Om Tantia watched the film Anand at a very impressionable age. So inspired was he by the character of the doctor, played to perfection by Amitabh Bachchan, that he decided to take up medicine.

Born into a middle-class Marwari family, Tantia studied at a school “that did not even have a proper pucca roof, leave aside things like benches and a fan”. He was a brat at school. “I used to get caned by Masterji almost every day. In fact, the day did not seem complete unless I had been punished at least a couple of times,” he confesses.

“Life changed drastically after I suddenly lost my father when I was just 12,” Tantia recalls. His 18-year-old elder brother took on the responsibility of running the family while young Tantia focussed on his books.

After passing out of Jain High School, the youngest of three brothers joined North Bengal Medical College. He did his masters in surgery from the SMS Medical College in Jaipur. By this time, he had been introduced to laparoscopic surgery, a method of surgery that is minimally invasive. Since no big incisions are needed, patients recover very fast, a fact Tantia found interesting. In 1991, he went to England to train in laparoscopic surgery at the Northwick Park Hospital in Harrow, London.

On his return to Calcutta, he joined the Marwari Relief Society Hospital as resident surgeon. “This was a huge learning platform,” Tantia says. He was then invited by Anandlok Hospital to set up its department of laparoscopic surgery. This was a difficult period in his life. Anandlok supplied him with all the equipment needed to set up the department but patients were hard to come by. Very few people had heard of laparoscopic surgery and even fewer were willing to undergo it. “For 11 long years, I worked single-handedly at Anandlok to popularise the concept of minimal access surgery,” he says.

The success he enjoyed at Anandlok encouraged Tantia to dream big. He decided to set up the Institute of Laparoscopic Surgery (ILS) along with his wife, fellow laparoscopic surgeon Aruna Tantia, and his brothers. “We wanted to create an institution which would give us the opportunity to perform advanced and complicated laparoscopic procedures. We dreamt of surgeons coming to train with us from not only the state but also all over the country,” Tantia says. “Since construction is our family business (though I am the black sheep), it was not very difficult for my brothers to turn my dream institute into a reality.”

ILS started out in a small way, with eight beds and an operation theatre in only 2,500 sq ft of space. Tantia, who is something of a perfectionist, worked day and night to establish ILS as the hospital for laparoscopic surgery.

“In our profession, money should not be the guiding factor,” Tantia says. “It is just a by-product of the service we render to the patient. At ILS, we strictly follow this belief.”

This belief has stood them in good stead. In the past seven years, ILS has grown to a 58-bed multi-speciality clinic, with dedicated maternity, paediatrics and critical cardiac care units. Special attention is paid to making hospitalisation a pleasant, safe and comfortable experience.

Every three months, ILS holds a five-day training programme for aspiring laparoscopic surgeons. “More than 200 surgeons have taken part in the 25 workshops that we have conducted,” Tantia says proudly.

Now, the inevitable question: What is the secret of his success? “How can I let it out?” says Tantia with a laugh. “Listening to my inner voice and honest introspection,” he adds, on a more serious note.

And what does he think of competition? “As long as we work with sincerity and dedication, retain our ethics and keep abreast of scientific developments, there will be no competition,” Tantia maintains.

It was a movie that set him on the road to medicine. Does he get the time to watch any films nowadays? “If I’m honest, I’ll admit that I’m a workaholic. I hardly get the time to do anything else. I love photography, travelling and going on walks but nowadays I just can’t make time.”

Laparoscopic surgery may be minimally invasive. But it has certainly invaded and taken over Om Tantia’s life.

Based on a conversation with Paromita Sen in Calcutta