Brotherhood Dharma, Destiny and the American Dream (45 page)

As American as Amita and I have become, our children have known no other home. Priya was born in India, but Kanika and Bharat were born in Boston and consider India a foreign country to which they have some attachment. As they were growing up we took them to India as often as we could afford; we wanted them to know their family there. That way they would know where their parents’ roots were.

Between Deepak and me we now have five grandchildren; they have Indian names, and we can see their heritage in their faces, they are every bit as American as the ancestors of people who came here on the
Mayflower.
In fact, Deepak’s grandson is American, Indian, and Chinese; he speaks English, Spanish, Hindi, and Mandarin. Deepak and Rita call him a masterist, the global identity of the future made possible by instant communications and social media tools. Our grandchildren love to wear Indian clothes to show their classmates
and they read the comic books about Indian mythology, but they are American. In only two generations the transition has been complete.

In 1973 Amita and I decided we would take my parents and our young children to Disney World. Mickey Mouse has always had universal appeal. We had very little money, so we had to drive there in our Volkswagen. We had only a brief vacation, so we drove as quickly as we could, stopping only when it was necessary. I remember stopping in Charlottesville, Virginia, to fill the gas tank, use the restrooms, and ask for directions. The gas station attendant we spoke to had such a thick southern accent I had no idea what language he was speaking. Was he speaking English or a totally different language? He was exasperated when I kept asking him to repeat directions to the restroom, until he finally escorted me there.

When we finally got to Disney one of the first rides we went on was called It’s a Small World. This is a boat ride through an exhibition in which dolls dressed as children from all regions of the world sing the “It’s a Small World” song. We never forgot it. That ride and that song had a special resonance for us. We had come from another country, but we believed at heart we were all the same.

At the end of our first day in this wonderful amusement park we were watching the electric parade and the amazing fireworks display, and my mother turned to me and said, “This is the closest I have come to heaven.” That was quite a comment and I’ve never forgotten it. And in some respects, at least, that was the way we felt about living in America.

Decades have passed since then, and Amita and I have seen both the very best and the not so good about America, about our country. It’s impossible to determine exactly when we started thinking of ourselves as Americans and not Indians living in America. The actual feeling of being “home” is very difficult to describe; every poet in history has tried to do it. To me it means this is where I belong and this is where the things that matter to me are. Amita and I really didn’t know what we would find in America when we came here, and whatever illusions we once held are long gone.

In some ways Amita and I feel we are very much American. We celebrate the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving and always exercise our responsibility to vote. America is truly an amazing country and a melting pot. People from different countries and cultures can feel they belong and make a difference. Just the other day I was reflecting on the time a delegation from the Gastroenterology Division from the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center was invited to present an update in gastroenterology and hepatology in Greece. This particular group of American physicians had been selected because of our expertise in gastroenterology and hepatology. We were going to present lectures and engage in workshops with academic Greek professors, fellows, and residents.

At the airport I bumped into Dr. V. K. Saini, an eminent cardiothoracic surgeon in Boston. He had gone to medical school in India and then immigrated to England. There he had risen to the post of registrar in surgery, but then, despite his multitude of accomplishments, he encountered the proverbial glass ceiling. Frustrated, he moved to Boston and had to start his training all over again as a resident since none of his British degrees were recognized by the American Board of Surgery. He toiled hard and, interestingly enough, during his residency, while in the operating room, the senior cardiothoracic surgeon would often ask his advice because he had accrued so much experience in the United Kingdom. One of Saini’s sons went into medicine and rose to the rank of professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School.

In a sense this was ironic but telling in that when I looked around at my colleagues who formed this American delegation to Greece, I realized that none of the six of us had been born or gone to medical school in America. Two of us had been trained in Irish medical schools and had emigrated from Ireland, one member was born in and had trained in Switzerland, another doctor was Greek born and educated, and myself and one other physician had been born and trained in India.

It actually was remarkable; all six of us, the entire American delegation, were first-generation Americans. We had all come here at different
times but all of us had come for the opportunity to advance our careers in America and were now in Boston and working at Harvard Medical School. It struck me that America is not only a great democracy but also a meritocracy. Individuals climb up the success ladder based on ability, talent, and hard work. We had all reached the pinnacle of the medical profession, and now we had been chosen to represent the best of American medicine internationally. Subsequently as a group we traveled to a number of other countries. From time to time I realized that I always felt a great pride and sense of belonging in my chosen country on such occasions.

Interestingly the chief of the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology had also been invited to be part of our delegation. He was the only native-born American, but he could not participate because of preexisting commitments.

More recently, early in 2012, while I was away at another conference, our daughter Kanika invited Amita to join her and her husband, our grandchildren, and Kanika’s in-laws on a trip to Disney World. As it turned out, the very first ride they went on was, coincidentally, It’s a Small World. It hadn’t changed very much in all that time; it is still a fascinating journey around the world as children in native dresses sing the song in their mother tongue. As Amita told me about it, she said that being there transported her back in time to our first visit, when America was still such a novelty for us. “I had tears in my eyes when I saw those dolls,” she said. “Our young grandchildren were watching them with their eyes wide open with wonder just the same way we had seen those dolls from each part of the world, including India, decades ago. The stars in their eyes were the most beautiful thing to see.”

When you start on your path there is no way of knowing where it will take you or even where it will end. It’s just the natural way to go. Growing up, I couldn’t have ever guessed that being a doctor and a teacher would take me to Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts. Or that I would follow my brother to America, that he would become famous around the world by embracing some of the oldest Indian traditions, and I would become a respected teacher
of medicine and pursue my passion. I am reminded what the French philosopher De Montaigne once said, “The great and glorious masterpiece of man is to live with purpose.”

None of this ever would have happened without the education we received in India, the core values instilled by our parents and grandparents, and by the remarkably gifted and generous contributions and nurturing by our senior colleagues and mentors. And, of course, my wife, Amita, who was the anchor of our family and has continued to inspire me in countless ways.

Amita and I have followed our passions and done so as easily as drifting on a river. Each part of it has been fulfilling, rewarding, and humbling. Most important, we still wait with bright-eyed excitement to see what is around the next bend.

Postscript

Deepak

Photo credit by Beatrice Mortiz

President Obama and the Chopra family, defining the new America, 2012.

A
S THE BEST PREDICTOR
of America’s future, I’d pick a cab ride in any big city. The driver will be an immigrant, and he’ll take a few seconds off from talking on his cell phone to ask where you want to go. Unless you know Arabic, Russian, or the tongues spoken in Haiti and Nigeria, you won’t have any idea what your cabbie is saying into his cell; you’ll just sit back with annoyance and pray that he doesn’t rear-end somebody.

But he is binding the world together. Most immigrants are talking into their cell phones about one thing: how to get the rest of their family to America. If that has already happened, they are talking business and money. Driving a cab is on the lowest rung of the American dream, but at least it’s a rung. Better to be an invisible “brownie” renting a taxi in New York City than wondering if your neighbor back home has his sights set on you when civil war breaks out. America is the most hated country in the world, and the one that foreigners most want to move to.

I’m repeating a cliché, behind which are two realities battling for supremacy. Someone dubbed it the war between the iPod and the mullahs. Modernism is openly clashing with tradition. A younger generation tunes into the future via Facebook while their elders nurse the bitter grievances and sweet nostalgia that prevent forward motion. If we’re lucky, all those voices talking into cell phones will become one voice—or as close to one as we need to save an imperiled planet.

The beauty of such a merging is reflected in my story and Sanjiv’s story. Neither of us drove cabs, but when I was moonlighting in ERs around Boston, I could read what many of the patients were thinking when I walked into the room. Jesus, not another Indian doctor. The first thing I ever wrote publicly was a letter to the
Boston Globe
protesting the prejudice against physicians with foreign training. Sanjiv and I brought Indian genes to a country highly adapted to Western science.

As brothers, we claimed the right to be our own selves. But the bond of dharma didn’t get Americanized out of us. The Chopra brothers could have taken their brains and their background to another country and succeeded. What I celebrate is that in America you can climb the ladder of opportunity or kick it out from under you and still succeed beyond your wildest dreams.

Another cliché? More like a fading hope. If the worst in human nature prevails, the horrific wars of the twentieth century will only be a prelude to an entire planet put in jeopardy. Sanjiv and I followed the family dharma by becoming doctors. Lavish reward seemed like our due. Will our grandchildren be the clean-up crew for our luxury and waste? If so, how will we look in their eyes? Between them, China and the United States produce 40 percent of the greenhouse gases responsible for global warming. When he was being scolded about this, a young Chinese man was quoted as saying, “The West has feasted at the banquet, and when we show up for coffee, you tell us to pay for the whole meal.”

There is much gloom about the future and only slender hopes. To be doomed feels meaningless when the cause of your destruction is the piling up of garbage. I think hope lies in nothing we can see. It lies in a new evolutionary trend, not survival of the fittest or the richest but survival of the wisest. We are in a phase transition, which is always turbulent. Human beings are self-correcting. We create problems and then evolve to solve them. It’s a messy process but somehow necessary. I have three grandchildren, ages five to ten, and their curiosity far outstrips mine at their age. One asked me, “Who made God?” when she was barely four. Because Gotham’s wife is of Chinese
extraction, their son is growing up speaking Mandarin, English, a smattering of Hindi, and Spanish. He learned the Spanish from the maid who comes to clean; between them they crack jokes behind his parents’ back.

Without immigrants, you’ll never get global consensus. The alternative is more of the same toxic nationalism that leads directly to a toxic planet as each country demands “More for me—who cares about you?” My grandchildren live with the protection of privilege because Sanjiv and I succeeded and passed on the fruits of success. But this country is more anti-immigrant than I ever remember. Income inequality has become much wider, leading to the corrosion of social bonds. As an immigrant, I see clearly what native-born people may miss. America is an idea, and when Americans lose confidence in the idea, the seed of destruction has been planted. The idea that is America wears an official face. It’s freedom, democracy, all men created equal. I’m not sure that such nobility impacts daily life very much. Maybe the idea should be voiced more like a command: “Keep the contradictions coming.” I’m grateful to be included in the contradictions. America would be a moribund society fated to perpetual blandness if the melting pot ever succeeded.

Now the whole world needs to be an idea. This new idea is sustainability. Different societies will remain who they are, but unless they find a sustainable way of life, creeping disaster is imminent. The Maldives are an island nation composed of twenty-six atolls off the Western tip of India. The average elevation is four feet above sea level. The melting of the polar ice caps might as well be happening next door. Survival is a matter of car emissions in Beijing and smoke stacks in a coal-firing power plant in Arizona. But in actuality, the Maldives’ greatest peril lies in the absence of a global idea that everyone will agree to.