Ruminations

About the Book

A memoir that reads like a novel, this remarkable book chronicles Dr. Dang’s unlikely path from refugee in India to respected psychiatrist and community leader in northern New Jersey. His family’s desperate escape from ethnic cleansing after the partition of India in 1947, their life in a refugee settlement of Delhi, his own trials with serious illness, his shyness, his arduous studies in medical school—all are described vividly, with refreshing candor. His struggles with culture shock after emigrating to the United States are often hilarious, and the story of his search for a bride glows with poignant charm.

Writing with insight and self-deprecating wit, Dr. Dang reveals a great deal not only about himself and his family, but about the flawed social and health-care systems of both countries, and how their cultures have changed during the past sixty years and interacted with each other. A book not to be missed!

About the Author

Dr. Jagdish ÒJackÓ Dang was born in the northwest part of undivided India. When that part became Pakistan after the bloody partition of India in 1947, his family became refugees and fled to India when he was seven years old. He grew up in the Rajinder Nagar refugee settlement of Delhi, obtained his medical degree at Maulana Azad Medical College, and emigrated to the United States in 1966, where he later became a psychiatrist. His medical practice extends over a period of forty years and includes work as a clinician, an administrator, a faculty member of a medical school, chairman of the department of psychiatry in a hospital, and director of psychiatry at several major nursing homes. He has received many awards, including some that were rarely obtainable for an Indian in America at the time. Dr. Dang has been practicing psychiatry in northern New Jersey for more than thirty-six years. He has traveled widely in the United States, India, and several other countries. He and his wife live in Montville, New Jersey.