Destiny Has The Final Word

 #USA

Post#24

Destiny( Prarabdha) has the final word :

My plan was to complete my residency and all of us go back to India . Kids would be still young and not going to school by that time. It would be easy for them to adapt. We could start afresh in Pune. So this temporary arrangement was tolerable. I was hesitant to buy a house and get our feet deeper here.

Since the time I came to Chicago I had voiced this to Abhay. Even before Abhay took the Bakersfield job that I started discussing the India move with Abhay more frequently. Initially he would simply nod or stay silent. But later he told me he was not mentally prepared for the challenges. He never shied from hard work but was scared of the different kinds of obstacles and pressures in India and was unsure if he had the grit to deal with them. Any thought of struggle and resistance would turn him away from taking that road. He is like the Buddha 😀. Loves the path of least resistance.  I was the opposite. I was completely confident that with our American degrees we wouldn’t have too much trouble establishing our practice in India. Both of us didn’t care about becoming rich and adding bells and whistles to our lifestyle. But the main difference was I was comfortable and willing to revert back to the standard of living in India and he wasn’t.  Much to my disappointment he stayed firm about not going back. He told me we will go when we retire. I knew it was a lie. I had won most battles until then but lost this war. 

Once it was clear that Abhay would absolutely not move back to India the question was what’s  next for me ? What’s  next for the kids ?

Amita was turning 5 by the end of that year ( 1996) .The school district in Bakersfield required a child to complete 5 years before December 2nd to start kindergarten in August that year. Amita would not meet that deadline so had to wait until 1997 to start school. 

I was a senior resident and had to make the decision about  fellowship or job. I had worked 4 rotations in 3 years under Dr Rahimtullah, one each year plus the voluntary rounding with him during a vacation month. He asked me if I wanted to do a fellowship in cardiology but I said no. As much as I loved the subject it would have been too demanding to balance a home and work. I wanted something that would allow more time with the kids. Endocrinology was my favorite for that reason. I had worked in that department and the professors knew me well. Infectious Diseases was another option I had considered. But doing a fellowship meant another 2-3 years living separately. Bakersfield had a residency program but no fellowship programs. It was going to be hard on the kids with us living apart for that long. I wasn’t ambitious for myself at any point. All that mattered to me was that I should be financially independent. So it was ok after residency to put a full stop to further training and start looking for a job. By January 1997 I started requesting my professors to write recommendation letters and began applying for jobs. 

Kaiser Permanente was a respected name in the job market but in Bakersfield  they had no openings in internal medicine at the time. I interviewed with another big group and they offered me the job. I was given a month’s time to sign my contract. The vibe I got about the place when I interviewed wasn’t much comforting but there weren’t very many options on the table. I decided to hold off signing on the contract until the last day. 

 The  day before my deadline the Medical Director of that group was so confident I would join them that in a hospital staff meeting he proudly and prematurely announced to other Board members “We have a new internist joining our group, Dr Madhavi Risbud ”. Also attending that meeting was the Chief of Internal Medicine from Kaiser who told me later that when he heard the announcement he thought to himself, wait, we can’t let her go. There was an internist at  Kaiser Bakersfield who was transferring to Kaiser Los Angeles in a matter of two to three months.Technically her position could not be open for rehiring until it was officially vacated. He used his powers with the head office in Los Angeles and got my hiring approved. Kaiser called me the same afternoon to formally interview and confirmed I was hired. I had not signed the contract for the previous group. A colleague who quit her job at that group and came to Kaiser told me later how poorly physicians were treated there and how they made her pay an obscene amount to void her contract. Despite  having to pay $25k she was happy to be out of there that’s how bad the work atmosphere there was. I realized how narrowly I had escaped the ordeal. The Grace of God and blessings of the Gurus were with me at every juncture. 

I asked for time to study for my Board Certification Exam in Internal Medicine before I could start the job. They were fine to let me start in mid October 1997. 

In the mean time, once returning to India was not an option, I had made up my mind to settle down in Bakersfield for long term. It was a smaller city, population of 500,000( half a million) at the time. Public schools were very good. We didn’t have to encounter traffic like we did in Los Angeles. And homes were so much more affordable. Besides if we missed big city life it would be just a 2 hours drive to Los Angeles and 4 hours drive to meet Sheela tai in San Diego. We decided we would get a home in Bakersfield. Difficult to describe but there was a certain quietude that came into life after moving out of the big city..

 Every time I had a free weekend I would put the kids in the car and drive to Bakersfield. We would go hunting for a home. Saw dozens of model homes as well as homes on sale . Met with a few builders whose model designs we liked. Finalized the builder we were going to work with. He showed us the pieces of land he owned where we could build our home. Picked one community that was slightly on the outskirts and away from the happening part of town. There were carrot farms and almond groves surrounding this community. It was quiet and elegant , streets inside the community were much wider and land was much affordable than some high end communities. It was also not much of a drive to Abhay’s office. That suited us. Having chosen the location a bigger task ahead was designing the home. 

My friends in residency still recall how in the few minutes of leisure I got I would have a paper and pencil and keep drawing and redrawing sketches of the home and it’s landscape. I did my homework about the quality of doors, windows ,roof , pillars and such structural details as well as kitchen appliances, wood for cabinets, the layout of the rooms, practical details in each room, the flooring, the swimming pool , landscaping and the costing for all of this. It was important to negotiate the price BEFORE signing the contract and I did just that. The finest detail in the contract I went over, had them correct the language if it was ambiguous, incorrect  or missing specifics and only then both of us signed on it. Abhay was the financial gatekeeper, I was the dreamer, designer, negotiator and later, the inspector. I had to fit whatever I wanted within the limits of the budget that Abhay set. I pleaded with him to go easy on the allowance for the kitchen because that was going to be the heart of the home. Anywhere else you want to trim down you are free to do I told him. He gave his blessings for that. As I write this a funny detail comes to my mind. He was not picky about anything at all in the house but when it came to finalizing the master bedroom closet he was firmly insistent to have his own separate closet. He had a very clear futuristic vision about how my sarees would encroach on his space if we shared a closet 😂😂

Senior year we also had to make one solo presentation for the program at the weekly Grand Rounds. The auditorium would be packed with all the faculty and residents from the program as the resident presented his or her one hour long talk. As chance may have it in my 2.5 years there I had already been involved in the care of two very interesting cases of mucormycosis, the same rare black fungus that you get to hear in the news lately associated with covid patients. I chose Mucormycosis as my topic for Grand Rounds. Every time I visited Bakersfield on weekends I would use Abhay’s work computer to prepare my talk. That was the first time ever I learnt how to create a Power Point presentation. It was so exciting to put the talk together. The slides with pictures of the fungus and the actual cases that were presented made it very interesting at the time and was really well received. I was happy that the efforts were met with a warm reception. Fortunately I have not seen another case of mucormycosis since then. It is a truly devastating infection to see or get.

February 18th 1997 the work on the open plot started. The ground was smoothed over with a heavy bulldozer .Next the perimeter of the home was marked and dug along to put in the foundation concrete. The timber was delivered and little by little the home started taking shape. The builder had estimated it would take him 4 months from start to finish. Just in time for me to wrap up residency in Los Angeles and come to Bakersfield.

Later that month ( Feb 1997) my brother (2 years younger to me ) was getting married so we were leaving for India. I had taken my senior year vacation for that occasion.My sister who is 4 years younger to me was married and living in Dallas at the time. I could not attend her wedding in December 1993 because I had delivered Advait just weeks before.She too was coming for our brother’s wedding. After a long time we were all going to be together. The wedding took place in Mumbai. Milind (my brother)was very happy. He was marrying the girl he loved. He was happy to see his sisters and niece and nephew. The kids enjoyed the big occasion of their mama’s wedding too. 

Once we were back I was  again juggling residency, kids and the house construction. My weekend trips to Bakersfield with the kids in tow continued when my schedule allowed. I would inspect the progress minutely.The swimming pool was dug out and work on it proceeded alongside the main house. Plumbing and electrical work was done early. The windows and doors were fitted into the main frame. The roof was installed. The walls were finished. Soon tile work started. The kitchen started taking on character. The builder’s wife was an interior designer and  took me to various vendors to choose the granite for the kitchen, light fixtures, fans; paint color for the walls as well as for the wood cabinets around the home.

I sat with the landscape contractor to choose the specific plants from the allowance I was given. Before I met with him I drove around town to see what kind of plants did well in the habitat. I browsed through gardening books and checked out if something I liked was suitable for our zone. I had an idea about what I wanted in the garden. There needed to be color but also it had to be practical and low maintenance. The plant beds got a sprinkler system in place so I didn’t have to water them each day. There were fruit trees along with roses and azaleas. The crepe myrtles would ensure color in summer.

I wanted an open lawn area for the kids to play in the backyard. Had to fight with the builder for that . He strongly wanted to put the swimming pool in the center of the yard because it would make a statement when anyone entered the home and looked across the glass windows. The house was his baby just like it was mine. I wanted the pool to be taken on one side so a larger play area would be available in the remaining portion. Finally he gave in because I would not change my mind. He did acknowledge when the home was completed that the pool still gained good attention upon entering the home while leaving a chunky play area for the kids.

Just as the home was getting completed I got a call from the builder’s office telling me I will need to pay $250 for the automatic pool vacuum cleaner. I told the secretary to please ask her boss,the builder if he expected me to clean the pool with my hands after he charged us $25K for the pool ? She called back a few minutes later to say don’t worry you don’t have to pay extra. 😀 

There is a saying in Marathi “ ghar pahaave baandhun“. The hassles and nuances of building a house are known only with firsthand experience. Despite all the gimmicks and hiccups along the way it was an enriching and immensely satisfying journey to see the dream of a home become reality.

The saree is one that I draped at the kids’ birthday celebration in Norwalk in December96.

It is a silk Baluchari in black with motifs in red thread. This was my first ever Baluchari . During one of my weekend trips from LA I had bought this from a lady from India visiting someone in Bakersfield at the time.