Goa entrepreneur says father's cancer pushed him into making money: 'It's trauma response'

Raj Kunkolienkar shared that his father died in 2023 after the cancer returned, but at the time, he was financially prepared for the battle and did not need to take loans. (Image credit: @kunksed/X)

A deeply personal account shared by a Goa‑based businessman has opened a raw conversation about illness, financial fragility and the unseen emotional engines that drive India’s first‑generation entrepreneurs. In a post on X, Raj Kunkolienkar — co‑founder of a travel club and a familiar voice in India’s tech and creator communities — recounted how his father’s cancer diagnosis in 2004 reshaped the course of his childhood, family, and eventually, his relationship with money.

What began as a fifth‑grader overhearing his parents’ hushed late‑night kitchen conversations grew into a lifelong lesson in survival, responsibility and financial preparedness — a lesson he now describes with blunt clarity: “It’s trauma response.”

Childhood marked by silence and scarcity

Kunkolienkar was 11 when his father, a kirana store owner in Panaji, was diagnosed with Stage 3 follicular lymphoma. The family had just taken on their first home loan, moved out of the cramped room behind their shop, and begun to imagine a slower, steadier middle‑class life. The diagnosis halted all of it.

With no insurance, limited savings and no cancer care facilities in Goa, his father travelled by bus to Mumbai for chemotherapy — an eight‑hour journey each way — before returning to open the shop the next morning. “The same man who winced when he cut his finger slicing onions was now travelling with poison in his veins,” Kunkolienkar wrote.

His mother ran the shop alone. The family survived on borrowed money from friends, relatives and even customers — the informal, fragile safety nets familiar to India’s lower‑middle‑class households.

All the while, the child in the house remained shielded from the truth. He cried for a geared bicycle while the family quietly figured out how to pay for cancer treatment.

Remission, recurrence, and a decade of debt

By 2007, the cancer went into remission. But it took the family 11 years — until 2015 — to recover financially. Kunkolienkar described it as a “crater”: the medical crisis lasted months; the financial impact lasted a decade.

When he received admission to international universities in 2012, his mother urged him to stay in India. Not because of money — though that mattered — but because “What if it comes back?”

He stayed, joining BITS Pilani with a state scholarship.

And the cancer did return — in 2022, transformed into a more aggressive form. His father underwent CAR‑T therapy as part of a clinical trial but passed away in 2023.

This time, Kunkolienkar could afford everything. Flights. Hospitals. Specialists. No loans. No buses.

“The CAR‑T didn’t work. Cancer won anyway,” he wrote. “But I sleep at night knowing I did everything that could be done.”

‘Money is options when you have no good choices’

The entrepreneur said people often wonder why he writes constantly about money, security, and financial planning. “It’s not ambition. It’s not greed. It’s not even wisdom. It’s trauma response," he said.

Kunkolienkar ended his post with a message to families facing the same terror his lived through: they are not alone, and financial preparedness is not a luxury — it is dignity. And to those who still have time: “Get insurance. And take your parents out for dinner while they’re still around.”

Story goes viral, wins hearts on social media

Kunkolienkar's story triggered an outpouring of emotion from readers across India.

“You just made a middle‑aged father of two cry! Every word resonates," wrote one user. Another described a childhood spent inside hospitals — skull fractures, surgeries, ICU stays — and credited the Indian Army’s medical system for his survival. Now a civilian, he wrote, he pays for extensive private insurance for his family: “Might as well overspend now rather than regret later.”

A third user wrote:“Your father would be so proud of how you represented your family here.”

Others pointed to the broader impact of his work, saying he had improved lives through his community initiatives. “Your dad would be proud of the man you’ve become — and all the lives you’ve touched," a user commented.