Gopal Shankar Kelkar was born on 20 February 1900 in Talegaon (near Lonavla), India. His father, Shankar, was a journalist and editor of *Pune vaibhav* and his mother was Umabai, née Manutai. He attended the New English School and Fargusson College in Poona until 1920. He then studied at Grant Medical College in Bombay where he won the 5th Camac Scholarship in 1921, the 1st Parish Scholarship in 1922, the A M Kunte Scholarship in 1922 and the Anderson and Gopal Sheoram Scholarships in 1923. He qualified MB, BS in 1924 and took up appointments with the J J Hospital and Grant Medical College. He became demonstrator and then tutor in anatomy until 1929. He passed the MS with distinction in 1928 and was awarded the Prince of Wales gold medal. He then held various clinical appointment posts at Grant Medical College and, in 1961, became Emeritus Professor of Surgery. During the second world war he was appointed to the Indian Military Hospital in Bombay with the rank of Major in 1944. Besides his busy clinical and teaching activities Gopal studied homoeopathy and, in many cases, found that homoeopathic remedies could be used instead of surgery. If his patients were unable to pay he would waive his fees. After he retired in 1970 he ran MS classes at weekends free of charge and his courses were very popular. He also continued to teach the housemen in the private hospital in which he had worked. He was a keen tennis player and he loved classical and semi-classical Indian music. He was not interested in publishing but he left many invaluable notes. He and his wife Tarabai had two daughters who both graduated in science. The eldest, Manda, was a state and national badminton champion before she died of cancer in 1978. The younger daughter, Pramodini had a son, Vibhas Gopal Modak who qualified MB, BS and intended to become a Fellow of the College. He is thought to have died in late 1984 or early 1985.