A Benevolent Spirit

Dr. Uma Rangaraj feature for BayouLife Magazine.
Photo by Emerald McIntyre

Rangaraj’s Next Chapter

article by Georgiann Potts | photos by Emerald McIntrye

WRITER’S NOTE: Few people I know have influenced my thinking about international relations as much as Dr. Uma Rangaraj. While extensive travel has certainly broadened my view, those trips have only allowed me a brief period of time in each culture to “dip in” and try to understand. While Jim and I have made friends in other countries that we have visited (some of whom have later traveled here to visit us to “dip in” our culture), it has been my decades-long friendship with Uma that has truly opened my eyes.

The world is an amazing place, filled with amazing people. Perhaps most amazing of all is that in spite of differences in religion, educational backgrounds, dietary restrictions or preferences, and — yes — even politics, there is something to be found in each of us that makes us “kin.”

I believe that “something” is a spirit turned toward helping others — i.e. a servant’s spirit. Uma is blessed with just such a spirit. She has spent a lifetime seeking to help others, not only through her medical practice, but also through countless thoughtful deeds. {GP}

A chance meeting with the Dalai Lama when she was only an 8-year-old girl left a vivid impression on Dr. Uma Rangaraj. Her family was living in Gorakhpur near the Himalayan foothills, and her father’s colleague was dispatched to escort the religious leader to a refugee camp near the outskirts of town. At the time, the Dalai Lama was only 18, but was, according to Uma, “ . . . a much venerated figure. Hundreds of people lined up to meet him.” Uma still remembers when His Holiness greeted her and her brother with a smile. That small interaction was to have a profound impact on her later life.

Uma’s childhood coincided with the early years after the British left independent India. The culture and infrastructure of the Raj were still very much in evidence, and Uma remembers visiting as a guest with her parents several of the Maharaja palaces. One Maharaja’s love for the cheetah particularly impressed the youngster. He had his own private zoo! As she rode her school bus through the marketplace, she would regularly see his cheetahs, blindfolded and on a leash, as they were walked through the streets by armed and liveried gamekeepers. “I’ve never forgotten that sight or the terror it brought to my young heart!” Uma explains.

“Near the same year that I met the Dalai Lama, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip were touring the Commonwealth countries,” Uma recalls. “Their plane had to refuel in a tiny airport outside of the city, and I was selected to present a bouquet to the Queen!” The plan was foiled, however, when the mayor’s daughter took over the honor.
None of these childhood memories influenced Uma as much as did the year she and her family lived with her grandfather in a small village in southern India. There she developed friendships with the village girls and learned firsthand the ways of village life. “This experience gave me an appreciation for that quality of life that comes from the heart, no matter whether one lives in a palace or in a hut,” Uma says.

EARLY EDUCATION IN INDIA
Because of Uma’s father’s position with the railroads, the family was able to travel extensively throughout India. A special family treat was attending a wedding. Preparations took weeks, during which Uma and the other girls learned not only how to entertain, but also heard stories from Indian mythology from the matriarchs.
Because of her father’s assignments, Uma attended six different schools before graduating from high school. These ranged from well-established private schools in the big cities to local Catholic mission schools struggling for funds. “I believe that it is the quality of the teachers and the discipline of the students that produced an excellent education,” explains Uma. “Not endless funding!”

These early experiences helped Uma to develop an appreciation for religious diversity. In her schools, every day began with a morning prayer assembly during which no one religion was imposed on the mixed crowd. “It was truly a democracy,” Uma recalls.

MEDICAL SCHOOL IN INDIA
Uma entered medical school in Madras at 17, experiencing a coed environment for the first time. Her inspiration for wanting to become a doctor came when as a child she had read the story of Dr. Albert Schweitzer. “I was inspired at that moment to become a doctor one day and serve the poor.”

For six years, Uma was trained under the British system of medical education — excellent clinical training with passing each year dependent on answers to essay questions. At times, she would question her decision. “I actually wept with terror when I received my medical diploma,” she remembers. “I thought, ‘Oh, my God. Do they realize what a terrible mistake they have made?’”

Uma was beginning a lifetime of straddling two very different cultures. When she would come home after class during her year studying Anatomy in Madras, her mother would make her come into their home through the bathroom that had an outside entrance. There she would take a bath and dress in clean clothes before coming into the home. “My mother could not stand the idea that I had touched dead bodies and would be bringing that impurity into her Hindu home,” Uma remembers.

POSTGRADUATE EDUCATION AND LOVE
Although her initial plan after graduation was to get a mobile clinic and travel the rural areas in India, her plan changed when she fell in love with a doctor, who was determined to continue his medical education in America. Off to New York City they went. The understanding was that they would return to India when their medical education was completed.

Uma studied internal medicine and endocrinology at Jewish Hospital in Brooklyn (now Interfaith Medical Center). Her husband, the late Madura Rangaraj, specialized in rheumatology. Children arrived, degrees were earned, and the move back to India was put on hold.

SMALL-TOWN AMERICA – MONROE
Balancing career with family was a particular challenge for Uma, as she was also learning the “lingo” and

and culture of America’s Deep South. She did not want others rearing her children, nor did she want to abandon her medical career. The answer came when she joined the internal medicine faculty at E.A. Conway Hospital. She spent 16 years there, enjoying both the teaching and the clinical aspects of her position.
Here she was able to work with many patients who were poor and who had limited access to health care. Her patient experience was very similar to that she had had in New York City’s Woodhull Hospital where she and others served immigrants in the heart of the Mafia District, often without adequate supervision. “We were forced to find ways to keep our patients alive through every kind of medical complication with very little modern equipment at our disposal,” she recalls. “This was the crucible that made a doctor out of me, and all of us.”

Uma’s Conway experience was much better, because the hospital was well-equipped and had a staff of excellent doctors with the time to serve as mentors and advisors. Her mother had been disappointed when Uma remained in America to serve “with the rich people of America” instead of the poor villagers in India. “I assured her that the cause was not totally lost,” Uma explains. “Our patients here were also the rural poor.”

In 2004, Uma moved into a private practice devoted to endocrinology. This placed her squarely in the arena as a warrior in the battle against diabetes, a battle that she thoroughly enjoyed.

CULTURE SHOCK
Adjusting to life in America “ . . . without the intangible but very supportive back-up of family and family name . . . ” created what Uma calls a “rebirth” for her late husband and herself. She thought that she understood Western culture, but what she had no inkling of was what it would be like to be isolated as “different” in her new environment. She learned to be self-reliant while engaging as much as possible with her new “life.” “I was now on a journey of self-discovery which led to a deeper understanding of — and appreciation for — my own roots,” she explains. “This was essential for me to assimilate on my own terms. I wanted to be neither Indian nor American, but Indian American — a global citizen!”

Uma has experienced the ugliness of discrimination in India, in New York and in Louisiana. Throughout these experiences, Uma has kept her dignity and has developed a deeper sense of understanding of — and sympathy for — others. “I have learned that human nature is fundamentally the same the world over. There are good people and not-so-good people everywhere,” she says. “Thank goodness the good ones outnumber the rest! Most people in this region are loving, kind and warm-hearted. As they got to know us, we felt included. Slowly Monroe became our home.”
On a lighter but no less important note was the difficulty Uma faced when adjusting to Western dress. Here for a time she became something of a schizophrenic. She stitched her first pair of jeans on the flight to America to continue her studies in medicine. It would be two years before she would summon the courage to wear a skirt. She didn’t know where to shop and was too bashful to ask for help. “My friends and I to this day have roaring fun recalling the really terrible clothes we wore. I had a ghastly collection of polyester pants and shirts,” Uma says with a laugh. “I still don’t show the pictures to anyone, even my children!”

Uma’s Americanization had to be subtle, so on return trips to India to visit family there wouldn’t be too much shock. “On my first few trips back home, I and other Indian women on the airplane would be struggling to change from jeans into saris in the tiny airplane bathrooms,” she says. “We felt it would be disrespectful to face the family in pants. The trips there and back were like going through a revolving door between two entirely different planets.”

RETIREMENT: A NEW CHAPTER BEGINS
After a long and successful medical career, Uma finds herself looking toward her retirement years. Travel, since childhood, has been a passion of hers, and she plans to continue to experience the world in this way. Just recently she was in Iceland, a completely new culture to explore. She loves history (“History is time travel” she says), and she combines her knowledge of history with the sites she visits. Because she believes in reincarnation, at each place she cannot help but wonder if she has been there before. For Uma, travel is much more than sightseeing. She sees it as a way to better understand the world, its people and herself.

Uma has always dreamed of being able to help others less fortunate. Perhaps her encounters with the Dalai Lama and the stories about Dr. Schweitzer that she read in early childhood helped form that thought. And perhaps her experience that wonderful year living in her grandfather’s village, absorbing village life, confirmed it. A review of Uma’s life shows that she has fulfilled her dream in both her professional life and as a good citizen, volunteering her time and talents to promote causes she embraced.
But her lifelong dream of “ . . . working in the rural areas in India, uplifting people in their circumstances, and teaching them to appreciate beauty in their surroundings” has been delayed for decades. Now, at last, Uma sees a path before her that will lead her back to her ancestral home, the land of her birth. She is eagerly exploring the idea of serving in India with some non-government organization (NGO). In this way her life will have come full circle.

Uma’s retirement path will also lead her to find new volunteer work among the poor in other parts of her adopted America. She has noticed that diabetes is prolific among those living on Indian reservations and believes that she might be of some help there.

Wherever this life leads, Uma will be living every day to the fullest. And make no mistake — she will be spending a large part of each of those days helping others. Hers is the very essence of a servant’s spirit.