CARMICHAEL, CA (MPG) - Music, medicine and faith, says Carmichael resident Dr. Rajshree Gaitonde, have fed the elements of a spectacular life and career that began forming nearly 9,000 miles away on a hot summer day over buttermilk and prison labor.

“When I was a child living in Madras, South India, our neighbor’s house happened to be owned by the Inspector General of Prisons,” says Gaitonde, recounting the first of many vignettes that launched a journey that ultimately landed her the distinction of being the first female physician to work inside one of the country’s most notorious maximum security institutions: Folsom Prison.

In her self-published book released in 2017, Dr. Gaitonde asks a question many find themselves confronting at some point or another: How did I get from there to here?  And she answers those questions in humorously impassioned detail in her memoir, 8,596 Miles, My Leap of Faith, My Journey, a 109-page whirlwind of a story rooted in spiritual interventions, synchronicity, music, medicine, matchmaking, faith, love and unexpected opportunities.

“This is my story. This is how I, a privileged young girl from India, managed to come all the way to Northern California to wind up serving as a the first female physician in one of the most dangerous prisons in America,” says Gaitonde. 

That hot summer day back in Madras, now Chennai, when she was about three years old, Gaitonde explains, a group of men bound to one another by rope or chains, she isn’t sure, were working in the Inspector General’s garden under a blistering sun.  She watched the men she learned were prisoners on work duty and could not understand why they were tied up in the heat.  So she did what every young girl would do in a situation like that and took them glasses of cool buttermilk.

“I could not believe men were tied up like that and it really touched me,” says Gaitonde, adding that she would not remember that event until years later when the offer to work at Folsom Prison was on the table and she was hesitant to take it.  “My mother, who encouraged me to follow my passions and take risks, reminded me of that day.  She and my parents both said I was destined for it and if I didn’t like it I could quit.  It turned out to be one of the most critical turning points in my life, so important to me that I had to tell my story.”

Her memoir traverses Gaitonde’s upbringing, her fast-track to medical school at The Stanley Medical College at the University of Madras where she was the youngest woman to attend at the time, her arranged marriage to a stranger who would take her to America’s east coast and ultimately on to Sacramento, where she was offered a job that would test every bone in her body, but ultimately deliver every reward she could have hoped for.

“Most of my patients at Folsom called me ‘Dr. G,” says Gaitonde.  “Although my first few months on the job at Folsom were difficult and filled with many moments of sheer terror, ultimately I was able to win their confidence and respect.”

Gaitonde leaves out names and specifics of her time at Folsom, which stretched from the 1980s to 2002.  “I have to protect myself and the individuals I treated there,” Gaitonde says.

Gaitonde specialized in endocrinology and India’s ancient form of medicine: Ayurveda, which incorporates the healing power of herbs, a healthy diet, yoga and even music into a system of whole-body care.  She also studied music and classical Indian vocals as a young girl and, in addition to her MD, Gaitonde holds a Master’s in Public Health and, perhaps not all that surprising: a law degree.

“I wanted to learn the language of the law because it was important to me to understand what was being talked about when I would have to go to court for my job in Folsom and speak on behalf of a patient,” said Gaitonde. 

Today, Gaitonde is on a book tour of sorts, recounting her story for newspapers, radio and at speaking engagements across the Sacramento region.  Carmichael, she says, is indeed, a long way from Madras—8,596 miles, to be exact. And her story is just as long and winding, but it isn’t complete.  This chapter, says Gaitonde, is partially unwritten, but certainly set aside for her to share her story with the intention of both inspiring and helping others.

“In many ways I know that I must have been destined to do everything I have done in my life so far,” said Gaitonde, who is now in her late 60s and sports dark sunglasses due to a degenerative eye disease.  “My father, an airline executive, was my hero, and my mother, a brilliant psychologist, was my guru.  They taught me to follow my passions and to remember to always be of service to others, because to be of service is to love.”

Proceeds from Dr. Gaitonde’s book are being used to support underprivileged girls in rural India.  Find it on Amazon at: www.amazon.com/596-Miles-Leap-Faith-Journey/dp/0692975578.