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. 76

Dr. Dhanwanti Vanjani


General Practitioner  ·  Pune

Her father gave her a Luna moped in the second semester of first MBBS. He filled the petrol, managed the repairs, and kept the tyres inflated. Her mother ensured that …
Roll No. 77

Dr. Viraj Tandale


Anaesthesiologist  ·  Al Khobar

His father was a lawyer in Bramhapuri — a small town in the Chandrapur forests where the roads narrow and the world slows. Vasantrao Tandale argued cases, managed the rhythms …
Roll No. 78

Dr. Prabhat Deshmukh


Surgeon  ·  Yavatmal

The patient had drooping eyelids, blue nails, and respirations so shallow they barely moved the chest. Krait venom, of the neurotoxic variety, works fast and leaves little margin. In the …
Roll No. 79

Dr. Chandrabhan Chattani


Did Not Graduate

He had breakfast in the hostel canteen with VK Patel that morning, as he had on many mornings before. The Pathology second paper was at 2 PM. Nobody who saw …
Roll No. 80

Dr. Shashikant Khaire


Public Health Specialist  ·  Nagpur

On winter evenings in July and August — Nagpur winters are brief and mild, and the musicians do not wait for them — a group of men gather at Sudhir …
Roll No. 81

Dr. Anil Sharma


Cardiologist

In November 1973, a shy boy from a Marathi-medium school found his bicycle missing from the GMC cycle stand. He stood crestfallen, sweat on his forehead, too tongue-tied to know …
Roll No. 82

Dr. Farhad Ahmed Khan


General Practitioner  ·  Mumbai

His father taught Marathi at a college in Pusad, and enrolled his son in a Marathi-medium primary school in Digras because, as he saw it, there was nothing wrong with …
Roll No. 83

Dr. Abhimanyu Kapgate


General Practitioner  ·  Navegaon Bandh

In the winter of 1974, an examination result moved through Government Medical College, Nagpur with the quiet force of genuine surprise. In Anatomy — a subject that routinely defeated even …
Roll No. 84

Dr. Prakash Wakode


Otorhinolaryngologist  ·  Nagpur

The mark of an administrator, someone once said, is not what they build from scratch but what they fix when everyone else has stopped believing it can be fixed. In …
Roll No. 85

Dr. Narayan Dongre


General Practitioner  ·  Amravati

Every Sunday, Narayan Dongre made the journey from Amravati to Yengaon—a village on National Highway 6, about 35 kilometers from Nagpur, where he was born. In his ancestral home, he …
Roll No. 86

Dr. Tara Bhat


Obstetrician & Gynaecologist  ·  Nagpur

On the first day of her house job in TB and Chest at Government Medical College, Nagpur, Tara Bhat got married. She reported for duty and tied the knot on …
Roll No. 87

Dr. Reeta Tikhile [Sarita Dhawale]


Obstetrician & Gynaecologist  ·  Mumbai

"Now my patients come with a laptop or an iPad," says Sarita Dhawale, "and show me information available on the World Wide Web." She has been watching this change for …
Roll No. 88

Dr. Arun Warkari


Physician  ·  Amravati

On 7 July 1973, Arun Warkari's birthday, a telegram arrived at his home in Karanja Lad. It announced his admission to Government Medical College, Nagpur. He could not have asked …
Roll No. 89

Dr. Jayashree Seolekar [Apte]


Anaesthesiologist  ·  Pune

In the world Jayashree Seolekar entered in 1973, anaesthesiology was considered a support specialty — the discipline that put patients to sleep so that surgeons could do the interesting work. …
Roll No. 90

Dr. CL Sonkusare


Obstetrician & Gynaecologist  ·  Nagpur

Seventy. That's the number the Batch of 1973 links forever with Sonkusare. Seventy times, he stretched out on the blood donation couch, extended his forearm, watched the needle pierce his …
Roll No. 91

Dr. Uday Gupte


Physician  ·  Nagpur

In 1974, Uday Gupte went looking for a mandolin teacher in Nagpur and found none. The one mandolin available at a shop in town was damaged beyond repair. Another person …
Roll No. 92

Dr. Vinayak Sabnis


Pathologist  ·  Mumbai

There is a story Vinayak Sabnis tells about the early years of his postgraduation. He had been made a lecturer in Pathology at GMC Nagpur in September 1979 — before …
Roll No. 93

Dr. Rajeev Biyani


Entrepreneur  ·  Akola

The school principal at RLT College, Akola, had a particular method of punishing misbehaving students. He would present them with an unseen paragraph in English and instruct them to memorise …
Roll No. 94

Dr. Sanjay Warhadpande


Surgeon  ·  Nagpur

"When I die and go to heaven and God asks me 'I gave you this gift, what have you given to the people in return?' I would say, 'Dear God, …
Roll No. 95

Dr. Harish Motwani


Haematologist  ·  Pune

On May 6, 2026, an email pinged into my inbox from Harish Motwani, retired Army Colonel turned haematologist: "I'm in my third (and possibly the last) innings. I've hung my …
Roll No. 96

Dr. Vishnu Masram


General Practitioner

The posting orders kept coming, and Vishnu Masram kept obeying them. Satgaon. Yengaon. Karwahi. Rohana. Each a primary health centre somewhere in the rural stretch between Nagpur and the Wardha-Gondia …
Roll No. 97

Dr. Ganesh Ramteke


Public Health Specialist  ·  Latur

In 1976, the male students of GMC Nagpur's hostel had a benchmark for physical fitness that no textbook had prescribed: Ganesh Ramteke's abdominal muscles. He had arrived at GMC as …
Roll No. 98

Dr. Shobha Dani (Arora)


Orthopaedic Surgeon  ·  Delhi

In June 1980, when Shobha Dani chose Orthopaedics at Government Medical College, Nagpur, there were exactly 12 women orthopaedic surgeons in India. The raised eyebrows were numerous; the predictions were …
Roll No. 99

Dr. Mahendra Sawarkar


Physician  ·  Nagpur

Mahendra Sawarkar has spent his professional life studying what conventional medicine cannot fully explain — first the lungs, then the body's own capacity to heal itself — and has arrived …
Roll No. 100

Dr. Anjali Sapkal (Athare)


Obstetrician & Gynaecologist  ·  Ahmednagar

The Athare Patil Hospital at Savedi, on the Nagar-Manmad road outside Ahmednagar, is the kind of institution that takes decades to build and a certain kind of person to sustain. …