 I wanted to start at the beginning. You are the son of a doctor. And your father was in the British Army also, was that? And you were trained as a doctor. So did you always want to be a doctor? Was there an influence by your father? Both you and your brother are doctors. So how much was your father's influence? How much you really, really wanted to be a doctor? Growing up in Delhi, going to school, I was interested more in writing. I actually wanted to be a journalist. And my father, of course, wanted the children to continue with the tradition. He was a cardiologist. He was trained in England. And at one time, he was ADC to Lord Mountbatten, the last vice-roy. And what he did was on my 14th birthday, he gave me a bunch of books because he knew that I liked fiction. And the protagonist in all of those books was a doctor. So of human bondage, by some I said, mom, the razor's edge, Aerosmith, Sinclair Lewis, et cetera. So this is late in high school. I went back to him and I said, I want to be a doctor. And now the problem was I hadn't taken biology. So I had to then get a special tutor to come home and do biology, make a long story short. I ended up at the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences. So once you decided to be a doctor, you finished. And then in 1970, you went to US. Was that because you felt that to pursue higher studies, you had to go there? What drove you to go there? 1969, there were a lot of doctors in the US who were in the Army. So there was actually a shortage of physicians. In the United States. And community hospitals, not the big university hospitals, but the community hospitals, they were recruiting doctors from all over the world. And of course, Indian training was considered superior to even American training at that time and still is in some circles. So the only thing was we had to pass an exam. So we had to go to Sri Lanka to actually do the exam because you couldn't do it here. But once you passed that, then they bought your ticket and everything. Because India still had restrictions. You couldn't leave with more than $8. This is a very interesting story because I had an uncle in England who had $100, gave me $100. As you know, $108 is a suspicious number in India. So at $108, I said I should do something really suspicious with it. I went to Paris and spent it all in one night at the Moulin Rouge. So when I arrived in New York, I had nothing, actually, zero. But of course, they have collect calls and all that. So I made a collect call. And the hospital was so desperate. They sent me a helicopter to pick me up from JFK to New Jersey. And that was my first experience looking out of the window and seeing Manhattan in the evening out of a helicopter. I said, wow, this is like this. I wonder what Disney World is like. So you obviously went by yourself. You didn't know anybody there. Did you face, I mean, you obviously, your accent has changed over the years. It has. I presume it did. I don't know. But when you went there, did you wonder some of the, or if any, cultural differences did you face? Are there any funny anecdotes of losing that word? As soon as I went, I reported to the emergency room where I was supposed to start my shift. Training at the All India Institute was superb, theoretically. But we did not see many patients. So it was all how it is. You read the book. You remember the facts. You pass your exam. So my nurse said, we'll call you in a little while. I went to my dorm and I switched on the television set. In 1970, there was no TV in India, not even black and white. So I switch on the TV and it's in color. And I'm totally captivated. I'm watching Wimbledon. And then suddenly, there's a news bulletin. There's an interrupt. And the news bulletin says there's been a shootout at the local bank. Some policemen have been shot at and they're being brought to the emergency room where I'm going to start. So I panicked because I knew that I was supposed to look after these people. And I had no idea what I was going to do. Then the nurse called me and she said, Dr. Chopra, we have an expiration. And I had no idea what that word meant because I'd never heard of it. I knew what inspiration is. Expiration means breathing out. So I said, of course, I didn't want to let on. So I said, you bet. I'll be there. I bounded down the stairs and she showed me into this room where there was a dead body. Lots of machines, no people. In India, of course, it was the opposite than lots of people, no machines. And I looked at the patient. I made my first diagnosis. I said, he's dead. And I was relieved. Now I didn't have to do it. So she said, I told you, we had an expiration. I said, OK, now I know what that means. So I said, well, if a patient is dead, why do you need a doctor? And she looks at me and she points her finger like this. And she says, pronounce him. I'd never heard that also. You can't leave your soul, can't leave your body till a medical deity pronounces you. So then, of course, I realized you examined the people. Doctors have their own rituals. So not having learned English in America here, where, of course, we used the word torch for a flashlight. I said, may I have a torch? Which in their minds is the Olympic torch with fire burning and all that. I said, may I have a torch, please? And she looked at me very peculiarly. And then there was a nurse outside. And they were all watching now. And she looks at the nurse. He says, he wants a torch. And she looks at me. She maybe wants to do a cremation. So that was a bit of a rocky start. But you know how it is in medicine? You learn by looking at what's happening. And within eight hours, I was totally comfortable. In fact, I was enjoying it. It was a trauma unit. So we were in a ghetto in New Jersey. The reputation was that this was a mafia hospital. By the way, 1970 was when the Godfather by Mario Putzo was number one on the New York Times. Everybody was reading it before the movie came out. And so we had trauma and gunshots and murders and all kinds of things. And I was totally at home. I mean, I would just go and dive in and enjoy it. That's on the professional front. You adjusted. How was it on the social front? Did you make friends? I mean, Americans are very friendly actually. Did you make friends right away? There were others like you who came from other countries. Or how was that? In our hospital, there was me. There was one other Indian from Gujarat, last name Patel. And then there were three or four South Koreans. There were three Pakistanis. There were a couple of Italians. And there were no Americans. We were all kind of people from other countries. So from there to becoming the chief of staff as a New England institute, there's a huge journey. So in those days, to be the chief of staff, was it easy? Or what was some of the one or two moments or mentors or something that sort of helped you? I did research. I had a fight with my chief. My guy who I was working with because he was shooting for the Nobel Prize. And I realized that academia was a big game of egos. And one day, he asked me some question which I didn't know the answer was. He got upset with me. And he asked me about some rat experiment. How many milligrams did those rats get in the 59 paper? And I said, I don't remember. And he said, you should have that in your head by now. So I had a big briefcase. And I took all the papers and poured it over his head in front of all the staff. And said, no, it's on your head. And I guess you were polite to me. Yeah. Well, I was. But this was building up. So he said, do you know who you're speaking to? And I used an expletive. You're a effing, so-and-so. And I walked out. And as I said, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize. He was one of the most important people. He was the president of the endocrine society. So he said, do you know who we are all this? We are walking. I walked out of the building into the parking lot. I had a little old Volkswagen bug, $1,400. And I got into it. He held on to it. Rita, whom you know, she was pregnant with Gautam at that time. I didn't go home. I went to a bar. And I got drunk. And he called her. And he said, your husband just ruined his life. He's finished. So she waited up all night. I came home four in the morning. We didn't know what we were going to do. So two days we incubated. Then I read in the Boston Globe a little advertisement, which is not the place you look for jobs. For a doctor, you look at medical journals. But I found this little advertisement again in a downtown rundown hospital where there was an immigrant population, Hispanics. And these poor areas were very poorly staffed. And they were desperate. And they would take anyone for, and they paid you something like $4 or $5 an hour that time, minimum wage. So I applied. And again, I went to see the guy. And he was a Hispanic doctor from Columbia. And I said, you know, I've worked in an emergency room before, but only for a few months as part of my internship. He said, it doesn't matter. I'll train you. So for one year I did, again, trauma medicine. I got really into it. At the end of the year, the chief of endocrinology at another institution at Boston VA, which is affiliated also with Tufts in New England. And he had just come from Harvard. And you know, academics have their own issues with each other. He called me and he said, do you want a fellowship? I said, I thought I could never get one. He says, why do you think so? I said, because of this incident. He says, I'm offering you because of that. He needed that to happen to him. So I got back. Now I finish my training. But at the end of it, I was not happy. Now in that time, when Rita was pregnant with Scotland, all this will happen, I mean, I wish actually she was here. What was it like? I mean, how did she handle this? Because going from a doctor's salary to this must have been tough. Doctors' salary, as trainees, we never got much money. $250 every two weeks, $500 a month, actually, when Rita was pregnant with Malika, who was before Gotham, we didn't have insurance and we didn't have money to pay for the delivery. So I called my father. I said, what to do? He said, send her to India. So then Rita and I had this long conversation that our daughter could never run for president if she was born in India. But we never had choice. We said, we don't have the money and realized that she has to go to India. And so I actually put her on an Air India flight, which was then only $500 to come to India. She had Malika and then she came back. So anyway, Malika can never run for president. So I think your kids must be upset. She must be upset with you. She can, but Gotham can't run for president.