A life-changing trip to India helped the American psychiatrist understand the effect this multi-splendored country is having on world civilization.
In 2004, I spent three weeks in India as a third-year medical student at Yale. This incredible, life-changing trip enabled me to understand the effect of this magnificent country on our world civilization. My explicit reason for going to India was to present a medical case report I wrote on one of my patients at a gynecologic oncology conference.
As medical students, we had very little money for travel, but we quickly learned that if we got a poster or oral presentation accepted at a conference (i.e., any conference, anywhere in the world), Yale would cover the cost of conference attendance, flight, and hotel. It was an amazing incentive!
In my third year of OBGYN rotation in medical school, I encountered a rare and unusual case: a cancer in the fallopian tube called a fallopian mesothelioma. I wrote up the case report, and it was accepted as a poster presentation. I was off to Mumbai, India with my poster in tow. The conference was fascinating, and I learned more about gynecologic oncology than I could have ever imagined. I also met some incredible OBGYN physicians from India at this conference, some of whom remain my dear friends, like Dr. Sabine Sivadasan, who runs the top IVF center in Kerala, helping Indian women with infertility to have babies.
While in Mumbai for this conference, I saw the beauty of Indian society through the lens of its people, history, culture, and food. These experiences, along with the others described in this short narrative, are accompanied by photos from my trip. These photos represent just a fraction of India’s rich heritage at the crossroads of modern civilization.
I saw the beauty of Indian society through the lens of its people, history, culture, and food. Experiencing authentic homestays in different cities enabled me to feel the nuanced cultural overlay of the country. My experiences, narrated here, represent just a fraction of India’s rich heritage at the crossroads of modern civilization.
After my time in Mumbai, I went to stay with the families of one of my best friends from medical school, Ayonija Maheshwari, in both Agra — home of the beautiful Taj Mahal — and Jaipur — nicknamed ‘The Pink City’ and known for its palaces, forts, temples, bazars, and wildlife sanctuaries. Experiencing authentic homestays in different cities of India enabled me to feel the nuanced cultural overlay of the country. In one of the families with whom I stayed, the lady of the house said to me, “You can call me mom” and told me all about her and her husband’s love story. They had an arranged marriage at an early age but truly grew to love each other very dearly as time went on.
As the final part of my trip, I spent a week in Kerala. First, I went to the Jewish part of Cochin (now called Kochi) and visited a beautifully maintained synagogue there. After that, I went to Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary, where I saw the home, essentially a hut made of straw, and met the kind family of my guide, Sasi, with whom I am still in touch. From Periyar, I went to Amritapuri Ashram, home of Amma the ‘hugging saint’. My thinking was that perhaps I could use my last five days in India as a mediation and integration experience, thereby creating a powerful and peaceful ending to this amazing trip.
I enjoyed learning about and experiencing India’s rich Vedic spiritual tradition, its pluralism, the history of civil disobedience through pioneers like Mahatma Gandhi, and the legacy of helping the impoverished through icons of generosity like Mother Teresa.
Any intentions of a ‘peaceful’ ending were thwarted when I learned that the day I arrived was Amma’s birthday, with thousands of her devotees having come to the ashram from all over India. The scene I beheld at the ashram could only be described as sheer pandemonium, with devotees occupying every square inch of space in the colorful ashram. Rather than a peaceful time, my time at the ashram turned out to be a nonstop celebration of Amma, life, and the magic of synchronicity.
Overall, my time in India was very powerful and moving, and I have remained very close with several of the beautiful souls I met there. I enjoyed learning about and experiencing India’s rich Vedic spiritual tradition, the Ayurvedic medicinal practice, the history of civil disobedience through pioneers like Gandhi, the legacy of helping the impoverished through icons of generosity like Mother Teresa, and much more. Though my last trip was in 2004, I have been feeling called to visit this beautiful land again, and soon I will most definitely heed this authentic calling.
