“Since Rajan has already been here for almost a week, we can schedule the surgery for February,” Dr. Cheema said. “It’s not good for a baby at this age to be in the hospital for too long. He could catch an infection. Postponing the club feet surgery for two months will not make a big difference. For right now, continue changing his cast every two weeks.”
Raj and I felt encouraged by Dr. Mehmood Cheema’s kindness. We held great hopes that once Rajan’s surgery was done, his kidney function would improve with time or with treatment, and the testes could be brought down later. In the meantime, we would treat him as a normal child.
The surgery was scheduled for February 25, 1978, and since I could not take another week off from work, Raj flew alone with Rajan, arriving in Newark two days before the surgery date. They stayed with Dr. Zafar and Billo Cheema, and it just so happened that Mehmood and Zafar’s mother was also there for a visit. Their mother was a kind, affectionate woman, and once she learned that her son was going to perform surgery on Rajan, the whole day she prayed to Allah for Rajan’s health and for Mehmood to perform the surgery well. Raj stayed with Rajan at the hospital, and, later, Billo informed us that Dr. Cheema’s mother continued praying even after Dr. Cheema had completed Rajan’s surgery, moved him to the recovery room, and eventually put him in a regular room at the hospital.
Hearing of Dr. Cheema’s mother’s kindness and devotion, my heart filled with gratitude. I believed in the power of prayer and had prayed the whole day myself. In fact, the first week of October in 1977, when Rajan’s problems flared up again, I made a promise to God that I would repeat the Gayatri Mantra 101 times daily. It was the same mantra I had prayed when I lost all my documents as a young man preparing to travel to America for the first time. I also prayed it continuously throughout my years in college when my studies overwhelmed me. My prayer and devotion to God carried me through the difficult times and the obstacles that met me along my path. Now I prayed for Rajan, repeating the mantra 101 times with my entire heart and soul.
Five days after the surgery, Raj returned to Cincinnati with Rajan. Dr. Mehmood Cheema had successfully extended the tendons of Rajan’s feet. While Rajan continued wearing casts to train his feet to stay in the correct position, he was one step closer to having a normal life.
For a while after Rajan’s surgery, life returned to normal. I was so proud of each of my sons, and now that Rajan was making good progress, I could give Christopher and Subhash my full attention.
In 1978, Raj and I decided to sell our house and buy a new one. We settled on a five bedroom house with a walkout basement on the west end of Cincinnati. The house had a huge playroom on the second floor, a family room on the first floor, a three-car garage, and a wine cellar in the basement. Raj and I especially loved the huge private backyard surrounded by trees with a dog run cutting through it.
In August, on the first night in our new home, Raj prepared a traditional sweet dish to be the first food cooked in the house. Before we ate, we knelt with our sons in a small corner set aside for worship and thanked God, praying for a healthy and wealthy start in our new house. Subhash and Christopher especially loved the house with its large playroom.
Raj and I wanted to fill the house with joy and laughter, friends and family, good food and good conversation. At every opportunity, we invited people to cookouts on the deck. For Subhash’s seventh birthday, we decided to throw a party in our new house.
“Who do you want to invite?” Raj asked Subhash.
“Only boys. No girls,” he answered.
Raj shook her head and looked at me.
“He’s saying this now,” I said, “but when he is eighteen, he will say, ‘All girls, no boys.’”
When Rajan was two years old, Mr. Gilreath told me about a priest who was coming to a well-known church in downtown Cincinnati for a hands-on healing service.
“He is very reputable, very well-known,” Mr. Gilreath told me. “They say he can cure sickness by prayer and touch. Is this something you would be interested in for Rajan?”
I never heard such a thing before. Laying hands on someone and healing them? But I was desperate, and I also trusted anything Mr. Gilreath said. It wouldn’t hurt to try. Rajan was three years old, and his testes still had not descended. Maybe this priest could heal them. That night, I told Raj about the healing service. She looked skeptical too, but like me, she was willing to try anything.
The service took place on a Saturday evening. Raj and I took Christopher and Subhash to a babysitter and arrived at the church early. The pews were already filled, but we managed to squeeze into a pew with our son. Everyone stood to sing, and at one point, the priest asked anyone with a sickness to come forward for prayer. I stood in a long line with Rajan in my arms, wondering what would happen and hoping it would work. The priest moved forward down the aisle, touching everyone’s foreheads as he went, and some fell after he touched them. Then the priest reached me, firmly placing his hand on my forehead while praying in a low voice. Immediately, I fell into a squatting position while the priest’s associates took Rajan from me to keep him safe. When the priest moved on, I stood up and took Rajan back, feeling strange about the whole thing, I returned to Raj who gave me a concerned look.
