My mouth dropped open in shock. How did Larisa’s mother get my phone number?
“The day Larisa marries you, she will be pronounced dead, and we will have her funeral,” Larisa’s mother snapped. “If you don’t stay away from her, I will call UT and have them suspend you. Then I will have you deported. Stay away from my daughter!”
After she hung up, I stared at the phone, not sure what to think or do. I knew she didn’t have the power to deport me or suspend me from school, so I was not concerned about that statement. Paul Kehir raised an eyebrow at me. He could hear Larisa’s mom yelling over the phone and the gist of the conversation.
“Kris, you better start packing your stuff to be shipped back to India,” he joked. Then, more seriously, he said, “Kris, dating a rabbi’s daughter, you are playing with fire.”
Larisa had been writing to me on a daily basis, but after her mother’s phone call, she wrote one more letter before stopping altogether. “My mother is watching me very closely,” she wrote. “She found some of your old letters, and she called UT to get your phone number. She kept asking me if we were getting married, and she kept saying they would have my funeral on the day of our wedding. Kris, if we ever married, they would disown me and would not allow me to see them again for any reason.”
Several weeks later, Paul handed me the phone again. “Someone from Chicago is calling for you,” he said. What now? I thought, assuming it was Larisa’s mother again. Instead, it was a man’s voice. “Mr. Bedi, I am calling from the Chicago morgue,” he said. “I am sorry to inform you that Mr. Jasbir Mann is dead.”
I wasn’t sure I heard right. “What? Could you say that again?”
“Mr. Mann is dead,” the man repeated. “His body is at the morgue. We need to know what to do with the body.”
In a state of shock, I could not speak.
“Sir? Mr. Bedi?” the man said. “I need to know if you want the body flown back to India.”
“I’m not sure,” I answered.
“Well, I can keep the body at the morgue until you get here,” the man said. “Or you could opt for a pauper’s funeral, a choice for a person with no money and no relatives in the area. The body would be cremated, and the minimum charges would be covered by the social security administration. You only need to send $275 so we can proceed with cremation.”
I didn’t know what to do. A strong sadness overcame me as I thought about Jasbir’s difficult struggle in the US. I had been worried about him ever since I’d left his place in Chicago during spring break, but this was a complete surprise.
“Do you know what happened to him?” I asked.
“The cause of death is not certain,” the man said. “I wish I could tell you more.”
“Can you hold for a moment? I am going to talk to my roommates about the situation.”
“Of course,” the man said.
“What do I do?” I asked Paul and Ray after telling them what happened. “I do not have access to international calls so I can’t call his family. Even if I could call them, I would have to book a call and wait several hours for the operator to get back to me. And then, I don’t even know if his brothers have a phone because they live in a small village.”
Jasbir was my best friend from college days in India, and now there was nothing I could do for him. I also did not feel comfortable making such a decision on his family’s behalf, but as there was no way to reach them quickly, I had no choice.
“Perhaps, in this case, it would be best to cremate him,” Paul suggested.
It did sound like the best option, so I told the man to proceed with the cremation and send the ashes to his brother since I wasn’t sure if his mother was still alive, and I knew his father had passed away several years earlier.
That night, I tossed and turned in my bed. I could not rest knowing Jasbir had come to get an engineering degree and instead had died at the age of thirty. Paul did his best to console me, but my grief was too great. How could I sleep, knowing Jasbir had come to this country because of me?
To this day, I still do not know the cause of Jasbir’s death. Receiving two phone calls within weeks of each other—each cutting off a connection with a person who had been important to me—was a blow harder than I knew how to deal with. Sadness overwhelmed me, and as I tried to drown it out with my daily prayers, I studied more than ever.
One afternoon near the end of spring quarter of 1967, my professor of Linear Algebra wrote a theorem on the board and asked if anyone knew how to prove or disprove it. This class involved a lot of in-depth theory and long algorithms to prove the theorems. Since the professor had recently returned from the military, he often needed to ask his students for the solution to a theorem. Of course, he acted like he was testing us, but soon we realized he simply did not know or was not completely sure.
When no one volunteered to solve the theorem, he asked again. I looked around, and still no one raised a hand. Slowly, I lifted mine into the air.
“Mr. Bedi, are you sure you know it?” the professor asked.
“I’m pretty sure,” I responded.
“Are you positive?” he asked.
“Uh . . . I’m not that positive,” I said hesitantly.
“Let’s see who is more positive in the class,” the professor said, looking around the room.
Another student raised his hand, and the professor asked him to write his solution on the blackboard. Annoyed that he hadn’t let me try, I raised my hand again, remembering a saying my friend Hamrahi told me. I’d met Hamrahi at Knoxville College, and we had become very close friends.
“Yes, Mr. Bedi?” said the professor.
“There is a saying in my country that only fools are positive,” I said.
The professor’s face turned red as the whole class burst into laughter.
At the end of class, one of my classmates said, “That was pretty brave of you to say, but you are going to pay the price for it.”
At the end of the quarter, I felt sure I performed well on the final exam for his class. But when I scanned the grades posted on the classroom door, there was a D next to my name. My jaw clenched in anger. My midterm grade was a B, and I knew I did well on the final exam. The professor had failed me on purpose.
Immediately, I went to the professor’s office, but he was not there. Storming off to my room, I hatched a plan. My heart pounded and my hands shook. I had worked so hard to reach this point. I was so close to earning a degree at UT, and now it might not happen after all these years. Paul Kehir happened to be packing his suitcase when I arrived.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“My math professor failed me!” I fumed, pacing the floor. I studied hard, and I know I deserved at least a B. I’m going to buy a gun, find him at home, and shoot him in the leg!”
“That’s not a good idea, Kris,” Paul said.
“I don’t want to kill him, only hurt him enough so he will realize he has ruined my career,” I said. “I might get thrown out of grad school now! I want him to walk with a limp or on crutches or be in a wheelchair so he will suffer for the rest of his life.”
“You shouldn’t do that,” Paul said. “It will not be in your best interest. They could put you in jail.”
“I don’t care. My life is already ruined. If I am taken to jail, that’s fine. At least this professor will learn he shouldn’t try to ruin somebody’s career and life.”
Jim happened to be walking by the room and overheard me. He came in and tried to calm me down.
“That’s not a wise thing to do,” Jim said. “You need to stop and think.”
I sat on the edge of my bed and crossed my arms stubbornly, still resolved to find out where the professor lived. The next day, the secretary of the Math Department told me the professor had only been employed at UT for one quarter and already left town. Disappointed, I returned to my room. The professor had been extremely lucky to leave town when he did because there was no telling what I would have done in such a state of anger. A wee
k later, I received a letter accepting me into the industrial engineering graduate program. I was overjoyed and thanked God.
Chapter 8
“Kris, why do you want to drive a bus?”
I sat in an orange plastic chair and stared at the manager across from his desk. It was June 1967, and the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) was hiring hundreds of temporary bus drivers for the summer, paying $3.50 an hour, about two dollars more than minimum wage. Chopra and I drove to Chicago soon after the school year ended, and we were contacted the next day to fill out applications.
“Sir, driving a bus is in my blood,” I answered. “My father is in the transportation business, and my grandfather was in the same business. I want to do it too.”
I really wanted this job, and the manager would never know if it was true or not. He would never attempt to track down my family background in India.
A day after our interviews, Chopra and I each received calls off ering us a job. We were to report to the bus depot office the next day for training.
“You must accelerate gradually and apply the brakes gradually,” the instructor urged. “Pretend an old lady is sitting in the very last seat, holding a bowl of hot soup in her lap. We don’t want her to spill even one drop!”
As bus operators, most drivers wore two watches—one on their wrist and the second, a larger watch chained to their belt— to be punctual to the minute.
At the end of our week-long training, our instructor emphasized, “Keeping the schedule is of the utmost importance. People are going to their jobs and need to be on time. It is up to you to make sure they get there when they need to.”
The first day on my own, I arrived at the bus depot at 6:45 a.m., wearing my navy blue uniform, hat, black leather shoes, and a badge stating my assigned number. The man behind the ticket window supplied me with transfer tickets, a puncher, change dispenser, my route number, and the street name representing my route.
“There is a man in the parking lot who will help you find your bus,” the ticket man said.
On my way, I asked another bus operator if he could explain my route to me because I didn’t know which way to go. He explained the directions in a leisurely manner while I looked impatiently at my watch. It was 6:50. My route started at 7:00, and I still needed to find my bus. How can I get rid of this guy? I thought, unable to focus on the directions. I can’t be late on my first day!
At 6:53 I interrupted him and hurried into the parking lot. For several minutes, I wandered up and down row after row of buses, searching for my bus. There must have been at least two hundred of them. Having no luck on my own, I found the man who could help me, and he showed me the bus right away.
Once in the driver’s seat, I could not work the lever to change the route number on the sides of the bus and the street name on the front. I was running four minutes late in a city where the route must be followed by the second! Giving up on the lever, I turned the key in the ignition, shifted the bus into gear, and stepped heavily on the gas pedal. The bus lurched forward as I turned the wheel. Sccreeeeech! I slammed on the brakes at the metallic sound and stared in horror at the bus next to me—the side mirror, knocked clean off, lay smashed on the ground. I glanced around the parking lot anxiously, but no one was around to notice. Holding my breath, I maneuvered onto the street, the large bus bouncing over potholes and swaying slightly before I straightened it and accelerated toward my first stop.
Even though I was running six minutes late and did not know where I was going, I could not remember the last time I felt so important. Sitting behind the steering wheel of this large bus gave me a feeling of power. Moments later, I neared the first bus stop on my route where a line of passengers anxiously watched me approach. Needing to make up for lost time, I sped past them. Everyone stared after me in confusion and dismay. Stopping would only throw me off track. Now I was four minutes late, and the line of people at my next stop was even longer. Once again, I passed them without slowing down.
Passing one more bus stop in the same manner, I could go no farther. I remembered all I could of the man’s directions before I stopped listening. At the next stop, I pulled the bus over to the curb and swung the doors open.
“Come on, people. Get on the bus!” I called out. The people just looked at me, looked at the front of the bus, and then looked at me again. No one moved. “What are you waiting for?” I asked. “Get on the bus!” I finally caught up with my schedule, and now these people were causing a delay.
“Sir, the street sign and route number…” a woman said.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “Get on the bus. I’ll take you wherever you need to go.”
“But the sign is not right,” another person protested.
“Just get on the bus, and I’ll take you wherever you need to go!” I commanded.
Hesitantly, the passengers climbed the steps, paid their bus fare, and took their seats. When everyone was seated, I called out, “Okay folks, which way do I go?”
No one said anything.
“Folks, tell me which way to go,” I repeated.
Realizing that I truly did not know which way to go, the passengers began calling out directions. I smiled and pulled into traffic.
“Go straight!”
“Turn right!”
“Take a left up here!”
At one intersection, I missed a turn by several feet.
“No! Wrong, wrong! Stop!” they shouted. I halted the bus in the middle of the intersection.
“What are you doing?” the passengers demanded.
A car beeped its horn and swerved around the bus, the driver yelling at me as he went by.
“Don’t worry. No harm done,” I said. “We are going to back it up.”
“You can’t do that!” the passengers yelled at me.
I could not see behind the bus and so it was difficult to know if the traffic was clear behind me. Pointing at a young man near the front of the bus, I said, “You, get out and tell me when traffic is clear.”
He stared at me speechlessly.
“Come on. Get off the bus!” I was determined to back up and make the proper turn. As everyone stared at the young man, he shook his head in disbelief, climbed down from the bus, and stood in the intersection, waving for the cars around us to stop. When all was clear, he motioned for me to back up. Just when I was in position to make the turn, a police car pulled up with its lights flashing. An officer got out and approached the bus.
“Driver, what’s the matter?” he asked.
“I’m backing up the bus,” I said.
The officer stared at me for a second. “You’re not supposed to do that,” he said.
“Gee, I didn’t know,” I said quickly. “But now I’m done, and I’m making the turn.”
The officer looked at me strangely. “Okay, well don’t do it again,” he said, shaking his head as he walked away.
Miraculously, I did not lose my job that day. None of the stranded passengers complained to the Transit Authority, and most people understood that I was a temporary bus operator filling in for an employee on summer vacation. In a sense, I was lucky to be given such leeway, not even getting in trouble for the bus I damaged. It was my first day on the job by myself, and I knew that I could only improve from there.
Every week, the CTA assigned me a new route. Some people were annoyed that the bus driver asked them for directions, but most of them understood I was a temporary summer driver covering for bus operators on vacation. I could always count on the older ladies to give me directions. I liked to drop them off near their houses, even if their street wasn’t on my route. “I wish there were more bus operators like you,” they would say.
The old ladies loved me, and always eager to show them respect, I rose from my seat to help carry their groceries onto the bus. Whenever grandparents took their grandchildren to see Chicago and go shopping, I was patient, where other drivers would have hurried them.
“Take your time. I am not in hurry,” I’d say.
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Within the first three weeks, some of the ladies mailed complimentary letters about me to the bus depot. When my boss shared their kind words with me, I felt encouraged and sure that I was doing the right thing. My mother had taught me kindness and respect through her own actions, and I felt proud I was carrying her values with me everywhere I went. Besides, why should I give these people a hard time when they may be tired of walking and carrying their shopping bags in the heat?
One morning, about a month into my job, a stocky middle-aged man with a cigar in his mouth boarded the bus. Pointing at the “No Smoking” sign, I looked at the man through the rearview mirror and said, “Sir, no smoking on the bus. Please put out your cigar.”
“Just drive the bus. Don’t worry about me.” The man took another puff of the cigar and continued looking out the window.
“Please put out your cigar,” I repeated.
“Just drive the bus,” he said in a condescending tone, exhaling a mouthful of smoke in my direction.
I knew I must handle the situation to show the other passengers I was in command and he must follow the CTA rule. Flipping a switch on the lever to indicate a mechanical problem, I coasted the bus to a stop on the side of the road.
“Everyone off the bus,” I ordered. “There is something wrong, and I cannot drive any further.”
Once we were all standing outside, I explained that we were waiting for my supervisor to come check the bus. The passengers were angry. They had jobs and appointments to go to, and most of them understood there was nothing wrong with the bus.
“Why didn’t you put out the cigar?” the passengers scolded the man. “Now we’re going to be late. Thanks a lot!”
“I will take you wherever you want to go,” I informed the passengers, “but I will not take the guy with the cigar. You all are very nice people, and I am sorry you have to suffer because of him. But in a whole bushel of apples, one bad apple spoils the rest.” Pointing at the man, I said, “There stands the bad apple.”
Engineering a Life Page 10