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Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hi, I'm Phil Donahue and I'm Marlo Thomas, and

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Speaker 1: we're going on a series of double dates to find

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Speaker 1: out what makes a marriage last. That old expression is

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Speaker 1: there a doctor in the house was never more fitting

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Speaker 1: than one afternoon when Marlow and I had the doctor

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Speaker 1: in our house. Rebecca and doctor Sanjay Gupta were in

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Speaker 1: town from Atlanta, so they dropped by our apartment to

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Speaker 1: talk marriage. From the first moment they walked in, you

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Speaker 1: could feel their calm compatibility. They have three daughters and

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Speaker 1: a busy life, and they do a lot of philanthropic

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Speaker 1: work together. It's a relationship that's built on different cultural backgrounds.

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Speaker 1: Unlike Rebecca, whose family is Scandinavian, Sanjay grew up with

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Speaker 1: a distinct sense of being an outsider as an Indian

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Speaker 1: American in a small Michigan town. I don't think people

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Speaker 1: knew what to make of Indians. That was the only Indian,

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Speaker 1: you know, really there, So there was no there was

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Speaker 1: no history with I was obviously different colored skin, had

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Speaker 1: a funny name, you know, all that sort of stuff.

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Speaker 1: But other than that, there was no There was no

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Speaker 1: institutional prejudice that I that I experienced with Like with

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Speaker 1: with Rebecca's family obviously any of that sort of stuff.

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Speaker 1: There was other prejudices just because you were different. That

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Speaker 1: was yeah, I mean, you know where I grew up,

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Speaker 1: Especially if you're the only person that looks like me,

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Speaker 1: you tend to then take on the characteristic and other

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Speaker 1: people's minds of every sort of you know, fringe group.

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Speaker 1: So you know, for for example, the Iran hostage crisis

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Speaker 1: was happening in nineteen seventy nine. You remember Jimmy Carter

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Speaker 1: was president and and um, I was ten years old

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Speaker 1: and I'm not Iranian. But you know, it didn't matter.

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Speaker 1: You were suddenly somebody else. You know, you were an

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Speaker 1: outsider during that time. So I remember that being a

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Speaker 1: really hard time, the Iran hostage crisis, for because it

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Speaker 1: was such a such a big thing in the news

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Speaker 1: and and every day it was something you know, um,

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Speaker 1: and you know, it didn't make sense for me to

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Speaker 1: remind people that wasn't Iranian. It kind of was missing

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Speaker 1: the point, right, But so so yeah, there was there was.

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Speaker 1: There was a fair amount of bullying. I think that

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Speaker 1: happened you know, younger younger years in particular. Well, what's

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Speaker 1: interesting is I think Detroit is unique in that it has.

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Speaker 1: That's how it kind of it's a huge immigration community,

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Speaker 1: but everybody stays in like their little neighborhood. The largest

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Speaker 1: Arabic population outside of Saudi Arabia, and it's in Dearborn,

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Speaker 1: I think, right, dear h that was born, dear boy,

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Speaker 1: that right? Yeah, Suci, I imagine that Sanjay's childhood experience

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Speaker 1: would cause this couple to have completely different points of view.

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Speaker 1: That's what I would have thought too. We kind of

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Speaker 1: grew up similar, so we have very similar values. We

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Speaker 1: grew up similar. Yeah. See it's hard to say that

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Speaker 1: with his parents being Indian and mind not, I guess,

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Speaker 1: but um, we both came from small towns in Michigan,

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Speaker 1: and both came from parents of like, you know, working,

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Speaker 1: you know, white collar parents kind of. My father worked

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Speaker 1: for Ford Motor Company, just like his parents worked for

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Speaker 1: Ford Motor Company. Um, you know, they, all of our

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Speaker 1: parents just their one desire was us to have a

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Speaker 1: great education and then they made all of them made

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Speaker 1: sacrifices for that to happen. And we kind of have

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Speaker 1: that in common. We we feel that that's important when

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Speaker 1: we have other I mean, we both grew up drinking

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Speaker 1: theme in powdered milk, so we have things that were

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Speaker 1: in common for us. You're Rebecca Olsen. Yeah, that sounds

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Speaker 1: like a character in a family sitcom. I think it

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Speaker 1: was a character in a couple of books. But Tom

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Speaker 1: Sawyer and a few others before that. Wow, that was

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Speaker 1: a great winning Was that okay? With your parents? My Um,

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Speaker 1: it's interesting. I think that there was a deep desire,

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Speaker 1: especially for immigrants, to have their children marry within the

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Speaker 1: same culture. My parents were a little different. It was interesting.

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Speaker 1: My my mom was from pakist what is now Pakistan.

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Speaker 1: She fled during the partition, so she was a refugee

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Speaker 1: child for the first twelve fifteen years of her life. Um,

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Speaker 1: and my dad was was in India, so they're both Indian,

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Speaker 1: but but for my dad's side of the family, she

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Speaker 1: represented a very different part of India, alm so different

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Speaker 1: that it was like a completely different country, completely different culture.

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Speaker 1: And when they got married, neither one of their parents

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Speaker 1: attended the wedding. Oh the well, yeah, I mean they

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Speaker 1: just did. They didn't support it. They didn't support the

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Speaker 1: wedding and well that day in each they both would

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Speaker 1: have had arranged marriages and instead his parents met in

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Speaker 1: the United States outside of their own parents, and because

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Speaker 1: they met in the United States and not some neither

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Speaker 1: of them had their own parents arranged who they were

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Speaker 1: going to marry. Both of their own parents were kind

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Speaker 1: of like, m this isn't what we set up and

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Speaker 1: this is in our traditions, So they were a little

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Speaker 1: bit against his parents were pretting married. So your parents

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Speaker 1: married in this country, people immigrated here. They both immigrated

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Speaker 1: and getting married here a love marriage as opposed to

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Speaker 1: in arranged marriages. Rebecca said, it was very unusual. I mean, I,

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Speaker 1: you know, in a bigger deal over time. I didn't.

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Speaker 1: Now I've met tons of people who are my contemporaries

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Speaker 1: Indians whose parents, all of them had arranged marriages. So

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Speaker 1: we haven't found anybody else that sort of gotten married

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Speaker 1: the way that my parents did. And as a result,

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Speaker 1: my friends, especially my friends, who were thinking about getting married,

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Speaker 1: especially if it was someone who was not Indian, it

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Speaker 1: was always my parents that they would go to to

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Speaker 1: talk to. They became those parents for you know, all

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Speaker 1: my friends who wanted Okay, you guys did this sort

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Speaker 1: of very radical thing by having a love marriage, and

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Speaker 1: you weren't even from the same part of India, the

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Speaker 1: same cast, the same background. How did it work? And

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Speaker 1: so when we were talking about getting married while there,

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Speaker 1: I think still a desire on their part for me

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Speaker 1: to marry somebody Indian. They were much more that they

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Speaker 1: had lived through that, they went through it. Although I

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Speaker 1: say that at the beginning they still really wanted him

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Speaker 1: to marry somebody India, right and um, and then while

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Speaker 1: we were dating and they realized that it was that

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Speaker 1: we were more likely to be together, then they started

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Speaker 1: to you know, be more accepting of it. Did you

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Speaker 1: have Indian girlfriends before then? Um? Yeah, I did any thing,

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Speaker 1: nothing too too serious, but yeah, um, and it was

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Speaker 1: all in college, you know, it wasn't anything earlier, so

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Speaker 1: these weren't necessarily you know, my dad was funny. He Um,

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Speaker 1: he said, I don't want to meet any of these

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Speaker 1: girls unless you're going to marry him. That's basically what

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Speaker 1: he told me, and my mom sort of followed that,

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Speaker 1: and you know, it was in line with that. So

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Speaker 1: they're not frivolous people. They're you know, they're they're engineers,

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Speaker 1: they're they're they're mathematics people. They didn't talk about love,

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Speaker 1: they didn't talk about marriage that so you know, if

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Speaker 1: I brought home a girlfriend and I was like, look,

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Speaker 1: are you marrying her? Is that why we're meeting her

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Speaker 1: or not? What's the point? Yeah, what's the point? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it really was. What's the point? They didn't. There wasn't

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Speaker 1: a lot of they're not a particularly emotional couple. I mean,

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Speaker 1: they're loving, but they're not very emotional in this regard.

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Speaker 1: So my dad still shook my hand, I mean every

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Speaker 1: single time. There was no hugs until I came along.

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Speaker 1: And now if I don't hug him when I'm walking

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Speaker 1: the door, he's like, where's my hug. So it's sweet

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Speaker 1: how they've kind of warmed up to part and part

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Speaker 1: of that I think is like my mom's parents and

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Speaker 1: my dad, and my dad's parents and my mom, they

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Speaker 1: didn't because again there was this friction that always existed,

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Speaker 1: so he could feel it as soon when it for me,

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Speaker 1: when it was when the grandparents were over, it was

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Speaker 1: a palpable tension and there was a lot of nice

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Speaker 1: to meet you, and I, you know, shaking my hands

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Speaker 1: because it wasn't arranged. And then they felt like they

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Speaker 1: were very different backgrounds and and I don't think that

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Speaker 1: my my dad's parents probably ever, even until the very end,

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Speaker 1: fully accepted my mom. Wow, my mom was family was

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Speaker 1: not very devout. My dad's mom was probably the most

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Speaker 1: devout Hindu out of all four grandparents. Um. She was

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Speaker 1: a Jane, which is a very sort of a more

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Speaker 1: strict Hindu, you know, tenant. But I think, you know,

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Speaker 1: just because my mom's parents were, they were fleeing, they were,

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Speaker 1: you know, fleeing persecution, and you know, the idea of

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Speaker 1: religion was a bit of an indulgence. I think for them.

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Speaker 1: You know, we had a little we had a little

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Speaker 1: deity in our house growing up, but you know, there

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Speaker 1: weren't any temples, so it wasn't like we could really

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Speaker 1: be devout in the United States at that time in

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Speaker 1: the sixties. But they had experienced religious persecution in Pakistan

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Speaker 1: for sure, causant to leave that. They were definitely more

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Speaker 1: reserved about showing any kind of religious What about your parents,

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Speaker 1: how did they feel about you're marrying a Hindu person? Um? Well,

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Speaker 1: good question. Um my dad had passed away long before

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Speaker 1: him and I started to date me. He probably, Um,

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Speaker 1: who knows how he would react anything. We'd probably have

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Speaker 1: been fine by the time we married. Um my mom

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Speaker 1: would have been. I mean like he'd gotten like you know,

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Speaker 1: he was um, he was he was finished and Swedish,

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Speaker 1: So it wasn't that he he was just like, you know,

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Speaker 1: we stay at home and we do our things and

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Speaker 1: we wasn't until they retired that they suddenly developed this

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Speaker 1: huge social life, right, And I think my dad probably

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Speaker 1: would have had been very similar except for the fact

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Speaker 1: that he passed away before you know, before he even retired,

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Speaker 1: when he passed fifty, and would have About your mom,

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Speaker 1: how did she feel about san Jay? Oh? She she

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Speaker 1: loved him. She she My mom's just fig sweetheart. She

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Speaker 1: loves she. She thinks he's so smart and fascinating and

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Speaker 1: even to this day she's like, well, I want to

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Speaker 1: know where he is as I worry about him, and

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Speaker 1: and she's very like like humble and chi around him.

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Speaker 1: So it's kind of sweet. Right. My mother was Italian,

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Speaker 1: she's gone. My father was Lebanese and they were the

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Speaker 1: children of arranged marriages, you know, but both both my

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Speaker 1: grandparents were arranged marriages. But my mother didn't like Irish people. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I read a huge article about that. Did she live

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Speaker 1: here in New York and into Michigan Detroit in Detroit

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Speaker 1: in a sort of lower middle class and mean, her

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Speaker 1: father was Italian and they had two trucks and they

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Speaker 1: sold produce off their trucks. So there were five kids.

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Speaker 1: They went to school, they had an education, and my

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Speaker 1: grandmother stayed home. But she was a singer and got

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Speaker 1: little job singing in the synagogue or the church or

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Speaker 1: whoever would have her. She would love to sing. But

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Speaker 1: but in those poor neighborhoods, you know, the Jews had

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Speaker 1: their area and the Irish their area, and the Italian

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Speaker 1: said their area, and so the Irish were considered sort

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Speaker 1: of the lower class people and the shandy Irish. So

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Speaker 1: when I first told my mother I was going out

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Speaker 1: with Phil Donahue, she said, oh, he's Irish, and it

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Speaker 1: was like my mother had a thing there. And then

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Speaker 1: well then she got to know him and she loved him. Well,

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Speaker 1: he won her over, he said, with his Irish malarkey.

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Speaker 1: You know, he won her over. So how did you meet?

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Speaker 1: I did we meet at a bar? As a classic

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Speaker 1: American story, mutual friends introduced us in college. Yeah, we

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Speaker 1: went to the University of Michigan. Yeah, and I think

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Speaker 1: when we met we were both dating someone else at

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Speaker 1: the time. We definitely had more of a shared experience

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Speaker 1: right away. We just had a lot that we had

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Speaker 1: in common talk about right out of the gate, and

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Speaker 1: you were thinking about I mean, I know we were

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Speaker 1: taking she was taking a lot of science classes. I

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Speaker 1: remember that because she was really good at it, and

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Speaker 1: I was saying I needed to get my act together.

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Speaker 1: I was going to go to medical school. He says,

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Speaker 1: we'll have more ter a quick break. We're back to

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Speaker 1: our conversation with san Jay and Rebecca Gupta. It seems

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Speaker 1: these two have found the path to harmony together, but

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Speaker 1: as we all know, spending a lifetime with another person

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Speaker 1: requires some doing, especially when it comes to dealing with

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Speaker 1: each other's differences. You're absolutely right that there's accommodations that

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Speaker 1: you have to make. And like, I'm a really neat person.

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Speaker 1: I'm not aligning people who are not neat. But but

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Speaker 1: I think that for me, you know, it's just it's

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Speaker 1: it's just how I am and she's not. It's not

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Speaker 1: that I'm not a neat nick. There's just there's only

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Speaker 1: so much time in dating get everything in the world.

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Speaker 1: His office is like nothing on it but the one

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Speaker 1: little computer, because his life is it's like on the computer.

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Speaker 1: He can store everything there, he writes everything there, maybe

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Speaker 1: a glass of water. I mean that it's just just

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Speaker 1: and my office is a constant mess, and there's everybody's

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Speaker 1: in and out of my office and they trip over

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Speaker 1: stuff and knock it all over the place. And he

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Speaker 1: walks in. He's like, my mind is gonna I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: lose it. Like, just shut the door. That's how we

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Speaker 1: can get along. Visceral sort of pain as I and

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Speaker 1: she says, I can't find something, IM go really, but

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Speaker 1: I was What I was going to say, though, is

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Speaker 1: that the accommodation are all offset by trust to me,

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Speaker 1: you know, And that's probably the the the heart of

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Speaker 1: the whole thing is that, like I don't trust anybody

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Speaker 1: more than I trust Rebecca to have my best interests,

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Speaker 1: and that can be with regard to you know, our

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Speaker 1: financial stuff. But also like I don't know what to

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Speaker 1: do here. I'm dealing with something I'm not sure what

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Speaker 1: the right answer is and there's no absolute right answer,

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Speaker 1: but there's probably a right answer for me. And so

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Speaker 1: who do I like, who would who would be able

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Speaker 1: to answer that? And I think my parents can't answer

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Speaker 1: that because ultimately they they're incapable, I think, fundamentally, of

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Speaker 1: seeing things from outside their vantage point. They can't put

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Speaker 1: themselves outside their own shoes. It's not a bad thing,

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Speaker 1: it's just who they are. She can. I can tolerate

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Speaker 1: the messy office, and I can tolerate because I come

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Speaker 1: home at the end of the day and I'm dealing

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Speaker 1: with stuff. And it was always me. I was a

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Speaker 1: pretty solitary creature, and then all of a sudden, I

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Speaker 1: started like dabbling in this idea of letting someone else in.

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Speaker 1: She's really good at it, and I trusted her. When

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Speaker 1: you have a big argument, there's one of you pout

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Speaker 1: or false silent or yes he really end I mean

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Speaker 1: he's still mad about me for buying him a hand sandwich,

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Speaker 1: like you know, fifteen years ago or something. I mean,

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Speaker 1: some big arguments on and on, and then they'd become

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Speaker 1: even though they might be like poking at a at

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Speaker 1: a splinter, but still there, they almost become kind of

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Speaker 1: you know, like a running joke or something. We've had

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Speaker 1: big arguments, for sure, and I think the longest they've

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Speaker 1: lasted is probably a couple three days. In the sense

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Speaker 1: that not not that we're at it for a couple

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Speaker 1: three days, but we're definitely still pissed off, both of us.

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Speaker 1: And and but you know, um, I came from a

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Speaker 1: really pretty sedate household. I could probably count on one

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Speaker 1: hand the number of times it was really yelling as

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Speaker 1: when as a child, when I grew up, and I

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Speaker 1: can remember those times because they were so jarring, you know.

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Speaker 1: So it's not really the style I think for us

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Speaker 1: to have like a big argument, the sense that it's

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Speaker 1: explosive in any way. But I will get upset. I'm

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Speaker 1: much more transparent about it now. I would hold it

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Speaker 1: in expect her to figure it out, And then I

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Speaker 1: realized at some point that was a waste of time,

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Speaker 1: because why am I waiting for her to figure it?

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Speaker 1: I could just tell her and you know it's not

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Speaker 1: then at least they can get it off my chest.

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Speaker 1: What do you think you were waiting? That's an interesting

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Speaker 1: thing because I was being passive aggressive, like if she

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Speaker 1: didn't figure it out, I could just do even longer

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Speaker 1: you know about it, you know, like I was being

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Speaker 1: feeling vindicated that she didn't even know why I would

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Speaker 1: be upset, Like how could you know I've been married

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Speaker 1: how long? And you don't even know this thing about me,

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Speaker 1: you know, so there would be that that part of it,

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Speaker 1: I will say, and I think this is a little

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Speaker 1: bit of a difference between men and women, although you know,

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Speaker 1: I can't obviously speak for all men or all women,

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Speaker 1: but you know, I have friends, but I don't have

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Speaker 1: a lot of friends that I would talk to about

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Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. So she was the person that

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Speaker 1: I would talk to. There were times too, and I

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Speaker 1: would look at him and I'd say, can you not

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Speaker 1: being greet because I need to talk to my best

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Speaker 1: friend right now to how to solve this problem, and

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Speaker 1: that would help him go, Okay, Yes, we need to

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Speaker 1: kind of shift gears into from the emotional we're upset

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Speaker 1: about whatever it is that has caused us to be upset,

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Speaker 1: to the intellectual what are we going to do about it? Now?

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Speaker 1: It's really hard for me to be mad at him

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Speaker 1: for very long because he always makes me laugh and

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Speaker 1: he's so smart that it really, you know, keeps me going,

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Speaker 1: makes me constantly be on my toes, which I love that.

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Speaker 1: What do you think are some of the A couple

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Speaker 1: of the things that you have to have in order

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Speaker 1: to have a marriage, last genuine respect, you know, I

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Speaker 1: think everything else follows from that probably and you know

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Speaker 1: there's people who you might really like and even love,

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Speaker 1: but maybe when you really think about it, you don't

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Speaker 1: respect that in every single way. And then trust for me,

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Speaker 1: you know, I don't know. May maybe it's because I

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Speaker 1: didn't have a lot of people that I trusted and

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Speaker 1: so I mean as a child or as a child

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Speaker 1: and even you know, I mean when you go through

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Speaker 1: um MED school and it's it's it's such a competitive environment,

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Speaker 1: you know. Um, you know where where I started, I

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Speaker 1: was accepted into medical school out of high school. So

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Speaker 1: it was a program that did that and everyone was

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Speaker 1: very some of them are my good friends now, but

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Speaker 1: it was very competitive environment. Um. You know, people sabotaged

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Speaker 1: each other's experiments and no one was rooting for each other.

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Speaker 1: Everyone was rooting for themselves, and so trust in that

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Speaker 1: environment was challenging. I think once I got into training

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Speaker 1: and nursergery training, it was it was better because now

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Speaker 1: we were all sort of a more shared experience. But well,

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Speaker 1: what is what are yours? So? Um? So I was

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Speaker 1: a family law attorney, so I represented people and divorces

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Speaker 1: or people who were at that point where their relationships

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Speaker 1: were going the wrong way, and I can tend the

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Speaker 1: number one thing that causes people to divorce from my

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Speaker 1: experience was resentment. And resentment can if when resentment starts,

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Speaker 1: then all the other things go. When you know, when

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Speaker 1: like if he's working really hard and making all the

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Speaker 1: money and I'm you know, and he resents that, you know,

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Speaker 1: I'm not contributing to that, or if I'm with like

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Speaker 1: babies crying and you know, having no sleep and I

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Speaker 1: start to resent him for being on the road and

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Speaker 1: getting eight hours of sleep or something, and resentment really

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Speaker 1: only can be cured through communication before the resentment builds.

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Speaker 1: And I have to say there have been a few

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Speaker 1: times when I will say to him, I'm working way

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Speaker 1: too hard and I and I need you to notice.

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Speaker 1: I think that's a great point. I haven't heard that before,

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Speaker 1: that you notice something that is making you get to

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Speaker 1: the brink of resentful and so you know the only

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Speaker 1: way out of that is to communicate. And he works

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Speaker 1: so hard and making sure that he is home, you know,

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Speaker 1: he's set up he operates every Monday just so that

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Speaker 1: he's home every weekend, so that way that he's always

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Speaker 1: there for games. Yeah, do you do stuff without the

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Speaker 1: kids together. Yeah, yeah, I mean, dude, we'll do trips. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we have a we have a group of friends that

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Speaker 1: we travel with. Uh, you know, once a year, maybe

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Speaker 1: twice a year, depending. And then and then Rebecca and

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Speaker 1: I will we'll go out on date nights. You know,

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Speaker 1: we'll just go out to dinner. Um, I just like

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Speaker 1: to go more so now you know that the kids are,

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Speaker 1: you know, they're more independent. Yeah. If there was a

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Speaker 1: young couple who are about to be married, or thinking

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Speaker 1: about getting married, or on the fence about getting married,

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Speaker 1: what do you think you would want to pass on?

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Speaker 1: Nothing in life is perfect? And I think you know,

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Speaker 1: perfect is often the enemy of a very very good

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Speaker 1: and and I you know, we say that in the

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Speaker 1: operating room a lot. I just want to take out

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Speaker 1: this last piece of tumor, but it's right against something

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Speaker 1: important And if you do that, you could sacrifice all

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Speaker 1: the incredible work you've just been doing for the last

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Speaker 1: several hours in search of perfection. I think it's the

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Speaker 1: same thing in marriage. I mean, you know, once you've committed,

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Speaker 1: then being in search of perfection can be a destructive force.

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Speaker 1: And that's something that I think I learned and I

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Speaker 1: would pass that on and we do pinch ourselves every

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Speaker 1: day and just think we get really lucky. You know,

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Speaker 1: if you can internalize that, I think that's a really

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Speaker 1: powerful force. That's Sanjay and Rebecca Gupta. I can't decide

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Speaker 1: what impressed me more how nice they are or how

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Speaker 1: smart they are, but more important, they have a quiet

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Speaker 1: and deep understanding of each other. Now we can say

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Speaker 1: we know a doctor who makes house calls all the

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Speaker 1: way from Atlanta and brings his wife until next time.

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Speaker 1: I'm Phil Donahue and I'm Marlo Thomas. You guys have

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Speaker 1: been great. Yeah, we appreciate the conversation. It's fun. Double

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Speaker 1: Day is a production of Pushkin Industries. The show was

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Speaker 1: created by US and produced by Sarah Lily. Michael Bahari

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Speaker 1: is associate producer. Musical adaptations of It Had to Be

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Speaker 1: You by Stellwagen, Simfinette, Marlo and I are executive producers,

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Speaker 1: along with Mia Lobell and Letal Molad from Pushkin. Special

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Speaker 1: thanks to Jacob Wiseberg, Malcolm Gladwell, Heather Faine, John Snars,

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Speaker 1: Carly Migliori, Eric Sandler, Emily Rostek, Jason Gambrel, Paul Williams,

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Speaker 1: and Bruce Kluger. If you like our show, please remember

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Speaker 1: to share, rate, and review. Thanks for listening.