The California Dream

Great journeys often begin with a conversation. Mine began with Dr. Madhukar Pai.

I met Madhu at the annual meetings of the Medico Friend Circle. He was younger than me, but he carried himself like someone who already knew where he was headed. A Madras Medical College graduate from the 1987 batch, he had chosen Community Medicine at CMC Vellore over the safer, shinier clinical specialties. He spoke with ease about public health, epidemiology, and biostatistics, subjects most clinicians treated like distant relatives: greeted politely and avoided thereafter.

Around 2000, at one of those MFC meetings, Madhu said, “Why don’t we do a workshop on epidemiology at MGIMS?”

I said yes before he could change his mind.

That three-day workshop became a small legend in Sevagram. Thirty residents from Medicine, Pediatrics, and OBGYN sat through eight-hour days and, surprisingly, did not try to escape. Madhu made P-values less frightening, explained how bias creeps in quietly, and turned confidence intervals into something you could actually trust. For residents drowning in their MD theses, he wasn’t just a visiting faculty member. He was a lifeline.

Somewhere between tea breaks and chalkboard scribbles, a friendship grew. Madhu had wit, stamina, and a stubborn desire to pull others up with him. He became a mentor to my younger colleagues, Rajnish Joshi, Kaustubh Gokhale, and Anurag Bhargava, nudging them towards good questions, good methods, and the right people. He himself had received support from the Fogarty AIDS International Training Program, which took him to UC Berkeley for an MPH and later a PhD.

The email that crossed the digital divide

Communication in those days was not simple. Sevagram lived in the digital dark ages. The internet arrived on our campus only around 2003. I still remember opening a Rediffmail account and sending my first email to Madhu.

His reply came back like a celebration.

“When I received your email, I almost fell off my chair!” he wrote. “I know downloading a 10 MB PDF takes ages at your end, but it is worth the wait. I am so happy MGIMS has joined the World Wide Web.”

It was through this thin, fragile thread that he planted the idea that changed my life.
“Apply for an MPH at Berkeley.”

I hesitated. I was a full professor. My daughters were young. Leaving home for a year felt selfish, even irresponsible. But something in me had begun to shift. I wanted to understand research, not just practise medicine. I wanted to ask better questions, and learn how to answer them honestly.

In the winter of 2003, I finally wrote back.
“I’m ready.”

The paper chase

The application process was not romantic. It was paperwork, queues, and small humiliations.

First came IELTS. I scored 8 out of 9 and felt absurdly pleased, as if I had cleared a medical exam again.

Then came the real test: transcripts.

I needed validated mark sheets from Nagpur University and Government Medical College, Nagpur. But the records were a mess. At one counter, I was told I hadn’t completed a mandatory rural posting and owed a fine of several lakhs. For a moment, I stood there stunned, trying to remember a rural posting I had apparently skipped without knowing.

It turned out to be a clerical error. The rule did not apply to my batch.

My classmate Dr. Abhimanyu Niswade, then Professor of Pediatrics at GMC, stepped in and quietly untangled the knots. Without him, my Berkeley dream might have died in a dusty file.

While I chased signatures in Nagpur, Madhu was doing his own quiet work in California. He spoke to Dr. Art Reingold, Dr. Warren Lee, and Dr. Jack Colford Jr. about me. Their encouragement mattered more than they knew.

On 5 November 2003, I sat down to write my Statement of Purpose. It wasn’t just an application. It was my argument with myself, written neatly.

The manifesto

I wrote, in essence, that MGIMS had a tradition of service, but clinical research remained thin because we lacked trained mentors. That in India, for many doctors, the MD thesis was the first paper and often the last. That I wanted to return with the tools of evidence-based medicine and build a culture of inquiry in Sevagram.

It sounded ambitious on paper. But it was honest.

The golden ticket

On 12 February 2004, the letter arrived.

I was accepted.

The School of Public Health at UC Berkeley had opened its doors. The Fogarty program offered a stipend of $2,519 per month for living expenses and $200 per semester for books. I read those numbers again and again, half expecting them to change.

The final hurdle was the US Consulate in Mumbai. I had heard enough horror stories to lose sleep. On 2 July 2004, I walked into the embassy with my heart thumping like a ward boy running with a crash cart.

The officer looked at my papers and asked, “Where are you going?”

“UC Berkeley,” I said.

He smiled, handed everything back, and said, “Good luck. You are going to a great university.”

That was it. No drama. No interrogation. Just a simple sentence that unlocked a door.

Roots and wings

News travelled fast in Wardha. Pride spread faster.

The Maheshwari Mandal insisted on a felicitation. I tried to protest. I had not achieved anything yet, I told them. I had only secured admission. But they were not interested in my logic.

A function was arranged. Dr. Ved Prakash Mishra was the Chief Guest, and Shri Narayandasji Jajoo presided. Dr. Mishra spoke for forty-five minutes, in his grand, rolling Urdu-Hindi, turning my scholarship into a victory for the entire city. I sat there, shrinking in my chair, embarrassed by the praise, yet warmed by the affection behind it.

When my turn came, I spoke for exactly three minutes. I thanked them. I promised to do my best. And I understood something clearly that evening: Berkeley might give me wings, but Sevagram would always remain my roots.

In the first week of August 2004, I boarded a British Airways flight from Mumbai to San Francisco. I left behind my hospital, my routines, and my family, and flew towards a new identity.

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