In 1916, Gulati became a medical officer in the Indian Medical Service after completing his medical training in Lahore. In 1919, he was in Amritsar at the time of the Amritsar massacre. In 1920, for reasons unknown, he worked his passage to the United Kingdom where he arrived in Liverpool penniless and walked to London. His qualifications were not recognised in the UK and therefore he repeated his further education and medical training at Charing Cross Hospital. Friendless and without money, he did unskilled work at night to pay for his studies. Eventually qualifying with LRCP and MRCP in 1926, he entered general practice in the largely working-class district of Battersea in London.