He was not listed as a speaker on the gala banquet program at the 24th annual convention of the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin—arguably the largest and most influential international medical graduate organisation in the country-- but the surprising appearance of this civil rights icon who marched hand in hand with the late Martin Luther King simply awed the nearly 4,000 plus audience.
And, if they were thrilled by his presence, his remarks had them breaking into round after round of sustained applause.
The man in question was former two-time Atlanta Mayor, erstwhile Congressman and ex-US Ambassador to the United Nations, and co-chair of the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, Andrew Young -- also an ordained minister and humanitarian.
Suchita Vadlamani, the co-host of Fox News' 'Good-Day Atlanta', who was the emcee of the event, couldn't stop gushing as she introduced him as the city's 'treasure,' and said, 'his leadership and vision have helped to make Atlanta, our city, our nation, and the world, a much better place.'
Young, the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom and over 45 honorary degrees from the most prestigious universities in the country, in welcoming AAPI to Atlanta, brought the crowd to its feet when he declared, "If not for the influence of India, Atlanta would not be like it is. Had we not learnt from Mahatma Gandhi that men and women should learn to live together as brothers and sisters or they will perish together as fools. And, had we not taken those teachings to heart, we would not have produced a Martin Luther King, we would not have produced a Jimmy Carter."
He said that if one talks to the former President, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, he would "tell you personally that it was the influence of Martin Luther King and Gandhi that made him such a suitor for peace in the world. But it would also not have happened if he had not sent me to the UN and put me in the hands of one Ricky Jaipal, who had been there for about 15-20 years when I got there. When I went to meet him and thank him for all that I had learnt from India and asked for his help, he never ceased to call me aside and quietly -- without any need for credit or attribution -- helped me learn how to steer through the complicated waters of the United Nations. So I am always grateful to him."
But he had the Atlantans in the audience cheering wildly and Indian Ambassador Ronen Sen seated right up in front sheepishly smiling, when he said, "I have two things though I'd like to leave you with -- one, is that we in Atlanta are offended that as the greatest and the busiest airport in the world, we don't host Air India. I assure you that if Air India decided to put daily flights into Atlanta, we, along with you, would fill them up everyday."
"The next challenge, I'd like to leave with you," Young said -- making a mighty pitch for ayurveda in the United States -- "is that I don't think our medicine is working. I think we are spending more money, we've got more contraptions, and yet I don't see people living much longer and they are certainly not living much better."
Then, he challenged the physicians in the room -- all practitioners of Western medicine -- to "draw on your Indian spiritual and traditional learning and lead us to understand that medicine is more than biology and chemistry. That medicine brings with it a healing of the spirit. Reach back as I have tried to do into your ancient heritage of yoga and meditation and help us calm our restless spirits."
"Finally, the challenge of everything we do in the 21st century -- we have done a wonderful job with democracy and free enterprise and we have made most of our values available to the middle classes of the world -- is to take our values, our learning, our teachings and our opportunities, and find ways to share them with the poor -- with the least of the God's children, wherever they may be on the face of the earth."
Young said, "If we do that, we would have found a way to make this earth, a little more like a heavenly kingdom."