Himadri Kumar Sarkar was born on 20 October 1920 in Kurseong, a small hill town in Darjeeling, where his father practiced law. After attending St Paul’s College in Calcutta, he enrolled at Calcutta Medical College (CMC) in 1940, graduating MB in 1944. He worked in house jobs at the CMC hospital and the Emergency Medical Service before leaving for the UK in 1948 and spending a year working at the Bradford Royal Infirmary. While there he was influenced by a pioneer of urological surgery, Harry Hamilton Stewart, and passed the fellowship of the college and of the Edinburgh college in 1949. He returned to India and was appointed surgeon to the hospital of the Calcutta Port Commissioners, working there from 1949 to 1956. During this period he particularly specialised in research on spinal cord traumas as many of his patients sustained such injuries during their work unloading and carrying large cargoes on their heads. In 1957 he joined the staff of the Post Graduate Medical Institute of Calcutta (SSKM Hospital) as an assistant professor of surgery and began to develop his specialist interest in urology. From 1961 onwards his unit was specifically dedicated to urology. Already a member of the Territorial Army with the rank of major, he took time off during the Sino-Indian conflict in 1962 to practice in field hospitals in Calcutta and Jabalpur. In 1963 he returned to the SSKM and the following year he realized his dream of creating an independent urology unit. He was able to perform a wide range of urological surgery and the unit had one of the few dialysis kits in India at that time. A man of great energy, he published prodigiously, gave numerous academic papers, mentored many students and ran a large private practice. He was assistant professor of surgery and an examiner at Calcutta University and also a founder member of the urology section of the Association of Surgeons of India and the Urology Association of Calcutta. In his short career he was the holder of numerous prizes and awards. He married Shefali, a talented artist who illustrated many of his papers. A lover of the countryside and outdoor pursuits, he spent weekends at his farmhouse with his wife and three young children. In early 1970 he developed pancreatic cancer and died on 6 October 1970 aged 49. His son Kalyan Kumar Sarkar became a distinguished urologist and four of his grandsons studied medicine, two of them training to become surgeons. Shefali died in 2006.