Habel Purushottam Dass was born in Godhra, India, on 12 September 1934. He was the only son of the Rev Purushottam K Dass, a minister in the Methodist Church at Gujurat. His mother, Sumati, was also a Methodist minister working at the same church. She was well known for her pioneer work in the establishment of nurses among Gujurati Christians. As a child Habel went to the Methodist primary school at Nodiad, Gujurat, and then to the boys' high school in Baroda. Later he went to Bombay to the Wilson College and finally to the Christian Medical College at Vellore, India. His clinical study was completed at the American Mission Hospital at Muscat, Oman. He qualified MB BS in India in 1960. He held house appointments at the American Mission Hospital and it was here that he was particularly influenced by two missionary surgeons, Dr W Wells Thorns and Dr Donald Bosch, both American, with whom he worked for some nine years after qualification. He stated his main interest in life was "to make known the love of God in Christ to others" and he devoted his life to this aim. Encouraged by his surgical friends he took the Fellowship of the College, obtaining his diploma in 1974. He worked as a surgeon at the Mission Hospital, Muscat. He became a highly respected member of the local community so much so that Sayyid Fahr bin Taimour, deputy Prime Minister for Security and Defence, described him as "a dear friend and highly respected member of the community". In July 1963 he married Elizabeth, by whom he had two sons, Augustine and Joshua, both of whom studied medicine at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. Habel was a keen cricketer and an expert table-tennis player. Unfortunately during a routine angiogram in 1988, following an attack of angina, he suffered a cardiac arrest from which he never recovered and he died on May 1988, survived by his wife and two sons.