Every person's life story is special and unique. This memoir is about a young immigrant doctor who finds fulfilment by serving Canada's underprivileged peoples. Chandrakant Shah was born in 1936 in a small town called Nandurbar, in the state of Maharashtra, India. He was the ninth of fifteen children in a family of modest means, and recalls his love of studying, which he would often do by the light of a kerosene lamp in the kitchen. (The house had no electricity.) He managed to get to medical school and like many others went to seek better opportunities abroad. He arrived in Vancouver in 1965 and started practicing there, while facing the usual obstacles of racism. But he had observed the plight of the poor and the minorities, and was deeply affected.

"I have never believed in being the silent majority or a bystander who waits for someone to initiate that change," he says.

Having moved to Toronto in 1975, he became involved with the Sioux Lookout Zone Program in Northwestern Ontario by volunteering his pediatric services. He did this for a week or two from 1975 to 1980 and then more frequently until 1988. Visiting remote and isolated First Nations communities to provide necessary medical care, for several years, this sparsely populated area became his second home. The size of the communities ranged from 250 to 1,600 people and the health stations were poorly staffed.

He retired in 2001 and was invited to work as a primary care physician at the Anishnawbe Health Toronto (AHT), a community health center. "By then I considered myself well-versed about Indigenous Peoples, but soon realized how little I knew."

Born in India, Dr. Chandrakant P. Shah is a professor at the University of Toronto, a retired physician, a public health practitioner and an advocate for ameliorating the medical systems in place in marginalized Canadian communities. He wrote the widely used textbook Shah's Public Health and Preventive Health Care in Canada.