This is going to be a tough job. Not too much of surgery but office work and answering mail. From India itself, I’ve received over 25,000 letters, e-mail, not to speak of telephone calls. The Indian media discovered me in a big way and commented I was the second most important India-born American doctor, next only to Dr Nene, husband of Madhuri Dixit.
The fabulous fan mail from India, however, made it clear that my countrymen really did not understand the nature of my job. More than 70 per cent of the correspondents wanted advice on how I was handling the twin responsibilities of a surgeon and a general. When do I operate, when do I plan strategy for the ‘battles’? Several brave men admired me for this ‘double achievement’, wanted to be like me and sought advice on how this could be managed. Did the US have any special coaching classes which taught these subjects and arranged for jobs later? Every one of such people who communicated with me agreed I would be doing a great patriotic service if I could help some Indians to come to the US and get a job and a green card. One of the extra-patriotic Indian writers however complained that I was made only a 3-star Vice Admiral because I was not an American native which would have entitled me to become a 3-star Brigadier and a 3-star colonel of the US Air Force.
Indians are seemingly well-informed on my antecedents and remember how my nomination for the same post was rejected because I did not support the Republican stand on gun control (they are against it). I got advice from the Indian friends to buy or hire about two dozen guns and stock them in my office and home along with cartridges and old videos of John Wayne movies to pass the Republican Party test. Great foresight, my wife agreed. Indeed, the adulation is so great that two Hindi films are being made on me, ‘Daktar Babu’ and ‘Military Babu’. And one of them will star Aamir Khan!
I don’t know how to react to reactions in India to my new post. In my home state, both Lingayats and Vokkaligas, I am told, are fighting over it, in a bid to “own” me. The Hindu Sena stalwarts in Mangalore proudly publicised the fact that despite having studied at Miami I never took to gambling or drink or visits to nude bars. The Indian friends admired my devotion to yoga, which has gained official recognition in the US and hinted they are preparing long lists of yoga gurus who owned profitable ashrams in India who would also bolster the US economy. They would be valuable additions to the US population.
The Mumbai-based satirist is the creator of ‘Trishanku’; E-mail your secret diarist: vgangadhar70 [AT] gmail [DOT] com
