The ₹100 Crore Lie: Why India's Best Surgeons Die Broke

You know that senior surgeon in your hospital? The one with the Mercedes, the Rolex, the corner office?

He's drowning.

₹3 crore in debt. Working 18-hour days at 58. Taking emergency calls to pay his daughter's foreign education EMI. His hands shake now - not from age, but from the beta-blockers he takes for stress-induced hypertension.

I should know. I was almost him.

Until I discovered the ₹100 crore lie that's been fed to every Indian surgeon since Independence. A lie so perfectly crafted, so systematically reinforced, that brilliant minds accept financial slavery as the price of prestige.

Today, I'm breaking my 25-year silence.

Not because I'm brave. But because last week, a 42-year-old plastic surgeon - a close friend - had a massive MI in his own hospital. While operating. On a patient who could've waited till morning.

His last WhatsApp to me? "Bis, need to clear this month's equipment EMI."