“The Last to Enter”: Permanently Etched  Imprint  shaping the entire life!

I was born on 2 June 1959 in Baroda. My mother hailed from Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh, and most of our relatives lived either in MP or Baroda. She had earned her BA and MA in literature, as well as a Sahitya Visharad degree, and had extensively read marathi saint literature although she never taught in colleges. She loved the poetry of Marathi saints—Dnyaneshwar, Namdev, and Tukaram—which often echoed through our home.

My father came from a small town in Belgaum district in Karnataka. He himself was an MBBS doctor, a member of the third batch of BJ Medical College, Pune, and had begun a private practice in the city.

All my schooling took place in Pune. I attended  MES Girl’s school from classes 1-4, while MES Boy’s High School, Peru Gate from 5th  to 11th. I pursued my pre-professional course at Abasaheb Garware College.

I was a reasonably good student, but I could not secure admission to BJ Medical College. In those days, many medical colleges in India conducted their own entrance tests. Around that time, my father met Dr. R.B. Agrawal, Head of Pathology at BJ, who was well-acquainted with MGIMS. He told us about Sevagram’s PMT and encouraged me to apply. But he warned, “You may be good at physics, chemistry, and biology, but at MGIMS, it is the Gandhi paper that makes all the difference.”

He advised me to read four books: Key to Health, Mangal Prabhat, Constructive Programme, and My Experiments with Truth. Over the next four weeks, he mentored me, explaining Gandhian philosophy and sharing tips for the exam.

Meanwhile, my father explored the possibility of admission to Belgaum Medical College. He paid ₹5,000 upfront, but when we arrived there, they demanded an additional ₹35,000—an amount we could not afford. We returned to Pune without enrolling.

With BJ and Belgaum ruled out, I now focused solely on Sevagram. I studied Gandhi and prepared earnestly for the PMT, which I took at Ravi Centre. A fortnight later, I was called for an interview at MGIMS.

My mother and I travelled from Pune to Wardha. As Deshastha Brahmins, we contacted a distant relative, Mr. Mashankar—a Gandhian living in Wardha—who told us about the nature of the interview. “They’ll ask you about Gandhi, khadi, and the ashram,” he warned, “especially since Dr. Sushila Nayar, Gandhiji’s physician, is the director.”

At the interview, they began with questions in physics, chemistry, and biology. Then one gentleman—possibly Mr. Sriman Narayan—asked, “Gandhi spent over twenty years in South Africa. What exactly did he do there to fight injustice, inequality, and racism?”

Fortunately, I had read Gandhi’s autobiography thoroughly and could answer in detail. Most panel members were from MP, and they were surprised by my fluent Hindi. When asked how I knew Hindi so well, I explained that my maternal grandparents were from Ujjain, the sacred city of Mahakaleshwar. I also told that we spentour summer vacation swith them, every year. 

Despite doing well, I was waitlisted at number four. A clerk in the Dean’s office reassured us: “Don’t worry. The results of GMC and IGMC Nagpur are yet to be declared. Many selected students will move there.”

Three others were also on the waitlist: Nitin Gupte, Tarvinder Singh Oberoi, and Santosh Prabhu. Our families decided to stay in Sevagram for a week. By Lord Panduranga’s grace, exactly four students left for Nagpur—and we were all admitted.

That moment—being the last to enter—left a lasting imprint. For others, it might have been a footnote. For me, it became a quiet vow: I would work hard to erase the stigma of being the last. That determination shaped not only my student life but much of what followed. In our first-term anatomy exam, I topped the batch. Though I never topped again, that early push helped forge my path.

After admission, we attended an orientation camp at Gandhiji’s ashram. I was just 17 and away from home for the first time. My father came to visit me at Rustam Bhavan, where the boys stayed (the girls were in Gauri Bhavan).

He said he had brought gifts. I was excited, expecting something special. He opened a large box: inside was the latest edition of Gray’s Anatomy, still in its plastic wrap, along with three volumes of Cunningham’s Anatomy and a full bone set. That black, heavy textbook is etched in my memory.

That afternoon, while my father and I went for a walk, my classmates opened the bone set and arranged the entire skeleton on my bed—perfectly aligned. My father couldn’t stop laughing when we returned.

My years at MGIMS were intense and transformative. Academics were rigorous—lectures, ward rounds, seminars, and exams left us little time to idle. Still, there was space for cricket (I was a left-handed bat and often fielded at gully), college plays, and camaraderie. We joked about how there was no ‘hanky-panky’—an innocent term for the absence of distractions.

One early memory stands out. Dr. Hariharan, our dental surgeon, once gathered our batch and announced that he was staging a drama, Teen Pagal, and needed actors. He picked Sunil Takiar as the “political pagal,” Ashok Mehendale as the “Maharashtrian pagal,” and pointed to me: “You are Madrasi, right?”

“No sir, I’m Maharashtrian,” I replied.

He laughed, “Doesn’t matter. You’ll play the Madrasi pagal.”

I wore a lungi and kurta and tried to speak Tamil on stage—to the audience’s delight.

Later, I played the sanitary inspector Wakankar in another play, Ghetala Shingawar, alongside Aruna Jain, Atul Deodhar, and Ashok Mehendale.

What made MGIMS truly special was its spirit. Our teachers weren’t just learned; they were deeply committed. They knew us by name, cared for our growth, and constantly went the extra mile. Our batch—diverse in language, culture, and geography—shared a unity of purpose. The compactness of the campus, the proximity of the hostel blocks, and the Gandhian ideals embedded in everyday life shaped our values in lasting ways.

In Sevagram, I learnt the values that stayed with me long after I left its dusty roads and neem-lined paths: simplicity, restraint, hard work, and the quiet habit of placing others before oneself. MGIMS gave me far more than a medical degree. It shaped the way I thought, the way I worked, and the way I looked at the world. It gave me the discipline of a teacher, the instinct of a doctor, and, above all, the soul of a true Sevagrami.

MGIMS also laid the foundation for my career in anaesthesiology. It offered me a DA seat and opened the door to further training at the prestigious Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research in Chandigarh. There, the young woman who stood across from me as a competitor for an MD seat became first a colleague and then my life partner, Dr. Minnu Sidhu Panditrao. From that point onward, the world seemed to widen. I had the opportunity to work in places I could scarcely have imagined as a student in Sevagram: the University of the West Indies in Jamaica, Princess Margaret Hospital in the Bahamas, Rand Memorial Hospital in Grand Bahama, and Al Adan Hospital in Kuwait.

Yet wherever I went, Sevagram travelled with me. In lecture halls, operating rooms, hospital corridors, and unfamiliar countries, I carried within me the habits I had acquired there: to stay grounded, to keep learning, to teach generously, and to remember that medicine is, before everything else, an act of service.

Looking back, being the last to enter turned out to be a blessing in disguise. It made me work harder, think more deeply, and value every opportunity that came my way. That, in the end, made all the difference.

There are many more stories—of hostel rooms, friendships, disappointments, late-night conversations, and laughter drifting beneath the neem trees of Sevagram. Those stories still remain, waiting for another day.