Epiphany in India: An Encounter with God in an Operating Room

Between 2002 and 2007, I made fifteen trips to India as part of my responsibilities with New York Life. We had partnered with MaxIndia, a respected healthcare company, to build a life insurance business in a complex and rapidly evolving environment. Though our ownership stake was limited and we had no voting control, the partnership flourished, and our presence grew from a handful of staff to over 10,000 employees and agents. It became one of New York Life’s most successful international ventures—and one of the most unexpected blessings of my life.

At first, I approached these trips with anxiety. I had concerns about safety, infrastructure, and the overwhelming poverty I had heard so much about. All of those concerns proved valid. But over time, I grew to love India: its people, its culture, its relentless ambition. The contrasts were jarring—modern office buildings beside sprawling slums—but I felt deeply called to contribute, both professionally and personally. On behalf of New York Life, I was often privileged to present donations to orphanages and community nonprofits. These small gestures gave me a way to express my faith through action.

Then came the inspiring moment that changed my life.

After a board meeting, MaxIndia’s chairman, Analjit Singh, invited me to tour a new cardiac hospital in New Delhi. It was among the most advanced in the country. As we walked through the bright, modern atrium, he asked if I’d like to observe an open-heart surgery. Hesitant but intrigued, I agreed—assuming I’d watch safely from a viewing gallery.

Instead, I found myself in a surgical scrub room, removing my clothes, scrubbing my hands, and donning a gown, mask, and booties. Before I knew it, I was standing in the operating room—mere inches from a patient undergoing a quadruple bypass. My heart pounded with nervous energy.

They moved the anesthesiologist to make room for me beside the patient’s head. On one side of the operating table were the chief surgeon and assistant: on the other, the surgical nurses. No one acknowledged my presence as they focused intently on their task. I kept my hands tightly clasped behind my back, terrified of disrupting anything.

And then, I looked down.

Eighteen inches from my face, a human heart—fully exposed—beat steadily and rhythmically while the surgeons worked. I was transfixed. The sheer miracle of it struck me with a force I could not have anticipated.

This was not simply a marvel of medical science—though it was that, too. This was God’s creation, beating with perfect precision. Even this ailing heart would keep working, day and night, for decades. I stood in silent awe, tears welling up behind my surgical mask. In that moment, I felt overwhelmed—not with clinical fascination, but with the sacred.

Who first dared to operate on the human heart? How many lives had been lost so others might be saved? And yet here I stood, close enough to see the sutures, in a room full of calm confidence. But beyond that was something more profound: the realization that no human effort could explain the existence of that heart in the first place.

Science can describe the how. But only God explains the why.

I thought of the trillions of cells in our bodies, the absence of life on other planets, the irreducible complexity of something as simple as a heartbeat. To believe that this all came about by accident seemed far more improbable than believing in divine design. For someone trained in mathematics and probability, this was my own kind of proof.

That day in New Delhi, God met me through the quiet beating of a heart.

In the most sterile, clinical setting—amid machines, monitors, and sterile gowns—I encountered the Creator. I cried tears of joy, thankful that my mask absorbed them rather than allowing them to fall on the patients face. It was a moment of clarity, of worship, of renewal.

God reminded me then that He reveals Himself not only in churches or scriptures, but sometimes in the most unexpected places—in boardrooms, in acts of service, and yes, even in an operating room in India.

It was an encounter that reshaped how I see the world. Not as a businessman. Not even as a Christian. But as a witness to the miracle of life, gifted freely by the hand of God.