By founding the Shankara Dance Academy, Arti Manek has transformed thousands of lives through Kathak. The celebrated Kathak maestro Pandit Birju Maharaj has equated her California academy with top ones in Lucknow and Delhi. Deepi Singh could only take her first baby steps in life at the age of 5 after being afflicted by polio when just nine months old. She was told that she would not walk beyond the age of 40, but walks with dignity even at 81. Climbing little mental hillocks every day, she rose to the top of her department at Kaiser Permanente—an institution to which she gave 40 years of her life! Dr Harvinder Sahota, celebrated cardiologist, had two dozen patents against his name, and became the inventor of the perfusion heart balloon. His fame took him across the world where he performed angioplasty, including for the first time in India. Indar Sethi was about eight years old when the horrors of partition played out live before him. His family became refugees. Over the years Indar Sethi became a success, working on NASA sponsored scientific missions and other projects in an outstanding career spanning 40 years. Harry Sidhu is the Leonardo da Vinci of the Indian community in Los Angeles. He’s been a mechanical engineer, a private pilot, a fund raiser, a philanthropist, an entrepreneur, a politician, a community worker and an actor. Is there something he cannot do? Abdulgani (Ganibhai) Shaikh could have happily earned a living selling buffalo milk all his life but pursued academics. The first to earn an engineering degree in his community, he became a distinguished aerospace engineer in the West Coast of the USA.

The list of high performers runs long, and it is not possible to put all the names here. In their own ways each one profiled in this book has left a mark. If the community is a ship, they are all captains.

Finally, no amount of praise can be adequate for Mr Inder Singh. But for his inspiring vision, extraordinary patience and abundant drive, this book would have remained in the mind.

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