Dr. Wasant Keshav Belokar

Professor of Surgery · Founder, Urology Division · MGIMS

MBBS, Government Medical College Nagpur (1964)
MS General Surgery, AIIMS Delhi (1969)
MCh Urology, AIIMS Delhi (1975)

b. 23 March 1940, Khamgaon, Buldhana district, Maharashtra   ·   d. 2020

Tenure: 1970 – 1982

“Have Only One Wife”

On his official Maharashtra Medical Services application form, right beneath the bureaucratic question asking whether he had more than one wife, Dr. W.K. Belokar wrote: “Married (have only one wife).”

This tiny detail—the incredibly dry humor of a highly precise man finding a quiet outlet in tedious paperwork—captures something absolutely essential about him. He was deeply reserved, not particularly expressive, and generally a man of very few words who preferred to let his surgical outcomes speak on his behalf.

But beneath that quiet surface, there was a sharp wit that found its moments, and a profound care for people that expressed itself in actions rather than declarations. For example, returning to Sevagram a full year after his resignation solely to sign a panicking student’s thesis, crossing the massive distance between Goa and Maharashtra just to ensure that one piece of unfinished business was honorably completed.

And then, of course, there was the prostate that got stuck in the ceiling light. But that comes later.

Khamgaon, the Merit List, and the Path to AIIMS

Wasant Keshav Belokar was born on March 23, 1940, in Khamgaon, in the Buldhana district of Maharashtra. He attended Government High School and Science College in Khamgaon, acing his matriculation in 1957 with rare distinctions in Physics and Chemistry. When he completed his pre-professional studies, he ranked fourth on the entire Nagpur University merit list—a clear, early signal of the fierce academic seriousness that would carry him through everything that followed.

He joined Government Medical College, Nagpur, in 1959 and graduated with his MBBS in 1964. His early clinical years took him grinding through the Nagpur Medical College Hospital, the district hospital in Amravati, and a rural center at Saoner. Stints as a house officer in General Surgery and ENT refined his raw surgical instincts. Then, in 1966, a brutal All-India selection process earned him a highly coveted postgraduate residency at AIIMS, Delhi—the institution that would shape his surgical identity most completely.

He trained as a surgical resident at AIIMS from 1966 to 1969, earning his MS in Surgery under Professor Atma Prakash (the exact same legendary mentor who had taught Dr. Ravinder Narang). His deep interest in urology took root during this period. The kidney, the ureter, the prostate—he was drawn to the particular demands of a biological system that connected the incredibly precise with the highly mechanical in ways that rewarded both technical skill and immense patience.

The Arrival and the Wait

In June 1970, while still completing his AIIMS registrarship, he applied for a Lecturer’s position at MGIMS. He was selected and officially appointed on July 4, 1970.

There was only one problem: the Surgery department had not yet been formally established.

And so, he began his tenure sitting in the Anatomy department, waiting. Principal Dr. I.D. Singh wrote to assure him that Surgery would soon be introduced. Meanwhile, Professor Atma Prakash wrote to the Principal on his student’s behalf with characteristic warmth: “Dr. W.K. Belokar is one of my dearest students. He is brilliant, hardworking, and will bring credit to your institution.”

Administrative delays required him to wait for another doctor’s departure before he could formally take up his surgical role. He waited with the unshakeable patience of someone who had learned that the right moment eventually arrives. On October 15, 1971, he finally joined MGIMS as a Lecturer in Surgery.

Two years in, hungry for greater specialization, he secured study leave to pursue his MCh in Urology at AIIMS. He completed the brutal training on his first attempt and returned to MGIMS in July 1975. Promoted to Reader, he eventually established a separate Urology Division at MGIMS in November 1980, becoming its first head under Professor K.K. Trivedi.

From Khamgaon to GMC Nagpur to building a specialized urology division in a rural teaching hospital in Vidarbha, he had accumulated his clinical competence piece by piece, each step quietly building upon the last.

The Operating Theatre and Its Occasional Surprises

Inside the operating theatre, Dr. Belokar had a highly particular, slightly dangerous celebratory habit: whenever a difficult prostatectomy was successfully completed, he would toss the removed prostate high into the air in a moment of sheer surgical triumph. It was a seasoned juggler’s gesture, expressing in the only available physical language the deep satisfaction of work flawlessly done.

One day, the toss went wrong.

The prostate shot upward with far more force than anticipated and lodged itself firmly inside the surgical ceiling light. The theatre staff scrambled frantically to retrieve it, fighting a losing battle to maintain their professional composure. Dr. Belokar remained completely unfazed, continuing his postoperative work as if absolutely nothing unusual had happened.

He also famously kept his transistor radio playing during operations—one ear attending to the patient’s kidney, the other listening intently to Kapil Dev’s bowling figures. He saw no contradiction whatsoever. “On a rainy day,” he would explain to baffled students, “as I tried to negotiate the dilator through the uneven urethra, I was taken by surprise—much like a batsman facing Kapil’s late outswinger!” Both disciplines demanded immense skill, fine control, and the ability to instantly read the pitch—whether that pitch was the human urinary tract or the Feroz Shah Kotla stadium in November. He delivered running cricket commentary as he operated, blending the surgical with the sporting in a way that made the theatre feel like a place of both extreme precision and joyful anticipation.

His praise for students was incredibly rare, and therefore deeply meaningful. “I will give you an MBBS degree straight from my pocket,” he would announce when genuinely impressed by a student’s performance in examinations. Those who heard it knew they had done something truly worth noting.

The Return for Abhoy Kumar

When Dr. Belokar resigned to move to Goa in December 1982, he left behind exactly one piece of unfinished business: a student named Abhoy Kumar Sinha. Abhoy was the only MD candidate he had guided, and his complex thesis on the urological manifestations of leprosy was still a year away from completion.

When the departure came with data collection incomplete, Abhoy Kumar faced a terrifying series of compounding administrative problems: Who would sign his work? How would he satisfy the department? How would he convince the university? And without a signed thesis, could he sit his final examinations at all? The questions were not rhetorical; they actively threatened his ability to complete his medical degree.

A full year after his departure, Dr. Belokar suddenly reappeared in Sevagram. He had traveled all the way from Goa for one specific reason: to sign the thesis. With a single stroke of his pen, he cleared every bureaucratic obstacle, validating his student’s work and permanently securing his future. And then, he simply returned to Goa.

This is exactly the kind of act that never appears on a curriculum vitae. It required only the quiet decision to travel back to honor a commitment made before circumstances changed. Dr. Belokar made the decision without apparent deliberation, because the obligation to the student was clear, and for him, that was entirely sufficient.

Goa and the Long Career After

He joined Goa Medical College as Professor of Surgery on December 6, 1982. By January 1994, he had risen to become Dean—leading the institution with the exact same quiet authority that had defined his surgical career. He served on the Goa Medical Council, and eventually on the Medical Council of India, contributing to the regulation of medical education at a national level.

He subsequently served as Director of Urology at hospitals in Sawangi and Nepal. The career that had started in the dusty village classrooms of Khamgaon had extended across multiple prestigious institutions and national governing bodies.

Those who received his official correspondence often noted that he was possessed of an impossibly elegant, calligraphic handwriting—a genuine joy to read in an era when most documents were handwritten, and the quality of the hand still said something profound about the quality of the mind.

He died in 2020. What he had established at Sevagram—the Urology Division, the exacting surgical standards, the elite MCh training he brought back from AIIMS and applied to a rural teaching hospital—remained permanently intact.

As did the prostate, which was presumably eventually retrieved from the ceiling light, properly labeled, and sent to pathology without further incident.

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Dr. Wasant Keshav Belokar

“Have Only One Wife”

On his official Maharashtra Medical Services application form, right beneath the bureaucratic question asking whether he had more than one wife, Dr. W.K. Belokar wrote: “Married (have only one wife).”

This tiny detail—the incredibly dry humor of a highly precise man finding a quiet outlet in tedious paperwork—captures something absolutely essential about him. He was deeply reserved, not particularly expressive, and generally a man of very few words who preferred to let his surgical outcomes speak on his behalf.

But beneath that quiet surface, there was a sharp wit that found its moments, and a profound care for people that expressed itself in actions rather than declarations. For example, returning to Sevagram a full year after his resignation solely to sign a panicking student’s thesis, crossing the massive distance between Goa and Maharashtra just to ensure that one piece of unfinished business was honorably completed.

And then, of course, there was the prostate that got stuck in the ceiling light. But that comes later.

Khamgaon, the Merit List, and the Path to AIIMS

Wasant Keshav Belokar was born on March 23, 1940, in Khamgaon, in the Buldhana district of Maharashtra. He attended Government High School and Science College in Khamgaon, acing his matriculation in 1957 with rare distinctions in Physics and Chemistry. When he completed his pre-professional studies, he ranked fourth on the entire Nagpur University merit list—a clear, early signal of the fierce academic seriousness that would carry him through everything that followed.

He joined Government Medical College, Nagpur, in 1959 and graduated with his MBBS in 1964. His early clinical years took him grinding through the Nagpur Medical College Hospital, the district hospital in Amravati, and a rural center at Saoner. Stints as a house officer in General Surgery and ENT refined his raw surgical instincts. Then, in 1966, a brutal All-India selection process earned him a highly coveted postgraduate residency at AIIMS, Delhi—the institution that would shape his surgical identity most completely.

He trained as a surgical resident at AIIMS from 1966 to 1969, earning his MS in Surgery under Professor Atma Prakash (the exact same legendary mentor who had taught Dr. Ravinder Narang). His deep interest in urology took root during this period. The kidney, the ureter, the prostate—he was drawn to the particular demands of a biological system that connected the incredibly precise with the highly mechanical in ways that rewarded both technical skill and immense patience.

The Arrival and the Wait

In June 1970, while still completing his AIIMS registrarship, he applied for a Lecturer’s position at MGIMS. He was selected and officially appointed on July 4, 1970.

There was only one problem: the Surgery department had not yet been formally established.

And so, he began his tenure sitting in the Anatomy department, waiting. Principal Dr. I.D. Singh wrote to assure him that Surgery would soon be introduced. Meanwhile, Professor Atma Prakash wrote to the Principal on his student’s behalf with characteristic warmth: “Dr. W.K. Belokar is one of my dearest students. He is brilliant, hardworking, and will bring credit to your institution.”

Administrative delays required him to wait for another doctor’s departure before he could formally take up his surgical role. He waited with the unshakeable patience of someone who had learned that the right moment eventually arrives. On October 15, 1971, he finally joined MGIMS as a Lecturer in Surgery.

Two years in, hungry for greater specialization, he secured study leave to pursue his MCh in Urology at AIIMS. He completed the brutal training on his first attempt and returned to MGIMS in July 1975. Promoted to Reader, he eventually established a separate Urology Division at MGIMS in November 1980, becoming its first head under Professor K.K. Trivedi.

From Khamgaon to GMC Nagpur to building a specialized urology division in a rural teaching hospital in Vidarbha, he had accumulated his clinical competence piece by piece, each step quietly building upon the last.

The Operating Theatre and Its Occasional Surprises

Inside the operating theatre, Dr. Belokar had a highly particular, slightly dangerous celebratory habit: whenever a difficult prostatectomy was successfully completed, he would toss the removed prostate high into the air in a moment of sheer surgical triumph. It was a seasoned juggler’s gesture, expressing in the only available physical language the deep satisfaction of work flawlessly done.

One day, the toss went wrong.

The prostate shot upward with far more force than anticipated and lodged itself firmly inside the surgical ceiling light. The theatre staff scrambled frantically to retrieve it, fighting a losing battle to maintain their professional composure. Dr. Belokar remained completely unfazed, continuing his postoperative work as if absolutely nothing unusual had happened.

He also famously kept his transistor radio playing during operations—one ear attending to the patient’s kidney, the other listening intently to Kapil Dev’s bowling figures. He saw no contradiction whatsoever. “On a rainy day,” he would explain to baffled students, “as I tried to negotiate the dilator through the uneven urethra, I was taken by surprise—much like a batsman facing Kapil’s late outswinger!” Both disciplines demanded immense skill, fine control, and the ability to instantly read the pitch—whether that pitch was the human urinary tract or the Feroz Shah Kotla stadium in November. He delivered running cricket commentary as he operated, blending the surgical with the sporting in a way that made the theatre feel like a place of both extreme precision and joyful anticipation.

His praise for students was incredibly rare, and therefore deeply meaningful. “I will give you an MBBS degree straight from my pocket,” he would announce when genuinely impressed by a student’s performance in examinations. Those who heard it knew they had done something truly worth noting.

The Return for Abhoy Kumar

When Dr. Belokar resigned to move to Goa in December 1982, he left behind exactly one piece of unfinished business: a student named Abhoy Kumar Sinha. Abhoy was the only MD candidate he had guided, and his complex thesis on the urological manifestations of leprosy was still a year away from completion.

When the departure came with data collection incomplete, Abhoy Kumar faced a terrifying series of compounding administrative problems: Who would sign his work? How would he satisfy the department? How would he convince the university? And without a signed thesis, could he sit his final examinations at all? The questions were not rhetorical; they actively threatened his ability to complete his medical degree.

A full year after his departure, Dr. Belokar suddenly reappeared in Sevagram. He had traveled all the way from Goa for one specific reason: to sign the thesis. With a single stroke of his pen, he cleared every bureaucratic obstacle, validating his student’s work and permanently securing his future. And then, he simply returned to Goa.

This is exactly the kind of act that never appears on a curriculum vitae. It required only the quiet decision to travel back to honor a commitment made before circumstances changed. Dr. Belokar made the decision without apparent deliberation, because the obligation to the student was clear, and for him, that was entirely sufficient.

Goa and the Long Career After

He joined Goa Medical College as Professor of Surgery on December 6, 1982. By January 1994, he had risen to become Dean—leading the institution with the exact same quiet authority that had defined his surgical career. He served on the Goa Medical Council, and eventually on the Medical Council of India, contributing to the regulation of medical education at a national level.

He subsequently served as Director of Urology at hospitals in Sawangi and Nepal. The career that had started in the dusty village classrooms of Khamgaon had extended across multiple prestigious institutions and national governing bodies.

Those who received his official correspondence often noted that he was possessed of an impossibly elegant, calligraphic handwriting—a genuine joy to read in an era when most documents were handwritten, and the quality of the hand still said something profound about the quality of the mind.

He died in 2020. What he had established at Sevagram—the Urology Division, the exacting surgical standards, the elite MCh training he brought back from AIIMS and applied to a rural teaching hospital—remained permanently intact.

As did the prostate, which was presumably eventually retrieved from the ceiling light, properly labeled, and sent to pathology without further incident.