Berkeley Comes to Sevagram

When I wrote my Statement of Purpose for the MPH program in 2003, I made a bold promise: I would return to India and help build a culture of inquiry. In January 2006, less than eight months after I graduated, that promise came home in the most unexpected way. Three of my teachers from the UC Berkeley School of Public Health, Art Reingold, Jack Colford, and Lee Riley, travelled nearly 8,000 miles to Sevagram to conduct a workshop on Applied Infectious Disease Epidemiology.

For a medical college in rural Maharashtra, hosting even one international expert is an event. Hosting three, at the same time, felt almost unreal. Madhu Pai, my mentor and friend, had quietly worked behind the scenes to make it happen. Their visit was more than a workshop. It was a signal, to us and to the campus, that what we were trying to build at MGIMS mattered.

The Maruti chariot

Art Reingold’s arrival is still one of my favourite memories. I had decided to pick him up not from an airport, but from Aarti Talkies on the Nagpur road, a familiar meeting point for travellers arriving by taxi. I reached there in my second-hand Maruti 800, a small rattling tin box that looked nothing like the cars in California.

When Art stepped out, I felt a brief, foolish self-consciousness. Here was the Head of Epidemiology at Berkeley, a man who advised the CDC and the WHO, and I was offering him the front seat of my Maruti.

Art didn’t blink. He smiled, put his bag inside, and climbed in as if this was the most natural thing in the world.

He had always been an Indophile. In Berkeley, he once surprised all of us by cooking Indian food from a Tarla Dalal recipe book, measuring spices with the seriousness of a lab experiment. As we drove towards Sevagram, bumping over Vidarbha’s uneven roads, he looked out of the window with curiosity and affection, not judgement. He seemed less like a visiting professor and more like an old friend returning.

Traffic, stray dogs, and Jack

Jack Colford’s relationship with India began differently. For him, this was his first encounter with our glorious sensory overload.

One evening, after the day’s lectures, Art and I decided to walk Jack back to our home. The route took us down the hospital slope and into Sevagram Square. In 2006, the square was a theatre of chaos. There were no traffic lights, no lanes, and no visible rules. Vehicles flowed like water, except water does not honk.

As we walked, India introduced itself properly. A pack of stray dogs erupted into loud barking. A motorcyclist cut past us, missing my elbow by inches. An auto-rickshaw appeared from the wrong side, swerved, and disappeared again. A pedestrian slipped on loose gravel and recovered without complaint.

Jack looked genuinely shaken. His eyes kept searching for a crosswalk, a walk signal, anything that promised order. Nothing did.

Art watched him for a moment and chuckled. Then he put a hand on Jack’s shoulder and said, “Jack, this isn’t San Francisco. You have to flow with it.”

It was a perfect Berkeley moment transplanted into Sevagram. Art, the seasoned traveller, was calm and amused. Jack, the brilliant methodologist, looked as if he was trying to calculate the probability of survival at a road crossing.

I knew he would adjust. India overwhelms you first. Then, slowly, it wins you over.

The workshop of giants

The workshop itself was a treat. For four days, the classroom buzzed with serious, joyful learning. We had about thirty participants, and the quality was as remarkable as the faculty.

Dr Saranya Sridhar, an MGIMS alumnus from the 1997 batch and a Rhodes Scholar, flew in from London, where he was pursuing his PhD, just to attend. Dr Anurag Bhargava, a dear friend from Jan Swasthya Sahyog in Ganiari, joined us too, bringing with him the sharpness of rural practice and the impatience of someone who wants ideas to matter on the ground.

Art, Jack, and Lee covered the full sweep of modern epidemiology. There was the detective work of outbreak investigations, the discipline of trial design, the logic of randomised controlled trials, and the newer language of molecular epidemiology. They taught with energy, but also with humility. They didn’t speak down to anyone. They listened. They asked questions. They used examples that made sense in Sevagram, not only in textbooks.

I sat in the back of the room and watched my Berkeley professors teach in my own backyard. It felt like two parts of my life had finally shaken hands.

Culinary diplomacy

But the best part of the visit did not happen in the lecture hall. It happened at our dining table.

We were living then in a rented flat in Vivekanand Colony, close to the Dean’s office. I invited Art, Jack, Lee, and Saranya for dinner. Bhavana had been preparing all day. The house smelled of ghee, roasted cumin, and cardamom, the kind of smell that makes you feel safe even before you sit down.

She began with soup. Jack, still recovering from Sevagram traffic, took a cautious sip. Then his face changed.

“Wow,” he said. “This is amazing.”

For the main course, Bhavana laid out a full vegetarian feast: basmati rice, hot parathas, curries, and dry vegetables cooked the way we like them. For dessert, she served gulab jamun and ras malai.

Art and Lee had eaten Indian food in the US. They were still stunned.

“We’ve had Indian food,” Art said, wiping his plate clean, “but nothing like this.”

That evening, the labels fell away. There was no professor and student. No visiting faculty and host. We were just friends talking, laughing, eating slowly, and staying longer than planned.

The aftermath

After they left, I wrote to Madhu.

“Dear Madhu, the workshop really went well… I gave the Berkeley faculty a tour of the institute… Art spent three hours with us cutting jokes… But for you, I would not have been able to get the Berkeley faculty to Sevagram. I am conscious of your support all these years… Needless to say, of all people, I really missed you!”

A little later, I received a letter from Jack. He wrote generously about our first meeting at Art’s party and about my participation in his course. His words were kind, but they also carried a quiet message: I was no longer only a learner sitting in the back row.

By bringing Berkeley to Sevagram, I had become a bridge.

The hospital’s digital revolution was still ahead. But that week, I felt the intellectual revolution had already arrived.

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