Does Being Indian Matter? My Reflections

When I was asked to speak here tonight, I was both excited and nervous--because the topic--Does Being Indian Matter--is simultaneously a matter of deep personal significance, and also very complicated and suddenly very timely. 

I want to start by telling you a little bit about myself and my family.

Like many of you, my parents immigrated to New York in the 1970s from Rajasthan after my Dad completed medical school in Jaipur.

My Dad's plan was initially to train in the US as a cardiac surgeon and then return back to India. 

His career took some unexpected turns.

He discovered a passion for academic pain management and became one of the early leaders in the field.

He felt like he could better support our extended family living in the United States---so instead of finding our way back to Rajasthan--we stayed. 

My two older brothers had been born in India, but I was the first in my family to be born in the United States, in New York. 

In retrospect, growing up, it was clear to me that my parents' bodies were in America, but their hearts were very much still in India. 

I remember waiting with my mother by the mailbox for the blue aerogrammes that would arrive with news from "home."

I remember my parents shouting at the top of their lungs as they struggled to hear news--sometimes joyful, sometimes tragic--over poor, expensive phone connections. 

When we went out to dinner, it was usually to an Indian restaurant.  

On the occasions that we ventured to try something different, I was always slightly embarrassed. 

You see, my parents had (and continue to have) a habit of confirming the ingredients of every single thing we order from the menu to ensure that we don't accidentally eat meat.

I remember being the only student in my nursery school class to get the question--how many brothers and sisters do you have--wrong. Because in my tally I had been taught to count all of my 17 cousins as siblings--in addition to my two older brothers. 

When American kids went away to summer camp to swim and play sports, my parents sent me to Jain camp to better understand our religious tradition. 

When other kids took piano lessons, my mother insisted I enroll in harmonium class. 

When other kids found sandwiches in their lunchboxes, I found parathas. 

I remember sheepishly asking my parents in the seventh grade if I could go on a double date with a classmate--and two girls from another class-- ("why I told them I still don't know!)--and being told in no uncertain terms that "we don't do that." 

We were Indians, holding ever so tightly onto our heritage, in a strange country where the continued relevance of that heritage was frankly uncertain. 

We didn't fit in perfectly--or at all--but, as a family, we didn't worry about it that much. 

And, somehow, despite all of that---or perhaps because of it--we thrived. 

And we began to live our version of the American dream. 

My Dad--and after him my brothers--rose in their professions--and my Mom was the glue that held us together. 

With the guidance of my family and support of my teachers, I was lucky to be admitted to Harvard and then fortunate to stay there for medical school, business school, residency, and then as faculty. 

I have been lucky to build a career in which I feel proud of the impact that I am making on healthcare in this country. 

And I am proud of my Indian heritage. 

So proud. 

My upbringing, and the values of my parents and the community in which I grew up--make me who I am.  

And so today, when posed the question, Does Being Indian Matter? I suspect you know my answer which is a resounding, unqualified, yes. 

Our community for me--has always been a source of strength. 

And I know, because most of you are here today, that you feel the same way as I do.

But as I pondered what I would say today, I thought about the fact that our community--that is our community as a formal community--remains very much in its infancy. 

That our total impact is less that it can be.  

That our opportunity to collaborate to do good and contribute to American society remains substantial and largely untapped.

And that the need for a collective consciousness has never been greater.

A few years ago, it was reported that a significant national figure suggested that there were too many South Asian CEOs in Silicon Valley.

We live in times in which racism, xenophobia, and nationalism--are emerging with many ugly faces.

The Indian-American agenda--if you can say there is such a thing--should not be one of forced assimilation; nor should it be one of rigid isolation. 

It must be one of thoughtful engagement. 

One of confidence and resolve--In which we stand proud of who we are. 

And do not apologize for the successes that we have achieved or the contributions that we make. 

Whether we are Democrat or Republican, Liberal or Conservative, we must be committed to taking on ignorance head on. 

For it is the single common threat that we all face.

Because every unchallenged racist comment is not us yielding to political correctness. 

It is us yielding to ignorance. 

A few weeks ago, a well-meaning colleague, a dean at a major medical school, made the comment that another unmarried Indian colleague should just get a "mail order bride."

I felt it was my obligation to tell him that he was being offensive.

That my parents and my brothers had had arranged marriages, and that they were an important part of our cultural tradition, no better, no worse than his own.

Just different. 

He apologized and I believe he got the message; he was sensitized to our culture.

In one of the organizations at which I worked, I was told by a co-worker that someone suspected that I was partial to Indians because two recent hires were of Indian origin. 

There was comedy in this statement for me and also sorrow. 

The comedy was that one of the hires was Black and of Ethiopian descent, not Indian--and had been confused for being Indian. 

The sorrow was that I had to respond: Would I have been asked that question had I been White--and had the individuals that I hired--both extraordinarily qualified, possibly over-qualified for their positions--been White, too?    

She got the message. 

And for the record, I am partial only to excellence--in whatever form it comes.  

Once, in the course of delivering patient care, an angry patient shouted at me--"why don't you go back to India you SOB." 

Rather than accepting this abuse, I had his care reassigned to another physician--and stood firm that I would not accept abuse from a patient--or anyone--on the basis of my race, color, or nationality. 

And nor should any of us.  

We must stand firm and support each other--and rally around one another because we are all Gandhiji's children. 

And Gandhiji taught us--taught the whole world in fact--the immense power of standing firm in your beliefs, standing proud of who we are as individuals--and also coming together as one. 

But, my friends, we have work to do- 

Because embedded in our sense of our community--which is so powerful--is oftentimes a nefarious and dangerous sense of jealousy and undermining. 

When my dear, brilliant, friend and colleague, Vivek Murthy, was named Surgeon General of the United States, I found myself arguing with many in the Indian community about whether he was qualified or not for the position. 

And for the record, as someone who knows him intimately, he absolutely was and did a terrific job. 

Rather than feeling proud that one of our own had ascended to the highest heights of our nation--some of us felt jealous and minimized his precocious accomplishments. 

Rather than asking how we could help him be successful in his confirmation hearings or role--too many of us felt envy or stood passively on the sidelines. 

And as is all too familiar to many of you, these feelings are seeded on the smallest scales, at the earliest ages. 

When there are two Indian students in a class in childhood, there is a tendency to compare, to compete, to classify. 

When I was in high school, I had three Indian classmates, Pranav, Amit, and Devika. 

There was friendship, but there was also a sense of competition--driven by the belief that there was a fixed pie. 

That if one of us won, then the others lost. 

Years later, all of us are succeeding in different ways in vastly different fields and I laugh and cry at how small and short term our thinking was.  

How unnecessarily insecure we were in the face of others with whom we shared common heritage. 

The individuals with whom we may have had the most in common--rather than being a source of support--engendered feelings that were just the opposite.

I don't know where in our culture these feelings come from--perhaps they arise from the scarcity of opportunity that may have once existed in India--but, these feelings, we must overcome these feelings to collaborate, not compete. 

Because years later, in contrast to my childhood, it is several of my Indian colleagues who are my biggest sources of camaraderie. 

Whether it is Aman Bhandari or Aneesh Chopra who were close colleagues in Washington when they worked in the White House,  we have a role in supporting each other in our quest to make a difference and achieve impact. 

And impact, brothers and sisters, is what it's all about. 

Now is the time for us to coalesce and converge as a functioning, supportive, and engaged community. 

More than 1 in 6 US physicians is of Indian origin but our impact is limited and our voice is small. 

What if we actually organized ourselves, challenged ourselves to maximize influence--to generate more impact than any one of us could achieve alone?  

To try to improve health care, not just for those in the Indian community who suffer disproportionately from diabetes, heart disease, and metabolic syndrome--but all Americans at large?

What if in addition to organizing socially like tonight--we raised the significance of our voice--both at the local level and the national level?

It may sound difficult, and it is, but it is not impossible.

It just takes work. 

A few years ago, I collaborated with a few friends to start the South Asian Healthcare Leadership Forum at Harvard to bring together leaders from across the country who were passionate about improving healthcare. 

What started initially as a small set of conversations is now a robust group that meets annually to support one another in making an even bigger difference.

.... 

Whatever you think about current events, we are in a time of great uncertainty, unpredictability, and, most of all, change. 

We are early in the arc of history of our community.  

But we are also at an inflection point. 

For the first time we are a multigenerational community--with first, second, and third generations co-existing.

It is at these pivot points that histories of communities are defined. 

That culture is either preserved or lost.

In contrast to what that angry, racist patient told me to do--we must not go back to where we came from--but always remember where we came from. 

We must assimilate and find our place as part of a healthy, vibrant, multiethnic, integrated American society--but also maintain our traditions and not dilute the strength that exists within. 

We must simultaneously give our next generations pride in who we are--and challenge ourselves to do more, to be more, achieve more, and contribute more to society.

We must support one another, not undercut one another.  

This is not going to happen naturally or, by accident.

It will require the best of us--and all us--to rally around the cause.  

Because I do believe being Indian matters. 

More than it ever has.

(Speech given in 2016 at Orange County Association of Physicians of Indian Origin)