Full remarks from the 2025 CIC Interfaith Banquet and Interfaith Ambassador of the Year award

Namaste, Salaam, Shalom, Sat Sri Akal and Good Evening. Thank you, everyone. I cannot begin to tell you how grateful and overwhelmed I am.  As many of you know, I am no stranger to CIC or planning this event and I’ve seen firsthand what goes into making this night a success. So I want to start off by thanking the staff here at the Roof and David Love and the Staff of CIC for everything they’ve done tonight.   I have MC’d this event so a special thanks to Nabhia for your energy and passion and most importantly keeping the evening moving forward. 

I find myself looking at the youth who came out and performed tonight and thinking that I’m sort of caught at this moment in between that youthful energy and that wisdom of the ages that’s represented by Rabbi Lew Weiss. 

I want to thank all the current and former board members of CIC with a special shout-out to Priya Menon, JR Sandadi, Bruce Garrison and Brian Shivers for bringing us all together in more ways than just this incredible gala. 

I want to especially thank Charlie Wiles for his service and leadership for the last 13 years and I look forward to seeing where the organization goes next under the leadership of Erin Hougland. What I have gotten to know of Erin thus far makes me really excited about the future of interfaith work here in this city.  

As you may have heard, I have been involved with the CIC for just over a decade. It is one of the only organizations in Central Indiana whose entire mission and purpose is to create a more interconnected and peaceful world through developing relationships and understanding between people of different faiths.  It's an organization dedicated to the idea that we are better together.  It is an organization rooted in the American ideal of pluralism and the American value of building community.  I urge all of you here tonight to increase your support for this very special organization.

Of all the things I have done with CIC over the years, the one thing I never expected was to be honored with this amazing award.  To all the previous honorees – starting with my Mentor and friend Don Knebel, the famous artist KP Singh, the beloved and truly missed Sister Norma, The entertaining and engaging Rabbi’s Dennis and Sandy Sasso, the compassionate Imam Mikal Sahir, the loving and powerful Betty Brandt, a true Guru Dr. Vimal Patel, the acclaimed author Rev. Jerry Zehr, and the honorable Judge David Shahid I am humbled to be trying with my very small feet to be standing in your very large shoes.  Thank you for everything you’ve done for our community. 

Every one one of you in this room has made an impression on me and helped to push me further along in my personal journey.  Every meeting at Brebeuf Jesuit, Women’s Fund, Carmel City Council or Patchwork Indy, every performance I have attended, every conversation at the churches, synagougues, mosques, schools and Democratic Party events, every moment at the Hindu Temple or my pediatric practice that has left its mark and changed me. Thank you all for being the candles that burned brightly and lit my way.

Most importantly, I  want to take this opportunity to thank my family.  In medicine, a family history is very important, and I joke with my young patients saying you don’t get to pick your parents. I didn’t get to pick mine either, but I truly won the lottery of life there.  I am blessed to have them both, Gyan and Sushila Joshi, here with me tonight and I want to thank them for teaching me to always do the right thing – especially when it’s hard – and above all else to be kind.  I love you, Mom and Dad. 

You also don’t get to pick your kids. Believe me when I say that Nikhil and Nina: you are truly the greatest gift from god.  You both have taught me to love so deeply and with such openness.  You have challenged me to question and confront every one of my preconceived ideas of what is good and right.  I love you and thank you for continuing to teach me each and every day. 

You do, thankfully, get to pick your spouse. Arun: You are my rock, my pillar, my dearest love, a source of frustration, but always my everything.  

We have climbed mountains together – with some of you here in this room, we have dove the depths of the ocean together, seen sunsets and sunrises and experienced lots of bumps and bruises along the way. You are the only one I would ever want to be riding on this crazy rollercoaster of life with.

Arun, you have also been shaped by your family and I want to thank my mother-in-law, Laxmi, who could not be here tonight, and my sister-in-law, Sushmita, who is here tonight with her husband, Rohit. 

As people of faith, we are challenged at this moment in our history. Each of our faiths, at their core, are rooted in the universal values of nonviolence, compassion, honesty and respect. Our traditions, scriptures and rituals may go by many names, but the divine essence that guides us is universal. It is this shared truth that propels my commitment to interfaith work, to ensure that every faith is seen, heard and valued. Ekam Sat- Viprah Bahuda Vedanti-- The truth is one the wise know it by many names.  

In difficult times, times where religious division, intolerance,  and vilification are used as political tools to divide us,  our responsibility as interfaith ambassadors is clear: we must not be silent, we must stand together against all forms of discrimination and oppression. None of us is safe unless all of us are safe.

If you look at your neighbors here tonight, look into their eyes, you’ll see a flame within all of us. All of us are different candles lit from the same spark of divinity. 

To extinguish one flame, is to dim the collective light we bring to the world. To extinguish hundreds or thousands, simply because of who they are, where they live, their language, who they love, or what they believe, is to thrust us all into darkness. 

The brightest light in the world shines in the eyes of children.  My interfaith journey has woven its way through my pediatrics practice, I have witnessed firsthand the impact that inequity, systemic injustice and intolerance can have on the youngest lives.  I have cared for immigrant children whose families fear deportation, listened to LGBTQ youth terrified that their families and faith groups will abandon them, heard the fears of children who have been bullied simply because of their faith or the color or their skin.  These children, with their innocence and resilience, remind us that the fight for inclusion and justice is not about just our individual communities, it is about everyone, and the world we leave behind for our children. 

Everyone belongs to one race, one creed, one nation. The human one.  The human experience unites us. Every culture teaches that we are better when we recognize our interconnectedness.  This is the concept of Ubuntu from South Africa - it means  “I am because we are”.  In Hawaiin culture,  Aloha takes this further as a sharing of the breath in unity, respect & compassion with nature and one another. The teaching of the Native American cultures that all things are bound together, all things connect and are interwoven is embodied in the Cherokee word AyLuHay.  The Hindu concept of Namaste – I bow to the divine in you that is also in me.  We forget these ancient wisdoms at our peril.  We must rise together or we will fall together.  

Now, more than ever, is not the time for us to be silent, to pretend that only some of us are god’s children. We must abandon the notion that only the wealthiest of us deserve to live in safe and secure communities, that only a select few should have access to proper healthcare and education, and that only some who live here deserve to pursue the American dream.  Our teachings demand better of us. It is time for us to live our values, to be the change, to be the force of faith that reclaims the good. It is time for us to come together and be the light to guide us all into a brighter, more hopeful, more peaceful future. 

I leave you with one final thought from the Upanishads: Vasudeva Kutumbakam. The world is one family. You may not get to choose them, but you love them just the same. I thank you all again for this award, and for all of your collective efforts in building this interfaith family. Thank you, I love you all, namaste!