“Everything is okay,” I assured him. “Please calm down.”
Ravi immediately came to the apartment to see if I was okay. By the time he arrived, I was fixing the evening tea and asked if he would like some.
“Bedi, are you all right? Are you hurt? Are you in pain?” Ravi asked.
“Let us have tea first, and I will explain what happened,” I said.
He was more anxious to know about my well-being and the accident than to drink tea.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yes, I am!” I said.
He shook his finger at me. “What did I tell you? Never drive a car without a driver’s license! Very bad, Bedi. Very bad. At least you are not hurt. Now we will see about this court date.”
While waiting for my court date, Ravi Sood took me to the UT parking lot for driving lessons. A few weeks later, I got my license. Now I could go anywhere I wanted, and I felt more self-assured when asking girls out since I could pick them up in my banged up car.
On my court date, Ravi Aggarwal accompanied me to the courthouse. We entered a large room with no windows. At the front of the room, an austere man in black robes was conferring with an officer and another man wearing a suit. I waited anxiously, sitting on the hard bench while other cases were taken care of. I could hardly tell my parents in a letter that I had been sent to jail. I would never get my degree, and I would be the laughingstock of Malaudh. When my case came up, the judge announced the hearing, and the police officer described the hit-and-run and the accident, adding that I did not have a driver’s license.
“What does Mr. Bedi have then?” asked the judge.
“He has a learner’s permit, your Honor,” said the officer.
The judge looked at me. “Can you speak English?” he asked.
“Yeah, yeah,” I said nervously. I met his eyes and then glanced over at Ravi, who gave me a reassuring nod.
“What do you have?” he asked.
I stood up and said, “I have my driver’s license.” I pulled it out of my wallet and showed it to him.
The judge looked at the officer. “Mr. Bedi has a driver’s license,” he said.
Clearing his throat, the judge looked around the room where a few other people were sitting. “Are the ladies involved in this accident present?”
There was no response. The two women were not there. Neither was the owner of the other car I’d hit before driving away.
“Judge, I am so sorry all this has happened,” I said, showing him my driver’s license again.
He exchanged a look with the officer and said to me, “Do not do this again. Case dismissed.”
Ravi Aggarwal and I returned to my apartment, laughing in relief at the quick trial and my good fortune that they had not made me pay a fine or thrown me in jail.
One day, Ravi Sood told me about Dr. Cheema, a professor at Knoxville College who had grown up in Pakistan and knew about Punjabi culture. I contacted Dr. Cheema, and he invited me to his house for dinner. I was surprised when I met his wife and discovered that we were distant cousins. Bilques, or Billo as everyone called her, was happy to meet me. She fixed a variety of foods, including several Indian dishes, and afterward we drank tea and reminisced about our families and the past.
After dinner, I explained my circumstances to Dr. Cheema and Billo. Starting January 1963, I would have no source of income, and to make matters worse, I was failing all of my courses at UT. If I did not maintain a 2.0 GPA, I would be thrown out of the university. At that point, my GPA was 1.0.
“Would you like to attend Knoxville College?” Dr. Cheema asked. “I can see if the president would grant you free room and board along with some pocket money.”
“I can help you apply for admission and financial assistance,” Billo offered.
I couldn’t say no, and a few weeks later, I received admission. The college granted me financial assistance to cover tuition and room and board, but they denied the pocket money on the grounds that the college had exhausted its cash fund. Knoxville College, a school attended mostly by black students, was glad to have one more student to add to its small community of foreigners. The other students could learn more about Indian culture, and it was considered prestigious for a smaller school to have foreign students on campus.
At first, I worried about what my friends and family would think if I went there. Knoxville College was not as prestigious as UT. After some serious thought, I knew it was the best choice for me at the time. Since the college did not offer civil engineering, I chose to pursue a bachelor’s in math instead. While part of me felt embarrassed at this change in my circumstances, it was the only door open for me.
The third week of January 1963, I moved into a dormitory at Knoxville College. In addition to Saran Bhagta and me, the only Indians, there were three students from Cuba and three from Africa. I did my best to fit in, observing how the black students dressed, how they walked, what beer they drank (Colt 45), where they took girls on dates, but most of all, the way they talked, perhaps because that was the easiest thing to catch on to.
“Hey man,” they said to each other in the hallways.
“Hey, you black ass,” they hollered while crossing campus.
“What’s up, my niggah?”
“Hey Mo Fo. Come here.”
Usually, I would see the same people ten to fifteen times a day, and in these instances, the students would point their thumb and index finger at me, a simple way to acknowledge the other person without saying anything. At other times, they’d say, “My main man.”
In an attempt to blend in, I tried talking like them.
“Hey, you blackie,” I’d say, or, “Hey, you niggah.”
They roared with laughter at this. “Did you hear what the foreigner just said? Did you hear?”
A tall black guy, a basketball player from my dorm, slapped me on the back, his teeth flashing white as he laughed. “Kris, you ain’t nothin’ but a yellow niggah!”
So far, taking showers at the dorm was the most difficult adjustment I faced. In India, we bathed from a bucket filled with water from the hand pump, always keeping our underwear on. The guys in the dorm shower room undressed completely in front of each other. It was embarrassing and uncomfortable for me to even think about stripping down in front of a bunch of strangers, so for the first week, I kept my underwear on. The guys looked at me strangely, but they didn’t ask questions.
One day, my roommate asked me why I took showers with my underwear on. I shrugged and tried to explain that’s how we bathed in India. He raised an eyebrow and laughed, unable to fathom such a practice. The next day, I decided to do as “the Romans do,” and I began undressing completely for showers, still feeling self-conscious. However, I would not walk naked down the hallway back to my room with the towel slung over my shoulder like most of the guys did. The first few times I saw them walk that way, I was taken aback and thought, What is this? I didn’t care how normal it was to them—I always wrapped the towel around my waist. They also brushed their teeth and shaved naked. It felt strange to stand there in my clothes while shaving or brushing my teeth with the others naked on both sides of me.
In the meantime, I enjoyed getting to know the students at their house parties, and I learned to like their music. The students mimicked James Brown’s quick feet as they danced to “I Feel Good.” We listened to the silky voices of the big-haired Supremes in “Baby Love” and “Where Did Our Love Go.” We swayed to Aretha Franklin’s soulful, hair-raising voice. Their parties relaxed me and lifted the pressure I felt from my classes and lack of money.
In the meantime, even though I did not need the class for my degree, Dr. Cheema persuaded me to take his freshman chemistry course which took place every Saturday at 8:00 a.m. Functioning on only three and a half hours of sleep, since I came home from my new job at Andy’s restaurant at 3:30 a.m., I figured I could sit back and relax. On the first day of class, I thought to myself, This will be simple. Dr. Cheema knows me well and will give me a
good grade to help improve my grade point average. Dr. Cheema had assigned pages for us to read, but my chemistry book sat untouched on my desk all week. That is fine, I thought. Dr. Cheema and I are close, so he will take it easy on me.
As soon as class started, Dr. Cheema asked a question about the reading assignment. Without skipping a beat, he turned to me and said, “Mr. Bedi, please explain this to us.” He gave me an encouraging smile. Why was he asking me? Out of the whole class, he chose me to answer the question. My mouth dropped open as I stared at him in shock. What did I ever do to him? I invited him and his wife to my apartment for Christmas. I cooked a nice meal and showed them respect. What about the times I massaged his headaches away? And on top of all that, his wife was my cousin. Did that mean nothing to him?
Dr. Cheema’s question flew right over my head. Feeling betrayed, I could only say, “I don’t know.”
As the weeks passed, I learned Dr. Cheema’s idea of helping me was different than I expected. I thought he would breeze me through the course. Instead, he always asked me the questions, showing he did not expect any less from me than he expected from everyone else. At the time, I did not see it that way. I just thought he had it in for me.
With work and my other classes, I felt I did not have time to read the assignments. Chemistry was supposed to be an easy A. Billo was the director of Public Relations at Knoxville College, so one day I went to her office and told her that her husband was giving me a hard time in his class. I became so emotional that I cried, while she listened intently and tried to console me. “I will talk to him,” she promised. “Continue going to your classes.”
To my dismay, Dr. Cheema only persisted. Knowing I worked Friday nights and was not prepared, he still asked me questions I could not answer. Enough was enough. I dropped the class, later learning from other chemistry students that Dr. Cheema was astonished to discover I had dropped it.
Chapter 5
At the end of spring semester, the Dean of Student Affairs told me about Wildwood, a summer resort town on the coast of New Jersey. “There’s a group of students going there on a bus,” he said. “It should be easy to find a job at a hotel or restaurant.”
In need of a job, I packed a suitcase, and wearing my baggy suit, I boarded the bus. We switched buses in Philadelphia and arrived in Wildwood late in the evening at a house that served as an employment agency office as arranged by the college employment office. The owner of the employment agency, a black woman in her sixties, welcomed us into her home, showed us to our rooms, and told us she would explain the job situation in the morning.
The next day, we sat on the floor, while the woman informed us there was only one job opening, a short-order breakfast cook position.
“Does anybody know how to cook?” she asked.
After she asked twice, and still no one said anything, I hesitantly raised my hand. I had never cooked for a restaurant, but how hard could it be? I’d worked at McDonald’s, where they served breakfast, and Andy’s restaurant served scrambled eggs, fried eggs, and omelets. I felt confident that I could make the food on my own.
“Do you know how to cook?” the woman asked. She looked doubtful.
“Yes,” I said in a firm voice.
“Okay. Where have you cooked?”
“McDonald’s,” I answered. Several students chuckled.
“Okay, you’ve got an interview at the Dorsey Hotel at eleven o’clock. I’ll call the owner, Mrs. Whitesell, and tell her I’m sending you over.” She scrawled the address on a slip of paper. “It is already 10:30, so you need to head there right away.”
The day was warm with clouds overhead and a cool breeze carried the scent of ocean waves. As I walked, drops of rain fell, turning into a thick downpour and soaking my suit and hair in no time. A few minutes later, I approached the Dorsey Hotel, a four-story white house. After climbing the steps and knocking on the door, a tall, casually-dressed man let me inside.
“My name is Kris Bedi, and the agency has sent me for the short-order cooking job,” I said.
The man just looked at me, a foreigner dripping puddles of water on the lobby’s wooden floor. Later, I learned he was Mr. Whitesell, and apparently, the Whitesells weren’t prepared to consider a foreigner for the job. In the past, the employment agency had sent only black people for the cooking position.
Mr. Whitesell went to get his wife, who handled the hotel staff and took care of management. She led me into a small room as her husband went away shaking his head.
Despite my soggy and disheveled appearance, Mrs. White-sell spoke courteously, asking my name, where I was from, and what foods I could cook. Suddenly I couldn’t think of any names of food from McDonald’s or Andy’s. I was cold, wet, and nervous, but I had to answer something.
“You name it, I know it,” I said.
“Can you make scrambled eggs?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“Fried eggs?”
“Yes.”
“How about meatloaf?”
I had never seen anyone cook meatloaf before, so I replied, “I can learn your way of cooking meatloaf, since each person has a little bit of a different recipe. If you show me, I will be able to do it.”
She nodded pleasantly. “Do you know succotash?”
I never heard of this word. To sound truthful, I said, “No, ma’am. I don’t know how to cook that. But if you show me once, then I will cook it.
“Oh, no problem,” she said. “I’ll show you.”
At the end of the interview, Mrs. Whitesell still wasn’t sure if she should hire me. “Wait here while I discuss it with my husband,” she said.
A few minutes later, she came back with a smile on her face. “Kris,” she said, looking at me standing there in my wrinkly, wet suit. “You have the job.”
The Dorsey Hotel was open from mid-June through Labor Day weekend. Two weeks prior to the opening date, the hotel staff cleaned and repaired the hotel, preparing for guests. Before Mrs. Whitesell hired me, she had cooked most of the meals for the hotel staff, but now it was my job to cook breakfast for them every morning. When the chef arrived a few days before the opening date, I would help him cook for the guests.
The Whitesells paid me $250 a month, including room and board. I slept in the basement quarters with the black employees, in my own small room, with one bed, no more than a thin mattress on top of a wooden frame. The white employees worked in the dining room as servers and slept upstairs in the comfortable beds.
The next three mornings, I fixed eggs for the hotel staff, while Mrs. Whitesell made sandwiches for lunch and prepared full meals in the evenings. I assisted her and watched how she prepared the meats and vegetables in case I would have to make the same foods.
On the fourth day, an employee came up to me while I was cooking scrambled eggs in the kitchen. “Do you know how to make pancakes?” he asked.
“Sure,” I said, even though I had no idea.
“Good, we are tired of eating eggs,” he said. “Tomorrow could you make pancakes?”
“Of course,” I said.
Each afternoon for two to three hours, I strolled down to the boardwalk with the dining room help to play games and look at the sea. That afternoon, I said I didn’t feel well, and after everyone left, I hurried to the phone booth to make a collect call to Billo Cheema in Knoxville.
Thinking there was an emergency, Billo immediately accepted the charges. “Kris, what’s wrong?” she asked. “Are you okay?”
I only had three minutes to talk. At the end of three minutes, the operator would ask if Billo wanted to accept a further three minutes. Unsure if Billo would accept more time at two dollars for each additional minute, I spoke quickly.
“Never mind about that,” I said. “I have a job now.”
“Oh, Kris, I am very glad,” Billo said. “What kind of job did you get?”
“A cooking job.”
“Oh my God, Kris. You don’t know how to cook!” Billo exclaimed.
“Don’t tell me
whether I do or not. Now I have this job, so I’m calling you to find out how to make pancakes.”
Billo just about died laughing. “Kris! How could you do that? How did you get this job?”
“Never mind that,” I said. “Tomorrow morning I’m supposed to make pancakes. So quickly, tell me how!”
“The pancake mix usually comes in a box as some type of powder. You need to mix it with milk or water to make a paste. Read the directions on the box,” she said. “It will tell you how to do it. Once the batter is prepared you just pour it in the hot pan. When one side is done you must turn it over to the other side. It should look brown on both sides.” Billo laughed again. “Kris, I can’t believe you are a cook!”
The next morning, I woke up earlier than usual and hurried to the kitchen. Mrs. Whitesell was already unlocking the pantry and making sure we had everything for breakfast. While she started the bacon, I found the pancake mix. Turning my back to her to hide the fact this was my first attempt at making pancakes, I poured the powder into a big bowl and mixed it with water to form a thick paste. The hotel staff began lining up while I heated the grill and transferred the batter into a container with a long spout resembling a watering can. Once I poured the batter onto the hot grill, the white mixture spread quickly, forming a giant thin pancake. Hovering nervously over the grill, I tried to figure out how to flip the pancake with my small spatula. Finally, after looking around to make sure no one was watching, I scraped the pancake off the grill.
This time I stirred more pancake mix into the batter until it was thick. The pancakes formed small, thick circles, and in no time at all, the outsides of the pancakes turned dark brown. Flipping the pancakes onto plates, I proudly served them to the staff. A moment later, an employee returned with his plate. “Kris, this pancake needs more cooking,” he said. “It’s done on the outside but gooey on the inside.” Realizing I made the batter too thick, I added more water and reduced the grill’s temperature. Finally, the pancakes were as they should be. Mrs. Whitesell smiled and nodded at me while I served everyone the properly cooked pancakes.
Engineering a Life Page 6