Rupa Gawle, NY
I remember distinctly. I think it was the summer I had finished my 4th standard and was going into my 5th standard in India. The picture of the two monkeys hugging that had hung over my study table for infinite years disappeared overnight and was replaced by a little white plaque that said "I want to become a doctor so I am going to study hard". For three or four days I ignored it and pretended it wasn't there, secretly wondering if those were my thoughts that I had somehow shared with someone in some blind moment when I wasn't thinking. I hated studying and I hated doctors, especially my doctor. He was so old and every time he gave me an injection his hand shook like hell and he had bad breath. So I knew exactly why I never wanted to be a doctor. I was after all only 9 or 10 years old then. Of course, my mother was a doctor but I knew why I hated the thought of ever becoming one. She was almost never home and always smelled funny when she came back from the hospital. For years those hospital smells plagued me.
Anyway, the plaque appeared and stayed there till we left India some 3-4 years later. I knew my dad had put it there because he had decided that I was going to be a doctor and a damn good one. From then began a love-hate relationship with this thing called "being a doctor". I wanted to be Madonna, of course. I even attempted a conspicuous peroxide job on my hair when I was 13 but I sucked at it and had to race to the salon to get my hair dyed black again before my dad got home. Phew, that was a close one then. I had pictures of Madonna, Cindy Lauper, Duran Duran, Michael Jackson and Sting all over the walls of my room and inside my closet. Those automatically disappeared around my 13th birthday as well. I think it happened somewhere between my aunt telling me I was a grown up girl now, my neighbor explaining to me what menstruation was and my dad telling me my life was never going to be the same again. I wasn't sure why, what or how but I accepted it just as I had accepted the plaque years before. These were things given to me in life. I took them. I didn't know otherwise and didn't care much. It was like 'OK I'll do that'.
So I moved to America knowing I was going to be a doctor. My plaque followed me and now hung over my bed which was where I studied. I didn't have a study desk like back in India. I started high school here and when I hit my junior year I got the opportunity to volunteer at a local hospital in New York. If it wasn't for the stupid letter from the Dean's office being mailed home to 'Parents of Rupa Gawle' I'd have never told my dad about it. I was quite happy with my part time job at a clothing and shoe store at the mall. But no, not with my luck. My dad was thrilled to bits. He vaunted about it to everyone as if it was a big deal. That nauseous feeling of being near a doctor came back to me again. But the good girl that I was, I volunteered at Astoria freaking General Hospital on alternate Saturdays and Sundays, while continuing to toil as the mall rat.
So for two years, till I finished high school, I worked in the ICU and the recovery ward, emergency, pediatrics and then geriatrics, smiling at little children, cleaning bed pans, holding hands when being injected, feeding the man who lost both his arms in an accident, waving goodbye when they left, delivering blood, x-rays, coffee, water, typing up reports for John Does and road kills etc, etc. Once when a woman died in front of me I was so overwhelmed with grief that I passed out. It was very taxing on my brain and emotions but I was going to be a good girl and become a doctor so I was going to learn as much as I could. I developed this love-hate relationship with the hospital. I'd wake up at nights smelling the hospital and wanting to throw up and yet when I ran around at the hospital all day I automatically became high on that very smell. When I graduated high school I was a State Certified Nursing Assistant, awarded Volunteer or the Year by Astoria freaking General Hospital and made it to supervisor at my mall rat job. I was happy to graduate high school, leave Astoria freaking General Hospital and start fulltime as a mall rat.
After high school I left home. Not having any serious plans of going to college and not feeling particularly inclined towards wanting to "become a doctor" I was thoroughly confused as to what I was going to do. My mall job became a day job and I became Assistant Manager. I started taking classes at night to become a paramedic. I have no idea why. But it was the closest choice to becoming a doctor. I loved my job at the mall, fashion, people, getting dressed up. But"Gawd what kind of a career would that be?" as someone had said to me once. So I became a paramedic and worked two jobs. I was a mall rat (lingo for people who worked at the mall) and I was a blood rat (that's what the cops used to call us). I think I aged 18 years in those 18 months of working for Hatzolah Ambulance Corp. My partner, Ari, was a Hasidic Jew who listened to Metallica, never let me drive and insisted I try kosher meat sandwiches if I wanted to eat in the Ambulance with him. I got a sense of satisfaction from being at my blood rat job and great discounts as a mall rat but I was nowhere near wanting to "become a doctor". I had just discovered boys and also that as a girl working two jobs, I had no life.
So on my 20th birthday I quit. I cried that day. Not because I was no longer going to be able to help people or see all that blood and attend to all those false alarms but because I realized for the first time in my life I was no longer "going to be a doctor". I was so confused and upset about it I didn't know what to do. So I met with my dad and we had a heart to heart and I enrolled in college. I was now going to be an accountant or finance professional. Honorable profession and I could make lots of money. I convinced myself of that everyday; it was my mental plaque. I had pulled out this page from my Far Side desk calendar that had a picture of an accountant being crushed by a calculator and pasted it to my mirror. Everyday I looked in the mirror at myself, read my mental plaque, laughed at my private joke and went about my business. It reminded me of Stuart Smalley from 'Daily Affirmation' on old SNL skits. So for 4 years I worked as a mall rat now being manager and went to college at night to become an accountant.
Two days before my college graduation I was offered a position as Footwear Buyer in my company. I took the job, graduated with a BBA in Accountancy with a major in Accounting and a minor in Finance and never used it a day in my life again. "A job buying shoes? What kind of a job is that? Why don't you look for a job as an accountant? Why don't you go for your CPA? Where are you going to go from here? This isn't good." My dad had a lot to say about it, backed by several elders I knew, and no one was happy that I was going into fashion. I did, nonetheless. The decision plagued me for years. Through difficult times at jobs and not being able to complain like everyone else that my job sucks for fear of the "I told you so" I sucked it up and stayed in fashion. I loved it. I remember it was at a company Christmas party in 1995 that I got a job offer from Fila Sports while having dinner. I finally knew I had found what I really always wanted to do. I could actually be Madonna now or Cindy Lauper if I wanted to. I had arrived where I had always wanted to be.
At Fila I had an amazing boss who taught me not only to stand my ground, be confident, smart and knowledgeable but also the art of design, fabric, business development, and fashion. Through several positions there and losing the job years later to the company downsizing, I will never forget the job or the boss that made me realize what I wanted to be so badly. I wanted to be me. I found my justification to why I didn't or couldn't "become a doctor". The years of guilt of why I had never "become a doctor" no matter how badly I tried had eaten away at me. I realized I never really had tried hard enough. I went through the motions but never the emotions of wanting to "become a doctor". Through all the years of people questioning and doubting me, the pressure to excel financially and professionally, failures, screw-ups and finally finding the courage to start my own fashion consulting business I realize now, why I'm Indian but not a doctor. I never wanted to be one.
I wish my friend Ashok had that choice. He's a resident doctor currently going through a difficult time because he's hating it. Always did, however, he can't get past the feelings of guilt that his parents paid for his college so he owes it to them. So should he become a doctor because his parents want him to? What about what he wants? He always wanted to be a pilot and even went and got a license. But doctor was what he was trained to be and doctor is what he will be at the expense of his own happiness. I'm not sure that sits too well in my book of ethics. I am no longer losing sleep at night over my choice of profession. I may never make a million dollars a year as doctors or computer guys do, nor may I ever drive a Lexus or Mercedes but I'm relishing in my peace at being me, doing what I chose and driving my generic 4 door sedan. I'm doing what I have always wanted to do, being me. If I succeed I can thank myself, if I fail I can curse myself. I won't condemn my parents like a lot of folks I know. I wish that sense of gratification on more people.