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. 126

Dr. Panjabsingh Chavan


Paediatrician  ·  Yavatmal

The Man Who Did Everything There is a particular kind of doctor who turns up in small-town Maharashtra and simply does whatever needs doing. He is not a specialist; he …
Roll No. 127

Dr. Madhusudan Bagdia


Surgeon  ·  Akola

The Cobra and the Scalpel When Madhusudan Bagdia was a resident in surgery at Government Medical College, Nagpur, he chose to specialise in Oncosurgery before the word had properly arrived …
Roll No. 128

Dr. Vrajlal Patel


Surgeon  ·  Junagarh

Keshod is a market town 37 km southwest of Junagadh, mid-Saurashtra, where the land flattens and the roads carry the steady traffic of an agricultural district. It is not a …
Roll No. 129

Dr. Manik Laxman Hedau


Public Health Specialist

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 …
Roll No. 130

Dr. Murtaza Akhtar


Surgeon  ·  Nagpur

On 26 April 2001, Murtaza Akhtar was riding his scooter to NKP Salve Institute of Medical Sciences and Research, Nagpur, when a vehicle struck him. He arrived at his own …
Roll No. 131

Dr. Laxmikant Rathod


Paediatrician  ·  Buldhana

The boy who began his schooling in Pimpri Forest — a village in Karanja Lad Taluka of Washim district — arrived at Government Medical College, Nagpur in 1973 carrying no …
Roll No. 132

Dr. Madhukar Parchand


Anatomist  ·  Kolhapur

"I was too poor to afford the GMC admission fees," Madhukar Parchand recalled. "My father had to collect donations from the community to pay Rs 132 — the annual tuition …
Roll No. 133

Dr. Nandkishor Salampuria


Plastic Surgeon

On 7 July 1973, Nandkishor Salampuria received his GMC Nagpur admission letter. It was his birthday. Those who knew him would later say it was arguable the best birthday gift …
Roll No. 134

Dr. Maya Bhaskarwar Jamkar


Anaesthesiologist  ·  Pune

"I was a shy and taciturn girl when I came to GMC, Nagpur," Maya Bhaskarwar said, years after the fact. "The big city, the big medical campus, and the English-Marathi …
Roll No. 135

Dr. Ashok Shankar Badhe


Anaesthesiologist  ·  Puducherry

Ashok Badhe grew up admiring Prakash Padukone. "To me, he was a lion who played a terrific game," he recalled. "I had gone to Delhi to watch him play in …
Roll No. 136

Dr. Alka Vasantlal Parikh


Gynaecologist

She died of metastatic breast cancer on 16 October 2013, in a private facility in Nagpur. She had told no one about the illness. That discretion — the willingness to …
Roll No. 137

Dr. Laxmikant Rathi


Psychiatrist  ·  Amravati

"When I started my practice," Laxmikant Rathi said, "I was the only Psychiatrist in the town — now the number has grown to 15. A common man now knows what …
Roll No. 138

Dr. Satish Deshmukh


Public Health Specialist  ·  Nagpur

He should have been in the class of 1972. A university examination scandal changed that. "I should have been in the 1972 batch," Satish Deshmukh explained, "but the 1972 mass …
Roll No. 139

Dr. Prahalad Jajodia


Gastroenterologist  ·  Fresno

There is a particular cohort within the GMC Nagpur class of 1973 who made the journey to the United States — some early, some late, some after long careers in …
Roll No. 140

Dr. Ramesh Chopade


Otorhinolaryngologist  ·  Malegaon

Malegaon is a city of a million people in Nashik district — dense, industrial, and associated in the public memory with a series of communal incidents that have made other …
Roll No. 141

Dr. Tuklaram Badodekar


Physician

He had a favourite couplet that he carried through his life like a pocket torch: kisike muskurahaton pe ho nisar, kisi ka dard le sake to le udhaar, jeena isi …
Roll No. 142

Dr. Alka Deshpande Dixit


General Practitioner  ·  Solapur

She has practiced medicine in two towns and raised two sons, both of whom became engineers and left for America. She managed the transition from Kurduwadi to Solapur, from a …
Roll No. 143

Dr. Shakuntala Bhatia


Public Health Specialist  ·  Bundi

Bundi is a walled city in the Hadoti region of Rajasthan — step-wells, lake palaces, painted havelis, and an old fort above it all. It is 210 kilometres south of …
Roll No. 144

Dr. Dilip Magarkar


Orthopaedic Surgeon

He had hands that people noticed. In the operating theatre, colleagues watched him work with something close to absorption — the precision of the incisions, the economy of motion, the …
Roll No. 145

Dr. Hema Deoras


Obstetrician & Gynaecologist  ·  Bombay

She belonged to the group they called SHARP — Shobha, Hema, Arun, Ravi, Prakash — five students from the later years of the GMC Nagpur 1973 batch who formed the …
Roll No. 146

Dr. Arun Deshmukh


Ophthalmologist  ·  Mumbai

The operating theatre and the ward were the two rooms where Arun Deshmukh and Hema Deoras fell in love. She was learning obstetrics and gynaecology; he was learning the anterior …
Roll No. 147

Dr. Ganeshgir Gosavi


Otorhinolaryngologist  ·  Akola

The road to the primary health center in Jamthi, near Murtijapur, was not the road Ganeshgir Gosavi had imagined for himself when he entered Government Medical College, Nagpur in 1973. …
Roll No. 148

Dr. Mohan Gupte


Surgeon  ·  Nagpur

The name Rango Bapuji Gupte does not appear in most school textbooks, but in the family of Mohan Gupte it is spoken with the weight given to founding figures. Rango …
Roll No. 149

Dr. Vijay Thakre


Physician  ·  Yavatmal

There is a moment Vijay Thakre has not forgotten. He was sitting in a classroom at Vidarbha Mahavidyalaya, Amravati, during his pre-medical year, struggling with everything the city demanded of …
Roll No. 150

Dr. Prabhakar Patil


Ophthalmologist  ·  Yavatmal

On 28 December 2013, the day after the GMC 1973 batch reunion in Nagpur, Prabhakar Patil's son Piyush married Supriya in Nanded. The timing was not accidental. The reunion had …