Remarkable surgeon

Dr Sorabji Fardunji Ghandy, born in 1865, was an eminent surgeon of Ahmedabad. He passed his matriculation examination at the young age of 14 and, having no money to pay his college fees, worked as a mechanic for a year or two. Later, having collected the requisite sum, he joined Bombay’s Grant Medical College where he walked away with all the scholarships and passed his LM&S (Licentiate in Medicine and Surgery) examination at the age of 20, ranking first class first, winning the medicine, surgery and midwifery prizes. At an early age he was appointed civil surgeon at Bharuch.

Ghandy spent practically his entire life in Ahmedabad except for a short period when he was civil surgeon in Godhra, Kheda and Broach. He made a name as a surgeon in Ahmedabad and in recognition of his services was awarded the position of honorary assistant surgeon to the Viceroy of India. A handsome charity, both communal and cosmopolitan, was donated after his demise. I wonder whether funds for the Gandhi/Ghandy Engineering Institutes in Surat have come from this source? At the unveiling ceremony of his oil-painted portrait at the Civil Hospital, Ahmeda-bad’s civil surgeon Col Harty described him as "a remarkable man well loved by his patients and friends,” as quoted in Parsi Lustre on Indian Soil, Vol. II, by H. D. Darukhanawala, 1963.

The doctor lived with his wife Dinbai at Lal Darwaja, Ahmedabad, vide the 1926 Parsi Vastipatrak of Ahmedabad by Kavasji Faramji Khambatta.

RASHID S. MEDORA

Ahmedabad

rashid@medoraindia.com