A medico with interests as varied as politics, music and social work, Dr Madhuchanda Kar lives a fulfilling life

By Varsha Vinod Menon

The tech-savvy Dr. Madhuchanda Kar is a versatile person outside her OPD with a definite opinion on everything from politics to fashion. A delightful person to interact with, Dr. Kar is a prominent medical oncologist in Kolkata, West Bengal. Treating malignant tumors and hematological malignancies are the areas of her specialty. Although her lifestyle is a mosaic of activities and interests, her patients are her top priority. Dr. Madhuchanda Kar attributes her success story as an individual and as a doctor to her ability to plan her day’s activities well in advance. She is highly disciplined in her ways and never takes her profession or the gift of healing for granted. It is the way she likes to compartmentalize her timings that help her work smoothly. “I work for nearly 8-10 hours a day. In the afternoon, I attend meetings with the various organizations and NGOs I’m associated with, like the NGO Manami, an adolescent awareness programme against the use of tobacco, that was started five and a half years ago. In the evenings, I don the role of an academician,” Ms. Kar beams.

Interestingly, she has a leaning towards politics. “If I hadn’t been a doctor I would have joined politics,” she says. She is of the opinion that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a great leader and expects great things to come as he fulfills most of his promises. But she is disappointed with his team that does not work as per the requirement of the citizens and their leader. “We have a good leader but not a great team,” she says. The leading oncologist finds time to read at least one short story every day. “I do not enjoy reading serious books. The last book I read was The Sialkot Saga by Ashwin Sanghi.” She devotes a huge part of her literary duties to medical writing, which, she feels, is an important part of her responsibilities as a doctor. The avid reader also devours Bengali books.

A diehard fan of Mohammad Rafi, Dr. Kar finds time for his songs as well as those of Bengali singer Arathi Mukherjee. She also loves watching movies, her all-time favorites being 3 Idiots and Titanic. Despite her friends being as busy as she is, she always finds time for them. A lot of special moments in life, she admits, are undoubtedly those spent with her family and friends. A tech lover, Dr. Kar owns gadgets like iPhone, iPad, and MacBook and is quite active on social media. Her colleagues often compliment her on her wonderful presentation skills. She finds Twitter and Facebook to be great platforms to stay aware of the world. However, her favorite social networking application is WhatsApp and she spends an hour daily interacting with her friends as well as patients. Having traveled to most parts of the world, Dr. Kar’s favorite holiday destinations are India’s hill stations. The last one she visited was a tea estate in Darjeeling. She prefers to keep her phone aside during such getaways but finds it difficult to do so as patients constantly need to stay in touch with her.

Having traveled a lot, Dr. Kar has tasted several cuisines from all over the world. Sundays are her cooking days. She explores her cooking skills on this day and her family greatly enjoys her mutton dishes, which, she proudly says, is her best dish. Dr. Kar describes her own fashion sense as conservative, with a penchant for saris and shawls, and feels that Indian women look best in a sari. She has a huge collection of saris as she buys them from all the places that she visits. Dr. Kar’s greatest wish that she would like to fulfill in the years to come is to be “a force that could do a lot for women and a doctor who can improve their health.” Her wish, it seems, has already come true!