Engineering a Life

by Krishan K. Bedi

  The sales for that year totaled more than one crore, or ten million rupees, which at the time was the equivalent of $600,000. How could our profit be so small? Yet looking back over the budget, it became clear: the cost of television materials and factory expenses was much higher than expected.

  I went home that day, looked at Raj, and finally spoke my mind.

  “I want to go back to America.”

  Raj looked at me, a stern expression in her eyes, and without a moment’s hesitation, she said, “Let’s go.”

  She did not ask why, nor did I discuss any reasons with her. We both were thinking the same thing. Before, I thought Raj would not want to leave her parents, sisters, and brother. Now that I saw Raj was on my side, I felt an enormous sense of relief. A huge weight was lifted off my chest, and for the first time, I realized how much it had been suffocating me. I had wanted to return to America for a long time, but I continually suppressed the idea, thinking we had gone to so much trouble coming to India in the first place, and it would be a mistake to uproot our family, leaving our parents and relatives behind once again.

  I also did not want to let Satish down. He and his other partner had put great confidence in me, so while I felt relieved about my decision, I also felt guilty for leaving the business. It was not in my nature to give up, but I knew leaving was the right thing to do. I could not go on much longer in a business culture where people considered you foolish for speaking openly and honestly. I was thought of as naïve, a dummy who didn’t know what was going on, whereas in America, I was respected as intelligent in making decisions and achieving results.

  On my next trip to New Delhi, I told Satish my decision.

  “I will stay two more months with the new company to make a smooth transition,” I said, “but I do not fit in this culture. It is time for us to go.”

  Rather than blaming a particular person or pointing out the problems with the business, I took it upon myself to say the culture simply was not a good fit. Satish listened quietly, absorbing the news.

  “Bedi Saheb, it is your decision,” he said. “I understand it has not given the profit we were expecting. We can call a meeting tomorrow at my residence to inform the other partners as well.”

  The next day, I sat around the dining room table with Satish and the other partners. When Satish told them my decision, one of the partners said, “Bedi Saheb, we are not going to let you go back to the States. Tell us what we need to do to help you run the Pithampur factory.”

  Another partner asked, “Why do you want to go back? Share with us so if there are problems with the factory, we will try to rectify them.”

  Again, I stated, “I am not a good fit for this culture. I have failed you. Satish placed his confidence in me when I did not have any experience in the television manufacturing industry. I have failed all of you.”

  Before I knew it, tears poured from my eyes. I excused myself to go to the bathroom, and once I calmed down, I returned to the dining room. Everyone gave me a hug, saying they respected my decision. At the same time, no one came out in the open to say it wasn’t me who failed them. No one took responsibility to say that things did not run smoothly and there were problems from the start.

  During my last days with the company, my partners tried to persuade me to stay, and one of them threw a party for me. Being in high spirits, everyone began singing parts of songs, and at one point, someone said, “Bedi Saheb, you also sing a song.”

  One song came to my mind. As I sang in Hindi, I put all my emotion into every word.

  Sab kuchh sikha hamane, na sikhi hoshiyaari

  Sach hai duniyawaalon, ki ham hain anaadi

  (I have learned everything, not learned cunningness. This is the truth to the world that I am clumsy.)

  I continued the song, substituting my own experiences in each line. Everyone became quiet as they listened. They had not known until then the depths of my struggle.

  The following months were a whirlwind of activity. There was much to do to prepare for our departure for the States, but after I made the decision to leave the television manufacturing business, Satish talked me into joining him and two other partners in his leather jacket export business. With no job prospects in America, I would need a way to support my family.

  “It will be the best of both worlds,” Satish said. “You can live in the States, selling leather jackets there, and you can travel to India on business.”

  Satish assured me the business could potentially earn multi-crores. Since a crore was equal to about ten million rupees, we would be millionaires. I decided to invest in the business. At my request, Mr. Jones wired me the $18,000 I needed to become a partner in the company. After spending a few months learning about the trade of leather garments, in January 1991, I spent time in Germany showing wholesale buyers our leather jacket samples. One of Satish’s partners had a son named Vinay Jain, whom he sent to Germany, also, and together we tried to expand the business. The son’s wife, Seema, joined us later on, and she became involved in every aspect of the business. She tried to control everything, and as time went on, I feared that she might be deflecting business away from us.

  One day, in March 1991, I was at the train station in Frankfurt with Vinay and Seema when their briefcase holding all their travel documents was stolen. Seema was supposed to be watching it while Vinay and I went to buy tickets, but she, being a friendly woman, caught the eye of two young men who approached her. While one distracted her, the other ran off with the briefcase. Luckily, I carried mine with me, or I also would have been stuck in Frankfort.

  My main role was to help the couple establish business in Germany, and now that my time with them was over, I was glad to leave. The couple had been quarrelsome and not pleasant to work with.

  I took a flight to Boston, Massachusetts, and after spending several enjoyable days with the Cheemas, I traveled to New York with Yusef, the Cheemas’ eldest son, to attend the biggest annual exhibition on marketing leather garments. While there, I attended a fashion show of the latest jacket styles and designs. As I sat in the audience watching young girls modeling the jackets, pants, and skirts, I shook my head, thinking to myself, I have a master’s in industrial engineering and have healthcare administration experience, and now, here I am watching a fashion show. I know nothing about fashion. I couldn’t help feeling a little ridiculous, but at the same time, I could only laugh about it. Yusef sat next to me, wide-eyed and enjoying the fashion show as beautiful young girls paraded in front of him, flashing smiles as they showed off the leather jackets, purses, and pants.

  The exhibition was overwhelming due to my lack of experience, yet I kept moving forward. After Yusef left, I stayed for three more days, approaching many wholesalers and showing them my leather jacket samples. From New York, my travels took me to Washington, DC, back to Boston, and again to New York to see more exhibits and connect with more wholesale buyers. I was not having much luck. Since no one knew about our company or our product, it was difficult to get an initial order. Two months passed, and in May, I boarded the plane back to India, my brain bursting with knowledge I hoped would be useful in marketing the business. I couldn’t wait to get back to my family, pack our things, and board a flight back to America by June or early July before the school starts.

  “Life won’t be as easy as before we came to India,” I told Raj when I returned to India. Once we’re in the States, you may need to get a job to help with expenses. I’m not sure what is going to happen with my career. Are you sure you don’t want to stay in India with the kids until I can get reestablished in the healthcare field?”

  “I can work,” Raj said quickly. “I don’t want to stay behind.”

  Christopher and Rajan didn’t want to stay behind either. Subhash, in his third year of Engineering College at Manipal Institute of Technology, needed to finish his degree and was the only one remaining in India.

  Excited that the time was ripe for us to go to America, I contacted Satish to inform him we would be leavi
ng soon.

  “Oh, but you can’t move to America yet,” Satish said. “Things went terribly wrong in Germany while you were gone. The leather company is nearly dead.”

  “What happened?” I demanded.

  Satish explained that while Vinay and Seema were in Germany, they spent the company’s money lavishly. Because they lost their visa documents, they were forced to leave Germany abruptly and return to India, and since they could not continue the business in Germany, they siphoned 40,000 DM ($25,000) into Vinay’s father’s bank account in Hong Kong.

  “Bedi Sahib, only you can resuscitate the business,” my brother-in-law pleaded. “If you do not, we will simply bury the company because it is on its last breaths. We need you to spend six more weeks in Germany to revive contacts with wholesale buyers. Bedi Sahib, if you can receive one large order, you will be able to bring the company back to life.”

  I sighed. America would have to wait.

  “Yes, I will do my best,” I replied.

  “I know you will, Bedi Sahib. I know you will.”

  I spent one month in Germany, and at the end of my trip, I received an order for one thousand jackets. Satish met me there just in time to seal the deal.

  “Bedi Sahib, you have brought the company back to life!”

  Satish praised me endlessly, and while I was grateful to have helped Satish with his company, I felt more than ready to return to America.

  My wife and sons were staying in Nabha with Raj’s parents, and one sweltering mid-afternoon, the car driven by Satish’s chauffeur pulled up in front of their house. Raj had done all the packing on her own, and to this day, I think back to the stress she faced making sure our affairs were in order, all our belongings packed into boxes and shipped from Indore, and every loose end tied up while I was away in Germany. All the decision-making about what to keep and what to sell rested on her shoulders, and she made sure we kept the basic necessities while selling other items such as the two televisions, the refrigerator, washer and dryer, and any other large items too expensive to ship. However, we did keep the large sectional sofa we bought in America, as well as the wooden bed frame custom made in India. All this she arranged, and not once did I hear her complain. My kids did not complain about moving to the States either. They readily accepted my decision, willing to move on to the next adventure.

  The day I boarded the plane with my wife and two of my sons was the day that all the rivers of emotions flowing through me met at one point. I was leaving the place that caused me great stress, fear, and anxiety. It was the place I once thought of as my home country, but now I did not think of it as “home.” Looking forward, I could see a path filled with more challenges, but for the moment, those were clouded over by intense feelings of joy, peace, and excitement to be finally returning to the US. While I was overwhelmed with gratitude to be with my wife and sons again, at the same time, I was sad because I would be leaving one son behind. Before boarding the plane, I hugged Subhash tightly, knowing we would soon be thousands of miles apart.

  And then I knew I must leave my beloved parents behind, although I had promised my mother I would return to stay for good. This broken promise weighed me down, and as I bowed to touch my parents’ feet, the tears welling in my heart overflowed from my eyes. My father wished me safe travels and many blessings for the road ahead. My mother, downhearted to see me leave, hugged me one last time, her tears wet against my face, mixing with my own.

  My heart was torn. While I wished to stay near my parents, a larger, stronger part of me longed for America and the terrain on which I had initially sown the seeds of success, growing up from nothing and reaping the reward of a fruitful career. Now I must start all over again. How long would it take to reach the top again?

  On the plane, I sat in the window seat, looking out at all of India sinking far below me as the plane rose higher and higher until we were above the clouds, and I could no longer see the people or villages or countryside. It would be a long flight, and I would have much time to think and to plan the next steps I would take once back in America. I hoped I could pick up where I left off with my career in healthcare administration. Even though I might start at the bottom of the ladder once again, I was thankful for my family being with me every step of the way.

  Someone once said, “Men make their own history, but not in circumstances of their own choosing.” We try our best to live our lives, go a certain way, do what we think we should do, but when all is said and done, a mysterious force takes things out of our control. Maybe a majority of events play out the way we would like, but as I look back over my life, I see jobs that came and went, classes I failed, dreams that did not happen the way I planned, a career with more ups and downs than all the roller coasters at a theme park, and a beloved son with medical issues and endless questions of whether I could have done something differently. I have learned to not worry about uncertainties, but instead, to do my best and leave no stone unturned.

  It was a long flight, and with thoughts of the future heavy on my mind, I dozed off. Next thing I knew, I woke up to hear the captain announcing, “Fasten your seat belts. We have started descending and will land in twenty minutes.”

  Our plane landed in Boston on a beautiful afternoon on August 10, 1991, and as I stumbled off the plane, I dropped to my knees and kissed the ground, thanking God that we were finally in the US for good. This was my true home.

  Acknowledgements

  With a heart full of gratitude, I am first thankful for my good-looking wife, Raj, for bearing with me through the tough times and helping me remember many details for this memoir. I am indebted to her unconditional love in supporting this long, painful, and rewarding endeavor. I would also like to thank my parents who made my very first dream of moving to the States possible. They never stopped praying for me, especially my mother. Many thanks to the Cheemas for befriending me as a struggling student in America and for all the years we kept in touch. To Dariush Hanrahi from whom I learned to eat American food and enjoy simple things in life. To my friend Sewa Singh, a guy with a huge heart, who always helped me throw a good party. I am indebted to Professor Buchan for making it possible to achieve my engineering degree and for becoming a friend. I am grateful to Mr. Earl Gilreath for providing me with the opportunity to grow professionally and also becoming a lifelong friend. I am very thankful to Ved Bedi and Dr. Usha Bedi for providing us with unconditional moral and medical support when we moved to India. I wish to thank Satish Verma for teaching me business sense and for providing business opportunities for me. Thanks are also due to my relatives for entertaining us while we were in India. Much gratitude goes to Raj Dev Bedi and Swaraj Bedi for all the times they lent a helping hand, and for being friends I could always count on after my family and I returned to the States.

  I am truly blessed to have very understanding, undemanding sons. Their wives have exceptional spirits as well, and through them, Raj and I feel as though we have truly inherited three daughters. I wish to acknowledge Manu Sharma Bedi, who not only inspired me to write this memoir, but gave me tremendous feedback for the writing and publication of this memoir. Subhash Bedi’s encouraging words that this would be a bestselling memoir kept me going through this journey. I would also like to thank Emily Winne for helping me articulate my stories in a clear and concise manner. She made several revisions from a 200,000-word memoir to bring it to less than 100,000 words and still retain the deep meaning of my story.

  Thanks to my publisher, Brooke Warner, editor, Kelly Malone, and Lauren Wise, project manager, for their endless coaching and editing the manuscript to this final stage.

  Lastly, many profound thanks are due to SparkPress, for accepting and refining my memoir, and making it possible to share my stories with thousands.

  Also, thanks to my publicist, Crystal Patriarche and Tabitha Bailey for the tremendous publicity campaign throughout the country and placing me on the book publishing map.

  About the Author

  Author photo © JCP Portrait Stu
dio

  Krishan Bedi came to the US by boat with only $300 in his pocket in December 1961. A twenty-year-old from the tiny village of Punjab, India, he had big dreams and ideas of what he wanted to do with his life. He eventually earned a master’s degree in industrial engineering at the University of Tennessee. After nine years in the US, he returned to India to have an arranged marriage; together, he and his wife returned to the States, where Bedi developed a career as a healthcare executive. He’s since served as member of several healthcare professional organizations, and is currently a member of the board of Indo-American Society of Peoria. Bedi is a contributing author to The Magic of Memoir, edited by Linda Joy Myers and Brooke Warner.

  In his spare time, Bedi enjoys reading, cooking, spending time with friends and family, and participating each year in St. Jude’s 465-mile Memphis to Peoria relay-run, which has raised over $80,000 for the St Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. He now lives with his wife in Peoria. They have three successful sons and five grandchildren.

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