Shyamapada Tripathi was a general surgeon. Born on 1 April 1933 in Howrah, West Bengal, India, he was the second son of Radhakkrishna Tripathi who was an assistant commercial officer on the South Eastern Railway and his wife Sarala Bala née Misra who was the daughter of a doctor. Educated at the the Hamilton High School, Jamluk, Midnapore, West Bengal and the Residency College, Calcutta, he then entered Calcutta Medical College and became house surgeon to the professor of surgery. He graduated MB BS in 1957. On coming to the UK, he was appointed surgical registrar at the North Ormesby Hospital in Middlesborough where he worked with Sydney Mottershead, John Leonard Edmonson and J Otofield. He passed the fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1969 and the fellowship in 1970. Moving to the USA he became a senior resident in surgery in Cleveland Ohio. Nothing is known about his subsequent career but the Deenunath Mangeshkar Hospital and Medical Centre in Pune has a library that bears his name. He married Judith Mary Craven in 1965 and is known to have enjoyed playing chess and bridge. He died on 21 February 2016.