After declining the Rochester offer, he took up his assignment in Canada with a package that appeared peanuts in comparison. He agreed to join the Regina Hospital at about USD 800 a month. That worked out less than USD 10,000 per year, a tenth of what the New Yorkers had offered him. That he could turn his back to so much money, of course, made him an infinitely happier man, and richer inside. He says that the fact that he could muster enough courage to refuse Rochester hospital’s offer was testimony to the family values and strong upbringing that he had in Garhdiwala. “I completely attribute that ability to look beyond money to my parents. I was blessed generously by them with a very wise value system,” he says, a hint of emotion running through his eyes.

It is in the name of his mother, Bibi Dhan Kaur Sahota who had raised him with deep values, that Sahota has set up a USD 1.5-million Sikh Studies Chair at the University of California at Irvine. But for her fervent prayers, Sahota would not be where he is today. He is associated with many charities and funds, and is socially very active in California. He has declined offers from reputed institutions from different parts of the world to join them. True to his beliefs and convictions, the heart doctor has shown us that whatever he has done, wherever he has gone, it has been with all his heart.

—More details will be available in Dr Sahota’s forthcoming biography Straight from the Heart