Reflections

By Jagdish Dang

April 15, 1966. I arrived at the JFK Airport. Hungry, tired and sleepy. 36 hours of torture in Lufthansa, after two stops on the way. Strange food, strange people, strange language. Eight dollars (and a letter of an internship appointment) in my pocket. And almost-dried-up garlands with me. More than fifty people had come to see me off at the Palam airport; not a dry eye in sight. What am I doing in this land where I don’t know a single soul? A quarter 'toll' to cross the George Washington Bridge from New York to New Jersey. My God! They charge Re. 1.25 to use the road! (A dollar was equal to five rupees then).

April 15, 1966. Somebody in IRS was smiling, ek aur murga phansa! America was smiling, ek aur murga phansa! My kids (years before they were born) were smiling, ek aur murga phansa!

So called, the Land of Opportunity. I looked out the taxi, no dollar bills hanging from the trees, roads not paved with gold. I had been duped. And then I saw 59 kinds of toothpastes in the supermarket. Routine EKG on every patient (We had one EKG machine in all of Irwin Hospital, and it would break down frequently or run out of paper).

Fast Forward…HMO's, malpractice premiums, trial lawyers and multi-million dollar awards (most of it going into the pocket of lawyers, not the patients)... whole United States Congress brought back from their Easter vacation and the President being flown from his ranch to 'save' a woman, brain-dead for fifteen years with contractures and bed sores, and tubes attached to every part of her body...

Let me not get carried away, and stick to Maulana Azad and Mera Bharat Mahan...

Twenty two years ago (give or take a couple years). Kapila House. A few of our batch mates were having a social. Some were drinking; others had enough already. Why don’t we start an alumni association? Ridiculous idea, we only know nine Maulanians here. And I hated every minute of my five years there. Those tyrant teachers, those Anatomy stages and the drill-masters, thorough student abuses in OB-GYN and Pathology classes, constant fear of supplementaries... But isn’t that the same five years that made you what you are today? Okay, let’s try it...

First I wrote to seventeen Maulanians. Begged them to tell me names of any others they knew. My second letter was sent to 37. Finger-typed on a manual typewriter, with a carbon paper underneath (Yes, young people, there used to be something called a carbon paper, along with a manual typewriter in front of a rotary dial telephone and a black-and-white television full of snow.) First Reunion, 21 years ago, at the Mount Airy Lodge in Pennsylvania. The Lodge has changed hands and its name several times since then. We were about thirty people including spouses and children. Half of us looked as old then as we look now; the other half looked old even in college.

We had so much fun. And the Association was born.

Fast Forward... 2005 August 4 to 7, we are going to meet again, not too far from the Mount Airy Lodge. After a lot of ups and downs, events-sweet and sour. Dates, places, people, memories, stories, ruminations, reflections, recollections. Presidents came and presidents left, people got united and people got divided. More than a thousand members. Newsletters written on computers, with floating icons, and newsletters e-mailed, and faxed. Monies made and monies lost. Promises kept, and promises broken. Some kept coming again and again, and some others never came back. Why?

Nothing to do with MAMCOAANA. Ups and downs are the natural course of any organization. Even the best of leaders can’t keep some organizations alive, while some others thrive with no guidance at all.

Take heart, guys, MAMCOAANA is alive and healthy, wealthy and kicking. The socialization we have and the memories we make year after year are unmatched by any other organization. And the new initiative undertaken by your leadership to gather together all Delhi medical students under one umbrella is going to make it an even stronger organization. We are going to have 350 plus people. Let’s do it together, in the name of April 15, 1966!

Come one, come all. Call your friends from Lady Hardinge, University Medical College, and AIIMS to come and see the pomp and show. Let’s make this Reunion a thing to remember.

Dr. Dang writes a regular column and editorials in the New Jersey Psychiatrist, and other publications.

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