Vijay Vasant Karkhanis was born on 23 June 1939 in Thane, India. His father Vasant Raghunath Karkhanis was a doctor and his mother, Snehal, was a teacher. After attending M H High School in Thane he studied medicine at Elphinstone College, Bombay University. After becoming a Fellow of the College in 1972, he returned to Thane, India, where he practised at the Snehal Surgical and Maternity Home. On 28 February 1965 he had married Rajashree (Asha) who was a consultant gynaecologist and a Fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. They had a daughter, Mayura, who was 19 years old and studying medicine at Bombay when her father died and a son, Amit, who was aged 13 and still at school. Vijay was a keen rose grower and won the 1988 Mayor's Trophy of the Bombay Rose Society. Other hobbies were table-tennis, badminton, cricket and cooking. He died of cardiac failure on 5 April 1989 survived by his wife and family.