June 12: An NRS student who used to jam with Bhoomi members has become a top orthopaedic surgeon in London with a penchant for fast cars and flying.

Rajarshi Bhattacharya, 44, is the director of acute trauma surgery at Imperial College Hospitals, London, one of the premier medical institutions in the British capital. He is also the head of the orthopaedic section at the Royal Society of Medicineand sits on the Doctors' Registration Appeals Committee of the General Medical Council as well as the UK Parliament & Health Ombudsman.

When he can tear himself away from work, he races his Bentley Continental GT at Silverstone, the home of British motor racing. Before he acquired the fancy pair of wheels in 2014, he drove a Porsche 911 and a modified Mitsubishi FTO.

Rajarshi was also on the verge of getting his private pilot licence a couple of years ago when a series of mid-air crashes around the world made insurance companies cagey about covering him.

The busy doctor is also pursuing an MBA at Imperial College Business School. "I have to deal with finances quite a bit, so I decided to do my MBA part-time. I will complete the degree next year," he said.

Long before he graduated from NRS Medical College in 1996, Rajarshi knew that he wanted to be a knee surgeon. His home at Ananda Palit overflowed with patients who came to see his father, orthopaedic surgeon Debabrata Bhattacharya. "I have been looking at knee X-rays since I was a kid. When my classmates were contemplating which branch of medicine to study, I knew that I would study orthopaedics and more specifically, knee surgery," said Rajarshi.

He moved to the UK after graduation and obtained his MRCS degree. A year of research followed. He then trained in Newcastle for five years and did fellowships in knee surgery and trauma in Edinburgh and Southampton, respectively. He joined Imperial College as a consultant surgeon in 2010 and became a lead surgeon for orthopaedic trauma in 2011 and head of orthopaedics in 2013 before rising to his current position.

His mantra for success is "keep focus and train hard". "I was always boosting my CV, publishing and giving lectures. If there is competition between a white doctor and an overseas doctor, both equally qualified, it is the white doctor who will win. You have to be better than them to beat them. Being equal does not work for us," said Rajarshi, who was the first non-UK passport holder to get a Calman orthopaedic training number in northern England.

Calcutta gave Rajarshi "so much", so he wants to give back something to the city but is yet to find the right way. "I am not thinking of going back home now. I am too much into my practice here," he said.

He would also like to return some day to his first love: playing music in a band. Influenced by his mother, Chhaya Bhattacharya, Rajarshi used to play keyboard with Soumitra Ray and Abhijit Ghosh of Bhoomi before the band was formed.

"I had learnt to play the piano and was a keyboard player in a band called XTC with Soumitra and Abhijit. We had done a number of shows in Calcutta and I remember playing at the Calcutta Rowing Club on a New Year's Eve. We would generally play the covers of Guns N' Roses, Bon Jovi, Dire Straits and Doors. But then we decided to try Bengali songs like Sadher Lau and those by Mohiner Ghoraguli," said the surgeon, who had left for the UK around the time Bhoomi was born.