The plane touches down at the New York airport and my heart aches as I return to where it all began, with all those dreams, filled with confidence and anticipation of a romance for life and adventure .
I had always planned to train in Pediatrics. Not once did I doubt that I would’nt secure a place in a program. That same single-minded certainty had lived in me since I was three years old. It was the same God-given confidence that led me to take the ECFMG exam a year ahead of schedule, instead of waiting for my final year. I took the examination with a “ No cares” or “ Sannu key “ attitude whether I passed or not.
I believed everything would go well and it did.
The Good Lord was guiding my steps. Though I faltered at times and was occasionally pushed off course, I always got up, dusted myself off, unfazed and continued down the path.
I remember sitting on the plane in Karachi, fumbling with the seatbelt and wondering which end connected to which.
I had only ever traveled by train before cherishing those long, wonderful overnight journeys to Lahore and Rawalpindi, then on to the cool serenity of Murree Hills every summer.
I had lived an enchanted life, making friends everywhere I went: the Australian girls who were my neighbor as a seven year old who took a shine to me, and the German girl: daughter of a diplomat with whom I used to play “ The dress-up” In her mother’s gorgeous evening gowns.
Arriving at JFK felt surreal. My friend S and her husband were waiting for me. My adventure had begun and I was excited but not nervous. If things did not work out my plan B was to go to Colorado to my Aunt and stand below the Rockies in awe something I had only visualized in pictures.
On the way to Westchester County, where S lived in an apartment we stopped at the Golden Arches of a McDonald’s. They bought me a hamburger which appeared unwieldy and so large that I could only eat a quarter of it; and now? Now, “ it’s a moment on the lips for ever on the hips”. I laugh remembering that moment.
The next morning, I discovered American pancakes. Fat and fluffy, nothing reaembling the delicate, thin pancakes my mother made, which, I later learned, were called crêpes in America when I saw them at IHOP.
Next morning bleary-eyed with jetlag, I was jolted awake by S’s voice:
“Get up! We’re going to the hospital.”
“Why?” I groaned, still weary from the long flight.
“You need to start applying for residency training.”
It was May. I didn’t yet understand that trying to get a residency spot for July 1 was like looking for a needle in a haystack.
At Westchester Hospital, S—bright, cheery, and fully awake—parked me in front of a public phone, handed me a bunch of quarters and a directory.
“Start calling,” she said and left to make rounds.
I opened the list of residency programs and began with New York. The response was the same everywhere:
“Nope, all positions were filled last fall…”
I was too sleepy to care.
At lunchtime, S returned and pulled me out the door. I was wearing flared bell-bottoms, mid heeled sandals, and a pageboy haircut that barely grazed my shoulders, thick, dark hair with a wave falling across my forehead. My eyes which had no glasses at the time, large and filled with wonder at the clinically pristine cold corridors of the Hospital. I walked slowly and elegantly into the Chief’s office.
She introduced me. We shook hands.
Before she could finish explaining why I was there, the phone rang on his desk.
“Yes, yes,” he said into the receiver. Then, holding the phone away, he turned to us:
“Dr. S, can your friend go to Connecticut tomorrow at 9 a.m.? Dr. B may have a position for her.”
My friend was thrilled. I now imagined how I must have looked like to the Chief of Pediatrics: a slim, elegant, fashionable girl taking the news in stride, seemingly confidant of the outcome with none of the nervous desperation of a foreign medical graduate looking for work. But in truth, I was simply too sleepy to react. I just wanted to lie down on the floor and sleep. Yet to others, I seemed calm and self-assured. I remember the Chief saying,
“She’d be very fortunate to get into the University of Connecticut system.”
What I didn’t realize was that this wasn’t just an interview, it was a divine appointment. Not only was UConn calling me, but my match made in heaven was pulling me there, slowly, steadily.
Having no idea about the geography of New York and Connecticut I asked my friend as we left the Chiefs office, “How do I get to Connecticut?”
“My husband will take you,” S replied confidently. “He’s off tomorrow.”
I had no idea where Connecticut even was. My only reference was A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.
It felt like a tide was carrying me toward something I hadn’t particularly desired but was meant for me nonetheless.
Early next morning, after a few cups of tea, to wake up my jet lag we set off. The road from New York to Connecticut would become one which I would travel many times—sometimes in joy, sometimes in longing and sometimes in despair. Within a few years, it would become the highway of romance.
Now, all these years later, I am returning to Westchester County—and my heart hurts.
I have lived in the US now longer than my home country. On those first day I walked into New York so innocent, naive, and idealistic. And I left with even greater dreams and deeper ambitions.
When did I lose faith in my ideals? When did uncertainty creep in? When did I become unsure of my dreams?
As we crossed the state line into Connecticut, the landscape transformed into a lush green I had never seen—not even in the valleys of Nathiagali or the Murree Hills, and certainly not in the desert dryness of Karachi, where trees grew only with constant care, like those in Brooklyn.
Karachi had its flowering trees called gulmohar : bursts of red flowers in spring like the Indian Paintbrush, but nothing prepared me for the spring glories of Connecticut: dogwoods, tulips, daffodils, all in bloom for just a brief, beautiful week before summer settled in.
We turned into a low, quiet hospital building on top of a hill.
S’s husband found Dr. B’s office. I followed him like a robot but alert and in awe weaving through the immaculate corridors of this elegantly compact Hospital in New England. I saw the name on the door of the Chairman of Pediatrics and a friend of S’s Chief and we stopped and knocked.
“ come in” I heard a deep baritone voice commanding but kind.
He stood up as I entered, extended his hand, and introduced himself by name—no “Dr.”—just first name and last name. He was a short man with a prominent Jewish nose, intelligent, sparkling blue eyes, and a shock of white hair with a forelock that erupted like a rebel from his widows peak and swept over his forehead.
“Dr. Q,” he said, shaking my hand. “Please, have a seat.”
In one glance, I could tell, he saw through me, better than I saw myself.
What did he see? A young, slim girl, in bright flared pants and a modest, knee-length top with full sleeves. Carefully blow-dried shiny black hair, swinging freely. But it was my eyes, I think, that told him who I was. There was no desperation, no arrogance, just a quiet, innocent confidence filled with dreams.
I knew my medicine, and I could handle anything. I had done a year of Pediatrics and General Surgery at a Hospital affiliated with the Medical School in Karachi and wore the confidence that only comes with being in the trenches with no recourse but to do what is needed.
During the war with India, when most of the doctors had been deployed, I was a medical student and had been propelled to run an entire medical ward with one other student.
What I didn’t know was how radiant I appeared in my naïveté and joy of living. My mother’s manners had become part of me. My friendliness wrapped people in warmth like a soft halo.
I didn’t see it—but others did. And they gravitated toward it.
So… when did I change? When did I stop recognizing that spark in myself? When did I stop believing I was still that idealistic girl?
“Come back in three hours,” said Dr. B. “We’ll have an answer for you.”
“We don’t have time to go back to. NewYork”, said N, my friend’s husband who had driven me from New York for the interview in Connecticut.
“Let’s check out the area.” He said.
We drove around and noticed a small beautifulVictorian house with a large “For Rent” sign in the window. Just below the hill over which the hospital stood.
Maybe it was jetlag—or maybe it was faith. I simply knew: I came to train in Pediatrics. Not Psychiatry, as some had suggested (“It’s easier for FMGs to get a position in Psychiatry as American medical graduates don’t want it,” they had advised).
“No,” I had said firmly. “I came for Pediatrics.”
But it wasn’t me making these decisions. It was Allah—designing my life step by step, down to the smallest detail.
( this is where the little Victorian house stood: it burned down a few years ago)
The Divine hand took care of me in most of the details of living in New England, such as:
The little Victorian house for rent where I lived eventually.
Three hours after the interview Dr. B’s handshake: “Welcome to the program.”
The Greek surgery resident who helped me buy a car, wanted to marry me, but wanted me to convert to Catholicism.
The red-haired Irish resident who offered to share pizza in my apartment : my mother’s voice ringing in my ears: “No men in the house when you’re alone.”And me, politely declining.
Allah was guiding me, hand in hand, even when I tried to wander. Like the time I interviewed at Cleveland Clinic with the incredibly handsome faculty member I had ever met, and then turned the job down—leaving him quite angry.
My first day at work ended with turning into my first night on call spending the entire night on my feet and turning me into “ a night owl” for life.
Thus began my sojourn in New England
Every step I took, unbeknownst to me He Subhanawataala was watching over me…
To be continued in Memoirs…
***This post is dedicated to my dear friend S who was the architect of my introduction to Pediatric Medicine in America and agreed to drive down memory lane with me. She remains my friend through the ups and downs of life. May Allah grant her the Best!
** Some of the players in this story have passed away. May they rest in peace🙏🏼
What a beautiful, heartfelt journey—returning to New York must feel like stepping into a living memory, where dreams first took flight and faith carried you forward. Your story overflows with courage, grace, and the quiet power of unwavering belief. From fumbling with a seatbelt to confidently chasing a pediatric dream, guided always by something greater—it’s clear that even in uncertainty, your path was lit with purpose. Thank you for sharing such a vivid, moving reflection. JAK