<p>"It came as a complete surprise. Siddhartha called us at 1 and asked if we were awake. I said of course not - senior citizens don't stay up so late. Then he told me that he has won this prize and I just couldn't believe it," Mukherjee's mother Chandana, who lives in Delhi, told IANS.<br /><br />Siddhartha, 41, is a New York-based cancer specialist who won this year's Pulitzer in the general non-fiction category for his book "The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer".<br /><br />The Delhi-born doctor's book is a worldwide bestseller.<br /><br />In the book, Siddhartha examines cancer with a cellular biologist's precision, a historian's perspective and a biographer's passion, says the publisher. The result is an eloquent chronicle of a disease humans have lived with - and perished from - for more than 5,000 years.<br /><br />A resident of Safdarjung Enclave, homemaker Chandana said they have been flooded with calls since early Tuesday after the news broke. "There have been a lot of calls."<br />Asked if they would fly down to meet their son to celebrate the occasion, she said would go only in June.<br /><br />"We had planned our vacation well in advance and have our tickets booked for June. So we are not advancing that. We will be going for a month or a month-and-a-half. Then the celebrations are going to happen with Siddhartha, his wife and the kids and his wife's family," Chandana said.<br /><br />Friends and relatives are pouring in to congratulate the proud parents.<br /><br />Siddhartha's wife, Sarah Sze, is a sculptor. He has two daughters - Leela, aged five-and-a-half, and Arya, who is just over a year old.<br /><br />"Leela is very shy and doesn't like to speak on the phone. But the family is obviously very excited," the doting grandmother said.<br /><br />Siddhartha's sister is married and settled in Dhaka.<br /><br />Siddhartha is an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University and a cancer physician at the CU/NYU Presbyterian Hospital. <br /><br />A Rhodes Scholar, he graduated from Stanford University, University of Oxford and from Harvard Medical School. <br /><br />He was a Fellow at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and an attending physician at the Massachusetts General Hospital and the Harvard Medical School.</p>
<p>"It came as a complete surprise. Siddhartha called us at 1 and asked if we were awake. I said of course not - senior citizens don't stay up so late. Then he told me that he has won this prize and I just couldn't believe it," Mukherjee's mother Chandana, who lives in Delhi, told IANS.<br /><br />Siddhartha, 41, is a New York-based cancer specialist who won this year's Pulitzer in the general non-fiction category for his book "The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer".<br /><br />The Delhi-born doctor's book is a worldwide bestseller.<br /><br />In the book, Siddhartha examines cancer with a cellular biologist's precision, a historian's perspective and a biographer's passion, says the publisher. The result is an eloquent chronicle of a disease humans have lived with - and perished from - for more than 5,000 years.<br /><br />A resident of Safdarjung Enclave, homemaker Chandana said they have been flooded with calls since early Tuesday after the news broke. "There have been a lot of calls."<br />Asked if they would fly down to meet their son to celebrate the occasion, she said would go only in June.<br /><br />"We had planned our vacation well in advance and have our tickets booked for June. So we are not advancing that. We will be going for a month or a month-and-a-half. Then the celebrations are going to happen with Siddhartha, his wife and the kids and his wife's family," Chandana said.<br /><br />Friends and relatives are pouring in to congratulate the proud parents.<br /><br />Siddhartha's wife, Sarah Sze, is a sculptor. He has two daughters - Leela, aged five-and-a-half, and Arya, who is just over a year old.<br /><br />"Leela is very shy and doesn't like to speak on the phone. But the family is obviously very excited," the doting grandmother said.<br /><br />Siddhartha's sister is married and settled in Dhaka.<br /><br />Siddhartha is an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University and a cancer physician at the CU/NYU Presbyterian Hospital. <br /><br />A Rhodes Scholar, he graduated from Stanford University, University of Oxford and from Harvard Medical School. <br /><br />He was a Fellow at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and an attending physician at the Massachusetts General Hospital and the Harvard Medical School.</p>