Dr Shanta Krishnamurthy (22 August 1944–24 July 2025)

Shanta's initial posting in TMH was in Microbiology, but her love for histopathology and her determination to work in the subject of her choice resulted in her moving to the histopathology department.She proved to be both a gifted diagnostician and an excellent teacher.Her real calling, however, was in the field of cytology.Cytology at TMH in the 1970s was still very rudimentary and limited to exfoliative cytology, with very few fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) samples.Dr G.V. Talwalkar, who was the head of the department of pathology, decided that he would depute Dr Shanta Krishnamurthy and me to FNAC on a weekly rotational basis.Both of us were raw and at sea in this new world of just 'cells.'There was no one to turn to, and no one to teach or guide us in this new subject.So, we decided that we would learn from all fresh operated specimens, by sticking a needle into the tumours, aspirating some cells, and making dummy cytology smears.When we compared the cytological smears with the final histology of the specimens, we learnt that this world was quite fascinating, and certainly very challenging.Shanta grew to love the subject and became an expert very quickly.She delighted in peering at smears for hours and learning and teaching cytology to the rest of the staff and students.She quickly became the cytology advisor to all of us, and her eye was seldom wrong.In 1995, she initiated the Bombay Cytology Group, which consisted of many interested pathologists and cytologists of different hospitals in Mumbai.Shanta was also particularly interested in gastrointestinal histopathology and collaborated with researchers from the adjacent Cancer Research Institute.Her research publications were on diverse topics, but the majority were, quite expectedly, in gastrointestinal pathology and in cytology.She was also the editor of a book, Aspiration cytology for clinicians and pathologists, published in 1991.To me, Shanta was many things.First, a colleague, soon after, a friend, often a philosopher, a great cytologist, and best of all, a wonderful, quirky human being who could tell intelligent and funny jokes, and stories that would make us realise that Indian mythology should be learnt with Shanta.I used to tease her and say, 'Shanta, you are totally incorrectly named.'She was anything but 'shant' or 'calm,' and her name should have been something more thunderous and even volcanic like Joan of Arc, or Indira Gandhi, or Margaret Thatcher.She was upright, extremely honest, and would call a