Learn, Earn and Return

Dr. Mirani likes to say that, in his life, he has gone from rags to riches to ruin and, finally, redemption. Born in India in near poverty, he was the oldest and, as such, the focus of his parents’ hopes and ambitions for a better life. 

After the partition of India into two countries in 1947, his parents were forced to escape from Sindh and settle in a refugee camp near Bombay (now Mumbai). Eventually finding a home in the Mahim district, his father worked as a financial clerk in the Burmah/Shell Corporation. His father’s driving force became the education of his oldest child.

“I was born in poverty but I had daddy,” he says. “He believed in me. My daddy decided he was going to make a doctor out of me. Everybody in the family thought he had gone mad. But he had a mule-headed determination.”

“Everybody in the family thought he had gone mad. But he had a mule-headed determination.”

One of only 600 of 100,000 applicants accepted to medical school, Haresh Mirani began his professional journey, but lost his parents. At 24, he had become a parent to his much younger brother and sister. When he arrived in the United States, a Delta employee gave him $40 as reimbursement for his damaged luggage. “I was not exactly broke when I entered the U.S.A. My net worth was $40,” he says.

While waiting for the results of his Medical Reciprocity exams, he became the only M.D. in St. Louis, MO, to be living on food stamps. He also saw snow for the first time. He survived for five months on a $1500 loan from an aunt in California while he finished his exams and prepared to start his residency. He lived in a drug-infested neighborhood in a place without running water, and experienced multiple break-ins. Nothing was ever stolen, however, because “there wasn’t a thing worth stealing.” 

After completing his residency in Chattanooga, he moved to Corryton, on the outskirts of Knoxville, to start a practice in 1984.

Building a Practice

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“Little did I know that in Corryton, I was the only non-white in a 10-mile radius,”  Dr. Mirani says of the farming community that became his new home. “It took a year or so for the people to see me for who I was instead of what I look like. But, once they realized that I would be there for them and their loved ones, that’s how the trust was built.” 

In the beginning, potential patients often called the office to get better acquainted with this newcomer. Doctor who? Where’s he from? Is he married? What church does he go to? Many heard that he was Indian and thought that meant Cherokee. “Oh, he’s a ‘ferner’,” they said, in the time-honored Appalachian way.

“For the first few months,” he says, “patients would just come in to meet me, see me, shake my hand, then go back and report to the family that ‘he’s okay.’ People were happy to have a physician in their community. They just wanted to be sure I would be there for them. But once I was able to take care of the family, I never had more loyal patients.”

“A good practice grows 10% a year. Within a year my practice had tripled.” He opened satellite offices and eventually operated the most profitable medical practice in the state.

His wife, Hanna, and two sons seldom saw him, since he worked 10-12 hours a day, six days a week. His seven-year-old son, who saw his father only on Sundays, assumed that his dad was on vacation the rest of the week.

Sidelined by Disaster

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In April 1996, Dr. Mirani’s life and career took a disastrous detour as the result of a horrific car accident. His shattered left ankle and other injuries effectively ended his medical career and plunged his wife into an endless grind of caregiving while raising their children.

Suddenly, the children, who seldom saw their father, had to navigate his presence in the living room 24 hours a day and the painful aftermath of his injuries and physical rehabilitation. Hanna was managing the household while driving her husband and children to a seemingly endless parade of physical therapists, counselors, child therapists and more. 

“The kids were 13 and 14 when he had the accident. That’s a time children are setting on a life path,” Hanna says. “And no one considered the caregiver then, taking him everywhere in a wheelchair. No one understands the caregiver’s perspective, the caregiver’s pain.”

At 43, Dr. Mirani had amassed material wealth, but the anger, depression and painful journey toward recovery started him down a new path—rethinking his purpose.

THE RK CONNECTION

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Eventually, Dr. Mirani came across some articles that Chris wrote. One discussed the subject “Why?”

“I had not thought about it until then. I was probably 60 or 61. I had never looked at it from that perspective. I wanted to go and interview him [about] the seed of why, why we work so hard to make all this money. Then what?

“I never thought about life in those terms. Today there is so much knowhow but so little ‘know-why.’ We are on this treadmill without thinking about why. 

“When we met the first time,” Hanna says, “they asked what are your goals. What papers do you have–a will, estate plan? Are they lined up? They checked on every one of them to be sure they were what was needed, they connected us with every person we needed.

“Every year, they would ask, should we change your goals? Every time we go, they show us what we’ve accomplished, whether we should add a new goal.”

THE BEST AND WORST TIMES

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Sometimes it’s hard to see beyond the pain of devastating events. The worst things that happened?

First, when my daddy did not wake up. He was only 53. He was two parents, mommy and daddy. That was the hardest to recover from; I’m not sure I have ever recovered.

Second, my car accident. I was only 43 and had three of the largest practices in knox. I survived, went through so many surgeries, so much pain, and PTSD. 

But, today, I don’t look at it that way.

THE 3 JACKPOTS

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“When I was born to the greatest parents in the world, who gave me values, culture, ethos, and above all, poverty. Because if I had not had that, I would not be where I am today.”

Hanna, his wife of 43 years. 

The car accident.

THE MIRANI FOUNDATION IS BORN

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As a result of the “why” conversations he had with Chris Kitrell, an idea began to take shape.

“I thought, maybe, I need to revisit myself and see what else I am here for,” he says.

“I didn’t just come to be born, raised, married, raise children, have a near-fatal car accident, have seven surgeries, for nothing. 

“I started talking to myself. The teacher within me showed up. The foundation was born a year or two after meeting with Chris. I was already beginning to echo those themes. 

“I said, ‘My monies are not mine. I don’t own them, I’m the fiduciary to my funds. I need to figure out where they should go, not just spend it all on me. There were internal changes happening, there was a soul stirring within me.

“I believe in karmic ledger, financially and otherwise. In the last 10 years so much good has come into my life. If I’m not returning I’m not at peace. That spirit of giving is bringing so many blessings in my life. My relationship with my wife is at its peak. “

And so, the Mirani Foundation was born, to pay forward the blessings of life.

The foundation receives no outside funds, but uses the family’s investment income to support charities in three primary areas: health, education and social justice. Haresh, Hanna and their two sons decide how money is distributed. They prefer to give to small organizations where they can make a direct difference. Of the family’s income, they donate 50 percent, divided evenly between charities in the U.S. and abroad, mostly India.

THE ROAD TO THE FUTURE

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The Miranis live by the mantra: Learning, Earning, Returning. “A meaningful life must have all three stages,” he says. “I don’t think my life would have been complete. Now my life has evolved more fully.”

Dr. Mirani has finished his memoirs, but has not yet published them. “I have talked to some who said that, by keeping my story to myself, I am cheating the people who need it most. Who are they? Seven hundred million children today live under poverty. Most do not see a way out of it. So many children without that hope.”

He hopes to make a documentary about what is possible in a human life. “There are gifts hidden within each of us. Each of those 700 million kids has a gift. I want a documentary that people can stream. If just a few out of that 700 million say, “This guy was where i am. I don’t need to give up. I can strive, work my tail off, have a vision, with some luck, get where he is.’”

“There are a lot of stories of rags to riches. Rags to riches to ruin to redemption is a far more fulfilling epitaph. We don’t often look at life in those terms. That’s where that karmic ledger must be balanced. I can’t pay back the people who got me here, I must pay it forward.”

FOUNDATION BENEFICIARIES

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Among the many beneficiaries of the Mirani Foundation are:

International Groups

• Haiti clinic
• Sankara Eye Foundation
• Doctors Without Borders
• ASHA Mumbai
• Food Programs in Mumbai

US/Tennessee-Based Organizations

• SEEED Sustainable Housing
• Various food pantries
• Olive Tree Early Learning Center
• Vine Middle Magnet Supporting Student Artists 
• Odd Fellows Cemetery
• CARE 
• Knox County Schools’ Elevate Program
• KAT Passes for FISH Pantries Clients
• Drums Up Guns Down
• Boost Bags for Kids – FISH Pantry