Uppal is from Kolhapur, where he has spent nearly thirty years building a business around the sugar industry. In November 2022 a routine check-up found stage four cancer in the lymph nodes around his voice box. Forty-seven days after his total laryngectomy, in the middle of chemotherapy and radiation, he travelled to Delhi to open the industry conference he had founded.
How did you find out?
“In November 2022, I went in for a routine check-up. It was a weekday. I had a meeting scheduled for that afternoon, and I expected to be home in time for lunch.
Instead, I heard the words ‘stage four.’ The cancer was in the lymph nodes surrounding my voice box.
I remember the clock on the wall more clearly than the doctor’s face. I remember the sound of the ceiling fan, and how strange it was that the room looked so ordinary.
I didn’t ask why me. I have never found that question useful. I asked two questions instead: how long will this take, and when can I go back to work?”
What did the surgery change?
“On 21 November 2022, surgeons performed a total laryngectomy. They removed my voice box, my vocal cords, my thyroid gland and the lymph nodes around them. My mouth and nose no longer connect to my lungs. I now breathe through a small opening in my neck, called a stoma.
A voice prosthesis, fitted during the same surgery, gave me a new voice. It is quieter than the old one, and a little rougher. The first time I heard it, it sounded like a stranger speaking from inside my own chest. It took time before I recognised it as mine.
The voice I had used for twenty-five years, to negotiate, to close deals, to argue with my father, to laugh with my family, was gone. It was the loudest knock of my life. My answer didn’t change. Keep knocking.”
How did you keep going through treatment?
“Chemotherapy began, and radiation alongside it. The days took on a new rhythm: hospital, rest, emails, hospital again. I answered messages between sessions and read reports in waiting rooms. My phone became my voice. I typed what I could no longer comfortably say.
On the calendar, one date wasn’t moving. The conference we had started for the sugar industry was set for 7 January 2023, in New Delhi. My team came to me carefully and asked whether we should postpone. I asked them one question back: does the industry stop because we are having a difficult year?
We didn’t postpone. I reviewed the agenda line by line from home and from hospital corridors. If I couldn’t do something in person, I made sure someone I trusted could. I don’t react. I prepare.
Forty-seven days after my surgery, I travelled from Kolhapur to Delhi. I didn’t give a long speech that year. I stood at the side of the hall as it filled up, and I understood that this room was my voice now.”
What has it taught you?
“Cancer took a lot from me. But it gave me a few things back.
I listen more now. Speaking takes me more effort than it used to, so I choose my words carefully, and I let other people finish theirs. Most people will tell you exactly what you need to know, if you give them the time.
I trust more, and I delegate more. None of it was built by one person. When I couldn’t be in the room, my team was. Alone is a moment; together is a story.
People ask me how I kept going. The honest answer is that stopping never felt like an option. You show up when it’s easy, and you show up when it isn’t. Problems will keep coming, and that’s fine. I gave them my answer a long time ago.
Keep knocking. I’m not going anywhere.”
Uppal’s story has been adapted, with his permission, from a longer interview and edited for length and clarity. The illustration is based on Uppal’s own caricature, which he chose to share.