Obituary of Dr. Gope Vishindas CHABLANI
Dr. Gope Chablani, father to Andy, Neil, and Jane and grandfather to, Morgan, Misha, and Dylan, of Calgary, AB, passed on to a better place on the evening of Thursday, March 14, 2019 at the age of 87 years.
Though his going has left his family’s hearts filled with sadness, the peace and serenity of his passing brings great consolation, for in his going he found his way home.
Gope was born in Rohri, India (now Pakistan) in 1931. In 1947, a year after his father’s death, Gope and his family were forced to flee to Bombay due to the communal violence that came with India’s partition. While living temporarily in a tent in a refugee camp in Bombay he graduated high school with top honours and won a scholarship to attend Grant Medical College in Bombay, from where he graduated in 1956. A year later he was awarded a fellowship to study at Vanderbilt University’s Medical School in Nashville, Tennessee. Gope then furthered his education studying population control at the Margaret Sanger Institute in New York City before coming to Canada to specialize in psychiatry at the University of Toronto, passing his board exams in New Brunswick in 1965 before moving with his wife Kathleen to Calgary in 1966.
Gope was a dedicated physician and passionate about his specialty. He believed that helping patients through the practice of psychiatry was a noble calling. Though he had spent many years training to become a specialist, first and foremost he always insisted he was a doctor, willing to help others in urgent need of medical care. When there was a neighbourhood playground accident he would unhesitatingly come or when a neighbour fell ill with adult measles Gope took exceptional care of him, understanding that this man’s wife and two small children depended on his getting well.
For nearly four decades Gope was a practising physician in Calgary, touching many lives as a gentle, compassionate caregiver.
Not only was Gope passionate about his calling as a physician, he was also passionate about the fate of a free and independent India. As a teenager, he had joined demonstrations against British rule as part of Gandhi’s Quit India movement and to the end of his life remained avidly and ardently interested in the fate of his birth country.
The thread running through all these things was love. That love in its many forms, love for others, love for his work, love for his country, shone the brightest in Gope’s love for his family. He loved his parents, his mother Sita and his father Vishindas. He loved his brothers and sisters, his sisters-in-law, his brothers-in law and his nieces and nephews. Gope is survived by his siblings Lachman and Indu and was the brother of Nanik, Pitu, Herdavi and Pribhu, all of whose memories he carried with him in his heart to his final days and for whom he cared and loved deeply.
He also loved his ex-wife, Kathleen Chablani, to whom he was married from 1964 to 1991.
Finally, he was a proud and loving grandfather to Dylan, Morgan and Misha. In his later years the dementia he had robbed him of being an active grandfather but he was still aware of his beloved little ones and was always joyful when they would come to visit.
His spirit remains with us and we are grateful for all he has given us.