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Obituaries

THE NATIONAL MEDICAL JOURNAL OF INDIA VOL. 13,NO. 2,2000

Neelkanth Gajanan Talwalkar MD, FRCP

(15 August 1918-24 November 1999)

Dr N. G. Talwalkar died after acrippling illness caused by a freakaccident, which had confined himto bed for more than two years.Rather a sad end for someonewho had worked cheerfully andconstantly for eight decades.

Bhayyasaheb (as he was affec-tionately called) was born inAhmedabad, where his father wasa well known practitioner. He wasthe youngest child of Dr Gajananand Mrs Sharadabai and grand-

son of Dr Ramchandra Gangadhar, a medical officer in the stateservice of Baroda (Vadodara). All of them were students of GrantMedical College. Neelkanth completed his course with credit andcontinued his postgraduate training at the J,J. Hospital. He passedhis MD in 1944 towards the end of the Second World War. He hadto wait more than a year before he was allowed to take a passageto Liverpool on a troopship to continue his studies. Perhaps thehardships of the post-war years in Britain egged him on tocomplete his MRCP and return promptly to India.

He was appointed as an Honorary Physician at the J,J. Hospitalin 1948 and worked in that capacity until his retirement in 1976.He was posted to the unit of Dr R. V. Sathe where he developeda keen interest in Diabetology. He was associated with theformation of the Diabetic Association of India and later the AllIndia Institute of Diabetes at Raheja Hospital in Mahim, Mumbai.

At the J,J. Hospital, he assisted Dr Jagmohan G. Parekh instarting and publishing The Journal of the Grant Medical Collegeand J.J.Hospital in 1956. He took over the editorship after DrParekh and continued to edit it long after his retirement from theJ,J. Hospital. He encouraged several departments to bring outspecial issues of the Journal. He also took an interest in the lifehistory of various personalities associated with the innumerablemedals and prizes that are awarded at the Grant Medical College.These life sketches were published in the journal and later as acommemorative book: Men and Memorabilia of Grant MedicalCollege and J.J. Group of Hospitals. He made considerableefforts in tracking down the descendants of all these illustriouspersons and collected the names of all persons who had qualifiedfrom the college up to 1900 and tried to enquire about theircareers. He became a storehouse of information on the subject.

Dr Talwalkar was closely involved with the formation andrunning of the Research Society of the Grant Medical College. Hetook an active part in the affairs of the Association of Physiciansof India. He also worked for the Life Insurance Corporation,retiring as Chief Medical Officer.

In 1951, he established his nursing home in Matunga, whereseveral well known personalities were amongst his patients. Heconsidered health education as an essential part of his practice andcomposed several ditties and sayings in Marathi and English toremind his patients how to look after themselves. He used hisconsiderable knowledge of Sanskrit in these efforts. He published

several small booklets which he distributed among his patientsand those attending the Raheja Hospital.

Characteristically, he did not mention his name in his printedworks. One publication was an exception, in which the composerof the verses was identified as 'Sharadeya' -the son of Sharada.The last such booklet of instructions for home users of insulinarrived on the day before he died. (His son Shriniwas, his printer,will no doubt continue to publish and distribute the booklet.)Along with Dr A. V. Godbole, he co-authored a book on Diabetesfor Medical Practitioners.

He married Kamal Dongre in 1946. They had three childrenwho survive him. His wife spent nearly five years in bed aftersuffering bilateral strokes, much of this time in coma. He person-ally took care of her during her illness with extraordinary devo-tion. She predeceased him by five years.

A freak accident occurred while he was travelling from NewYork to Frankfurt, on the way back from his daughter's home. Hefainted in the plane and ended up with quadriplegia due totemporary interruption of blood supply to the spinal chord. Theaircraft had to be landed in London. He was looked after inCharing Cross Hospital for a few months. He stoically bore hisillness, but recovery was partial. He constantly worried about howlong he would live in the dependent state and appeared to berelieved when it was discovered that he had also developed gastriccarcinoma.

Bhayyasaheb will be remembered as a kind physician with asmiling face, who could be relied upon to give sound advice,without prescribing too many medicines. Besides, he was alwaysavailable to his patients at all hours of the day and night.

As family members we will also remember his remarkablesense of humour, which stayed with him till the last day, his wittysayings with play on words and his quotations from Raghuvansh,Shakuntala and Subhashit-Ratna-Bhandagaram.

VASANT TALW ALKAR

Paediatric SurgeonMumbai

Maharashtra

Dr Sunil K. Pandya adds:

Dr N. G. Talwalkar was a thorough gentleman cast in a mould thatappears to have been abandoned. Self-effacing, he was alwaysready to give credit to others and champion youngsters who wereattempting tasks he considered worthy. I was the fortunate recipi-ent of suggestions, notes and applause from him-all aimed atspurring me on to further work on the history of his beloved almamater. He discussed my humble contributions with great affec-tion and ensured that these were brought to the attention of othersinterested in this field. Though I was considerably junior to him,he showed not a trace of condescension, preferring to treat me ashis equal. His own very painstaking labours on the history of theGrant Medical College were never highlighted but merely re-ferred to in passing. It was only when his essays appeared in TheJournal of the Grant Medical College and J.J. Hospital that theenormity of his effort became obvious. Tracing descendants ofbygone luminaries in a city such as Mumbai is not easy, but hewent about this self-imposed task with a persistence that can onlybe admired. When one realizes that the countless hours he spent

OBITUARIES

on this effort were snatched from the short periods of leisurepermitted by his busy practice, his devotion to the cause becomesevident. Fortunately, he was able to enlist the help of his neph-ews-Drs Vasant Talwalkar and Ashok Talwalkar.

He died as he lived, simply and gracefully. His crippling strokehad left him unable to fend for himself. The thought of puttingothers to inconvenience on his own account troubled him. Thiswas characteristic of the man who had never hesitated to do all hecould for others in need! When the diagnosis of cancer of theoesophagus and stomach was made, he received it with equanim-ity and declined any drastic therapy. He greeted death as a friendand spent his last few weeks putting all his affairs in order. Heensured that his beloved collections on the history of his almamater would find a welcome home.

S. K.PANDYANeurosurgeon

MumbaiMaharashtra

Vimla Virmani(12 April 1919-November 1999)

Professor Vimla Virmani, one ofthe pioneers of medical neurol-ogy in India, passed away in No-vember 1999 after a prolongedillness. It was a very painful expe-rience for many of her colleagues,to see such a dynamic personalitygradually wither away.

She was born on 12 April 1919at Lyallpur. She had an unusualeducational background, havingattended no school or private tu-ition. She appeared for the schoolleaving examination as a private

candidate after studying at home only. Later, a Professor ofPsychology at Foreman Christian College, Lahore permitted herto attend his classes as a casual student, which earned her aMaster's degree in psychology. Her further studies were ham-pered by her 'spurious' postgraduate qualification but fortunatelyDr D. P. Setbna, the then Dean of Grant Medical College, allowedher to enroll for the MB,BS course. She then proceeded to theUnited Kingdom where she had the good fortune to train undergreat teachers-Professors MacDonald Critchley, Dennis Will-iams, John Marshal and Sir Charles Symmonds. With her educa-tional background in psychology, it was only natural that she

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became interested in the neural mechanisms of speech, cognition,body schema, praxis, etc. (to the woe of her postgraduate studentslater in life).

She was partly responsible for starting or developing theDepartments of Neurology at the Postgraduate Institute of Medi-cal Education and Research, Chandigarh; All India Institute ofMedical Sciences, New Delhi and much later at the Sree ChitraTirunal Institute of Medical Sciences and Technology,Thiruvananthapuram. She became the head of the Department ofNeurology at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences after thesad demise of Professor S. N. Pathak.

I had the privilege of working with her at the All India Instituteof Medical Sciences during the early 1970s and got involved withsome of her research work. The first ever Indian neurologicalpaper on speech and language dysfunctions in hemiplegics pub-lished in the Indian Journal of Medical Research in 1973 was theresult of one such endeavour. I must confess that I would not havebothered about cognitive neurology but for her influence. She hadto her credit more than 120 papers in various national andinternational journals and a few chapters in different books. Shewas the first ever elected lady President of the NeurologicalSociety of India (1978).

It is often said that Indian medical neurology in its early dayshad no chance of standing up to the then domineering trio ofneurosurgery-Professors Jacob Chandy, B. Ramamurthi andP. N. Tandon. Dr Sunil Pandya, while reviewing a book edited byme (The Evolution of Neurosciences in India, 1998), questionedthis statement and remarked that I, as a medical neurologist,should have given an answer to this often-repeated comment.'The truth was that only Dr Virmani could stand up to them andmake her presence felt. Most of her colleagues were too meek,humble and servile to raise their voices against this domineeringtrio in combined meetings. Let me hasten to add that there wereindeed a few strong-willed neurologists then in some centres inIndia but they did not get as much prominence as neurosurgeons.

She was fiercely loyal to her students though her quicksilvertemper would erupt without much provocation. She was a stemadministrator and could not tolerate work-shy people. At the sametime, she was a good teacher and could guide her students toachieve academic excellence.

She had a series of strokes at the fag end of her career. In thelate 1990s, I visited her on a few occasions at her New Delhiresidence. Though she was physically ill, I found her very activeand agile mentally. She used to attend scientific meetings in NewDelhi with all her handicaps till the end of her career. A largenumber of her students would certainly miss her.

REFERENCEI Pandya SK. Book review: The evolution of neurosciences in India. Neurology India

1997;47:164.

K. RAJASEKHARAN NAIRThiruvananthapuram

Kerala