Dr Tehemton Udwadia: We all mourn his loss, says Mumbai's Parsi community

Surgeon and gastroenterologist Dr Tehemton Erach Udwadia passed away on Saturday bringing a somber reflective end to the first week of the New Year The father of laparoscopic surgery in India took his leave from earth and quickasablink social media started buzzing first with the news and then with the tributes for the Mumbaibased Padma Bhushan recipientIf the tenor of all those tributes respectful memories and anecdotes could be summed up it was a consummate professional perfect gentlemanThat is what former Bombay Parsi Panchayat BPP chairman Dinshaw Mehta has experienced Mehta explained ldquoDr Udwadia was a strict disciplinarian He would not tolerate a lapse from staffers or junior doctors but do not mistake that for harshness He was in fact a very kindhearted person and an icon of the Parsi community for over 50 years His son Rushad is an equally eminent surgeon now settled in CanadardquoPresident Pranab Mukherjee presents the Padma Bhushan to Dr Udwadia in 2017 PicMinistry of Information and Broadcasting right One of the tribute posters on social mediaDr Hemant Morparia consulting radiologist Breach Candy Hospital recalled scalpel and smiles went together ldquoHe really had a superb sense of humour Our meetings in the hospital corridor would inevitably have him telling me to send him my recent cartoonsrdquo Dr Morparia is a cartoonist I would call him ldquoa larger than life figure a pioneering surgeon one of the best of his kindrdquoViraf Mehta of the Bombay Parsi Panchayat BPP succinctly called him ldquoa gemrdquo In fact Mehtarsquos lines really sum up his enormous influence on his community and the stirring pride they have in their surgeon as he added ldquoEvery Parsi family has a member who has been treated by him or one of the doctors in the Udwadia family This goes beyond community though It is not just us but the city that has lost a great soul and a fabulous doctor We all mourn his lossrdquoAlso read Mumbai lsquoCannot just hand over hospital to anyonersquoWise wordsSometimes surgeons are not just known by their skill but their words of wisdom that transcend the operating table Goarsquos surgical oncologist Dr Shekhar Salkar stated that he had never had an opportunity to work with Dr Tehemton Udwadia ldquobut I worked with his son Rushad at Sion Hospital years earlier Dr Udwadia of course was the father of keyhole surgery in India Yet it was his statement that impacted me the most He was the one who said to be a good surgeon you must know when lsquonotrsquo to operaterdquoZinia Lawyer managing director Bakhtawar Construction Pvt Ltd said ldquoHe will be dearly missed and remembered He has operated on me I remember him as so softspoken and courteousrdquo Pervez Cooper an activist from Colaba said ldquoDr Tehempton Udwadia gave my uncle a second life when he operated upon him I know for sure that he has treated poor patients for freerdquoNoshir Dadrawala former BPP trustee seconded the free treatment for poor patients He said he never charged priests or the poor I remember Dr Udwadia in crisp allwhite and he looked dashing even as he got along in yearsrdquoThey say the true test of personality comes when you do not have to demand respect you simply command it ldquoThe doctor commanded respectrdquos aid Dadrawala ldquoof all those who trained under himHe has performed surgery on a couple of family members and I remember how prior to the surgery he would make the anxious patient laugh to take away the fear of the most complicated of proceduresrdquoToday eulogies and words like legend greatest iconic are at times loosely and undeservedly used Yet these adjectives may fall short for the doc for who perhaps the words of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow are a better fit lsquoLives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime and departing leave behind us footprints on the sands of timersquo07Day in January that Dr Tehemton Udwadia passed away