“Just enjoy it, and God will give you more,” I tell them.
In July 1962, I began washing dishes at a new drive-in restaurant called Shoney’s Big Boy. I didn’t want to waste any time when I could be making money for school. After three days of working at McDonald’s, walking to and from my apartment in the afternoon, catching the bus to Shoney’s and working until 1:00 a.m., I was exhausted. Then I slept only a few hours before getting up at 6:00 a.m. to start the routine all over again. My feet were sore from standing and walking almost eighteen hours a day. The fourth night at Shoney’s, my feet hurt so much I decided I would feel more comfortable if I took my shoes off toward the end of my shift. While another employee and I were cleaning the floors, the manager walked by and saw me.
“Kris! What do you think you’re doing in your bare feet?!” he yelled.
“My feet hurt, so I took my shoes off.” I didn’t understand why he was so angry.
“Put your damn shoes on!” he yelled. “I don’t want you working in bare feet.”
I didn’t understand how serious he was. After indicating that my shoes hurt my feet, I simply continued cleaning the floor, thinking he would accept my plea and let it go.
“That’s it! You’re fired!” he shouted. “I do not want to see you!” I did not understand the word “fired,” but I understood not wanting to see me, so I said, “That is simple, just close your eyes and you will not see me.” I was trying to be funny, but I didn’t think the manager was being serious, nor did I think that my remark was disrespectful. The manager looked astounded. Then he yelled at me. “You are fired! You leave now!”
I looked at the other guy for clarification, and he explained, “Kris, he does not want you to work here anymore. It means that you punch out your card and leave this place.” When I finally realized what “fired” meant, I actually felt relieved, and when I got home, I slept for twelve hours straight.
Right away, I found another job, this time a position with a transportation company for a traffic surveyor. The survey involved determining the expansion of a road near my house that merged onto the bridge crossing the railroad tracks. The company hired me to work from 3:30 p.m. to 11:00 p.m., giving me just enough time to change out of my McDonald’s uniform and walk to the traffic site, where I relieved the other worker.
The job lasted six weeks and paid $2.50 an hour. Every day, I sat on the bridge, counted vehicles, and marked the number of cars and trucks driving by.
One morning, while working at McDonald’s, I met Melissa, a high school girl who showed an interest in me. We exchanged phone numbers, and on my lunch break, we ate cheeseburgers, French fries, and milk shakes for our first date. Wishing I could take her to a nice restaurant, I told Ravi Sood about Melissa, and he offered to help. From then on, Ravi and I picked her up in his car and brought her back to my apartment where we drank tea, ate Indian food, and listened to American music on the radio.
Ravi and Peggy enjoyed giving me advice about how to treat Melissa, and Peggy thought she was a nice girl. During the nights at my apartment, Melissa taught me how to dance the cha-cha and other dances. At times, she talked seriously about getting married. I didn’t know what to say. My main purpose for coming to the States was to earn a degree. Besides, I was failing my classes, and it seemed it would be a while before I graduated. I asked Ravi Sood what I should say to Melissa.
“Tell her that you want to finish school first,” Ravi said. “Then you can discuss marriage.”
The next time Melissa came to my place, I told her this, nervous to hear her response.
“Okay,” Melissa said. “That’s fine. I understand.”
I was relieved that Melissa did not seem upset. “Can we at least go steady, Kris?” she asked.
“What is this ‘go steady?’” I asked.
“I won’t date anyone else, and neither will you.”
“Oh. Yeah. We can go steady.”
Later, I asked Ravi Sood what I should have said. He was married to an American girl, so I figured he would encourage the relationship.
“It is okay to say yes,” he said. “But you should see how it works out first.”
Feeling that I needed to focus on school, I decided not to pursue a relationship with Melissa anymore.
One weekend, two coworkers from McDonald’s, Ken and Lee, asked me to go cave exploring with them. Naturally, I said yes, although I didn’t know what a cave was or what we would explore there. They went every weekend and collected rare stones. Sometimes they used a map, but other times, they took random paths and walked wherever they wanted.
I eagerly anticipated the adventure and invited Dhesi to join us. We navigated underground tunnels, and when the pathways became too narrow, we squeezed through single file. At other times, the passageways widened to allow us enough space to walk freely without stooping or bumping our heads on cold, drippy stalactites and various rock formations. As we walked deeper into the caves, waterfalls and streams flowed over rocks and gathered in pools. Ken and Lee marked each stream and waterfall on their homemade maps.
One time, bats flew at us from the darkness. Ken and Lee cursed, and we all bumped into each other, trying to run away from the flapping wings, high-pitched screeches, and beady eyes. We all yelled as we wildly swung our flashlights to scare the bats away, and we ran from the rest that weren’t afraid of a few flashlight-wielding explorers.
On our way back, the passage caved in, leaving a small opening. Panicked, we dug through the dirt and rocks with our hands so we could crawl out. With no way to communicate with relatives or friends on the outside, it took more than two hours to dig ourselves out. Our hands and legs were scratched and bleeding as we emerged. Dhesi and I never went back to the caves. I came to get a degree, I thought to myself. Not end up dead in a cave.
Chapter 4
The summer of 1962, Dhesi and I were still living in Ravi Sood’s rental house. Ravi came by almost every day to make repairs, and soon we became close friends. Ravi paid me fifty cents an hour to help him convert several houses near campus into apartments for UT students. I worked in the evenings, although I knew nothing about tools or repairs.
“I will show you as long as you are willing to learn,” he said. “Other students who helped me in the past were lazy and unwilling to learn construction.” He raised an eyebrow and held out a hammer. “Are you ready to learn?”
The work involved changing the interior of the house so we could separate it into two or three apartments, each with a kitchen, bathroom, and separate entrance. In one house, we spread insulation in the ceiling to conserve heat. Afterward, my throat itched and my spit and nasal discharge turned black. “Ravi, help me. Everything is coming out black, and my throat won’t stop itching!” I said.
“You’ll be fine after you wash up and clear your throat,” Ravi assured me.
In the back of my mind, I wondered if the dark material in the insulation would cause me to become severely ill, but after washing my throat thoroughly, the itching stopped.
Because I followed instructions and paid attention to detail, Ravi considered me a good worker. He noticed that I worked hard with my McDonald’s and traffic surveying jobs, and that I tried hard to adapt to the American lifestyle, especially important to him since his wife was American. Most Indians did not approve of Indo-American marriages, but it did not matter to me.
Years later, I would come back to Knoxville every two or three years to visit Ravi, and he always told me he would not forget one thing I taught him during our time working on the houses together. What could he possibly learn from me? I thought. I felt it was Ravi who taught me so much during that time.
Ravi said, “Remember when you were standing on the top of a ladder one Saturday morning, waiting for further instruction? I told you, ‘Wait, I’m thinking.’ You said, ‘Nights are to think and plan. Days are to work and to execute the plans.’”
As the end of summer neared, I talked to Ravi about working part time at McDonald’s and going to school during the fall qu
arter at UT. He said it would work, but perhaps I should buy a car because, with all my classes, I wouldn’t have time to walk a mile to and from work. One day we saw an ad in the newspaper for a cheap DeSoto. Ravi arranged for the owners, a father and son, to bring the car to a common place near campus so we could examine it.
“It’s a good car,” Ravi said after examining it thoroughly. “You should buy it.”
The father was asking $120 for the car. We offered $90 and then negotiated to finish the deal at $105. I paid the father in cash and asked if they wouldn’t mind driving it to my apartment.
Puzzled, he asked, “Don’t you know how to drive?”
I answered no, and the two men looked at me strangely. “Is it a crime to buy a car and not know how to drive it?” I asked.
“Oh no, no,” they said. “We are sorry. We will be happy to drive it to your place.”
I couldn’t believe I actually owned a car. It was a 1951 DeSoto, a gray, two-door stick-shift with two and a half gears. Feeling good about my purchase, I couldn’t wait to share my excitement with someone who would support me and be happy about it. I called my former housemate Ravi Aggarwal, a native of Calcutta, who was working on his MBA at UT. The other Indian students I lived with advised me to not get too close to him. “He is a city-slicker,” they said. Ravi was fluent in English, came from an affluent family, and received his bachelor’s in commerce from Xavier University. Students knew him as a talkative and cunning person who easily took advantage of people. “Stay away from him,” they warned. “He is up to no good.”
“He may be the type of person you are describing,” I replied, “but I would like to know this person and have experience with him before I accept your impression of him.”
As time passed, Ravi Aggarwal and I became close friends. Even though he was from Calcutta, his parents were from Punjab, and he knew Punjabi culture, one of the reasons we became such close friends. When I told Ravi Aggarwal about the car, he said, “Oh no, Bedi. You did not.”
“Yes, I did,” I answered. “Come and see it.”
Ravi was glad to know I had bought a car, but he told me it was not considered good for foreign students to own cars. Americans figured that if foreign students owned cars, they could go on dates easily and have a good time instead of studying.
“Our advisor, Mr. Nelson Nee, is from China and is married to an American woman, and even he doesn’t own a car,” Ravi informed me. “He does not advise foreign students to own cars either.”
“Well, I didn’t ask Mr. Nee, did I?”
“It is great that you have a car. Just don’t publicize it.”
I finally persuaded him to come to my house and look at the car. “Get in and I’ll show you how it runs,” I said.
Ravi got in the car, and I pulled onto the street. I had driven half a block when Ravi asked if I had a driver’s license.
“No,” I answered, nonchalantly. “This is my first time driving.”
“You don’t know how to drive!” Ravi exclaimed. “You have to go back right now!”
Slowly, I drove back to my house and parked the car. Ravi sat stiffly in the front seat, praying I wouldn’t run over the curb or veer into oncoming traffic.
“Bedi,” Ravi said, once we were safe in the driveway. “You cannot drive this car until you take driving lessons and get a driver’s license.”
The next day, Ravi and I went to the DMV and brought home the driver’s education book so I could learn how to operate a car and memorize the rules of the road. Two weeks later, I passed the written test for a learner’s permit. As soon as Ravi gave me driving lessons, I could get my license.
When the fall quarter started, McDonald’s did not offer me a job for the rest of the year. I could only afford to take three courses, the minimum requirement. Ravi Sood suggested I offer parking spots to earn extra money. I could fit three extra cars in the driveway at Ravi’s rental house. On football game days, I made a sign that said, “Park–$3,” and stood by the side of the road for all the passing cars to see. Friends and classmates laughed at me standing there, holding my sign. But I made nine dollars almost every home game, and I didn’t care, even when the gossip was about Bedi standing on the street with a sign.
In the beginning of the fall quarter, I became friends with Sarbjeet Sandhu, a PhD student who had just moved from Punjab. Sandhu came to my apartment for lunch or hot tea several times a week. Four years older than I was, he had completed his Master’s in Agriculture in India and worked for several years. He had married an Indian woman a year earlier and missed her terribly since leaving her in Punjab. Sandhu was not adjusting well to the environment in America, and he found studying in the US not as easy as he had been led to believe.
One day, while we sat in the kitchen drinking tea, Sandhu mentioned that he needed to open a bank account.
“I have a car. I can take you!” I responded immediately.
Sandhu hesitated. “I don’t know, Bedi. You don’t have a driver’s license yet.”
“Don’t worry. Ravi Sood has given me lessons, and I can drive now.”
Sandhu didn’t look too convinced, but he agreed.
The next day, I drove to his apartment, but he was not outside yet. I honked the horn a couple of times, but he still did not come out. Deciding to park on the side street outside his house, I yanked the steering wheel too hard and could not straighten the car since it did not have power steering. My Desoto crashed into a parked car with a loud crunch. Panicking, I looked around to make sure no one had seen me before I drove away.
About twenty yards down the street, I came to a stop sign. In a hurry to get away from Sandhu’s house and the car I’d hit, I ran the stop sign, slamming into another car in the middle of the intersection. I climbed out of my car and approached the two ladies sitting in their dented car—a mother and daughter, I presumed—the latter appearing to be in her twenties. The mother glared at me as I walked around the front of my car, stepping over the water gushing from it. The women did not appear injured, but the daughter began to cry.
“I am so sorry about this,” I told them. “I will pay for your car to be repaired. But please, do not call the police. I don’t have any insurance.” I also did not have a license, causing this accident to be an even more serious offense. My stomach was in knots, and with the sun bearing down on me, I could feel beads of sweat forming on my forehead and sticking to my shirt. The moment I said I didn’t have insurance, the daughter cried louder. “I’m hurt,” she whimpered. “I’m hurt.”
I tried to calm her down, but she only ignored me and continued crying uncontrollably. A moment later, a policeman arrived at the scene. When he asked for my driver’s license and insurance card, a lump formed in my throat, and I could barely speak. I managed to say that I didn’t have either. Then I showed him my learner’s permit. The disapproving look on his face caused me to sweat nearly as much as the sun did. He pulled a pad of paper from his chest pocket just as a colored man charged toward us, holding a paintbrush.
“Officer, I saw everything. I was painting on the second floor of that house over there, and I saw this man hit a parked car.”
Confused, the policeman looked at where the man pointed, and then he looked at me. After walking over to the parked car and observing the dent, he thanked the man, who looked quite proud of himself. Feeling his work was done, he looked me up and down smugly and strode away, paint brush swinging jauntily.
The situation could not have gotten any worse. Pen poised, the officer shook his head in disbelief, and added another offense to the growing list.
As he wrote out the ticket, I glanced over at the two women. The mother was glaring at me, arms crossed over her chest. The police officer began reading me the charges.
“These charges are for a hit-and-run, missing a stop sign, hitting another car, injuring two ladies, and having no driver’s license or insurance,” he said. “What do you have for identification?”
I showed him my student ID. Since I was a
foreign student at UT, the policeman did not know what to do. He called his captain and explained the situation. The captain did not know either, but told the officer to keep me there, and he would come shortly. When the captain arrived, he asked where I lived and the same questions the first officer asked. Then he contacted my foreign student advisor, Nelson Nee, and told him to come to the scene. While waiting for Nelson, I spoke to the ladies and told them I would take care of any medical expenses and the repair of the car. I did not have any cash on me, but I said I would work part time and pay them later. They did not look too reassured.
Ten minutes later, Mr. Nelson Nee came huffing and puffing up the hill. “When did you buy this car?” he snapped at me.
“A month ago.”
“Why?” he yelled. “You do not have driver’s license!”
“I have a learner’s permit,” I murmured. I was beginning to feel scared. Before, the entire situation seemed surreal, but now, after the ordeal with the police, the unknown outcome, and my advisor fuming at me, I thought, What if they put me in jail?
The captain, the officer, and Nelson Nee held a conference right on the spot. My case was unusual. The officers rarely dealt with foreign students, but they decided I must appear in court. They gave me a ticket requiring that I appear before the judge. Nelson Nee said, “I assure you, Mr. Bedi will be at court on that day.”
The police officers helped push my damaged car to Ravi Sood’s house, a little way down the street. After the officers departed, Nelson Nee scolded me again, and then he left too. I walked back to my apartment feeling sad about the whole situation and disappointed that I couldn’t show off by driving Sandhu to the bank in my car.
Within several hours, the news had spread among the Indian students that Bedi had been involved in an accident, two ladies were injured badly, and the cops took Bedi to jail.
Ravi Aggarwal called me and sounded surprised when I answered the phone. “I thought you were in jail for a hit-and-run,” he said, “but I called to make sure. Tell me what happened. Everyone is saying you are in big trouble!”
Engineering a Life Page 5