Dr. Mukund Karambelkar

Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences

Dr. Mukund Karambelkar

The Calligraphic Scholar of the Stage

Batch Year 1974
Roll Number 27
Specialty Obstetrics & Gynaecology
Lives In Chalisgaon, Maharashtra, India

A Nomadic Childhood and the 10% Gap

I was born on 8 December 1955 in Sidhpur, a small town in the North Kanara district of Karnataka. My father was a medical officer, and in those days, a government job meant a life on the move. My childhood was a patchwork of geography: I did my primary schooling in the Nashik district, moved to Farah for the eighth grade, navigated the classrooms of Chandigarh for the ninth and tenth, and finally returned to Nashik for the eleventh.

When it came time for medical admissions, the landscape was daunting. Nashik had no medical college of its own, so I moved to Thane to enroll at Bandodkar Science College. This was a newly established institution affiliated with Pune University, which at the time had only two medical colleges—AFMC and B.J. Medical College. The competition was brutal. I remember the “10% Gap” that haunted every student in the region: admissions in Pune typically closed at 72%, while in Bombay, the cutoff was often 62%. For a student from the Pune University stream, missing out by just a couple of marks meant facing a closed door.

I missed my first shot at medical admission by exactly two marks. Rather than surrender, I strategically shifted to Bombay for my further studies, hoping the broader selection of colleges—Grant, GS, KEM, and Nair—might offer a way in. I took admission in junior BSc at Somaiya College, but my mind was perpetually at the vocational guidance center at Bombay VT Station. I spent my days scanning the lists for every national entrance exam: CMC Vellore, JIPMER Pondicherry, and of course, MGIMS Sevagram.

The Railway Strike and the Bicycle Rescue

May 1974 brought a national crisis that threatened to derail my preparations entirely. George Fernandes announced a nationwide railway strike, paralyzing the lifeline of Bombay. I was living in Dombivli, and the commute to my coaching classes at VT became impossible. I moved to my uncle’s house in Bandra, determined not to let the political unrest stop my academic pursuit. I took every Pre-Medical Test (PMT) available. When the results were finally announced, I found myself on the merit list for both AFMC and MGIMS. In Sevagram, I was ranked second in the country.

The telegram for the interview arrived, and my father and I boarded the train for Wardha. We stayed at the Ruia Ashram with Mr. J.L. Ranade, a classical singer and a friend of my father. We were prepared, or so we thought. At 9:00 AM on the day of the interview, we stepped out onto the quiet streets of Wardha, expecting a rickshaw. None appeared. Thirty minutes passed in agonizing silence. I was the second rank holder in India, and I was about to be late for the most important meeting of my life.

Just as despair was setting in, a kind professor from a local college noticed us stranded. He didn’t have a car or even a scooter, but he offered us his bicycle. I remember the surreal sight of us navigating the road to the medical college gates on a single bike, arriving breathless and dusty. When I finally stood before the attendant, he looked at his sheet and said, “You are already marked absent.”

The Linguistic Slip and the Gandhian Paper

My father pleaded our case with the Principal, explaining the lack of transport in Wardha. The Principal was kind but firm; he couldn’t break the sequence of the ongoing interviews. We were told to wait. We sat outside that office for seven hours, watching other candidates enter and leave, until finally, at 4:30 PM, I was called in.

The panel included the giants of the institute: Dr. Sushila Nayar, Manimala Choudhary, and Dr. M.L. Sharma. My English was shaky, and my Marathi—though strong—wasn’t the language of the interview. Dr. Nayar spoke to me in Hindi, detailing the Gandhian code: the prohibition of alcohol and tobacco, the mandatory Khadi, the morning prayers, and the life of simplicity.

I wanted to say that I had no objection, but my nervous Hindi failed me. I said, “Mujhe isse koi ikraar nahi.” (I have no agreement/confession with this). She paused, amused by my choice of words. “Why do you have no ikraar with this?” she asked with a smile. I quickly realized I had used the wrong word for “objection” (inkaar). I clarified that at Somaiya College, we had lived under a similar discipline, even down to restrictions on wearing fashionable bell-bottoms.

My sincerity must have shone through the linguistic tangle. It also helped that I had scored 42 out of 50 in the Gandhian Thought paper—the highest marks in the batch. I had spent months reading Gandhi’s autobiography, and I suspect my calligraphic handwriting made my long-form answers particularly easy for the examiners to appreciate. I was admitted, and the tuition fee of ₹1200 was paid the next morning.

The Orientation: Unlearning the City

The orientation camp at G-Anand was my true introduction to Sevagram. For a boy who had lived in Chandigarh and Bombay, the fortnight was a baptism in self-reliance. We weren’t treated like elite medical students; we were treated like members of a community. We cooked our own food, swept the floors, cleaned the toilets, and washed our own utensils.

During those prayers at Sharda, the distance between the faculty and the students vanished. We didn’t just meet our Anatomy and Physiology teachers; we met them as people. The Pharmacology and Pathology professors made a point to learn every one of our names before the first lecture even began. It was a lesson in the “Social Service” that MGIMS stood for—that a doctor must first be a human being who is not afraid to get his hands dirty.

Music, Drama, and the Friday Prayers

Once the rigors of the first year began, I found my place in the cultural heart of the campus. I became known for my singing and my deep love for Marathi drama. My close circle of friends—Suresh Dhakate, Hemant Brahmane, V.S. Agrawal, and Ravindra Jain—became my second family. Along with Kishore Shah and Pradip Joshi, I threw myself into the theatrical traditions of the college, finding that the stage offered a different kind of healing.

On Friday evenings, the Sarva Dharma Prarthana was the center of our spiritual life. If Mukunda Oke was away, the responsibility of leading the prayers fell to me. I would sing the traditional hymns with Lalit Kose, accompanied by Ravindra on the tabla. Those evenings, with the smell of incense and the low hum of voices in the twilight, are among my most cherished memories.

A Way of Life in Chalisgaon

I eventually specialized in Obstetrics and Gynaecology and moved to Chalisgaon to establish my practice. But the lessons of Sevagram never left me. Whether it was the discipline of the “Code of Conduct” or the empathy I learned while cleaning utensils in the ashram, those years shaped the way I treated every woman who walked into my clinic.

Looking back, I remember every convoluted railway route I took from Karwar in Karnataka just to reach Wardha. I remember the bicycle ride that almost cost me my career. Most of all, I remember the wonderful friendships that have lasted fifty years. MGIMS Sevagram gave me more than a medical degree; it gave me a moral compass and a way of life that continues to guide me every single day.

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