

For forty years, Sudhakar Dupare went to the same hospital. Not the same type of hospital — the same building, the same department, the same ESIS facility on Somwar Peth …
Roll No. 156

Dr. Aruna Gattani Bhala


Paediatrician  ·  Wellingborough

She was the second woman from the GMC Nagpur Class of 1973 to marry—and she did so with four months of her internship still to run, in the sweltering summer …
Roll No. 157

Dr. Gopal Khadse


Radiologist  ·  Pune

He had, by his own account, a career full of challenges — and he meant it as a compliment to the work, not a complaint about his circumstances. Gopal Khadse …
Roll No. 158

Dr. Ashok Gambhir


Public Health Specialist

He operated an estimated eighteen thousand cataracts over a thirty-year career in public health, and of those, five thousand received intraocular implants. He operated cases that other surgeons had turned …
Roll No. 159

Dr. Ashok Ganjre


Physician  ·  Nagpur

He came to Coal India almost by accident — or, more precisely, through a Member of Parliament who happened to know the right people at the right moment. The path …
Roll No. 160

Dr. Omprakash Agrawal


General Practitioner  ·  Pune

He is known to his friends as OK — a nickname that has the cheerful accidental aptness of the best nicknames. Omprakash Agrawal is, in the measure that matters most …
Roll No. 161

Dr. Archana Srivastava


Ophthalmologist  ·  Aligarh

In her first year at Government Medical College, Nagpur, a seventeen-year-old Archana Srivastava was already reading Sherlock Holmes and being offered roles in professional drama. She declined the stage — …
Roll No. 162

Dr. PD Parmar


The record on PD Parmar is thinner than most. He came from RLT College, Akola — that reliable feeder institution which sent multiple students to GMC Nagpur in 1973 — …
Roll No. 163

Dr. Maya Wanjari (Brahmane)


Obstetrician & Gynaecologist  ·  Nagpur

There is a cartoon Maya Wanjari drew in the GMC college magazine sometime in the mid-1970s. In the first frame, two women water a small plant and talk. In the …
Roll No. 164

Dr. Abhimanyu Niswade


Paediatrician  ·  Nagpur

There is a palm-reading story in this profile, and it deserves to come first. Khemraj Wankar — Roll No. 171, class of 1973 — had taught himself chiromancy during the …
Roll No. 165

Dr. Makhanlal Gupta


General Practitioner  ·  Akola

He used to start his OPD at nine in the morning and work without stopping until eleven at night. Three examination tables. Two assistants. Patients presenting with the full spectrum …
Roll No. 166

Dr. Madhukar Lanje


Public Health Specialist  ·  Tumsar

The three phases of a medical life — Madhukar Lanje has lived each one with the clarity of a man who knows exactly where he stands. Primary health centers came …
Roll No. 167

Dr. Arun Mankar


Surgeon

He died the way surgeons sometimes die — in harness, on a weekday, not long after finishing an operation. It was the summer of 1993, and Arun Mankar was 39. …
Roll No. 168

Dr. Pramila Khapre


Did Not Graduate

She left before the class of 1973 had fully found its shape. Pramila Khapre was in her second MBBS when she died, in April 1976, in the Girls' Hostel. She …
Roll No. 169

Dr. Sudhakar Sawdatkar


Physician  ·  Buldhana

"Now the patients have become over smart — questioning, doubting, and challenging almost everything you do for them." Sudhakar Sawdatkar says this without bitterness. He then immediately adds what makes …
Roll No. 170

Dr. Khemraj Wankar


Physician  ·  Nagpur

Khemraj Wankar's uncle—his father's elder brother—was a vaidya, a traditional physician in their village in Ralegaon taluka, Yavatmal district. Everyone called him Anna. He wanted his nephew to become a …
Roll No. 171

Dr. Hemraj Nimje


Public Health Specialist  ·  Gondia

There is a word in Marathi — *ekla* — that means alone, solitary, without company. Hemraj Nimje's internship was ekla in the most literal sense: he completed both halves of …
Roll No. 172

Dr. Bhaskar Gadge


Public Health Specialist

He could complete a tubectomy in a couple of minutes. This was not a boast — it was a clinical fact, confirmed by those who worked with him and by …
Roll No. 173

Dr. Vinod Sawaitul


Pathologist

In the autumn of 1973, barely a fortnight after the new batch arrived at Government Medical College, Nagpur, the seniors came for the first-year students. Ragging was the word for …
Roll No. 174

Dr. Kashinath Kuhikar


Public Health Specialist  ·  Nagpur Maharashtra

Ask Kashinath Kuhikar why he chose the Central Government Health Scheme over a state government posting or private practice, and he will give you a precise answer. He did not …
Roll No. 175

Dr. Krishna Chaware


He came to Nagpur with hope in his heart and fire in his belly. The phrase is his classmate Madhukar Parchand's, and it is offered not as sentiment but as …