Kamta Bhargava was born on 9 February 1917 at Banda, Uttar Pradesh, India, the son of Colonel Dwarka Prasad Bhargava FRCS, the first Indian civil surgeon in Delhi and Professor of Surgery at the Prince of Wales Medical College in Palna and Agra. He was educated at West Buckland School in Devonshire and St Bartholomew's Hospital but at the outbreak of war in 1939 he returned to India to complete his training in Patna, where he qualified with honours in surgery In 1940. After junior posts he obtained the MS in 1943 and joined the Indian army. Bhargava returned to England in 1947 to take the FRCS. He won a Nuffield Scholarship in Chest Surgery at Harefield Hospital. On returning to India he was appointed consultant surgeon to Moolchand Hospital, Delhi, and worked there for 'the rest of his career. He married Shanta Wazir, a doctor. They had a daughter, Neirah, and two sons, both of whom became doctors. Nalin, a pathologist in New Delhi and Hemant, a paediatrician in Chicago. Bhargava died on 11 November 1993 after a long illness.