Underwear...

At the time when I left India, it was still very labor intensive country.  We lived in what would be considered condemned squalor according to any western standards; however in India it meant that we could afford a maid, or "servant" as we referred to her,  who came to our squalid apartment twice a day and cleaned and did laundry (by hand) among other things.

The point of all this is that our laundry got done daily.  So, I only had two pairs of underwear.  I had one on, and the other was being washed. So, when I came to the United States and checked into my dorm room, I washed my undergarments daily.  My roommate asked me why - and I told her I only had two pairs of underwear.

I am not sure if she thought that I had just forgotten to pack the rest of my clothes or if she understood that at the age of 21, I only had in my possession two pairs of panties and bras - and we are not talking Victoria's secret here.  Neither me nor my roommates had a car, but we were walking distance from a Sear Town.  So, my first shopping experience in America was my roommates taking me to the Sears Town across the street.

This was before the large malls made it to India.  An upscale clothier was a small bay, air conditioned, with shelves loaded with clothes and middle aged men trying to convince the teenage girls to buy specific outfits because they made you look like the sexy Bollywood starlet.  Not sure if you've run into too many middle aged Indian clothiers - but this was never a attractive prospect for me.

So there I was - in Sears.  Needless to say, I was duly impressed.  Tons of merchandise presented in a accessible fashion, you could pick any of it up without the assistance of any middle aged Indian gentlemen.  They had rooms where I could try things on before buying them.  What a concept.

The next challenge though, was figuring out what size I was.  the panties - I could see they would fit.  the bras was a entirely different ball game.  They had two parts to the size.  the band size, and the cup size.  All the Indian bras I had possessed were just one number.  If you happened to be large person with small cup size - too bad.  You got the cup size you got, start collecting tissue papers.  If you were a skinny person with a large cup size, expect your boobs to slide out of the band over the course of the day.  You got what you got.  How innovative to figure out that essentially, there are two sets of shapes you are covering - the cylindrical torso, and the semi circular boobs.  Measure them individually and combine the two shapes and you have a bra that actually fits!  I knew that I was going to like this country.

Many years later, I was discussing the advantage of living in the United States to my Indian uncle who had never traveled outside the country.  He couldn't understand the point.  You worked long hours, you went home to your families, you vacationed from time to time and you hung out with friends.  Could it be bras that don't ride up your boobs and panties that don't look like grandma panties?

Train To DC

Ken had a karate seminar in Baltimore, and I tagged along.  His brother Paul lived in Baltimore and we stayed with him.  While Ken was attending the seminar, Paul and I decided to go see Washington D.C.  D.C. is  hard place to find parking, so we took a train from Baltimore.

Paul was being a gentleman and being protective of me in the busy Baltimore - D.C. subway line.  Little did he know of my experiences of train travel in Bombay.

Bombay trains are horrendous.  The best place to be is hanging out of the always open double doors to avoid the dense humanity within.  One has to be care though, hanging outside a moving trains poses it's own hazards.  In the mornings, you see the men, women and children taking a dump along the train tracks.  They all face away from you - to maintain a strange sense of privacy.  You can see the feces, but you can' identify who done it.  Then there are the electric poles flying by you, with hanging cables and wires.  The trains are electric of course, and there are people who risk climbing a top.  However, they run the risk of coming in contact with metal - conducting 220 volts of electricity which drives the trains.

So, the trip to DC in a clean, not so crowded train, with clean surroundings and warning labels and insulation and padding all over, and comfort and luxury, was no big deal for me.  Paul was protective needless.  Then came the stop.  A tall, articulate African american, in his 20s stopped me.  He proceeded to tell me his tale of woe.  He was out of work, and was truly in need of finances.  He spoke to me for about 6 or 7 minutes.  After which he asked me if I would give him any money.  During all of this, Paul was standing besides me, looking very uncomfortable.  Clearly he had some insight into the situation, which he wanted to share with me, and couldn't find the opportunity.  I told the African American gentleman that I had no intention of giving him any money and moved on.

Paul looked relieved.  He told me later that he had forgotten to warn me about some of these individuals who try to swindle money from the visitors.  I looked at him, and said "In India, I have had to say no to young kids with missing arms and legs".  This gentleman looked quite capable of work - so the likelihood of me handing out my hard earned cash was none.  Paul was very amused by my tale of Indian misery...  Growing up in a third world country changes your perspective.

Coming to America

I got accepted by every college I applied to in the United States.  Among them were Amherst in Massachusetts, University of Wisconsin, I forget a couple of others - and Fort Lauderdale College.  Why Fort Lauderdale college?  Well, the colleges were picked by my buddy who wanted to come to the US - I was just playing along.

So why did I decide to come to Fort Lauderdale college?  Two reasons really.  One, they offered admission to the summer term - and I didn't necessarily want to hang around in Bombay for any particular reason.  And two, because a couple of days before I made the decision, I saw a Police Academy movie that was shot in Miami.  It seemed like a pretty place - so why the heck not?

When I accepted admission to FLC, they offered to come pick me up from the airport.  I kindly declined.  I have no idea why.  So, I land in the airport.  Everyone else on my plane left, and I am stuck.  I go looking for a cab, and I am told that they don't arrive for a couple more hours. So, I hung out at the airport cafe.  I had $20.00 cash, and some travelers checks.  I wasn't sure how much the cab fare from the airport to the college was.  I could use cup of coffee - so I asked the person behind the counter (it wan't like he was busy).  One of the guys sitting at the counter heard my story and ended up buying me breakfast!  I still remember it - blueberry muffin and a coffee.  It was the biggest muffin I had ever seen - and it was the first time in my life I had tasted blueberry.

So, I take the cab to the dorms.  It's Saturday, about 7:00a.m., and the office at the dorms is closed.  The dorms were right next to a Park.  So, I decide to go for a walk in the park.  I had just landed in the country, after having been on a plane for more than 20 hours.  I am sure I was a sorry sight.  I realized just how sorry when a woman who happened to be jogging at the park came up to me and handed me 20 dollars.  I was surprised, and I declined, of course.  But she wouldn't have any of it.  She told me that she didn't know what trouble I was in, but I looked like I needed help.

So, here I was.  In my first few hours in the U.S, someone had bought me breakfast and handed me money.  The office finally opened, and I was in my room - for the first time in my life.  Yes, I had a roommate.  But in India, I slept on a couch in the living room, and I certainly did not have a closet.

I was in America!

Idiot Onboard

My grandfather was "rich" and "famous", relatively speaking.  He was the first person in our family to board an airplane.  He was a writer for the Bollywood industry and I remember the first time he had to fly to meet a director.  It was a domestic flight, but a flight it was.  Our entire extended family went to see him off at the airport.  For whatever reason he had also a room at the nearby Airport Hotel.  We all gathered at the room - all 20 of us.  We dressed up for the occasion, of course.  I remember that it was the first time we had seen a tub (as in a bath tub).  My brother was in love!  He insisted on taking a bath.  No joke.  There was a room service order or two, and then we all showed up at the airport, waving grandpa goodbye on our family's first ever airplane ride.  I had to be about 6 years old.

Those were my only memories of the airport when I was boarding the flight to United States.  It was my first time at the international airport.  It was my first time in an airplane.  I was cool though, I knew what to do - till I didn't.  Seat belts on, the take off went without a hitch.  I saw the buildings turn into Lego pieces and disappear in the clouds.  The light went off to take off the seat belts. But in all my excitement, I missed the instructions on how to.  So there I was, on a 20 hour flight, stuck in my seat.  The beverage service came and went, snacks were served, and I needed to go to the loo.  But I couldn't get out of my seat belt!

I sat alone in my isle, so I couldn't ask the neighbors.  And I couldn't possibly contort to ask the person behind me.  So, I contorted to reach the bell.  The stewardess showed up and I was rescued.  Turns out the stewardess was a friend of a friend and she recognized me from a party we had been to.  She was super nice to me and gave me a bunch of sodas, snacks, and nick knacks to bring with me the the US.

I sat alone with my newely acquired goodies and knowledge of seat belt operations and such - till we got to  Heathrow.  We had to disembark there to switch planes.  Heathrow was a strange place.  There were Indians there who looked just like me but spoke with a unusual accent and were clearly not Indian.  While I was there, a young man of Indian descent kept hitting on me - as if he had a chance at anything during a 2 hour layover...

On the leg to Fort Lauderdale, I sat next to a young Englishman.  I had never met an Englishman before.  They were supposed to be evil - my grandfather spent a night in jail protesting them; but this one seemed harmless.  I was so bored by this time I tried to talk to him.  I don't think he was interested in speaking to me.  And what made it much worse was that I couldn't understand what he was saying so I kept asking him to repeat himself.  I remember asking him what time it was and him saying something like "oit" - which I later realized meant "eight".  I had no idea what that was - so I kept repeating myself - perhaps he hadn't heard my question.  He looked quite irritated.

Looking out of the plane while landing in New York, I did not see the statue of liberty.  What a rip off!  We had to go through immigration in JFK.  Then I ended up in Fort Lauderdale.  It was nothing like in the movies.

Accidental journey

A series of accidents brought me to immigrate to the United States.  I was twenty years old.  I had just graduated college.  Eight of us (me and seven guys) from the same school had started their careers as trainees at the Ambassador Hotel in Bombay.  We usually worked split shifts - i.e. lunch and dinner.  None of us had much time between the two shifts to go home and be back on time for the second shift.  So, we hung out and did things that twenty year olds do.

One of my colleagues really wanted to immigrate to the United States.   So, one afternoon after our lunch shift, we all went to the American Embassy Center that assisted people to immigrate to the United States.  While our friend was researching opportunities in America, we caused enough ruckus for all of us to be kicked out..

Our friend was devastated.  He had lost his potential future and his dream. We felt so bad about the incident that we all went back the next day, apologized profusely, and every one of us filled out applications to Universities in the United States.  We had to take a test (TOFEL, I think). I got acceptance letters from all the colleges I applied to.

At this point in time, no one in my extended family had ever held a passport.  I don't even think anyone knew where the passport office was.  I had to figure it out myself.  The passport office wanted something called a photocopy - no clue what that was all about.  I spoke to some of the men who worked there and they helped me out with the mysterious quest for photocopy.  I remember holding my passport in my hand for the first time.  It was kind of cool - and I wanted to share the news with someone.  I really had no one to tell.   My family were not really taking my American adventure too seriously - and to be quite honest, neither was I.  I just went along to see how far I could take it.

Getting an American visa was definitely a interesting experience.   It was a long wait in the Visa office - and I remember the security guards checking my purse for lipsticks.  Lipsticks?  Odd! This was way before terrorism was even on my radar.  Some of the women waiting asked me all manners of questions.  They seemed to have a lot of information on the entire visa business and I no doubt came across as a clueless moron to them.   Two of them were ahead on me and they both got rejected.

The Americans were behind some kind of a glass barriers.  They asked stupid questions and I think I had a slightly belligerent attitude towards them.  I wasn't going to let some scared fool hiding behind a glass screen talk down to me.  Perhaps it was my ignorance or my attitude - but I got the visa.  I called home to share the news.  I had just been convinced by several women that this was indeed a feat.  My dad was supportive but clueless of my achievement.

So, I had admissions to college, a valid Passport and a visa.  Now what?  My grandfather, on hearing of my opportunity volunteered to pay for my airfare.  The American adventure was becoming a reality.  I had some savings and Mom helped with a little bit of money and off I was - seven days after my twenty first birthday, I moved to the United States of America.

A spoiled brat...

My grand mother was very beautiful.  She was the youngest child and the only girl.  She was born in a fairly wealthy family.  Her parents were so enamored by her that she never had to do any chores.

I still remember her.  She had jet black long hair all they way into her 60s.  Every evening, she would oil her hair, and brush it, and braid it, sitting in front of her dressing room mirror.  I remember the smell of the hair oil as if it was yesterday.

My grand father worked in the movie industry. His movie associates would often ask him if he had convinced her to run away with him with promises of making her a movie star.

Her mother-in-law thought she might ruin her complexion if she cooked on the antiquated open fire stove they had at the time in India.  So, she was not allowed to cook after she go married.

When she was 5 years old, my grandmother was sent to the village school.  She was reluctant, but her parents wanted to make sure she was adequately educated.  However, disaster ensued on her first day at school.  One of the kids in the classroom misbehaved, and the teacher slapped the kid as a punishment.  This was way too much for she.  She went back to her house that day and declared that she will no longer go too school because the teacher was too mean.  That was the end of my grand mother's educational pursuit.

Years later, when my elementary school aged mother got tired of reading aloud romance novels to my grand mother, my mom ended up teaching my grandma how to read.  So, she learnt how to read - and she read every day.  She never learnt to write, however.  She used her thumb print on all legal documents, and read several romance novels every day.

A star is born..

When I was a little girl growing up in Bombay, India, this was one of the stories that always got told around the house. The story was about my Nanaji, my maternal grandfather, and how he came to be in Bombay, from a small village in northern India.

My grand father was very young when his father passed away. From what I understand, my grand father came from a wealthy and educated family.  They lived in a small village in what is now Punjab, in the northwestern state of India.  He was the youngest of four children, and the only boy.

They lived in interesting times.  This was before the Indian Independence, before India and Pakistan were two different countries. The British Raj was in decline and the world was changing.  The Brits were petting Hindus against the Muslims, in a last ditch effort to divide and conquer.

By the time he died, my great grand father was a broken man.  He had been cheated out of his fortune by some suspicious business associates.  He had lost property in the partition.  He was still very respected in the small village that he lived in.   He had a reputation for being honest, and hence was often employed by the village elders in matters of contracts and disputes.  When his father died, my grand father was given a job as a school teacher to support his aging mother and his young wife by the local villagers. All hopes of him going to college were dashed.

My grandfather was born in 1920. This was seven years from the time that Dadasaheb Phalke first introduced the motion pictures in India. This was the birth of Bollywood. And since he was a very young boy, my grandfather was fascinated by the movies. He wanted to be part of Bollywood.

While he was teaching school in the small northwestern town just across the border from what is now Pakistan, he would send the entire summer in Bombay. He would leave his mother and wife back home, take his writings, and tirelessly pitch his ideas to the famous studios in Bombay. And at the end of summer, he would return to his small town school, and his wife and mother. I am told that there were times when he was promised appointments with major studio executive so  long he stayed beyond his summer vacations.  But he wouldn't do it.  He had to go back to the little village, to his school teacher salary, to support his family.

I often imagine him, facing the turbulence of the British Raj, the tragedy of his fathers misfortune, the border scuffles between India and Pakistan, and the tinsel town dreams.  A young man, with a dying father, an aging mother, a beautiful but spoiled and immature wife.  A brave young man, full of hope and optimism.  He answered Gandhi's calls to protest against the British.  He spent nights in Jail. When I see the lack of optimism in the air today, despite the luxury that we live in today, I think back to the young man that my grandfather was.

In the third year of his summer time trips, he finally got his break. He was offered a job as a staff writer by Raj Kappor Studios. He went back to the village for the last time, packed his bags, his mother, his wife and by now his young daughter, my mother, and moved them to Bombay.

I star was born!