My parents were happy I had completed three years of Diploma in Civil Engineering in one try, especially since my brother twice failed his final year of engineering college before passing the exam. My parents arranged a big celebration in our village when I came home. My father proudly distributed sweets among the poor and to his colleagues, and he sent sweets to our relatives. Once the celebration was over, I asked myself what I would do next. If I was lucky, I might be able to work as an overseer, supervising the construction of buildings, roads, and dams; or a surveyor, inspecting land to determine elevations or depths where a new road or building would be constructed. However, a diploma from a small, unknown college such as the Vishvakarma Institute was not impressive, and most employers looked for workers with experience or a bachelor’s degree from a well-known university.
My brother worked as an overseer at the time and would tell me stories about his boss, the Sub-Divisional Officer (SDO) who was responsible for a large, geographic area called a sub-division and had much more authority over the overseers working for him. In a way, he was like a ruler or rajah, and his chauffeur drove him all over the territory he was responsible for. Did I want to work as an overseer with little authority over anyone or a surveyor who had even less responsibility and power?
The SDO position appealed to me more than the others, but I discovered that I could only qualify for the title after eight or ten years of service as an overseer. I wasn’t sure if I could get a job as an overseer with my engineering diploma from a small unknown college. It wouldn’t mean anything to anyone, and I didn’t have any on-the-job experience to qualify right off the bat.
I decided to take an examination at a well-respected engineering college in Nilokheri, 150 miles from my hometown. If I passed the exam in all subjects, I could find a good job as an overseer and eventually become an SDO.
My brother arranged for me to stay in a room near the college, but several days into my stay, I developed a bad rash under my arms. It was painful and scary to look at, and even worse, it prevented me from preparing for the exams. The frightening appearance of the rash worried me. After several days of no improvement, I consulted a doctor. He administered eight shots into my arms, and slowly the rashes disappeared. Somehow, I still could not concentrate on studying for the exams, which were spread out over a three-week period. Before taking each exam, I knew I would not pass. It was no surprise when the newspaper declared the results, and my roll number was missing. My dream of becoming an SDO was ruined. Not knowing what to do or where to go, my only option was to stay at home and work with my father.
The sun shone brightly through the front door of my father’s shop as I brought a cup of freshly brewed tea to a customer haggling over prices with my father. She took a sip. “Thank you, Krishan,” she said. “Just how I like it.” The middle-aged woman was one of the regulars, but she still persisted in bargaining over prices with my father. “I have children to feed,” she’d always say. “I can’t be taking whatever first offer of price you throw at me, Respected Mukandi Lal.”
“I have a family to feed as well,” my father would say. “I can’t always sell my goods for almost free.”
I began folding bolts of fabric and organizing them by their colors. A moment later, my father walked over to me. “We reached a good price this time,” he said. “She is a good customer, but she is always trying to swindle me.”
I reached for an unrolled bolt of red cloth and began folding it carefully. “It must have been the tea. She is always happier when she gets a drop of tea in her.”
My father laughed. “Yes, Krishan. I don’t know how I’ve done without you these few months. It’s been a hard time with you gone. You are a big help to me.”
I reached for another bolt of cloth without meeting his eyes. How could I tell him that I didn’t want to work in his shop anymore? What would he say when he found out I wanted to go to America?
My desire to travel to America began several weeks earlier when my father told me about my two cousins who traveled to America, or “Amrika,” as most Indians pronounced it.
“We just received news from your cousin Ved who went to Amrika two years ago,” he said. “In 1959 I believe. He is getting his Master’s in Business Administration at the University of Tennessee. Very successful boy! Did you also know that another one of your cousins traveled to Amrika in 1955? He earned a PhD in Chemistry at a university in Michigan.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Yes, it seems that traveling to Amrika is becoming popular. It offers much more opportunity, and if someone has a degree from the US, they can get any job they want. Think of all the money they must be making over there!”
Making tons of money sounded good to me. It seemed the people with the most money were also the most respected in India.
A few days later, I ran into a friend from the Vishvakarma Institute in Ludhiana.
“Do you have a job yet?” he asked. He knew about my dream to work as an overseer so I could become an SDO.
I shook my head sadly. “No. I had to take an examination in Nilokheri, but I didn’t pass.”“That’s too bad,” my friend said.
“But did you know there’s another way to become an SDO? It is much quicker too. There are engineering programs in the US. You can go there and earn your bachelor’s degree in two years since you have completed your Diploma in Civil Engineering. Then all you need to do is remain in the US for eighteen months of practical training, and when you return to India you can get the post of Sub-Divisional Officer right away!”
That night, I spoke to my father about going to the US for further studies. He seemed reluctant for me to go so far, and my mother also felt it was too far away.
“Krishan, find something here,” my mother told me. “You are so helpful to me, and I will miss you so much.”
Regardless of my parents’ discouraging opinions, I wrote a letter to my cousin Ved Bedi in New York City, asking him to help me get admission at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. He asked the Dean’s Office of Admission to send me the admission forms, and my brother-in-law Vijay Kaura helped me complete them so I could send them back as soon as possible. My father was still not enthusiastic about the idea, but he did not try to stop me. Part of him felt having a son living in the US sounded prestigious and would impress his friends. He neither discouraged nor encouraged me.
Toward the end of April 1961, I received a letter of admission from the University of Tennessee. Soon after receiving the letter, I set out to procure my passport, currency exchange permit, and visa to come to the States. However, to qualify for an exchange permit, my father needed 14,000 rupees ($2,950) in his bank account to prove he would be able to support me and pay my university expenses while I lived overseas. My father did not have this kind of money. In the last eighteen months, he had paid the expenses of three weddings. My two sisters had married six months apart, and my brother had married six months afterwards. My sisters’ dowries had drained my father’s cash savings that he kept tucked away in a small tin box at our house. Now he had nothing left to offer me. Still wanting to help, he talked to his friends and our local relatives, but no one had that kind of money either. My dream of becoming an SDO skidded to a halt.
Chapter 2
“Krishan! Pay attention, Son!” my father called from the other side of the shop. “I need your help over here.” I shook my head from a cloud of daydreams and trudged over to him. With no money, I felt trapped in the village while my mind longed to go on to bigger things. I wanted to reach out and grab what I wanted in life, but that was like plucking a star from the sky. Unfortunately, money did not grow on trees in India, not like it did in America.
I would live in Malaudh the rest of my life, working in my father’s shop, folding cloth, and serving customers. I moped around the shop. Customers came and went. They haggled over prices. I served them tea or lemonade and watched my father negotiate. He sent each customer off with a smile and a blessing. I sprinkled water on the dirt in
front of the shop, and sometimes when business was slow, I sat on the ground outside and watched the women and girls walk by in their bright-colored saris.
I did not smile, and I rarely talked if I did not need to.
My father ordered me around. “Krishan, sweep the floor. Fold this cloth. Bring the customers tea.”
I slowly obeyed his orders with a grave expression on my face. Perhaps my father thought my dark mood would pass. He hoped I would get over it eventually and accept my role in Malaudh. But when a week passed and I still had not cheered up, he finally told me about a friend in Ludhiana, the owner of a large spinning mill. “Maybe he will lend us money,” he said.
“Is this true, Bai Ji? Will you take me there?”
“Yes,” my father said. My eyes cleared and a smile brightened my face.
I hugged him and ran out of the shop to tell my mother the good news.
The next day, we visited the mill owner, and my father’s friend agreed to transfer fourteen thousand rupees to my father’s account. Once again, I felt that my life was about to truly begin.
Over the next few months, I worked toward obtaining my passport and visa, and my father supported me with whatever money I needed along the way. There were nearly a dozen trips to and from New Delhi, and I had to complete many formalities. My father tried to be happy, but in truth, he did not want me to leave Punjab State. At times, he wept sorrowful tears as if this display of emotion would change my mind. Seeing my father cry was not pleasant, but I would not give up my plans. At other times, my father appeared neutral, neither encouraging nor discouraging about my venture to the US. He wanted me to be happy.
My brother-in-law helped me contact a travel agent in Ludhiana, and I arranged to travel by boat from Bombay to London and from there to New York. One week before my departure for Bombay, I visited my relatives in neighboring villages to tell them goodbye. One day, while traveling to see my uncle in Mandi Gobind-Garh, I started a conversation with a man sitting next to me on the bus. The man asked what I was doing and where I was going. I had brought my documents in a purse to show to my uncle. I took them out and showed them to the man, explaining my plans to study in the US. After he looked at them, I placed them next to me on the seat.
When I arrived in Mandi Gobind-Garh, I picked up my bags and walked the half mile to my uncle’s house. After greeting my uncle and several other relatives, I reached for the purse holding all the documents and saw it was not there. Immediately, I went into a state of shock. All my hard work had disappeared before my eyes.
The bus had left a while earlier, so my uncle borrowed a friend’s car, and we followed the bus forty miles to its next destination. When we arrived, the bus was empty, and my purse with the documents was not there. We returned to Mandi Gobind-Garh at 8:00 p.m., and I was devastated. The whole night I stayed awake, on the verge of tears, thinking, God, why have you done this to me? What do I do now?
The next morning, we hired a local drummer to announce throughout the town, “Krishan Bedi has lost his documents, passport, and visa to the US. Anyone who finds it will be rewarded.” Yet the documents never turned up.
When I returned home, my father did not show much emotion about my predicament. He was relieved that I would be staying in Punjab. Both my father and mother felt that Paramatma, the Supreme Spirit in Hindu theology, had taken care of my fate. It was my destiny to remain with my parents. This was the accepted explanation, and there was no more discussion about my future plans.
I did not like my destiny.
For the next few weeks, I helped my father in the shop. I told my parents that I would stay in Malaudh and join the cloth retail business. However, this was not what I wanted to do. I did not want to sell cloth for the rest of my life. This time my depression was even worse than before. I withdrew from all extracurricular activities, avoiding anything pleasant or happy. I even asked the barber to shave my head, causing embarrassment to my parents because I looked like a monk. After a month of plodding sullenly around the village, my mother realized my sadness was not lessening with time.
“Krishan, it is very hard for me to see you unhappy,” she said one day, while I sat in the courtyard watching two pigeons strut back and forth. “I know how much you want to go to Amrika. I think if you really want to go, you should try again. Go. Apply for admission. Prepare the documents again. It is important that you are happy.”
“But it is so hard,” I complained. “Do you know how long it took me the first time? Four months! I do not think I can go through it all again. All that work I did, and it was all for nothing.” I picked up a stone and hurled it angrily at the wall enclosing the yard.
“Krishan, if you really want something, you should not give up simply because it is too hard. Please, you have my blessing to try again.”
She walked away. I lay on the ground and stared at the darkening sky for nearly an hour. It was pitch black, and the stars had appeared in multitudes when I finally decided she was right. I could not back down from my dreams. It only made me miserable and hard to be around.
When my father learned my mother was talking to me about applying again, he tried to discourage me. “It is too hard, Krishan,” he told me. “You cannot do it. You will not be able to get all the formalities completed again.”
Hearing this challenge, I immediately decided I would. If I wanted to do something, then I could do it. I would show my father it was possible. As I started preparing the documents once again, someone recommended that I go to an astrologer to predict the future and remove any obstacles that might prevent me from traveling to the US. I thought this would be a good idea. Perhaps the astrologer would know whether I should continue my pursuit to travel abroad. The astrologer lived forty miles away from Malaudh. He prepared my janampatri, a prediction of the future in Sanskrit, including diagrams that show my prospects in terms of health, travel, education, and wealth. The diagram was based upon the day, time, and year of my birth. The astrologer told me, “Yes, overseas travel is in your stars, but there will be obstacles along the way. To overcome them, you must pray a mantra 1.1 lakh (110,000) times in thirty-seven days.”
The Sanskrit mantra he gave me translates to:
Oh God, the Giver of life. Remover of pain and sorrows, Bestower of happiness, and Creator of the Universe, Thou art most luminous, pure, and adorable. We meditate on Thee. May Thou inspire and guide our intellect in the right direction.
In the Hindu religion, it is believed that your troubles can be resolved by reciting certain types of prayers. I believed this wholeheartedly and resolved to follow the astrologer’s instruction.
“How will you complete this mantra on your own?” my father asked. “This is a very difficult undertaking. It takes an intense amount of focus and determination that is not simple for the average person.”
We consulted a pundit, a priest, who would repeat the mantra for a fee. The pundit and several other priests would say the mantra for several days and finish within the specified time. In addition to paying money, we would need to feed them breakfast and lunch. My father hesitated to spend so much money. In the end, I declared that I would say the mantra myself.
I calculated that it would take five minutes to say the mantra one-hundred-and-one times. I kept a record of the mantra count in a notebook, and I repeated it for six to eight hours a day. Toward the end, my sister-in-law helped me, and we completed all the repetitions in the required time frame. Afterwards, a pundit performed a completion ceremony for me, involving a large feast served to several pundits. The ceremony was considered Yag, meaning to feed the Brahmins and please our god, Paramatma.
One day, three Americans came to our village to work on an agricultural project. One of my classmates from primary school knew a little bit of English and had been conversing with these Americans using sign language as well. He knew I had lost my documents and was having difficulty obtaining them all again, so he told me I should speak to these Americans. Perhaps they would help me.
The
next day, I spoke to them in broken English, explaining my situation and asking if they could help me. They wrote down my name and address, saying they would try their best.
To my surprise, two weeks later I received a letter in the mail, admitting me to the University of Tennessee for the following quarter in January 1962. With renewed vigor, I acquired the remaining documents in less time than it had taken before. I completed all the formalities by October and made arrangements through a Ludhiana travel agency to reach the US by sea. My journey would begin in Bombay on November 26, 1961. The ship would take me to Genoa on the coast of Italy, and then I would take a train to the French city of Calais. From there, a ferry would take me to the port, and then I would board a ferry to cross the English Channel to get to London. Finally, I would board one last ship, the SS United States.
My brother, Sat Pal, and my brother-in-law Krishan Chand accompanied me on the train ride all the way to Bombay. As we left the Ludhiana station, I sat with my face pressed to the window, watching my parents waving after me. My heart grew heavy at the distraught expression on my mother’s face. I wore the fragrant garland of marigold flowers around my neck that my parents had draped over me, and their gift of money, called a shagan, sat securely in my pocket. “May Paramatma keep you healthy and wealthy,” my mother had said as she placed it in my hands.
She also had prayed over me in Hindi, her words meaning, “May God keep you safe and happy.” Holding back tears, I had touched her feet to receive her blessings. The moment I boarded the train, I could not stop crying, thinking that I did not know if I would see my parents again.
Engineering a Life Page 2