In September of '74, I was taken as a Water and Sanitation Evaluation Consultant, though the understanding was that the post was equivalent to that of a national Officer post at level 3 [NO C] and would carry the remuneration for such a level. NO C corresponded in duties and responsibilities to a P3 in the International Officer level. Briefly, UN agencies use a step system for professionals – P1 to P5, and then up to D1 and D2 [director levels]. Above that come the Under Secretary Generals etc upto the Secretary General. The support staff – secretairies, programme or information assistant, and so on are termed GS [general service] and have their own levels.
Most UN agencies did not have National staff [I do not know if this is still the case]. But UNICEF and UNDP did, basically since they were more field oriented than the others and had offices in most of the developing countries. Originally, N.O.s were just support staff, under I.O.s [International Officers] but when I joined, UNICEF at least had shed that distinction and some zone offices within India had N.O.s heading them.
The Delhi office was a regional office serving not only India, but also Afghanistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Maldives and , believe it or not, Outer Mongolia. The Regional Planning Officer, Victor, and the Planning Officer, Gerry, had to visit these other countries periodically. By chance, the week I was to join, both of them had to be in Afghanistan for some meeting. Victor told me though that I should use the week to familiarise myself with the documents and issues.
Victim of a Feud
Ram the Sr. Programme Assistant in the section and Leonora, the secretary, greeted me when I came to the office on a Monday, and I was busy with my reading at my desk when I was told the Personnel Officer wanted to see me. 'Ha', I thought, 'this will be to sign the contract'. I went to his office and JM said, in a dry voice,
' So you think you are going to join UNICEF, and on the NO C level?'
' That is what I have been told by Mr. Soler-Sala'
' Well, you may think so, and he may do too, but that cannot be!'
'In that case, I will go back home', I said. ' I did not come begging for this job'.
I went up to the room and started gathering my belongings, plus the documents given to me. Ram and Lenora were startled and on my narrating to them this incident, firmly said, “Victor will sort it out. Please do not go home. Victor will be furious with us if we let you go, and anyway why should you? JM is like that!”
But I had made up mind not to hang around. I told them not to worry, I would do my reading at home, and when Victor came back, we could work out what was to be done.
The moment Victor found out what had happened, he called me and told me to come right back. There would be no problem. Later, I learnt, the two of them had had a long standing feud, and JM thought he could score off Victor by taking it out on me. Apparently, Victor gave him a dressing down, and anyway, JM gave me no further trouble, and meekly produced a contract for me to sign.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Pratima; GC Project End ...
Pratima
One day, one of the other staff in Ford, whom I knew only by sight, came up to me and said she was faced with a problem. She had to go on a short trip and her husband was also away for a couple of days at the same time. Would I come over and sleep with my child in her place for those few nights so her children would not be alone with her manservant? Not that Bhanu was untrustworthy or not caring with them, but it would be better , she said if a famiy member or friend was around.
I agreed and that was the beginning of a good friendship not only between us two, but for the two families. Madhavi and Rahul were quite a bit older than Adit, but the boys especially became good friends. My good deed was repaid as such some years later when Ramu and I were in the same position, travelling at the same time. Nowadays, Pratima and I rarely contact each other but the strong bond still remains.
End of the Growth Centre Project
By mid 74, however, with no signs of this happening, and the Growth Centre project coming to its close, the questions of what next on our location and my career reared their heads again. In fact, Andrade, the FF director of the project, was moving to the Calcutta Metropolitan Development Authority, and offered me a job there. But Ramu would have none of it. He just wanted out of Calcutta. “No, you stay there, i am coming back. I can't stand this place! Apparently, people either love or hate Calcutta and there is no arguing with either set of people!
I then decided that this was the time to finish my dissertation, a draft of which I had somehow managed to get going in between my hectic job and home responsibilities. I worked out with Prodipto an arrangement by which I could use my old office there, and get some help in accessing the Delhi varsity computer too if needed [though most of my data and analyses were done by then]. So, almost seamlessly, I moved into my new role, with no letting out that I was no longer employed but working on my own, on the dissertation, to Annaiya or others, family or friends, as I wanted no distractions in this onslaught on my dissertation. Actually, all the data was on hand and only the final analysis and writing up were due.
Another interesting development took place at the same time. Gerry, who had quit FF a few months before, had joined UNICEF Delhi in its Planning Section. At a party he gave, I met Victor Soler-Sala, the head of the section, and soon after, he conveyed through Gerry the offer of a post in it. After talking over with Ramu, I told him I could join in a couple of months to give myself time to send off my dissertation. Another problem that weighed on my mind was the possibility of Ramu being posted somewhere other than Delhi soon and so we agreed that I should come in as a consultant rather than as a regular staff member.
One day, one of the other staff in Ford, whom I knew only by sight, came up to me and said she was faced with a problem. She had to go on a short trip and her husband was also away for a couple of days at the same time. Would I come over and sleep with my child in her place for those few nights so her children would not be alone with her manservant? Not that Bhanu was untrustworthy or not caring with them, but it would be better , she said if a famiy member or friend was around.
I agreed and that was the beginning of a good friendship not only between us two, but for the two families. Madhavi and Rahul were quite a bit older than Adit, but the boys especially became good friends. My good deed was repaid as such some years later when Ramu and I were in the same position, travelling at the same time. Nowadays, Pratima and I rarely contact each other but the strong bond still remains.
End of the Growth Centre Project
By mid 74, however, with no signs of this happening, and the Growth Centre project coming to its close, the questions of what next on our location and my career reared their heads again. In fact, Andrade, the FF director of the project, was moving to the Calcutta Metropolitan Development Authority, and offered me a job there. But Ramu would have none of it. He just wanted out of Calcutta. “No, you stay there, i am coming back. I can't stand this place! Apparently, people either love or hate Calcutta and there is no arguing with either set of people!
I then decided that this was the time to finish my dissertation, a draft of which I had somehow managed to get going in between my hectic job and home responsibilities. I worked out with Prodipto an arrangement by which I could use my old office there, and get some help in accessing the Delhi varsity computer too if needed [though most of my data and analyses were done by then]. So, almost seamlessly, I moved into my new role, with no letting out that I was no longer employed but working on my own, on the dissertation, to Annaiya or others, family or friends, as I wanted no distractions in this onslaught on my dissertation. Actually, all the data was on hand and only the final analysis and writing up were due.
Another interesting development took place at the same time. Gerry, who had quit FF a few months before, had joined UNICEF Delhi in its Planning Section. At a party he gave, I met Victor Soler-Sala, the head of the section, and soon after, he conveyed through Gerry the offer of a post in it. After talking over with Ramu, I told him I could join in a couple of months to give myself time to send off my dissertation. Another problem that weighed on my mind was the possibility of Ramu being posted somewhere other than Delhi soon and so we agreed that I should come in as a consultant rather than as a regular staff member.
Household Help Come & Go
As soon as Adit could keep his head steady, I took him to the Ford swimming pool,and with the help of inflatable arm bands, let him soak in the coolness, shielded from the fierce Delhi heat.
Some months after Ramu left on his transfer, Shivaram who had got married, quit in a huff as he felt I was roping in his wife to stand in for him when he took ill, and he did not like that. I had only requested her to come watch Adit while he was having his breakfast and I was getting ready for the office [as Venkatamma would only come when I was all but ready to go].
Then an even major blow! Some weeks after this, Venkatamma told me she too had to leave. Her excuse was thin -she said her health was deteriorating, and I knew she was worried about our household itself moving from Delhi, and so she must have got the certainty of another job. I tried to reassure her that the household was not folding up here, but to no avail.
So we sent an S.O.S. to Madras and got the School of Social Work to find us a girl who had passed her school exam and was trained to be a housekeeper/ayah. Our intention was both to have help and also help out such a person. However, from the beginning, Raji turned out to be less than well-trained, and worse, non-trainable. She was just not interested. I kept trying.
Ramu continued to come on brief visits and we waited patiently for a denouement of this act in our family life. He disliked Calcutta and wanted me to stick on to Delhi, hoping he would be transferred back. One day, when Adit was over a year old, we were startled to hear him wishing Ramu bye when he was going back with a 'Bye, bye, maama [uncle]'. That was too much for us. We fervently hoped he would soon come to stay and be able to be called 'Appa'.
Some months after Ramu left on his transfer, Shivaram who had got married, quit in a huff as he felt I was roping in his wife to stand in for him when he took ill, and he did not like that. I had only requested her to come watch Adit while he was having his breakfast and I was getting ready for the office [as Venkatamma would only come when I was all but ready to go].
Then an even major blow! Some weeks after this, Venkatamma told me she too had to leave. Her excuse was thin -she said her health was deteriorating, and I knew she was worried about our household itself moving from Delhi, and so she must have got the certainty of another job. I tried to reassure her that the household was not folding up here, but to no avail.
So we sent an S.O.S. to Madras and got the School of Social Work to find us a girl who had passed her school exam and was trained to be a housekeeper/ayah. Our intention was both to have help and also help out such a person. However, from the beginning, Raji turned out to be less than well-trained, and worse, non-trainable. She was just not interested. I kept trying.
Ramu continued to come on brief visits and we waited patiently for a denouement of this act in our family life. He disliked Calcutta and wanted me to stick on to Delhi, hoping he would be transferred back. One day, when Adit was over a year old, we were startled to hear him wishing Ramu bye when he was going back with a 'Bye, bye, maama [uncle]'. That was too much for us. We fervently hoped he would soon come to stay and be able to be called 'Appa'.
Food matters
I asked the paediatrician, Dr. Subash Arya, for his advice on supplementary foods, and specifically if I could give him idli. He promptly said, 'By all means, if you give me some whenever you make them!'. He added I was to start the baby on this regime from the fourth month, but to do it one item at a time, in minute portions first and for a week at least before moving on to another food. So we progressed in this fashion till I tried hard boiled egg. This did not agree with him first, and Annaiya, who had already grumbled that no one in the family had been fed this forbidden food, and anyway, I was pushing too many new foods, really held forth. Adit did manage to stand eggs when it was given some months later.
We had got a high chair for Adit and soon after he was able to sit up, he was in it, and trying to manage eating by himself, with his hands or a spoon. Sometimes, he would throw the food around just for the fun of it. One day, he threw down some favorite item and wanted it back on his plate. That was my chance to explain that it was dirty, and that he should see to it that the food did not end up on the floor. It worked by and large. I think when mothers have too much time on their hands, they tend to fuss over a child's eating, and make it worse. I for one was glad that I did not end up running after a child to make him eat his food even when he was five years old.
Adit did not give us any problem in coming to meals or eating enough and in a reasonable time. Except during summers. The first year this happened, a really hot one, I was alarmed and rushed to the doctor. He said not to worry, most kids lost their appetites in summer. But I blurted, 'he will only eat oranges and curds!' Pat came the reply, 'Sensible chap! Don't you wish you could do the same?'. As to my worry that he was not gaining weight, he said he would automatically do that in winter, and so he did!
We had got a high chair for Adit and soon after he was able to sit up, he was in it, and trying to manage eating by himself, with his hands or a spoon. Sometimes, he would throw the food around just for the fun of it. One day, he threw down some favorite item and wanted it back on his plate. That was my chance to explain that it was dirty, and that he should see to it that the food did not end up on the floor. It worked by and large. I think when mothers have too much time on their hands, they tend to fuss over a child's eating, and make it worse. I for one was glad that I did not end up running after a child to make him eat his food even when he was five years old.
Adit did not give us any problem in coming to meals or eating enough and in a reasonable time. Except during summers. The first year this happened, a really hot one, I was alarmed and rushed to the doctor. He said not to worry, most kids lost their appetites in summer. But I blurted, 'he will only eat oranges and curds!' Pat came the reply, 'Sensible chap! Don't you wish you could do the same?'. As to my worry that he was not gaining weight, he said he would automatically do that in winter, and so he did!
The Last Flicker & Single Parenting
The Last Flicker of Enjoyment
Sometime in June/July, we decided to take time off to go to Bangalore both to escape the North Indian heat and also to have Appa, who was now confined to the house in his semi-paralytic state, meet his new grandson. It was a good holiday though very brief. I was doubly happy that I managed to take the baby over to Appa as that October, just a month before his 77th birthday, he passed away. I flew down with Adit for his cremation, which, for the first time in our family, we had in the electric crematorium. Our older relatives were a bit surprised when Kumar announced , after that day's ceremonies, that he was not performing all the 13 day rites, as per Hindu custom/rules as Appa himself did not believe in them. [As the elder son, it was he who would have to perform them]. I stayed on for a couple of days and then flew back.
The last few years seeing Appa mostly bedridden or in an armchair had saddened us. All his life, he had been such a vibrant active person that this situation did not seem right at all. Still, he had not lost his sense of humour and mischief, and had enjoyed the four grandchildren in Bangalore, Kumar's and Gokul's children then in their childhood or adolescence, his special favorite being Gautam, Kumar's son.
Before the end of the year, Ramu was transferred to Calcutta, first as Officer on Special Duty, an euphemism for shunting out a person for whom no appropriate posting could be immediately found?? Soon, however, he was appointed as Audit Member, Coal, with his office in Calcutta still. Though he soon had one of his favorite nephews, Vivek, for company in that place, sharing the same flat, he did not take to Calcutta even after months. The saying is that the city and its vibrant cultural life grow on one, and soon one becomes a confirmed Calcuttan?? Not Ramu! He persisted in his efforts to get back to Delhi, and in '75, he succeeded.
With him away for so long, it was very demanding for me in the evenings and early mornings - I had no help, as I tried rushing about getting ready or feeling tired. I had also to take Adit whenever I went on essential shopping. Gerry had presented a baby carrycot and I used to strap Adit into that and keep it next to me [nowadays, that would considered very unsafe, especially in the USA – it would be illegal there].
Sometime in June/July, we decided to take time off to go to Bangalore both to escape the North Indian heat and also to have Appa, who was now confined to the house in his semi-paralytic state, meet his new grandson. It was a good holiday though very brief. I was doubly happy that I managed to take the baby over to Appa as that October, just a month before his 77th birthday, he passed away. I flew down with Adit for his cremation, which, for the first time in our family, we had in the electric crematorium. Our older relatives were a bit surprised when Kumar announced , after that day's ceremonies, that he was not performing all the 13 day rites, as per Hindu custom/rules as Appa himself did not believe in them. [As the elder son, it was he who would have to perform them]. I stayed on for a couple of days and then flew back.
The last few years seeing Appa mostly bedridden or in an armchair had saddened us. All his life, he had been such a vibrant active person that this situation did not seem right at all. Still, he had not lost his sense of humour and mischief, and had enjoyed the four grandchildren in Bangalore, Kumar's and Gokul's children then in their childhood or adolescence, his special favorite being Gautam, Kumar's son.
Before the end of the year, Ramu was transferred to Calcutta, first as Officer on Special Duty, an euphemism for shunting out a person for whom no appropriate posting could be immediately found?? Soon, however, he was appointed as Audit Member, Coal, with his office in Calcutta still. Though he soon had one of his favorite nephews, Vivek, for company in that place, sharing the same flat, he did not take to Calcutta even after months. The saying is that the city and its vibrant cultural life grow on one, and soon one becomes a confirmed Calcuttan?? Not Ramu! He persisted in his efforts to get back to Delhi, and in '75, he succeeded.
With him away for so long, it was very demanding for me in the evenings and early mornings - I had no help, as I tried rushing about getting ready or feeling tired. I had also to take Adit whenever I went on essential shopping. Gerry had presented a baby carrycot and I used to strap Adit into that and keep it next to me [nowadays, that would considered very unsafe, especially in the USA – it would be illegal there].
The Language Riddle
My first words to the baby automatically were in Tamil, and Annaiya's reaction was immediate. 'If you speak to him in your mother tongue, how will he learn Kannada?' I suggested that we each speak in our respective languages, and that he would learn both. Ramu was using more English than Kannada even before, and even though he was called to do his part to inject Kannada into Adit, he did not desist from this practice. I reminded Annaiya that in our own childhood too, we had all unconsciously and apparently effortlessly picked up both our own mother tongue and the regional tongue, and then added English to them. He was not convinced. The baby would be confused, he felt. By chance, my cousin Mani, a neurologist of repute, was in town, and on checking with him, he said that a child was known to manage six languages at the same time, and no one knew about the seventh, as none had tried! Adit, in fact, was soon understanding and talking four languages, since the household help and friends and others around spoke Hindusthani, and we used English a lot.
What was interesting was that Adit never mixed up the languages or spoke a language inappropriate to any person. If I asked him in Tamil to convey something to his grandfather, he smoothly did so in Kannada! And so on. Once Gopala, who had come from the States on a visit, tried his level best to make him talk to himself in Tamil [Gopala's Tamil was passable, certainly miles better than Ramu's!] after a long while, however, he had to give up as Adit, probably making out that G was of the same blood as Annaiya and Ramu, replied to him only in Kannada or English!
When one sees the present trend in urban middle classes of talking to their young ones only in English and of preschools also insisting on their charges using that language alone, and even demanding that the parents speak to the children only in it, one feels very dejected that this wonderful facility that a child has is being snuffed out. It puzzles me why they do not see that the more languages a person knows, even if not all of them equally well, the better the communication links, he/she can have and fit more easily into different circumstances. Recently, I chanced to see a National Geographic documentary that substantiated this view, showing how the brain's links [a purely lay description this!] becomes more sophisticated when a young child picks up more languages.
What was interesting was that Adit never mixed up the languages or spoke a language inappropriate to any person. If I asked him in Tamil to convey something to his grandfather, he smoothly did so in Kannada! And so on. Once Gopala, who had come from the States on a visit, tried his level best to make him talk to himself in Tamil [Gopala's Tamil was passable, certainly miles better than Ramu's!] after a long while, however, he had to give up as Adit, probably making out that G was of the same blood as Annaiya and Ramu, replied to him only in Kannada or English!
When one sees the present trend in urban middle classes of talking to their young ones only in English and of preschools also insisting on their charges using that language alone, and even demanding that the parents speak to the children only in it, one feels very dejected that this wonderful facility that a child has is being snuffed out. It puzzles me why they do not see that the more languages a person knows, even if not all of them equally well, the better the communication links, he/she can have and fit more easily into different circumstances. Recently, I chanced to see a National Geographic documentary that substantiated this view, showing how the brain's links [a purely lay description this!] becomes more sophisticated when a young child picks up more languages.
First Few Months
Adit was just 2.25 kg. at birth. He was put in an incubator for a couple of days. The practice then was no rooming-in after an operation so as to give the mother adequate rest. Also due to the many medications, antibiotics and other stuff that they had pumped into me, I was not supposed to breast-feed the baby for a few days. So to prevent the milk production and the possibility of an abscess as I had had the first delivery, and assuming that I would not want to feed him as I was working, they injected something to curtail the flow before I knew what was happening. Whether that alone was the reason or Adit was not strong enough to suckle well, we had to give up the idea of exclusive breastfeeding within a few weeks to ensure his survival. There was an altercation later between the gynaecologist, Dharma and her husband Tarun, the paediatrician, on these actions!
For a couple of anxious months, Aditya was still below normal weight and looked weak and undernourished. But suddenly he beame ok and was moving around as per the norm, and later beyond it. Indian tradition enjoins a minimum 42 days as a seclusion and recuperation period for both the mother and child after childbirth. Even modern health systems advise extra care during the first 6 weeks, both to safeguard the duo from unhygenic environments and to allow the uterus to get back to normal. It is also supposed to make for maximum breastfeeding results. I think I took about two months off and then had to get back to work. By chance, a wonderful ayyah called Venkatamma, came to look after Adit, and they took to each other. She stayed at the servants' quarters of a nearby flat that her son had had allotted to him. Venkatamma was a golden find as an ayah. She seemed to have an instinctive mothering nature and she and Adit took to each other from the beginning. The only problem was that she would come only at 8.30 a.m. and go away at 6 p.m. Sunday was her day off. So, it was straight from work to mothering and back again without a moment in between.
I went back to work after about two months. At first, I used to come home for lunch and some time with Aditya. But he was usually soundly sleeping at that time, and with summer coming upon us, I found that the net result was that I was totally fagged out and did not get to interact with the baby either. So I gave up that futile practice.
For a couple of anxious months, Aditya was still below normal weight and looked weak and undernourished. But suddenly he beame ok and was moving around as per the norm, and later beyond it. Indian tradition enjoins a minimum 42 days as a seclusion and recuperation period for both the mother and child after childbirth. Even modern health systems advise extra care during the first 6 weeks, both to safeguard the duo from unhygenic environments and to allow the uterus to get back to normal. It is also supposed to make for maximum breastfeeding results. I think I took about two months off and then had to get back to work. By chance, a wonderful ayyah called Venkatamma, came to look after Adit, and they took to each other. She stayed at the servants' quarters of a nearby flat that her son had had allotted to him. Venkatamma was a golden find as an ayah. She seemed to have an instinctive mothering nature and she and Adit took to each other from the beginning. The only problem was that she would come only at 8.30 a.m. and go away at 6 p.m. Sunday was her day off. So, it was straight from work to mothering and back again without a moment in between.
I went back to work after about two months. At first, I used to come home for lunch and some time with Aditya. But he was usually soundly sleeping at that time, and with summer coming upon us, I found that the net result was that I was totally fagged out and did not get to interact with the baby either. So I gave up that futile practice.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
adit
Every summer that I spent in Delhi, i wondered, 'what crime have i done to go through this horrible heat!' The summer of '72 was a real scorcher, made even worse for me as I was pregnant again. Even with several baths a day, one felt hot as an oven. Nights were so bad that i could not sleep. One weekend that we spent in Faridabad with the Bhats, Sripathi taught me a trick that was very useful. Before going to bed, have a cold shower, and wear light clothes without wiping oneself with a towel. Then, lie down on just a natural mat on the floor. It really helped.
I followed his example and found it very nice as long as that coolness lasted. Then I poured water over myself again and repeated the procedure.
To escape the heat, R and I went to a hill station, Musoorie. It was so fresh and cool there, but coming back, we were in the thick of a heat wave, and the 46* C felt even more pin-pricky than it would have been if we had not gone at all. and the car journey was unbearable. It was a relief when the rains started even if Delhi turned sticky, for, to adapt Keats' famous line - if monsoon comes, can winter be far behind?
Cold Feet
Someone told us about a very good doctor who had guided other women through difficult pregnancies. When he learnt of my previous history, he ruled that on no account was I to take any medicine whatever the symptoms were, for the duration of the pregnancy. He would, he added, prescribe some vitamin E and iron-folic acid tabs when the time came, in the third trimester. In fact, I did have at least one attack of headache and another of tummy ache, but I just rested, ate satvik [bland, soothing] food and they passed.
Just a couple of months before my time, i suddenly panicked and began fretting as my delivery date grew nearer, and feeling that however good a doctor he was, I was doomed to miscarry or lose the child somehow. My confidence ebbed not just in myself but also my excellent doctor. After all, i had gone each pregnancy to the best doctor in town, hadn't I? I was convinced that only someone whom I knew well and who really cared for me personally would be able to see me through this time. My second cousin Dharma was a gynaecologist at Safdarjung hospital and i turned to her. She was very understanding but warned me that she could deliver me only in that hospital, a public one, no comparison to the private ones that ford would have paid for. Despite that issue, i clung to her as my saviour, and shame-facedly told my kindly old doctor that i was no longer coming to him. He seemed to understand.
While Dharma was quite willing to see me through the rest of the pregnancy, she tried to dissuade me from delivering in the Government hospital where she practised, since Ford would pay all the costs for the best private one in town. But there was no way she or anyone else could change my mind. Cockroaches, dingy sheets, shared rooms and all, I still clung to Dharma. However, she said it would not be correct for her to do the Ceasarean being a relative, and so she would just be present while another did it.[It had been decided that in view of my history and age, this too had to be an operation, not a natural birth].
When the subject of maternity leave came up, and my preference was for taking almost all of it after the delivery. It would keep me from worrying if I kept busy till the last moment. Dharma agreed but advised me to take some rest each afternoon. So I used to lie down on a sheet spread over the carpet in my Ford office after lunch, locking the door, for 10-15 minutes. Prodipto had a very different reaction to maternity leave. He snorted, 'what maternity leave? You don't need any! An ndean womAn just gets off her mulewhen she feels labour coming on, delivers by the wayside and then mounts again on their mule and sets about her usual duties! She even goes inside to prepare coffee for her husband to prove how strong she is'
To which mcp remark, I just snorted that I was neither Andean nor did I have a mule , and I would take all the leave I was entitled to!
Just two weeks before the due date, my colleague, Vinod and I had met on a Saturday to finish a project that we were working on [school quality and location] but could not finalise our paper. I told him, let us leave it for Monday. It was the festival of Shankaranthi and on going home, I finished the special dishes of the day, savory and sweet pongal, with Shivaram's help, but then the pain began. The baby was delivered on 15th, just after midnight, but according to the Hindu way of reckoning, the new day begins only about 2 am, so to Annaiya, it was 14th and still the day dedicated to the Sun [and the new harvest in South India].
We had deliberately not decided on any name, nor made any preparations for the new born, except get some hand-me-downs from family. It may have been superstition, though I pride myself on not being superstitious at all, but it may also have been prudence. Why invest so much emotional and rational planning on what might not be?
Even when we were discharged four days later, the baby boy had no name. The hospital certificate simply said 'Baby Padmini'! This was to have comical consequences later. Back at home, our choices for an appropriate name clustered around words meaning the Sun in honour of the festival day he was born on, and finally it was 'Aditya', the first and thus the Sun, the first created.
I do not recall any problem with that even when he joined his playschool or the various schools he went to, but years later, when he applied for a greencard in the USA, I had to sign an affidavit that ’baby padmini’ and ‘r.p. aditya’were one and the same – and how did I know that? – I had to write ‘ because I am his mother and gave birth to Aditya who was named first as 'Baby Padmini’'!
I followed his example and found it very nice as long as that coolness lasted. Then I poured water over myself again and repeated the procedure.
To escape the heat, R and I went to a hill station, Musoorie. It was so fresh and cool there, but coming back, we were in the thick of a heat wave, and the 46* C felt even more pin-pricky than it would have been if we had not gone at all. and the car journey was unbearable. It was a relief when the rains started even if Delhi turned sticky, for, to adapt Keats' famous line - if monsoon comes, can winter be far behind?
Cold Feet
Someone told us about a very good doctor who had guided other women through difficult pregnancies. When he learnt of my previous history, he ruled that on no account was I to take any medicine whatever the symptoms were, for the duration of the pregnancy. He would, he added, prescribe some vitamin E and iron-folic acid tabs when the time came, in the third trimester. In fact, I did have at least one attack of headache and another of tummy ache, but I just rested, ate satvik [bland, soothing] food and they passed.
Just a couple of months before my time, i suddenly panicked and began fretting as my delivery date grew nearer, and feeling that however good a doctor he was, I was doomed to miscarry or lose the child somehow. My confidence ebbed not just in myself but also my excellent doctor. After all, i had gone each pregnancy to the best doctor in town, hadn't I? I was convinced that only someone whom I knew well and who really cared for me personally would be able to see me through this time. My second cousin Dharma was a gynaecologist at Safdarjung hospital and i turned to her. She was very understanding but warned me that she could deliver me only in that hospital, a public one, no comparison to the private ones that ford would have paid for. Despite that issue, i clung to her as my saviour, and shame-facedly told my kindly old doctor that i was no longer coming to him. He seemed to understand.
While Dharma was quite willing to see me through the rest of the pregnancy, she tried to dissuade me from delivering in the Government hospital where she practised, since Ford would pay all the costs for the best private one in town. But there was no way she or anyone else could change my mind. Cockroaches, dingy sheets, shared rooms and all, I still clung to Dharma. However, she said it would not be correct for her to do the Ceasarean being a relative, and so she would just be present while another did it.[It had been decided that in view of my history and age, this too had to be an operation, not a natural birth].
When the subject of maternity leave came up, and my preference was for taking almost all of it after the delivery. It would keep me from worrying if I kept busy till the last moment. Dharma agreed but advised me to take some rest each afternoon. So I used to lie down on a sheet spread over the carpet in my Ford office after lunch, locking the door, for 10-15 minutes. Prodipto had a very different reaction to maternity leave. He snorted, 'what maternity leave? You don't need any! An ndean womAn just gets off her mulewhen she feels labour coming on, delivers by the wayside and then mounts again on their mule and sets about her usual duties! She even goes inside to prepare coffee for her husband to prove how strong she is'
To which mcp remark, I just snorted that I was neither Andean nor did I have a mule , and I would take all the leave I was entitled to!
Just two weeks before the due date, my colleague, Vinod and I had met on a Saturday to finish a project that we were working on [school quality and location] but could not finalise our paper. I told him, let us leave it for Monday. It was the festival of Shankaranthi and on going home, I finished the special dishes of the day, savory and sweet pongal, with Shivaram's help, but then the pain began. The baby was delivered on 15th, just after midnight, but according to the Hindu way of reckoning, the new day begins only about 2 am, so to Annaiya, it was 14th and still the day dedicated to the Sun [and the new harvest in South India].
We had deliberately not decided on any name, nor made any preparations for the new born, except get some hand-me-downs from family. It may have been superstition, though I pride myself on not being superstitious at all, but it may also have been prudence. Why invest so much emotional and rational planning on what might not be?
Even when we were discharged four days later, the baby boy had no name. The hospital certificate simply said 'Baby Padmini'! This was to have comical consequences later. Back at home, our choices for an appropriate name clustered around words meaning the Sun in honour of the festival day he was born on, and finally it was 'Aditya', the first and thus the Sun, the first created.
I do not recall any problem with that even when he joined his playschool or the various schools he went to, but years later, when he applied for a greencard in the USA, I had to sign an affidavit that ’baby padmini’ and ‘r.p. aditya’were one and the same – and how did I know that? – I had to write ‘ because I am his mother and gave birth to Aditya who was named first as 'Baby Padmini’'!
Monday, December 15, 2008
Field Trips
Another interesting trip that I made towards the latter half of the project, this time with Vinod Kumar, the architect and regional planner in our team, was to a village in Haryana, where we got data for a paper we were jointly writing on schools, not just locations but also the quality of teaching etc.
A trip that depressed me much was to Mehboobnagar in Andhra Pradesh and this was in connection with a totally different project that CSD was doing for UNICEF Delhi – a literacy project evaluation. We found very visible and almost universal signs of heavy drinking by both men and women in the evenings. They were landless labourers, from some of the poorest communities in one of the poorest districts in India. Questioning the women as to why they frittered away their meagre earnings and also ruined their health so, we got the defiant answer, 'How else do you think we can face the next day. Our life is so hard!'
What was even more stunning was to learn that they habitually dosed their infants and young children with opium to keep them quiet while they were away at work or even when they carried them along!
A trip that depressed me much was to Mehboobnagar in Andhra Pradesh and this was in connection with a totally different project that CSD was doing for UNICEF Delhi – a literacy project evaluation. We found very visible and almost universal signs of heavy drinking by both men and women in the evenings. They were landless labourers, from some of the poorest communities in one of the poorest districts in India. Questioning the women as to why they frittered away their meagre earnings and also ruined their health so, we got the defiant answer, 'How else do you think we can face the next day. Our life is so hard!'
What was even more stunning was to learn that they habitually dosed their infants and young children with opium to keep them quiet while they were away at work or even when they carried them along!
Adventures of Gerry
A Faux-Paus Averted
With the weather cooling down, life in Delhi got more bearable. Once we had the overall project strategy and scheme of activities worked out in GCP, there was the training and initiation of field work in all the participating states and Union Terrritories [UTs] that kept me and a few others busy with travel, feed back and changes. Some places, we had very good state collaborators either from the Planning Department of the state/UT or from an academic institution designated as our counterpart. In others, the quality was really poor, especially where the project was away from the state capital.
One such visit in the second year of the project was to the Davangere block of Karnataka state. Gerry, Prodipto, his wife Joya and I made the trip together. We flew to Bangalore and had a day or so there before going to Davangere by road. As we made a beeline for the city's famous silk shops in M.G. Rd. [was it still called South Parade or did it become patriotically renamed after Gandhi [as at least one road in each town was] soon after Independence?], Jaya exclaimed at a pedestrian crossing where the policeman held up the vehicular traffic to allow us to cross, 'What a civilized city!'. If only she could see it now! [there are places where such compassion for the poor pedestrian still is shown, but the overwhelming attitude of vehicles, with the traffic police looking the other way, is 'Pedestrian Beware!, there is POWER behind my wheel!'].
The Field Director of the Davangere project invited us all to lunch one day. Gerry managed to sit on the mat laid on the floor, in various poses from cross-legged to sideways, and still enjoy the food. However at one point, when a second round of pooris was, in typical hospitable fashion, put on his banana leaf without his even noticing, he was about to put it back into the serving dish. Horrified, I screamed, 'Gerry , don't do that!' Having succeeded in arresting his action, I explained that the concept of 'enjilu' ['joota' in Hindi, terms that may be interpreted as food or drink polluted by someone else biting or touching with one's hand that has been used in eating, or even placed on some portion of one's plate or leaf]. Told by the others too that if he had put back those pooris, the whole lot of them in the serving dish would hav e had to be thrown out, he was most bewildered. 'But how do I prevent them from just putting more and more food on my leaf?', he pleaded.
So we showed him how one crossed one's arms over the leaf when any second helpings came around, and even bent over the leaf protectively if the host was insistent. This incident reminded me of Seymour's lunch at Gopala's in Pune when we both came there two years before and he had tried to use his right hand to take an extra serving [the fact that it was quite clean literally was of no consequence – in the Indian purity theory, the spoon is only an extension of the hand, and once it had touched the mouth, the hand too was not 'clean' till it was washed after the meal!] .
Gerry's Introduction to Diwali
Another delectable Gerry story is the first Diwali in Delhi. The air was thick with rumours of impending conflict on our Eastern border with what was then East Pakistan. Still, Delhi was all sparkle and gaiety for days before. Prodipto invited all the project staff and their familes to his home for dinner a day before the actual festival. We were enjoying the fireworks and most of all the crackers too not me - as always, I was scared stiff of them and their noise!] from the terrace of his house, Suddenly, Gerry burst upon those of us who were already gathered on the 'Barsati' [open terrace on top – literally, the rainy place] yelling 'What has got into you Indians? I thought you were a peaceful lot! Or is the war already upon us'?
We burst in guffaws. Apparently, no one had thought fit to warn Gerry that while the actual meaning of Diwali was ' the festival of Lights', it was even more the festival of noise a la crackers and fireworks, not in some central controlled environment as on July Fourth in America but in every home, and nook and corner. Come to think of it, it did sound as if we were on the war front!
As we went into '72, our project staff, except the directors, got involved in an unsavoury incident of our own making. The third foreigner in our group, a young man called B.., had somehow irritated a lot of us, and we got together and wrote him a real nasty ote. I do not recall the sequence of events after that, but we all soon regretted our hasty and intemperate action, and we made it up with him. I believe the directors knew of all these happenings, and wisely kept out of it. For me, it was the third time, I had got into actions that left a bad taste in my mouth afterwards, and I made a fresh resolve that I would never again fall into such a mire again! This has been one resolution well kept.
With the weather cooling down, life in Delhi got more bearable. Once we had the overall project strategy and scheme of activities worked out in GCP, there was the training and initiation of field work in all the participating states and Union Terrritories [UTs] that kept me and a few others busy with travel, feed back and changes. Some places, we had very good state collaborators either from the Planning Department of the state/UT or from an academic institution designated as our counterpart. In others, the quality was really poor, especially where the project was away from the state capital.
One such visit in the second year of the project was to the Davangere block of Karnataka state. Gerry, Prodipto, his wife Joya and I made the trip together. We flew to Bangalore and had a day or so there before going to Davangere by road. As we made a beeline for the city's famous silk shops in M.G. Rd. [was it still called South Parade or did it become patriotically renamed after Gandhi [as at least one road in each town was] soon after Independence?], Jaya exclaimed at a pedestrian crossing where the policeman held up the vehicular traffic to allow us to cross, 'What a civilized city!'. If only she could see it now! [there are places where such compassion for the poor pedestrian still is shown, but the overwhelming attitude of vehicles, with the traffic police looking the other way, is 'Pedestrian Beware!, there is POWER behind my wheel!'].
The Field Director of the Davangere project invited us all to lunch one day. Gerry managed to sit on the mat laid on the floor, in various poses from cross-legged to sideways, and still enjoy the food. However at one point, when a second round of pooris was, in typical hospitable fashion, put on his banana leaf without his even noticing, he was about to put it back into the serving dish. Horrified, I screamed, 'Gerry , don't do that!' Having succeeded in arresting his action, I explained that the concept of 'enjilu' ['joota' in Hindi, terms that may be interpreted as food or drink polluted by someone else biting or touching with one's hand that has been used in eating, or even placed on some portion of one's plate or leaf]. Told by the others too that if he had put back those pooris, the whole lot of them in the serving dish would hav e had to be thrown out, he was most bewildered. 'But how do I prevent them from just putting more and more food on my leaf?', he pleaded.
So we showed him how one crossed one's arms over the leaf when any second helpings came around, and even bent over the leaf protectively if the host was insistent. This incident reminded me of Seymour's lunch at Gopala's in Pune when we both came there two years before and he had tried to use his right hand to take an extra serving [the fact that it was quite clean literally was of no consequence – in the Indian purity theory, the spoon is only an extension of the hand, and once it had touched the mouth, the hand too was not 'clean' till it was washed after the meal!] .
Gerry's Introduction to Diwali
Another delectable Gerry story is the first Diwali in Delhi. The air was thick with rumours of impending conflict on our Eastern border with what was then East Pakistan. Still, Delhi was all sparkle and gaiety for days before. Prodipto invited all the project staff and their familes to his home for dinner a day before the actual festival. We were enjoying the fireworks and most of all the crackers too not me - as always, I was scared stiff of them and their noise!] from the terrace of his house, Suddenly, Gerry burst upon those of us who were already gathered on the 'Barsati' [open terrace on top – literally, the rainy place] yelling 'What has got into you Indians? I thought you were a peaceful lot! Or is the war already upon us'?
We burst in guffaws. Apparently, no one had thought fit to warn Gerry that while the actual meaning of Diwali was ' the festival of Lights', it was even more the festival of noise a la crackers and fireworks, not in some central controlled environment as on July Fourth in America but in every home, and nook and corner. Come to think of it, it did sound as if we were on the war front!
As we went into '72, our project staff, except the directors, got involved in an unsavoury incident of our own making. The third foreigner in our group, a young man called B.., had somehow irritated a lot of us, and we got together and wrote him a real nasty ote. I do not recall the sequence of events after that, but we all soon regretted our hasty and intemperate action, and we made it up with him. I believe the directors knew of all these happenings, and wisely kept out of it. For me, it was the third time, I had got into actions that left a bad taste in my mouth afterwards, and I made a fresh resolve that I would never again fall into such a mire again! This has been one resolution well kept.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Life in Delhi
Our Own Flat
After two months of waiting, our house allotment was made, 'expedited' as we opted for a type one rank lower than what Ramu was entitled to. It was in Vinay Marg, about four km from my office and six to his. A much sought after colony among the knowledgeable, we were cheek by jowl with Nehru park, and close to Sarojini Market, one of Delhi's best shopping area for almost everything. Being on the ground floor, we had a little patch of lawn in the front and a kitchen garden space at the back.
Ramu would usually drop me off and pick me up again and then go to his office in our new Fiat [aptly named Premier Padmini]. There was a luxurious bonus at Ford – a swimming pool at the guest house that staff could also use. So on warm days, he joined me for a short while. Being pretty busy otherwise, we did not go out much; even a cinema was rare. Our other exercise was a walk in the nearby Nehru Park, a charming medium-sized garden.
Annaiya joined us as soon as we had settled in our flat. Also, Shivaram moved from Poona to work for us when Gopala went off to the States some months after we came back. So he handled cooking the three meals a day and I had no housework to do. There was also the ubiquitous Tamilian part-time maid servant, so the household was running as smoothly as anything in India can do.
When our unaccompanied sea shipment came, with all our books, and other clothes and some nice kitchen stuff we had, to our surprise they were all intact.
But we had trouble with one item. The Customs summoned us and asked us to explain why we should not be arrested. The problem was an atlas that did not depict Kashmir as part of India! We pleaded ignorance but of course that was not admissible. Anyway, after stern warnings, and blacking out the offending part of the map, they released all our stuff including the offending atlas.
Life in Delhi
Some time after our move there, Sripathi, R's sister, Savithri's husband, was transferred to Faridabad by the National Sample Survey, where he worked. So they were just an hour's drive [those days] from where we lived. Another of my sisters-in-law, Lalitha and her husband, Babi, already lived in Delhi. Then there was Sundara's family. So we had quite a bit of Mugur family interaction. On my side of the family, the trickle started quite a bit later with my niece, Vimala [Malli] and nephew, Ravi and his wife, Geetha, settling down there and being in close contact. In addition, there were umpteen cousins and some uncles and aunts around whom we met occasionally.
Soon, it was summer, and the 'andi' [dry hot winds blowing from the Thar desert in Rajasthan] really hit us. A fine layer of dust then covered everything, and one felt even the covered food tasted grimy. We were lucky, people said, that we had the ground floor since the topmost floor, here the first, takes the brunt of the heat. We really welcomed the Ford Foundation swimming pool. Even Ramu used it sometimes, swimming as much as he could, and soaking in the coolness.
Should I trust a doctor?
It was my first taste of a hot dry climate, followed by the still hot and humid monsoon, and I reacted with a chronic cold and cough, and rather than go to a doctor again, I just took regular doses of an asprin that I had a bottle of with me, to keep this in check.
Around this time, I started to have my periods almost every fortnight. After a few such episodes, I went to the gynaecologist whom Prabha used. She pronounced a hysterectomy essential. I was aghast! I came home and mulled over this, and then I had an idea. When I told the doctor over the phone that every episode had been preceded by a heavy bout of asprin taking, and asked whether could be any connection, she calmly said, yes, it could very well have. She added that some women were so sensitive to drugs that it could happen to them with some other drugs too. As a final touch, she told me that a few even died from such heavy doses! I did not say it aloud, but to myself, I blurted “Damn you, and you wanted to remove my uterus! You did not even ask me if I had taken any drugs, or any such question. All you wanted was to make money out an operation'.
She had not asked me about any medications I was taking, even after I had told her the history of my failed pregnancies and my sensitivity to drugs when pregnant! I felt she was just pushing me to an operation that was unnecessary. I stopped dosing myself with tylenol and the bleeding stopped. Perhaps due to my getting used to Delhi weather, my frequent colds also vanished. My faith in doctors was further shaken.
After two months of waiting, our house allotment was made, 'expedited' as we opted for a type one rank lower than what Ramu was entitled to. It was in Vinay Marg, about four km from my office and six to his. A much sought after colony among the knowledgeable, we were cheek by jowl with Nehru park, and close to Sarojini Market, one of Delhi's best shopping area for almost everything. Being on the ground floor, we had a little patch of lawn in the front and a kitchen garden space at the back.
Ramu would usually drop me off and pick me up again and then go to his office in our new Fiat [aptly named Premier Padmini]. There was a luxurious bonus at Ford – a swimming pool at the guest house that staff could also use. So on warm days, he joined me for a short while. Being pretty busy otherwise, we did not go out much; even a cinema was rare. Our other exercise was a walk in the nearby Nehru Park, a charming medium-sized garden.
Annaiya joined us as soon as we had settled in our flat. Also, Shivaram moved from Poona to work for us when Gopala went off to the States some months after we came back. So he handled cooking the three meals a day and I had no housework to do. There was also the ubiquitous Tamilian part-time maid servant, so the household was running as smoothly as anything in India can do.
When our unaccompanied sea shipment came, with all our books, and other clothes and some nice kitchen stuff we had, to our surprise they were all intact.
But we had trouble with one item. The Customs summoned us and asked us to explain why we should not be arrested. The problem was an atlas that did not depict Kashmir as part of India! We pleaded ignorance but of course that was not admissible. Anyway, after stern warnings, and blacking out the offending part of the map, they released all our stuff including the offending atlas.
Life in Delhi
Some time after our move there, Sripathi, R's sister, Savithri's husband, was transferred to Faridabad by the National Sample Survey, where he worked. So they were just an hour's drive [those days] from where we lived. Another of my sisters-in-law, Lalitha and her husband, Babi, already lived in Delhi. Then there was Sundara's family. So we had quite a bit of Mugur family interaction. On my side of the family, the trickle started quite a bit later with my niece, Vimala [Malli] and nephew, Ravi and his wife, Geetha, settling down there and being in close contact. In addition, there were umpteen cousins and some uncles and aunts around whom we met occasionally.
Soon, it was summer, and the 'andi' [dry hot winds blowing from the Thar desert in Rajasthan] really hit us. A fine layer of dust then covered everything, and one felt even the covered food tasted grimy. We were lucky, people said, that we had the ground floor since the topmost floor, here the first, takes the brunt of the heat. We really welcomed the Ford Foundation swimming pool. Even Ramu used it sometimes, swimming as much as he could, and soaking in the coolness.
Should I trust a doctor?
It was my first taste of a hot dry climate, followed by the still hot and humid monsoon, and I reacted with a chronic cold and cough, and rather than go to a doctor again, I just took regular doses of an asprin that I had a bottle of with me, to keep this in check.
Around this time, I started to have my periods almost every fortnight. After a few such episodes, I went to the gynaecologist whom Prabha used. She pronounced a hysterectomy essential. I was aghast! I came home and mulled over this, and then I had an idea. When I told the doctor over the phone that every episode had been preceded by a heavy bout of asprin taking, and asked whether could be any connection, she calmly said, yes, it could very well have. She added that some women were so sensitive to drugs that it could happen to them with some other drugs too. As a final touch, she told me that a few even died from such heavy doses! I did not say it aloud, but to myself, I blurted “Damn you, and you wanted to remove my uterus! You did not even ask me if I had taken any drugs, or any such question. All you wanted was to make money out an operation'.
She had not asked me about any medications I was taking, even after I had told her the history of my failed pregnancies and my sensitivity to drugs when pregnant! I felt she was just pushing me to an operation that was unnecessary. I stopped dosing myself with tylenol and the bleeding stopped. Perhaps due to my getting used to Delhi weather, my frequent colds also vanished. My faith in doctors was further shaken.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Of Dresses and Pettiness
A FF Dress Code?
Delhi was still beastly cold and though I had tried to wear saris alternately with salwar suits, I quickly reverted to my pant suits. Another reason for ditching saris entirely for office was that I kept tearing the edge under the chairs with their wheels. I could never remember to gather my sari daintily as other sari-clad women apparently do! Only a few days passed when our group secretary came to me and told me of the dress code for women that prescribed only saris. 'Who said so? I have not seen any such order', I demanded.
' No, there is nothing in writing, but the unwritten rule is that we should be in national dress'.
I was indignant. 'if men can wear western attire, why not we? You are mostly Punjabis, you should all say your national dress is a salwar suit and insist on wearing it. Let me see if anyone objects; did they hire me for my dress or my professional skills?'
Needless to say, nobody objected and I continued wearing whatever I liked. Months later, on one of the few days that I wore a sari [probably because I was going to some function], Dr.Bose, the adminiatrative director, remarked that saris suited me best, and I should always wear that. I retorted, 'Dr.Bose, you look so grand in your Bengali style dhothi. Why don't you wear that daily and I will wear a sari'. He had to laugh and give up.
When I joined UNICEF a couple of years later, I wore saris when attending a meeting or going over to the government offices and the pants or salwar suits otherwise. I switched over completely to salwar suits and pants when I left for Ethiopia. Saris were reserved for evenings and functions. Finally, I stuck to salwar suits, finding them more comfortable than the pant suits especially as I had put on weight!
All this might seem strange today, when even many female govt. officers wear the salwar suit and down the deep south, so removed from the home of this dress, the younger generation is wearing nothing else. But in those days, only a few of us dared violate the unwritten dress code.To this day, I do not wear a sari to work except very rarely; in addition to the salwar suit, I have gone to work in other types of dresses too. Lungis patterned after the South-East Asian sarong outfits became the rage in Delhi a few years later and I got one. While posted in Ethiopia, any kaftan or boubou from one of the African countries was quite acceptable and in New York even more so, in the UNICEF [or any UN organisation] mileu. The UN in fact abounded in the most glorious and riotous national dresses from all over the world, and I am not speaking only about the women. The most resplendent of us all was Djibril D., from Senegal, who almost invariably donned his clan boubou with the typical elaborate embroidered tunic and he was a sight to make anyone's head turn! I used to tease him saying he was a peacock.
Camaraderie among the GCP staff
We were a friendly and vibrant lot avid to prove that our project approach was correct. Except for me, the rest of the professionals were men. One day, Prodipto got upset over some lacuna in the team's non-responsiveness to some question, and upon my piping up, said testily, 'Padmini is the only man in the team!'. Did I flare up! He, and the others too, was astonished that I had taken umbrage at what was in their eyes a great compliment. Even after I explained that such a remark implied that no normal woman was capable of the point I made, so the only apt comparision was with a man, I do not think the logic sank into their heads.
Only one incident marred this camaraderie. As we went into '72, our project staff, except the directors, got involved in an unsavoury incident of our own making. For some reason, some of us Indians took offence to what one of the three Americans in the group said, and smarting at the apparent insult, we decided to write him a strong note. This came to the notice of the project directors who let us know we were silly to act like this, and like a bucket of cold water, this reaction as well his genuine bewilderment at being targeted by this baying pack of colleagues, brought us to our senses. Luckily, he was magnanimous enough to forget the incident, and we all became friends again. For me, it was the third time that I had got into actions that left a bad taste in my mouth afterwards, and I made a fresh resolve that I would never again fall into such a mire again! This has been one resolution well kept.
More Growth Centre Incidents
One day Nayan, one of my colleagues came up to me aked if I would accompany him, “ I got my licence today” he aded. 'Well, if you have your licence, why do you want me to come with you?' I queried? He sheepishly returned, ' You know how it is, Padmini. I just managed to get my licence!' 'Shame on you, Nayan, you don't deserve to be helped. Go and run over a few people!'
of course I relented, phoned Ramu to come pick me up at his house rather than the office and set out with Nayan. Was my heart in my mouth all the time! Midway I just could not stand it any more, and firmly told him to move over and drove the rest of the way myself. I told him he better practice in a non-peak hour and in a quiet area, preferably an empty maidan near his home before braving the rush hour traffic or rather imposing his zig-zaging on all who had the misfortune to encounter him on the road.
Whether he followed my advice or not, I guess he did improve as he did live till much later and there was no report of his knocking down others. Even now many get away with their driving school managing their licence without a full test by the licensing authority.
Delhi was still beastly cold and though I had tried to wear saris alternately with salwar suits, I quickly reverted to my pant suits. Another reason for ditching saris entirely for office was that I kept tearing the edge under the chairs with their wheels. I could never remember to gather my sari daintily as other sari-clad women apparently do! Only a few days passed when our group secretary came to me and told me of the dress code for women that prescribed only saris. 'Who said so? I have not seen any such order', I demanded.
' No, there is nothing in writing, but the unwritten rule is that we should be in national dress'.
I was indignant. 'if men can wear western attire, why not we? You are mostly Punjabis, you should all say your national dress is a salwar suit and insist on wearing it. Let me see if anyone objects; did they hire me for my dress or my professional skills?'
Needless to say, nobody objected and I continued wearing whatever I liked. Months later, on one of the few days that I wore a sari [probably because I was going to some function], Dr.Bose, the adminiatrative director, remarked that saris suited me best, and I should always wear that. I retorted, 'Dr.Bose, you look so grand in your Bengali style dhothi. Why don't you wear that daily and I will wear a sari'. He had to laugh and give up.
When I joined UNICEF a couple of years later, I wore saris when attending a meeting or going over to the government offices and the pants or salwar suits otherwise. I switched over completely to salwar suits and pants when I left for Ethiopia. Saris were reserved for evenings and functions. Finally, I stuck to salwar suits, finding them more comfortable than the pant suits especially as I had put on weight!
All this might seem strange today, when even many female govt. officers wear the salwar suit and down the deep south, so removed from the home of this dress, the younger generation is wearing nothing else. But in those days, only a few of us dared violate the unwritten dress code.To this day, I do not wear a sari to work except very rarely; in addition to the salwar suit, I have gone to work in other types of dresses too. Lungis patterned after the South-East Asian sarong outfits became the rage in Delhi a few years later and I got one. While posted in Ethiopia, any kaftan or boubou from one of the African countries was quite acceptable and in New York even more so, in the UNICEF [or any UN organisation] mileu. The UN in fact abounded in the most glorious and riotous national dresses from all over the world, and I am not speaking only about the women. The most resplendent of us all was Djibril D., from Senegal, who almost invariably donned his clan boubou with the typical elaborate embroidered tunic and he was a sight to make anyone's head turn! I used to tease him saying he was a peacock.
Camaraderie among the GCP staff
We were a friendly and vibrant lot avid to prove that our project approach was correct. Except for me, the rest of the professionals were men. One day, Prodipto got upset over some lacuna in the team's non-responsiveness to some question, and upon my piping up, said testily, 'Padmini is the only man in the team!'. Did I flare up! He, and the others too, was astonished that I had taken umbrage at what was in their eyes a great compliment. Even after I explained that such a remark implied that no normal woman was capable of the point I made, so the only apt comparision was with a man, I do not think the logic sank into their heads.
Only one incident marred this camaraderie. As we went into '72, our project staff, except the directors, got involved in an unsavoury incident of our own making. For some reason, some of us Indians took offence to what one of the three Americans in the group said, and smarting at the apparent insult, we decided to write him a strong note. This came to the notice of the project directors who let us know we were silly to act like this, and like a bucket of cold water, this reaction as well his genuine bewilderment at being targeted by this baying pack of colleagues, brought us to our senses. Luckily, he was magnanimous enough to forget the incident, and we all became friends again. For me, it was the third time that I had got into actions that left a bad taste in my mouth afterwards, and I made a fresh resolve that I would never again fall into such a mire again! This has been one resolution well kept.
More Growth Centre Incidents
One day Nayan, one of my colleagues came up to me aked if I would accompany him, “ I got my licence today” he aded. 'Well, if you have your licence, why do you want me to come with you?' I queried? He sheepishly returned, ' You know how it is, Padmini. I just managed to get my licence!' 'Shame on you, Nayan, you don't deserve to be helped. Go and run over a few people!'
of course I relented, phoned Ramu to come pick me up at his house rather than the office and set out with Nayan. Was my heart in my mouth all the time! Midway I just could not stand it any more, and firmly told him to move over and drove the rest of the way myself. I told him he better practice in a non-peak hour and in a quiet area, preferably an empty maidan near his home before braving the rush hour traffic or rather imposing his zig-zaging on all who had the misfortune to encounter him on the road.
Whether he followed my advice or not, I guess he did improve as he did live till much later and there was no report of his knocking down others. Even now many get away with their driving school managing their licence without a full test by the licensing authority.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
A New Beginning in Delhi
As anyone who comes in winter from the west finds out, it was beastly cold in Delhi due to the lack of central heating. I was still exhausted with all the packing decisions, the work at the Deccan College, the cold, the housework, and so on. When I finally gave in and saw a doctor in Delhi some two weeks later, he exclaimed that it was so bad he wondered how I had borne the pain for two weeks without any specific treatment!.
Annaiya went to stay with Tripuri for a while until we got our allotment of a house in Delhi, and we both moved in with Sundara and Prabha. Ramu had thought it would be only for a couple of weeks; instead it turned out to be two monthsWe stayed with Ramu's eldest brother, Sundara, a temporary arrangement till we got our allotment in an appropriate government quarters [all laid down in some bureaucratic rule book – the exact type and location was according to one's rank and seniority!]. It was a very pleasant stay in a large spacious bungalow [also an official allotment]. Prabha and I kept each other company till Sundara and Ramu returned from work.
For two weeks or so after we landed in Delhi, I did not feel upto going to see Prodipto or even call him: the cold had left me so enervated that I just lounged in the house except for occasional walks. When I felt a bit better, the children, Vivek and Kalpana then in their teens, would play badminton with us almost regularly.
After the first week or so, Prabha asked me if I was not going to search for a job. I told her that I had expected one was waiting for me but i had to feel better to go and see about it. Finally, i did call Prodipto Roy, and found him with Gerry Hursh, one of the senior staff of the Growth Centre Project at the Council for Social Development [CSD]office. Immediately, in the characteristic sharp fashion that i was to get to know well, he exclaimed, ' where have you been? We were told you would be back in india nearly a month ago, and we have sent letters to you at your Bangalore address!'
Then he went about describing my job or jobs I should say since I was to be both Sociologist in the multi-disciplinary team and Data Coordinator by default of my having used computers with state of the art technology – punching and verifying cards, using a terminal to the main 360 HP computer in the University!
I had decided to plump for a half-time assignment so that I could complete my thesis dissertation. So, in the midst of his discourse, I ventured to say that I wanted a part-time position, but both Gerry and he flatly told me that was impossible. By then, I had become captivated by the project and I meekly accepted a full-time job, mentally vowing i would still find time to do my dissertation.
I was taken in the double role of Sociologist and Data Coordinator. Along with the rest of the group, but for Prodipto who had anyway his room at CSD, I had a room at the Ford Foundation office but to fulfil my second role, I had to be in CSD and so a room in its basement next to the data processing team – about 8 of them to begin with.
But first we had to plan out our strategies as a group and in the data collection part, work out the questionnaires and field methodolgies. This was all very exciting and as a mixed, mostly young team, we used to have heated discussions about everything. I was again the only woman professional in the team but as in HLL that never even impinged on my relations with the others. Some of them became very good friends.
After i had formally joined, Appa redirected a letter from Ford with the formal job offer. It included the full cost of my travel Delhi with transport of all household effects being paid for. But i found out that this was no longer valid as I had accepted the job from Delhi itself! If, as I had first wanted to, I had stayed on in Bangalore for a few days with Appa, we could have availed of all these benefits. Anyway that was that.
The Growth Centre Idea
The Growth Centre Project [GCP] was a joint one with the Govt. of India, almost all states and union territories, the Ford Foundation [FF] and the CSD [Council for Social Development that Prodipto headed] collaboration. It was part of the National IV five year plan.
The exercise was based on the idea of using natural or created nodes of growth and development with multi-purpose functions, in an optimally dispersed space, to enhance accesssibility, attraction to the hinterland population and small and medium town as well as rural economic growth. Or to put it differently , it was a regional planning exercise to optimise the location and types of links of a set of institutions/services including schools, health centres, agricultural markets and transportation links. It grew out of work done by the UN centre for regional planning in Nagoya, Japan.
Let me elaborate in a broad. even crude way. If a farmer has to sell his produce in a market centre that lies a little way off from his village, it would be good if he could also check up on any health problems he or his family might have in the same place. But this is rarely possible, as these two services may not be found anywhere near each other. Location of various services are decided upon other grounds such as political favour, lack of coordination amongst various departments, a sense of fairness leading to dispersion of facilities. Similarly, schools are located on norms that are distance-based, but the transportation might not exist between a middle or high school and the villages it is supposed to serve. In some cases, there are unfordable streams or difficult hills and so the distance actually is much more. Ditto for health centres.
If the locational optimisation takes place, such centres would become the hub of local regional development and thus be 'growth centres'. This was the genesis of our project.
The project was funded by the Ford Foundation and technically run by CSD. A huge multi-disciplinary staff at Delhi and teams attached for the most part to academic or quasi-academic institutions in most states and union territories, were being assembled to run this project. Finally, we had 20 field projects in various Community Development blocks spread over the country and a number of capable and interesting personnae in charge of some of them.
The GCP team was large and multidisciplinary in its thinking and its personnel – urban and regional planners, sociologists [Prodipto, another and myself], economists, geographer, computer specialist, etc. I had a dual role as I was also the data coordinator., supervising a team of about 12-`4 people, Correspondingly, I had two offices, one in FF where the rest of the professionals were located, except Prodipto who remained in his own CSD office, and another in CSD where the punchers and verifiers worked.
Those were still the days of the main frame computers that were typically housed in a/c rooms. One had to punch cards in a punching machine that converted data into a binary code and after verifying to see that no mistakes had occurred, the cards were fed into this computer with a program telling it what to do with the data. It was not uncommon for the machine to reject cards due to some imperceptible bending or folding in them. Then one had to do that card over again. The only computer we could access was in Delhi university [some 17 km from CSD] and someone had to physically take the bundle of cards to feed them into the computer, wait for its processing [snail pace by today's standards] and bring back the results. This tedious process would have to repeated till there was nothing wrong with the cards. Most often our computer man, Venkatraman, would go, and occasionally, I would accompany him to process my thesis data [Prodipto had kindly agreed to let me use the facilities in CSD and our time at the computer for processing these considerably minute amounts of data].
Annaiya went to stay with Tripuri for a while until we got our allotment of a house in Delhi, and we both moved in with Sundara and Prabha. Ramu had thought it would be only for a couple of weeks; instead it turned out to be two monthsWe stayed with Ramu's eldest brother, Sundara, a temporary arrangement till we got our allotment in an appropriate government quarters [all laid down in some bureaucratic rule book – the exact type and location was according to one's rank and seniority!]. It was a very pleasant stay in a large spacious bungalow [also an official allotment]. Prabha and I kept each other company till Sundara and Ramu returned from work.
For two weeks or so after we landed in Delhi, I did not feel upto going to see Prodipto or even call him: the cold had left me so enervated that I just lounged in the house except for occasional walks. When I felt a bit better, the children, Vivek and Kalpana then in their teens, would play badminton with us almost regularly.
After the first week or so, Prabha asked me if I was not going to search for a job. I told her that I had expected one was waiting for me but i had to feel better to go and see about it. Finally, i did call Prodipto Roy, and found him with Gerry Hursh, one of the senior staff of the Growth Centre Project at the Council for Social Development [CSD]office. Immediately, in the characteristic sharp fashion that i was to get to know well, he exclaimed, ' where have you been? We were told you would be back in india nearly a month ago, and we have sent letters to you at your Bangalore address!'
Then he went about describing my job or jobs I should say since I was to be both Sociologist in the multi-disciplinary team and Data Coordinator by default of my having used computers with state of the art technology – punching and verifying cards, using a terminal to the main 360 HP computer in the University!
I had decided to plump for a half-time assignment so that I could complete my thesis dissertation. So, in the midst of his discourse, I ventured to say that I wanted a part-time position, but both Gerry and he flatly told me that was impossible. By then, I had become captivated by the project and I meekly accepted a full-time job, mentally vowing i would still find time to do my dissertation.
I was taken in the double role of Sociologist and Data Coordinator. Along with the rest of the group, but for Prodipto who had anyway his room at CSD, I had a room at the Ford Foundation office but to fulfil my second role, I had to be in CSD and so a room in its basement next to the data processing team – about 8 of them to begin with.
But first we had to plan out our strategies as a group and in the data collection part, work out the questionnaires and field methodolgies. This was all very exciting and as a mixed, mostly young team, we used to have heated discussions about everything. I was again the only woman professional in the team but as in HLL that never even impinged on my relations with the others. Some of them became very good friends.
After i had formally joined, Appa redirected a letter from Ford with the formal job offer. It included the full cost of my travel Delhi with transport of all household effects being paid for. But i found out that this was no longer valid as I had accepted the job from Delhi itself! If, as I had first wanted to, I had stayed on in Bangalore for a few days with Appa, we could have availed of all these benefits. Anyway that was that.
The Growth Centre Idea
The Growth Centre Project [GCP] was a joint one with the Govt. of India, almost all states and union territories, the Ford Foundation [FF] and the CSD [Council for Social Development that Prodipto headed] collaboration. It was part of the National IV five year plan.
The exercise was based on the idea of using natural or created nodes of growth and development with multi-purpose functions, in an optimally dispersed space, to enhance accesssibility, attraction to the hinterland population and small and medium town as well as rural economic growth. Or to put it differently , it was a regional planning exercise to optimise the location and types of links of a set of institutions/services including schools, health centres, agricultural markets and transportation links. It grew out of work done by the UN centre for regional planning in Nagoya, Japan.
Let me elaborate in a broad. even crude way. If a farmer has to sell his produce in a market centre that lies a little way off from his village, it would be good if he could also check up on any health problems he or his family might have in the same place. But this is rarely possible, as these two services may not be found anywhere near each other. Location of various services are decided upon other grounds such as political favour, lack of coordination amongst various departments, a sense of fairness leading to dispersion of facilities. Similarly, schools are located on norms that are distance-based, but the transportation might not exist between a middle or high school and the villages it is supposed to serve. In some cases, there are unfordable streams or difficult hills and so the distance actually is much more. Ditto for health centres.
If the locational optimisation takes place, such centres would become the hub of local regional development and thus be 'growth centres'. This was the genesis of our project.
The project was funded by the Ford Foundation and technically run by CSD. A huge multi-disciplinary staff at Delhi and teams attached for the most part to academic or quasi-academic institutions in most states and union territories, were being assembled to run this project. Finally, we had 20 field projects in various Community Development blocks spread over the country and a number of capable and interesting personnae in charge of some of them.
The GCP team was large and multidisciplinary in its thinking and its personnel – urban and regional planners, sociologists [Prodipto, another and myself], economists, geographer, computer specialist, etc. I had a dual role as I was also the data coordinator., supervising a team of about 12-`4 people, Correspondingly, I had two offices, one in FF where the rest of the professionals were located, except Prodipto who remained in his own CSD office, and another in CSD where the punchers and verifiers worked.
Those were still the days of the main frame computers that were typically housed in a/c rooms. One had to punch cards in a punching machine that converted data into a binary code and after verifying to see that no mistakes had occurred, the cards were fed into this computer with a program telling it what to do with the data. It was not uncommon for the machine to reject cards due to some imperceptible bending or folding in them. Then one had to do that card over again. The only computer we could access was in Delhi university [some 17 km from CSD] and someone had to physically take the bundle of cards to feed them into the computer, wait for its processing [snail pace by today's standards] and bring back the results. This tedious process would have to repeated till there was nothing wrong with the cards. Most often our computer man, Venkatraman, would go, and occasionally, I would accompany him to process my thesis data [Prodipto had kindly agreed to let me use the facilities in CSD and our time at the computer for processing these considerably minute amounts of data].
Delhi Chalo!
We were to land in Chennai and from there, we planned to spend a few days in Bangalore and then on to Pune, where we would await news of Ramu's posting. However, on landing in Chennai, we found his posting order waiting – he had to report asap in Delhi, where he would be Chief Auditor - Commercial [Northern Region].
I still wanted to spend the few days in Bangalore with Appa, but Ramu was worried that I should not further delay the finalisation of my report on the Cooperatives, which had stagnated at the data analysis stage itself for these two years. Now that we knew we would be in Delhi, he was also anxious that we should go there together and soon so that I could avail myself of the possibility of joining Prodipto Roy in a new project that he had told one of my thesis committee, Prof. F. about in response to the latter's query whether he knew of any post that I might be considered for if I were to land in Delhi. If I delayed, the post that they had discussed as being just my cup of tea might be snatched by someone else.
So I reluctantly shortened my visit to the two days that Ramu too spent in Bangalore and we went to Pune together.
Gopala had taken a flat off the centre of town. No sooner had we landed than Sivaram, who had replaced Gabbar Singh as the household Jeeves, fell sick with chicken pox! So Seetha , my sister-in-law [who had come on a short visit], and I had to do all the household work from cooking thrice a day to sweeping and swabbing. Interesting that neither did I ask Ramu to help out, nor did he offer to help, though in the USA he had pitched in to do his share of housework chores and cooking, Now he behaved like the other men, reading, chatting and so on! I believe this was a common experience with many couples who returned after a few years from the west those days, but perhaps the new generation has a different story to tell.
Unfortunately all the travel had taken its toll on me and I had a terrible cold and congestion. I treated this with some Tylenol that I had carried on our return trip. Not that it helped much! But I had no time to fret about this, as we had to semd our household effects to Delhi by train. As the Poona establishment was being closed down, due to Gopala deciding to try his own USA job, there was that too to be finalised.
Soon after reaching Poona, I contacted Iravati Karve, ready to finish the analysis and report on the Cooperatives Study, only to find that the data, processed to a little extent only, was with one of the staff who was just then on an office trip, She would be back only after some weeks; and I could not wait for her return.
I promised Iravati Karve to come down on my first vacation and finish the data analysis while in town, and the report soon thereafter from Delhi.
I still wanted to spend the few days in Bangalore with Appa, but Ramu was worried that I should not further delay the finalisation of my report on the Cooperatives, which had stagnated at the data analysis stage itself for these two years. Now that we knew we would be in Delhi, he was also anxious that we should go there together and soon so that I could avail myself of the possibility of joining Prodipto Roy in a new project that he had told one of my thesis committee, Prof. F. about in response to the latter's query whether he knew of any post that I might be considered for if I were to land in Delhi. If I delayed, the post that they had discussed as being just my cup of tea might be snatched by someone else.
So I reluctantly shortened my visit to the two days that Ramu too spent in Bangalore and we went to Pune together.
Gopala had taken a flat off the centre of town. No sooner had we landed than Sivaram, who had replaced Gabbar Singh as the household Jeeves, fell sick with chicken pox! So Seetha , my sister-in-law [who had come on a short visit], and I had to do all the household work from cooking thrice a day to sweeping and swabbing. Interesting that neither did I ask Ramu to help out, nor did he offer to help, though in the USA he had pitched in to do his share of housework chores and cooking, Now he behaved like the other men, reading, chatting and so on! I believe this was a common experience with many couples who returned after a few years from the west those days, but perhaps the new generation has a different story to tell.
Unfortunately all the travel had taken its toll on me and I had a terrible cold and congestion. I treated this with some Tylenol that I had carried on our return trip. Not that it helped much! But I had no time to fret about this, as we had to semd our household effects to Delhi by train. As the Poona establishment was being closed down, due to Gopala deciding to try his own USA job, there was that too to be finalised.
Soon after reaching Poona, I contacted Iravati Karve, ready to finish the analysis and report on the Cooperatives Study, only to find that the data, processed to a little extent only, was with one of the staff who was just then on an office trip, She would be back only after some weeks; and I could not wait for her return.
I promised Iravati Karve to come down on my first vacation and finish the data analysis while in town, and the report soon thereafter from Delhi.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Good bye to Urbana
We left Urbana at the beginning of 71, in the month of February. SRL's goodbye present was a fondue pot – they had heard my ecstasy whenever fondues were on the menu at any dinner! Gita bought our staunch bug [she had to recondition the engine some time later, but still sold it for a good price when she, in turn, left Urbana]. Other small items were easy to dispose of in a student community and we did decide to take back our 110 volt small kitchen appliances and bakeware – they served me well over the next decade.
It was still winter, and the threat of snow and hail hung over our heads when we set off from Chicago in the car we were driving to Los Angles under the 'Drive a Car' scheme. How we found out about this scheme is now hazy but apparently it was quite an established practice. A person wants a car sent to a far-off place within the country and does not want to drive it himself/herself and so an agency arranges for it to be driven by someone else, who thus gets free transport across the country. Perhaps variations on the scheme exist, but the one we had handed over the car with a tank full of gas [petrol], and we had to put in whatever was further needed for the trip. We were authrised to get any repairs under 50 $ done and claim reimbursement later, but if more than that, we had to get the permission of the agency who footed the bill, if they felt it was valid. A calculation was made as to how long one could be expected to go on a full driving day and nearly half that time again was added for either unforeseen delays or small detours. So we had ten days in which to do a seven-day trip [assuming one drove at least ten hours daily].
The scheme did not operate from Urbana but from Chicago. So, to arrange the trip, we had to run up to Chicago and prove we had valid driving licences without any accident record on them, be tested for eyesight and agree on the date and destination. We planned to fly out from San Francisco, but there were no vehicle deliveries to that area around that time, only to Los Angles. This was fine with us as we wanted to see a bit of the west coast also before we left the country.
The route we decided upon was via Salt Lake City in Utah State, the Utah and Zion National parks in the same state, Grand Canyon, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. We took turns at driving and the one who was the passenger at the time often lay flat on the back seat to rest, if not sleep. I had bought some heavy wool, mammoth needles [sizes 25 and 50!] and used my free time to knit away. I actually finshed a heavy sweater for Ramu and was half way to completing my sweater tunic. What i would have done with these if we had ended up in Rajamundhry or some such overheated place with Ramu being posted there, I don't know!
The first several days went off smoothly and we were able to enjoy the sightseeing, and get a decent night 's rest most days. We did have one scare the second day, as we drove along the near-deserted highway before entering Utah. A car came up the wrong way from a side turn-off and Ramu had to swerve wildly to avoid it. Our car skidded madly on the snow and ice-covered road, and as it stopped, it was facing the wrong way! Luckily, it was late at night and there was absolutely no traffic. Shaken to the core, R righted the car and we went, a trifle slower than normal on such an empty road, even in those conditions.
The great Mormon temple in Salt Lake City is a great building and there were many other architectural beauties in the town. As for the national parks, their breathtaking and unique scenery confronted us at every turn. We were driving to our rest stop in between the Grand Canyon and las Vegas when we realised something was wrong with the car. It would not pick up speed at all. We stopped in a small Arizona town and found one mechanic open. He said he would have to change something and it would cost nearly a hundred bucks. So we put a collect call to the agency, and he explained to them what had happened. We could guess from his replies that they were checking if the problem was our fault, but when reassured, they told him to go ahead and bill them.
We had made up our minds that at Las Vegas, we would together gamble upto 20 $ [!!] - even that was a lot for us! So after dinner, we sailed out to the gambling casinos and tried all the easy machines. We did at some point gain something, but soon we lost all the 20+ we now had, and quite satisfied with our experience, we stopped at that. I must add that somehow I did not care for this garish town. Moreover, the casinos were noisy and smoky, and after the novelty wore off, we had had enough for a lifetime.
The rest of the trip was uneventful and we went from place to place by air, once we dropped the car off. We did see the Redwood trees in yet another national park near LA, and the famous sights in LA – Hollywood, Disneyland, the museums, etc. San Diego was quaint in its difference from LA, and we loved the Sea Life Aquarium. The Bay Area, our last stop on the mainland, was full of interesting sights – the Lawrence Centre for Science in Berkeley, the various museums of SFO, including Ripley's Believe or Not, its Golden Gate Park, its trams, the Crookedest Street on Earth, and Fisherman's Wharf. It was at the Wharf that we first tasted Mexican fare, and fell in love with it. If only this cuisine had spread to the rest of the States even then – our eating out those two and a half years would have been so enjoyable!
Our whirlwind sightseeing next took us to Honolulu, where we did the usual touristy things, and Japan. Our first day out in Tokyo, we set out walking down a crowded street, looking for a restaurant that might serve something vegetarian. Interestingly, the practice was for restaurants to display models of the various dishes they offered, and this way, we could narrow down our choices.
Later, having lost our way back to the hotel, we found the language barrier daunting. Then we spotted a gentleman dressed in very Western style, and asked him the direction. He just bowed, and we politely bowed in return as we had read in the small guide book that we should. He promptly bowed again, and so did we. After the fourth or fifth round, I was straining to stifle my giggles, and I exclaimed,'we will die doing this for ever!' So we decided we should stop bowing, and immediately he did so too! After all this, he was not in the least bit able to understand, let alone, direct us. We gave up asking anyone, and somehow got back to our hotel.
Another very interesting experience was our stay at a Rokoyan or Japanese style lodge in Osaka. The typical mat-covered floors, shoes replaced at the entrance by soft slippers the hosts had provided, rooms separated by paper partitions, and low furniture gave the place a picture book feeling. Not so the live little fish that wiggled as the centre-piece on the tray holding the Japanese style breakfast that we foolhardily ordered. I screamed and almost jumped high enough to touch the ceiling. The next day we retreated to the safe European style breakfast!
Osaka is very modern and its lovely covered market is fantastic – entirely for pedestrians, and even in the still cold spring, the sunlight filtered through the glass paneled roof and kept us warmer than on the streets. We enjoyed the bullet trains from and to Tokyo and Osaka, and could not stop admiring the orderly queues and dignity of the huge crowds on the platform.
The only bit of old Japan that we saw was Kyoto, a short trip from Osaka. Once a capital of the country, it had a lovely Japanese style garden and temple. We unfortunately did not see much of natural beauty other than just before leaving Japan, we had a chance to see the lovely cherry blossoms around the palace in Tokyo.
I think we stopped over at both Hongkong and Singapore on the last leg of our trip, but memories of those places are faint, probably because we have been to them later too, and often. Of course sometimes it has been only to spend time at the airport fort a connection, but of that later.
It was still winter, and the threat of snow and hail hung over our heads when we set off from Chicago in the car we were driving to Los Angles under the 'Drive a Car' scheme. How we found out about this scheme is now hazy but apparently it was quite an established practice. A person wants a car sent to a far-off place within the country and does not want to drive it himself/herself and so an agency arranges for it to be driven by someone else, who thus gets free transport across the country. Perhaps variations on the scheme exist, but the one we had handed over the car with a tank full of gas [petrol], and we had to put in whatever was further needed for the trip. We were authrised to get any repairs under 50 $ done and claim reimbursement later, but if more than that, we had to get the permission of the agency who footed the bill, if they felt it was valid. A calculation was made as to how long one could be expected to go on a full driving day and nearly half that time again was added for either unforeseen delays or small detours. So we had ten days in which to do a seven-day trip [assuming one drove at least ten hours daily].
The scheme did not operate from Urbana but from Chicago. So, to arrange the trip, we had to run up to Chicago and prove we had valid driving licences without any accident record on them, be tested for eyesight and agree on the date and destination. We planned to fly out from San Francisco, but there were no vehicle deliveries to that area around that time, only to Los Angles. This was fine with us as we wanted to see a bit of the west coast also before we left the country.
The route we decided upon was via Salt Lake City in Utah State, the Utah and Zion National parks in the same state, Grand Canyon, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. We took turns at driving and the one who was the passenger at the time often lay flat on the back seat to rest, if not sleep. I had bought some heavy wool, mammoth needles [sizes 25 and 50!] and used my free time to knit away. I actually finshed a heavy sweater for Ramu and was half way to completing my sweater tunic. What i would have done with these if we had ended up in Rajamundhry or some such overheated place with Ramu being posted there, I don't know!
The first several days went off smoothly and we were able to enjoy the sightseeing, and get a decent night 's rest most days. We did have one scare the second day, as we drove along the near-deserted highway before entering Utah. A car came up the wrong way from a side turn-off and Ramu had to swerve wildly to avoid it. Our car skidded madly on the snow and ice-covered road, and as it stopped, it was facing the wrong way! Luckily, it was late at night and there was absolutely no traffic. Shaken to the core, R righted the car and we went, a trifle slower than normal on such an empty road, even in those conditions.
The great Mormon temple in Salt Lake City is a great building and there were many other architectural beauties in the town. As for the national parks, their breathtaking and unique scenery confronted us at every turn. We were driving to our rest stop in between the Grand Canyon and las Vegas when we realised something was wrong with the car. It would not pick up speed at all. We stopped in a small Arizona town and found one mechanic open. He said he would have to change something and it would cost nearly a hundred bucks. So we put a collect call to the agency, and he explained to them what had happened. We could guess from his replies that they were checking if the problem was our fault, but when reassured, they told him to go ahead and bill them.
We had made up our minds that at Las Vegas, we would together gamble upto 20 $ [!!] - even that was a lot for us! So after dinner, we sailed out to the gambling casinos and tried all the easy machines. We did at some point gain something, but soon we lost all the 20+ we now had, and quite satisfied with our experience, we stopped at that. I must add that somehow I did not care for this garish town. Moreover, the casinos were noisy and smoky, and after the novelty wore off, we had had enough for a lifetime.
The rest of the trip was uneventful and we went from place to place by air, once we dropped the car off. We did see the Redwood trees in yet another national park near LA, and the famous sights in LA – Hollywood, Disneyland, the museums, etc. San Diego was quaint in its difference from LA, and we loved the Sea Life Aquarium. The Bay Area, our last stop on the mainland, was full of interesting sights – the Lawrence Centre for Science in Berkeley, the various museums of SFO, including Ripley's Believe or Not, its Golden Gate Park, its trams, the Crookedest Street on Earth, and Fisherman's Wharf. It was at the Wharf that we first tasted Mexican fare, and fell in love with it. If only this cuisine had spread to the rest of the States even then – our eating out those two and a half years would have been so enjoyable!
Our whirlwind sightseeing next took us to Honolulu, where we did the usual touristy things, and Japan. Our first day out in Tokyo, we set out walking down a crowded street, looking for a restaurant that might serve something vegetarian. Interestingly, the practice was for restaurants to display models of the various dishes they offered, and this way, we could narrow down our choices.
Later, having lost our way back to the hotel, we found the language barrier daunting. Then we spotted a gentleman dressed in very Western style, and asked him the direction. He just bowed, and we politely bowed in return as we had read in the small guide book that we should. He promptly bowed again, and so did we. After the fourth or fifth round, I was straining to stifle my giggles, and I exclaimed,'we will die doing this for ever!' So we decided we should stop bowing, and immediately he did so too! After all this, he was not in the least bit able to understand, let alone, direct us. We gave up asking anyone, and somehow got back to our hotel.
Another very interesting experience was our stay at a Rokoyan or Japanese style lodge in Osaka. The typical mat-covered floors, shoes replaced at the entrance by soft slippers the hosts had provided, rooms separated by paper partitions, and low furniture gave the place a picture book feeling. Not so the live little fish that wiggled as the centre-piece on the tray holding the Japanese style breakfast that we foolhardily ordered. I screamed and almost jumped high enough to touch the ceiling. The next day we retreated to the safe European style breakfast!
Osaka is very modern and its lovely covered market is fantastic – entirely for pedestrians, and even in the still cold spring, the sunlight filtered through the glass paneled roof and kept us warmer than on the streets. We enjoyed the bullet trains from and to Tokyo and Osaka, and could not stop admiring the orderly queues and dignity of the huge crowds on the platform.
The only bit of old Japan that we saw was Kyoto, a short trip from Osaka. Once a capital of the country, it had a lovely Japanese style garden and temple. We unfortunately did not see much of natural beauty other than just before leaving Japan, we had a chance to see the lovely cherry blossoms around the palace in Tokyo.
I think we stopped over at both Hongkong and Singapore on the last leg of our trip, but memories of those places are faint, probably because we have been to them later too, and often. Of course sometimes it has been only to spend time at the airport fort a connection, but of that later.
A Siddem amd Rude Shock
Back in urbana, i got to the report on our preliminary investigations and agreements with the three researchers in the countries concerned. Seymour and Dr. F vetted it and sent it off to USAID and the funders of our trip. Then i sat back to await news of the grant approval though not too anxiously, as it was USAID itself that had wanted the project and SRL was not in the habit of having its projects rejected. It had passed through Seymour's and RF's keen scrutiny, and that was good enough, i thought. So one day, when Dr. F came around with a rather sympathetic look and broke the news to Seymour and me that the project had not been approved, we were stunned. The reasons had nothing to do with the intrinsic merits of our proposal, but two events that changed the whole scenario. Nixon axed USAID's budget suddenly, and so some projects on the anvil had to go. On top of that, the head of whatever section it was that had wanted this project was replaced, and the new person was not at all interested in the subject, and he happily gave it up!
Landing me in the soup! I had invested so much of my hopes, energies and time in the proposal with the full expectation that it would be my thesis topic that I felt totally deflated. I just could not countenance the idea of working on a new topic from scratch. This was not only my own brainchild to begin with, and one that fortuitously coincided with a donor's interests, but our preliminary trip and contacts and agreements had gone far beyond the usual first steps for any thesis.
I bluntly told Seymour that no way was I was going to do any more primary research or hypothesising. I would delve into SRL data and fit what i could find to suit my tailor-made hypothesis. He was not too happy or even sanguine i would be able to do it. But somehow twisting and turning the data, I did produce a relationship. I found it quite difficult to convince my committee to accept this poor substitute, but more due to verbal jousting than logic, I now feel, i did manage to pass through that very respectable array of professors. It was a cop-out and I did not care!
I hated my new topic – it was so puerile, I am even now ashamed of it! i did use some trends in consumer choices of household durable purchases in lieu of my sociologically and developmentally worthy probe that was planned on adoption of new foods. i am sure this dislike had a lot to do with my dragging out the entire process. I was finally able to defend my thesis only eight years later! But there were other factors too.
Ramu's thesis topic was also accepted by his committee but at this point he decided we had to return to India the next semester, i.e. by the beginning of 71. This was partly due to his leave period expiring about that time, and partly due to a feeling that we could write up our dissertations on our own and submit for approval. Our respective guides tried to dissuade us, warning that students who planned to complete their dissertations in absentia generally never did so, due to the competing pressures in the outer world. I was a bit swayed by this argument and suggested that Ramu could explain to the govt. and get an extension. But he was keen and so we assured them blithely, we had more will power and would soon finish our work to their satisfaction.
Landing me in the soup! I had invested so much of my hopes, energies and time in the proposal with the full expectation that it would be my thesis topic that I felt totally deflated. I just could not countenance the idea of working on a new topic from scratch. This was not only my own brainchild to begin with, and one that fortuitously coincided with a donor's interests, but our preliminary trip and contacts and agreements had gone far beyond the usual first steps for any thesis.
I bluntly told Seymour that no way was I was going to do any more primary research or hypothesising. I would delve into SRL data and fit what i could find to suit my tailor-made hypothesis. He was not too happy or even sanguine i would be able to do it. But somehow twisting and turning the data, I did produce a relationship. I found it quite difficult to convince my committee to accept this poor substitute, but more due to verbal jousting than logic, I now feel, i did manage to pass through that very respectable array of professors. It was a cop-out and I did not care!
I hated my new topic – it was so puerile, I am even now ashamed of it! i did use some trends in consumer choices of household durable purchases in lieu of my sociologically and developmentally worthy probe that was planned on adoption of new foods. i am sure this dislike had a lot to do with my dragging out the entire process. I was finally able to defend my thesis only eight years later! But there were other factors too.
Ramu's thesis topic was also accepted by his committee but at this point he decided we had to return to India the next semester, i.e. by the beginning of 71. This was partly due to his leave period expiring about that time, and partly due to a feeling that we could write up our dissertations on our own and submit for approval. Our respective guides tried to dissuade us, warning that students who planned to complete their dissertations in absentia generally never did so, due to the competing pressures in the outer world. I was a bit swayed by this argument and suggested that Ramu could explain to the govt. and get an extension. But he was keen and so we assured them blithely, we had more will power and would soon finish our work to their satisfaction.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
The Grand Tour
Meantime, Ramu and I had both taken our prelim exams that were equivalent to a Master's degree but since we both had this degree already from India, we did not bother to register for that. By now, our sights were firmly set on the Ph.D. - we meant to start on that in right earnest once summer vacation was over. The sudden three country trip that I had to undertake led to a new decision - to take a brief holiday in Europe after my officail travel ended with Iran. Babu and Prabha were then working in UK and they decided they would join us. They were to come by road in his car, and we would join them in or near Frankfurt, where I would land after Teheran.
Ramu found an extremely cheap fare via Icelandic air, and despite my touching exotic places such as Iran and the Phillipines, I was envious of his short stopover in Reykjavik. He did have enough time there to see its famous hot springs that heat the entire town during winter, and serve as spas otherwise. He got off at Luxembourg, but had no time to see any of that tiny principality.
When we set about getting our visas and tickets, the local travel agent who was arranging these told us we did not need visas at all for any of the six countries we planned to touch. Amazed, we reminded him of our nationality but he assured us that there had been a recent relaxation of the rules. So, after landing in Frankfurt, I took a train to Cologne, a short hop away, where I met Ramu and later, Prabha, the one coming from Luxembourg and the other by boat across the channel and train, I think. And Babu? He had to drop out due to work pressures, and with him went the car trip too.
Despite the scaffolding all around it, the cathedral at Cologne's facade was magnificent and inside, too, it was glorious. We took a boat trip to Heidelberg next. It was a fascinating town- said to have the oldest university and press in Europe. The university was a castle-like place, with dank prisons where students who defaulted on their studies etc. were punished by putting them for several days on a diet of bread and water!
We also saw huge barrels of wine in this town. It was perhaps that first evening that we were confronted with a menu card all in German. I had with me a German-French tourist dictionary and so volunteered to help out.. ok, I found the word for chicken that Prabha wanted and some veggie dish for R and me, grandly ordered it, and lo and behold the waiter brought us in some minutes a plate of fish and a veggie dish alright but totally different from what I ordered! I had in my hurried rendering of my translation abilities, ordered poisson mistaking it for chicken [poulet in French]! How the veggie dish got transformed into a barely edible mess I don't know.
We had so much difficulty in getting veggie food in Germany and even for P the available choices were so costly that we resorted to going to a grocery daily thereafter for our lunches, and picking up some bread or rolls, cheese, fruit and a yoghurt, juice or beer – this last for r and occasionally Prabha. it was much quicker too, which matters when one is sightseeing.
Our cruise down the Rhine was most enjoyable taking us down to Heidelberg and Stuttgart. H has the oldest university in Europe dating from the 15th century [the Renaissance and Reformation period], with some strange features. The tourist is taken to the students' prison that recalcitrant students were thrown in, fed on bread and water for days! The graffiti on the prison walls was most revealing of the types of 'crimes' the students were punished for – certainly almost every modern student would have ended up in incarceration if they were considered such today.
Heidelberg also houses an old brewery, a fascinating sight with its huge wooden barrels and vats for beer brewing. A quaint town, one of pleasantest we saw on the trip. Stuttgart was also a good visit, thoroughly modern with lovely gardens, museums and good walks. For us three, it is more memorable however for our little drama at a local grocery. As usual, we were picking up our lunch, but when we handled the apples from a pile, the shopkeeper came gesticulating and spewing an angry barrage of German. Naturally we did not understand much but gathered that we were not to touch anything – he would give us what we wanted himself. So, one of us showed three fingers pointing at the apple pile. To our horror, he took a brown bag and put in huge quantities and weighed us three kilos of it! We violently shook our heads and pointed to each one of us and the apples , still keeping aloft three fingers. O.K., here are three bags of three kilos each! Our faces and shoulders drooped in such despair that he got the point and disgorged all the apples back, looking angrier than before, if that was possible. Then one of us had an idea – show the brown bag already filled with rolls and cheese and point to the garden nearby and gesture as if eating and then show one finger and point to each one of us, and finally make as if to eat an apple. Now, he got it and put three apples in one bag; seeing us smile our acceptance, he too beamed and now talked in pleasant tones as he took the money. Whew, that was quite an experience in sign language!
From Stuttgart, we made our journey by train. Our next and final stop in Germany was the mediveal town of Munich famous for its beer halls. We had to experience that though only Ramu ordered a mug of it. A man sitting next to us got to chatting with us in English, and he insisted that we were insulting Munich and its most famous beer hall by not tasting its most famous product. So Prabha ordered a mug, but the face she made at the first sip was a give away. Still, our friend asked her how it was, and when she replied that it was terrible, he got really angry! We were happy he did not assault us to uphold the honour of his city!
Off to Salzburg in Austria; but at the border immigration stop, the Austrian officials shook their heads at our passports and said 'naughty, naughty' at our lack of visas but stamped a tourist one for a small fee, all this quite pleasantly. Pleased at this, we spent an enchanted time in Mozart's home town, which is also the locale of the 'Sound of Music' story, including an unforgettable descent into a disused salt mine in a speeding salt train. Train? Rather a set of open trolleys that plunged down the precipitous rails meant to transport the mined salt as well as workers. Several of us were herded into this holding the person before one tightly. Our screams as we hurtled down were quite piercingly impressive. We ended this short Austrian visit with a charming puppet show that Mozart had composed /created.
Next country on our list was Switzerland where again the immigration, this time a bit stern, chided us but issued our tourist visas. Cursing the travel agent, we vowed never to trust one again! After a few most pleasant days in Zurich, we took the train to Paris . Instead of waking up next morning in this dream city, we found ourselves awakened at the border at around midnight somewhere on the border. Trouble once again, and this time the immigration police were quite brusque. We could not convince them at all, and were rudely ejected out on to the platform in what we learnt was a town called Basel , till then not even a name to us. Somehow we found a taxi that took us to some modest hotel and we tumbled into bed exhausted for a few hours of sleep. [we later learnt the French had been increasingly plagued by illegal Indian and Pakistani immigrants]
As luck would have it, all this had happened on Saturday night, and we cursed the travel agent even more! Now the task of getting a French visa had to wait for Monday. The only 'new' sight in town was the zoo and rather dispiritedly we wound our way there. It turned out to be a great zoo and we forgot our disappointment and anger enjoying it. Thereafter getting the visa on Monday morning and taking the train that afternoon were just a breeze. The French visa was amazingly easy to get. Now delayed by a day and a half, we trundled into Paris. Once again, for R and myself, the sights of this fairy-tale city unfolded and this time we went to Versailles also.
Even the veggie food was delicious, beyond compare with what Germany could offer. However, it was almost next to impossible to get a glass of water in any restaurant. The waiters either gave us strange or dirty looks. Not that they could have thought of us as cheapskates, as they could only give us mineral water and that was costlier than wine.
Our final tourist stop was Brussels. Apart from the Pissing Boy Statue, we visited a Centre for African Studies, and its museum for which we had to take a delightful tram ride nto a forest. The museum was also very interesting. Well, our European adventures were over at this point. Prabha took a ferry train from Brussels back to London, and Ramu a train to Luxembourg en route to the USA. I had added London on my ticket as I wanted to visit Babu for a day, before I in turn left for Urbana.
Landing at Heathrow airport, I was in for a grim shock. The immigration authorities were convinced I was a potential illegal immigrant. A thousand questions – why was I coming only for a day? Why did I not get a visa or work permit [no matter that being a citizen of a Commonwealth country, was not supposed to need one for just a short stay] . I showed all my papers, tickets, U of I id and credit cards, and explained all I could, but he would not budge. Then in exasperation I said, 'Alright, I do not want to come into your country. But then you must fetch my nephew who has, I know, been patiently standing outside waiting for me. I will just give him a hug and go back'. That seemed to finally break his resistance, and he allowed me through!
I had asked Babu to book tickets for us for a play, but he could or did not. Luckily so, for immediately we got to his place I fell asleep for so long we were barely able to make it to a simple dinner.
Ramu found an extremely cheap fare via Icelandic air, and despite my touching exotic places such as Iran and the Phillipines, I was envious of his short stopover in Reykjavik. He did have enough time there to see its famous hot springs that heat the entire town during winter, and serve as spas otherwise. He got off at Luxembourg, but had no time to see any of that tiny principality.
When we set about getting our visas and tickets, the local travel agent who was arranging these told us we did not need visas at all for any of the six countries we planned to touch. Amazed, we reminded him of our nationality but he assured us that there had been a recent relaxation of the rules. So, after landing in Frankfurt, I took a train to Cologne, a short hop away, where I met Ramu and later, Prabha, the one coming from Luxembourg and the other by boat across the channel and train, I think. And Babu? He had to drop out due to work pressures, and with him went the car trip too.
Despite the scaffolding all around it, the cathedral at Cologne's facade was magnificent and inside, too, it was glorious. We took a boat trip to Heidelberg next. It was a fascinating town- said to have the oldest university and press in Europe. The university was a castle-like place, with dank prisons where students who defaulted on their studies etc. were punished by putting them for several days on a diet of bread and water!
We also saw huge barrels of wine in this town. It was perhaps that first evening that we were confronted with a menu card all in German. I had with me a German-French tourist dictionary and so volunteered to help out.. ok, I found the word for chicken that Prabha wanted and some veggie dish for R and me, grandly ordered it, and lo and behold the waiter brought us in some minutes a plate of fish and a veggie dish alright but totally different from what I ordered! I had in my hurried rendering of my translation abilities, ordered poisson mistaking it for chicken [poulet in French]! How the veggie dish got transformed into a barely edible mess I don't know.
We had so much difficulty in getting veggie food in Germany and even for P the available choices were so costly that we resorted to going to a grocery daily thereafter for our lunches, and picking up some bread or rolls, cheese, fruit and a yoghurt, juice or beer – this last for r and occasionally Prabha. it was much quicker too, which matters when one is sightseeing.
Our cruise down the Rhine was most enjoyable taking us down to Heidelberg and Stuttgart. H has the oldest university in Europe dating from the 15th century [the Renaissance and Reformation period], with some strange features. The tourist is taken to the students' prison that recalcitrant students were thrown in, fed on bread and water for days! The graffiti on the prison walls was most revealing of the types of 'crimes' the students were punished for – certainly almost every modern student would have ended up in incarceration if they were considered such today.
Heidelberg also houses an old brewery, a fascinating sight with its huge wooden barrels and vats for beer brewing. A quaint town, one of pleasantest we saw on the trip. Stuttgart was also a good visit, thoroughly modern with lovely gardens, museums and good walks. For us three, it is more memorable however for our little drama at a local grocery. As usual, we were picking up our lunch, but when we handled the apples from a pile, the shopkeeper came gesticulating and spewing an angry barrage of German. Naturally we did not understand much but gathered that we were not to touch anything – he would give us what we wanted himself. So, one of us showed three fingers pointing at the apple pile. To our horror, he took a brown bag and put in huge quantities and weighed us three kilos of it! We violently shook our heads and pointed to each one of us and the apples , still keeping aloft three fingers. O.K., here are three bags of three kilos each! Our faces and shoulders drooped in such despair that he got the point and disgorged all the apples back, looking angrier than before, if that was possible. Then one of us had an idea – show the brown bag already filled with rolls and cheese and point to the garden nearby and gesture as if eating and then show one finger and point to each one of us, and finally make as if to eat an apple. Now, he got it and put three apples in one bag; seeing us smile our acceptance, he too beamed and now talked in pleasant tones as he took the money. Whew, that was quite an experience in sign language!
From Stuttgart, we made our journey by train. Our next and final stop in Germany was the mediveal town of Munich famous for its beer halls. We had to experience that though only Ramu ordered a mug of it. A man sitting next to us got to chatting with us in English, and he insisted that we were insulting Munich and its most famous beer hall by not tasting its most famous product. So Prabha ordered a mug, but the face she made at the first sip was a give away. Still, our friend asked her how it was, and when she replied that it was terrible, he got really angry! We were happy he did not assault us to uphold the honour of his city!
Off to Salzburg in Austria; but at the border immigration stop, the Austrian officials shook their heads at our passports and said 'naughty, naughty' at our lack of visas but stamped a tourist one for a small fee, all this quite pleasantly. Pleased at this, we spent an enchanted time in Mozart's home town, which is also the locale of the 'Sound of Music' story, including an unforgettable descent into a disused salt mine in a speeding salt train. Train? Rather a set of open trolleys that plunged down the precipitous rails meant to transport the mined salt as well as workers. Several of us were herded into this holding the person before one tightly. Our screams as we hurtled down were quite piercingly impressive. We ended this short Austrian visit with a charming puppet show that Mozart had composed /created.
Next country on our list was Switzerland where again the immigration, this time a bit stern, chided us but issued our tourist visas. Cursing the travel agent, we vowed never to trust one again! After a few most pleasant days in Zurich, we took the train to Paris . Instead of waking up next morning in this dream city, we found ourselves awakened at the border at around midnight somewhere on the border. Trouble once again, and this time the immigration police were quite brusque. We could not convince them at all, and were rudely ejected out on to the platform in what we learnt was a town called Basel , till then not even a name to us. Somehow we found a taxi that took us to some modest hotel and we tumbled into bed exhausted for a few hours of sleep. [we later learnt the French had been increasingly plagued by illegal Indian and Pakistani immigrants]
As luck would have it, all this had happened on Saturday night, and we cursed the travel agent even more! Now the task of getting a French visa had to wait for Monday. The only 'new' sight in town was the zoo and rather dispiritedly we wound our way there. It turned out to be a great zoo and we forgot our disappointment and anger enjoying it. Thereafter getting the visa on Monday morning and taking the train that afternoon were just a breeze. The French visa was amazingly easy to get. Now delayed by a day and a half, we trundled into Paris. Once again, for R and myself, the sights of this fairy-tale city unfolded and this time we went to Versailles also.
Even the veggie food was delicious, beyond compare with what Germany could offer. However, it was almost next to impossible to get a glass of water in any restaurant. The waiters either gave us strange or dirty looks. Not that they could have thought of us as cheapskates, as they could only give us mineral water and that was costlier than wine.
Our final tourist stop was Brussels. Apart from the Pissing Boy Statue, we visited a Centre for African Studies, and its museum for which we had to take a delightful tram ride nto a forest. The museum was also very interesting. Well, our European adventures were over at this point. Prabha took a ferry train from Brussels back to London, and Ramu a train to Luxembourg en route to the USA. I had added London on my ticket as I wanted to visit Babu for a day, before I in turn left for Urbana.
Landing at Heathrow airport, I was in for a grim shock. The immigration authorities were convinced I was a potential illegal immigrant. A thousand questions – why was I coming only for a day? Why did I not get a visa or work permit [no matter that being a citizen of a Commonwealth country, was not supposed to need one for just a short stay] . I showed all my papers, tickets, U of I id and credit cards, and explained all I could, but he would not budge. Then in exasperation I said, 'Alright, I do not want to come into your country. But then you must fetch my nephew who has, I know, been patiently standing outside waiting for me. I will just give him a hug and go back'. That seemed to finally break his resistance, and he allowed me through!
I had asked Babu to book tickets for us for a play, but he could or did not. Luckily so, for immediately we got to his place I fell asleep for so long we were barely able to make it to a simple dinner.
Grand Plans for my Thesis
It was during the second year of our u of I life that RF announced at a staff meeting that USAID had sent round a circular asking universities if anyone was interested in taking up a project on 'Attitudes to New Foods in Developing Countries'. Almost before he finished, Seymour shot back,' yes, we should take it up – Padmini already has the outline of this project!' he then went on to explain to the group my class project of the previous year, and how I could develop it as my dissertation topic.
RF sent in the acceptance reply and Seymour and I got to work on the detailed proposal. We found out that USAID was interested specifically in attitudes to cow peas in Iran and the hybrid rice varieties in India and the Philippines. It was ideal for me. I would myself do fieldwork in India under a local guide for my thesis while collaborating with research scholars in the other two countries, and Seymour would be the overall coordinator. The next few days we went into a huddle and worked up my class paper into a pukka proposal with deadlines, activity plans and budget.
With summer approaching, we had initial favorable reactions from USAID, and were planning to write to our potential counterparts in the three countries when we suddenly had another piece of good luck. A consortium of Mid-West Universities grant was announced for preparatory work including travel on research proposals from institutions in the area. We applied for it and quite quickly found the two of us funded for travel to all three countries to firm up our proposal. We modified our letters to the three academics abroad, telling them we would meet them in person during summer to work out the orientation and scope of the study, as also their involvement in it.
Seymour and I found all three academics very interested in our proposed collaboration – Dr. Celia in the University of Phillipines in Quezon City, Dr. Prodipto Roy in the Council for Social Development in New Delhi, and a professor in Teheran. We tied up with Prodipto to be my local thesis guide. We also went to Poona, to contact possible collaborators in the Deccan College for the field work/thesis.
The Poona trip helped me meet Annaiya and Gopala. I stayed at home while Seymour stayed in a hotel. But I recall his joining us for a meal when I had to warn him not to use his right hand, which had held some 'juta'/'yenjilu'/[impure through contact with the mouth] stuff, for picking up more from the table.
The Shah was still ruling in Iran, and we were able to sight-see freely in Teheran. Gazing at the famous Kohinoor diamond in the museum that Nadir Shah had looted from India centuries ago, I muttered to Seymour, 'this belongs to us!' One other thing I recall is the very westernized attire the urban educated women wore as against the salwar-kameezes of the housemaid class. I drew curious and sometimes scornful glances when I moved around in the more upscale areas, as I was also mostly in s-ks!
RF sent in the acceptance reply and Seymour and I got to work on the detailed proposal. We found out that USAID was interested specifically in attitudes to cow peas in Iran and the hybrid rice varieties in India and the Philippines. It was ideal for me. I would myself do fieldwork in India under a local guide for my thesis while collaborating with research scholars in the other two countries, and Seymour would be the overall coordinator. The next few days we went into a huddle and worked up my class paper into a pukka proposal with deadlines, activity plans and budget.
With summer approaching, we had initial favorable reactions from USAID, and were planning to write to our potential counterparts in the three countries when we suddenly had another piece of good luck. A consortium of Mid-West Universities grant was announced for preparatory work including travel on research proposals from institutions in the area. We applied for it and quite quickly found the two of us funded for travel to all three countries to firm up our proposal. We modified our letters to the three academics abroad, telling them we would meet them in person during summer to work out the orientation and scope of the study, as also their involvement in it.
Seymour and I found all three academics very interested in our proposed collaboration – Dr. Celia in the University of Phillipines in Quezon City, Dr. Prodipto Roy in the Council for Social Development in New Delhi, and a professor in Teheran. We tied up with Prodipto to be my local thesis guide. We also went to Poona, to contact possible collaborators in the Deccan College for the field work/thesis.
The Poona trip helped me meet Annaiya and Gopala. I stayed at home while Seymour stayed in a hotel. But I recall his joining us for a meal when I had to warn him not to use his right hand, which had held some 'juta'/'yenjilu'/[impure through contact with the mouth] stuff, for picking up more from the table.
The Shah was still ruling in Iran, and we were able to sight-see freely in Teheran. Gazing at the famous Kohinoor diamond in the museum that Nadir Shah had looted from India centuries ago, I muttered to Seymour, 'this belongs to us!' One other thing I recall is the very westernized attire the urban educated women wore as against the salwar-kameezes of the housemaid class. I drew curious and sometimes scornful glances when I moved around in the more upscale areas, as I was also mostly in s-ks!
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Cousins Abroad
A Memorable Trip for Greenhorns!
Actually, one of our very first trips was to Indianapolis where Chandru, my cousin, and Bhama lived for a while. We had all the detailed directions from them and reached the outskirts of the city in good time. Then we had to get on the famous Indianapolis highway, a huge circular multi-lane one that encircles the city, with innumerable entries and exits leading to different areas. It was an overwhelming and frightening experience. We passed our exit before we realised we had come anywhere near it, so we continued on the full round till we neared it again! So, carefully, we slowed down, but only to discover that the exit was on the left, while we were in the righmost lane [ we had never experienced such an exit before] and so we had to pass it again. After all, the Indianpolis 500 had at least a half dozen lanes and we could not just veer left [like Bangalore's irresponsible, daredevil bike riders]! So, off we went on our third and luckily our final attempt to get off from the highway, and this time succeeded, to our immense relief.
When we narrated this story to Chandru and Bhama, they had a hearty laugh and he asked us, 'But why did you not get off at the next exit, and turn back in the other direction and exit at the right one?' Our jaws dropped – we had not thought of that possibility at all!
We were more worldly-wise in our next several trips – one to Salem, Il, the home town of Abraham Lincoln was a real eye-opener. It was a whole town museum and looked like one of our rural or small town places, even those that one sees in old photographs of the early 20th century. No cars of course, but horse-drawn buggies; victorian-style long dresses for the genteel ladies and top hats and canes for the men in three piece suits. The house interiors were mind boggling – how quickly had America transformed itself from this pre-industrial look to the modern sleek flats and suburban houses! The utensils in the kitchen and the farm implements were huge, of iron or other metal generally and looked so unwieldy! Time truly stood still in that period scene.
St. Louis, on the other hand, was very modern in its newer architecture, the towering glory of which was the graceful arch near the river Missouri formed by two steel curved pillars. We went there for one of our training sessions and so did not see much, including the low-income areas or downtown.
Officiating at a Hindu Wedding, Us!
Lakshman, my cousin, announced around this time that he was planning to get married to Mary Beth. His parents, Surimama and Rajalskhmimanni, were first dead-set against this, but when he remained adamant, relented enough to suggest they have a Hindu wedding over and above the church ceremony that MB's parents had planned. We went to the church wedding in Louisville, Ky, and had a good time. What we learnt there was that we both had been nominated to conduct the Hindu wedding. A more inappropriate pair could not have been chosen, but then S.mama had no other choice! Those days, the US was not overflowing with our clan as it is now.
So one weekend, L and MB came over to Urbana. We got hold of some suggestions on how to conduct a simple ceremony, just a little more elaborate than our own, and invited a few friends to witness it, as the Shastras dictate. The priest – none other than my other cousin, Balu from Rochester, NY! I somehow managed to drape MB in the nine-yard sari that my aunt and uncle had sent over, and she looked quite resplendent in it. Of course, Lakshman knew how to wear his dhothi without any help from the others. After the brief ceremony, the priest doubled as chef and cooked chicken while I made some veggie dishes!
Actually, one of our very first trips was to Indianapolis where Chandru, my cousin, and Bhama lived for a while. We had all the detailed directions from them and reached the outskirts of the city in good time. Then we had to get on the famous Indianapolis highway, a huge circular multi-lane one that encircles the city, with innumerable entries and exits leading to different areas. It was an overwhelming and frightening experience. We passed our exit before we realised we had come anywhere near it, so we continued on the full round till we neared it again! So, carefully, we slowed down, but only to discover that the exit was on the left, while we were in the righmost lane [ we had never experienced such an exit before] and so we had to pass it again. After all, the Indianpolis 500 had at least a half dozen lanes and we could not just veer left [like Bangalore's irresponsible, daredevil bike riders]! So, off we went on our third and luckily our final attempt to get off from the highway, and this time succeeded, to our immense relief.
When we narrated this story to Chandru and Bhama, they had a hearty laugh and he asked us, 'But why did you not get off at the next exit, and turn back in the other direction and exit at the right one?' Our jaws dropped – we had not thought of that possibility at all!
We were more worldly-wise in our next several trips – one to Salem, Il, the home town of Abraham Lincoln was a real eye-opener. It was a whole town museum and looked like one of our rural or small town places, even those that one sees in old photographs of the early 20th century. No cars of course, but horse-drawn buggies; victorian-style long dresses for the genteel ladies and top hats and canes for the men in three piece suits. The house interiors were mind boggling – how quickly had America transformed itself from this pre-industrial look to the modern sleek flats and suburban houses! The utensils in the kitchen and the farm implements were huge, of iron or other metal generally and looked so unwieldy! Time truly stood still in that period scene.
St. Louis, on the other hand, was very modern in its newer architecture, the towering glory of which was the graceful arch near the river Missouri formed by two steel curved pillars. We went there for one of our training sessions and so did not see much, including the low-income areas or downtown.
Officiating at a Hindu Wedding, Us!
Lakshman, my cousin, announced around this time that he was planning to get married to Mary Beth. His parents, Surimama and Rajalskhmimanni, were first dead-set against this, but when he remained adamant, relented enough to suggest they have a Hindu wedding over and above the church ceremony that MB's parents had planned. We went to the church wedding in Louisville, Ky, and had a good time. What we learnt there was that we both had been nominated to conduct the Hindu wedding. A more inappropriate pair could not have been chosen, but then S.mama had no other choice! Those days, the US was not overflowing with our clan as it is now.
So one weekend, L and MB came over to Urbana. We got hold of some suggestions on how to conduct a simple ceremony, just a little more elaborate than our own, and invited a few friends to witness it, as the Shastras dictate. The priest – none other than my other cousin, Balu from Rochester, NY! I somehow managed to drape MB in the nine-yard sari that my aunt and uncle had sent over, and she looked quite resplendent in it. Of course, Lakshman knew how to wear his dhothi without any help from the others. After the brief ceremony, the priest doubled as chef and cooked chicken while I made some veggie dishes!
Campus Life and Tourism
A threesome.
It was sometime toward the end of '69 that Gita joined the U of I journalism course. She moved in with us and soon we were making fun of her being called 'kattaar' as in additon to the typical south indian practice of having the first letter of her father's name as an initial, she used her ancestral village name as another, again a common practice in our area. Spelt Kutur, with the u pronounced like the oo in 'hoot' . And it was also Ramu's initial, Mugur, similarly pronounced in India and mispronounced here as 'Magaar', that tickled us.
It had become a regular practice for me to come back from work or class and hustle up a dinner. One Tuesday, when I usually came late, and for some reason was further delayed that day, I was hungering to eat soon, only to find both Ramu and Gita serenely reading a book each. Then I gave them an ultimatum. They knew I was late on Tuesdays, didn't they? Well, hereafter I would not prepare dinner on Tuesdays! One of them could. Rather taken aback at this outburst, they quickly made a pasta and this became the new arrangement.
A Footstool is Advertised
One day, soon after we moved into the student housing flat, I saw a notice on the bulletin board about a footstool for one dollar. So I went to that apartment and picked it up. Casually, I asked the woman if she had anything else to sell. Well, she said, their car, a Volkswagen, was available. How much? Two hundred and fifty, she said. I told her I would be back and in a few hours, after ramu and I had a look and a drive in it, the deal was made.
We loved that car and had a lot of fun in it. It was easy to park, and start. In winter, in the open parking lot that the housing unit had, while all others were struggling to get their cars started, our air-cooled engine would roar at first go. But, usually, we had nowhere to go in it during the week, as we could not drive into campus, being considered students. So we had to sit in the still cold car every other day to keep our battery in condition! That made us aware of the one defect our very own 'Herbie' had – its left side [the driver's side]heater was not heating at all. Even after a mechanic tinkered with it, it refused to work. Still we took it on short and long journeys - the east coast in the spring break – New York, staying with Krishna and Arvind in Queens, Washington [where we stayed with R's brother, Nanju and family] and the Niagara falls [there we met up with Balu, my cousin, who was studying in Rochester]. The car behaved beautifully except that on the high altitude roads, the winds were so strong that we felt we might blown away in our puny vehicle any moment. Another problem was the passing by of the monstrous trucks- they seemed to suck our car in, well almost. But we did survive these fearful events.
We were less fortunate with the heater on this as well as on other trips. As we went northwards, the heat was on, but we had to change drivers pretty frequently to avoid having our left leg get so frozen that it might lead to amputation issues!
Another enjoyable trip that summer was our camping trip in our friend Palani's commodious car. We went to Yellowstone, the Badlands in the Dakotas, and Glacier National Park [called International Peace Park in the Canada section]. Such variety in one trip! We bought a tent that the two men would put up in ten minutes flat, while I cooked a simple meal within that time! [Using instant potatoes, dehydrated onions, canned peas/beans and other vegs, minute rice and so on. One day we even had masala dosa with bisquix for the dosa mix]. We found the tent life, with sometimes indifferent toilet and bath facilities, a bit too much to take throughout with the long distances we drove, so we alternated staying in motels to get a real good night's rest and a proper shower. Still, some of the camping sites were quite comfy with all amenities that you could either hook up to or in a common amenity section.
Out in the Dakotas, there was no speed limit and we touched 140 mph on those unbelievably straight roadsm so straight that one might easily fall asleep on while driving. The sign 'next gas station 100 miles' came in view often on these roads,and there was not a soul or a habitation in sight most of the time.
Of all the glorious sights we were treated to on this trip, the serene and clear glacier lakes and hazy mountains of the Glacier National Park were the most breathtaking.
Later that year, Bimal Ganguly, another friend, got his Ph.D. And we had a party to celebrate it at our flat. He brought some champagne, which I had made him promise he would do if he got his degree, but with just a couple of sips, I was sick. And a hangover the next day! I have been wary of champagne ever since.
It was sometime toward the end of '69 that Gita joined the U of I journalism course. She moved in with us and soon we were making fun of her being called 'kattaar' as in additon to the typical south indian practice of having the first letter of her father's name as an initial, she used her ancestral village name as another, again a common practice in our area. Spelt Kutur, with the u pronounced like the oo in 'hoot' . And it was also Ramu's initial, Mugur, similarly pronounced in India and mispronounced here as 'Magaar', that tickled us.
It had become a regular practice for me to come back from work or class and hustle up a dinner. One Tuesday, when I usually came late, and for some reason was further delayed that day, I was hungering to eat soon, only to find both Ramu and Gita serenely reading a book each. Then I gave them an ultimatum. They knew I was late on Tuesdays, didn't they? Well, hereafter I would not prepare dinner on Tuesdays! One of them could. Rather taken aback at this outburst, they quickly made a pasta and this became the new arrangement.
A Footstool is Advertised
One day, soon after we moved into the student housing flat, I saw a notice on the bulletin board about a footstool for one dollar. So I went to that apartment and picked it up. Casually, I asked the woman if she had anything else to sell. Well, she said, their car, a Volkswagen, was available. How much? Two hundred and fifty, she said. I told her I would be back and in a few hours, after ramu and I had a look and a drive in it, the deal was made.
We loved that car and had a lot of fun in it. It was easy to park, and start. In winter, in the open parking lot that the housing unit had, while all others were struggling to get their cars started, our air-cooled engine would roar at first go. But, usually, we had nowhere to go in it during the week, as we could not drive into campus, being considered students. So we had to sit in the still cold car every other day to keep our battery in condition! That made us aware of the one defect our very own 'Herbie' had – its left side [the driver's side]heater was not heating at all. Even after a mechanic tinkered with it, it refused to work. Still we took it on short and long journeys - the east coast in the spring break – New York, staying with Krishna and Arvind in Queens, Washington [where we stayed with R's brother, Nanju and family] and the Niagara falls [there we met up with Balu, my cousin, who was studying in Rochester]. The car behaved beautifully except that on the high altitude roads, the winds were so strong that we felt we might blown away in our puny vehicle any moment. Another problem was the passing by of the monstrous trucks- they seemed to suck our car in, well almost. But we did survive these fearful events.
We were less fortunate with the heater on this as well as on other trips. As we went northwards, the heat was on, but we had to change drivers pretty frequently to avoid having our left leg get so frozen that it might lead to amputation issues!
Another enjoyable trip that summer was our camping trip in our friend Palani's commodious car. We went to Yellowstone, the Badlands in the Dakotas, and Glacier National Park [called International Peace Park in the Canada section]. Such variety in one trip! We bought a tent that the two men would put up in ten minutes flat, while I cooked a simple meal within that time! [Using instant potatoes, dehydrated onions, canned peas/beans and other vegs, minute rice and so on. One day we even had masala dosa with bisquix for the dosa mix]. We found the tent life, with sometimes indifferent toilet and bath facilities, a bit too much to take throughout with the long distances we drove, so we alternated staying in motels to get a real good night's rest and a proper shower. Still, some of the camping sites were quite comfy with all amenities that you could either hook up to or in a common amenity section.
Out in the Dakotas, there was no speed limit and we touched 140 mph on those unbelievably straight roadsm so straight that one might easily fall asleep on while driving. The sign 'next gas station 100 miles' came in view often on these roads,and there was not a soul or a habitation in sight most of the time.
Of all the glorious sights we were treated to on this trip, the serene and clear glacier lakes and hazy mountains of the Glacier National Park were the most breathtaking.
Later that year, Bimal Ganguly, another friend, got his Ph.D. And we had a party to celebrate it at our flat. He brought some champagne, which I had made him promise he would do if he got his degree, but with just a couple of sips, I was sick. And a hangover the next day! I have been wary of champagne ever since.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Other Classes and a Walk in the Cold [Brrrh]
Off campus classes
During the summer semesters, Ramu and I took two interesting classes off-campus. One was on Defensive Driving that has stood me in good stead since, especially in the chaotic Bangalore traffic. The other was on speed reading. This was good too, and we were certified among the fastest readers ever. Sadly, this skill has since deteriorated and I may have entered my slowest reading levels with sinking into UN jargon, trying to make sense of office papers, translating from French or Spanish as I went along reading documents etc.
One of the serendipitous effects of this latter course was that we made friends with an elderly lady, who lived on a farm near Urbana. She invited us to Thanksgiving lunch that year, and we had a good time with her extended family over a groaning table laden with all the festival goodies. There were plenty of veggie dishes as this is a harvest festival, but they ranged from bland to sweetish to sweet, and we felt it was too much of a good thing . We soon got on to the subject of saris and our friend and her mother wanted so much to wear them. So one day they came over to our apartment, and had themselves photographed in their 'fancy dress'!
The Coldest Walk
The winter of '69 saw some pretty cold days. For me the nadir was on the very last day of December, as the weather forecast predicted -51* F with the wind chill factor. I was jealous that Ramu had for some reason did not have to go to work. But I had to, and so I bundled up with layers of clothing, acrylic, wool and cotton, and two pairs of socks and two of gloves too. But despite keeping my hand in my pockets, one thumb was so cold and numb when I reached office after a 30 minute walk that I instinctively tried to warm it at the heater. In a trice, Mary Black, who was luckily then in the room, pulled me away from it to my hurt astonishment. But I was most grateful when she told me I would have had 'a frozen thumb' that might even have to be amputated if I had exposed it to such heat after such a numbing cold. She taught me to gradually bring it to normal by massaging it for several minutes – an useful lifesaving lesson I never forgot.
Even though this was an unusually cold day, Urbana kept one pretty miserable all winter. Also, being a student taking various courses in different disciplines made it worse. I had to go from building to building, and each time, I needed to bundle up in overcoat, headscarf, boots, gloves – oof what a life and then to shred all this in the next classroom, as otherwise, the overheating that Americans are so fond of made one sweat and melt. Then the entire process would start over again. On bad days, one might have to do this four to five times. Further, every winter, I skid on the icy pavements at least once. But then as Shelley said, if winter comes, can spring be far behind? And spring brought the flowers, the bracing air and the spring break when we went off to see various parts of the country.
During the summer semesters, Ramu and I took two interesting classes off-campus. One was on Defensive Driving that has stood me in good stead since, especially in the chaotic Bangalore traffic. The other was on speed reading. This was good too, and we were certified among the fastest readers ever. Sadly, this skill has since deteriorated and I may have entered my slowest reading levels with sinking into UN jargon, trying to make sense of office papers, translating from French or Spanish as I went along reading documents etc.
One of the serendipitous effects of this latter course was that we made friends with an elderly lady, who lived on a farm near Urbana. She invited us to Thanksgiving lunch that year, and we had a good time with her extended family over a groaning table laden with all the festival goodies. There were plenty of veggie dishes as this is a harvest festival, but they ranged from bland to sweetish to sweet, and we felt it was too much of a good thing . We soon got on to the subject of saris and our friend and her mother wanted so much to wear them. So one day they came over to our apartment, and had themselves photographed in their 'fancy dress'!
The Coldest Walk
The winter of '69 saw some pretty cold days. For me the nadir was on the very last day of December, as the weather forecast predicted -51* F with the wind chill factor. I was jealous that Ramu had for some reason did not have to go to work. But I had to, and so I bundled up with layers of clothing, acrylic, wool and cotton, and two pairs of socks and two of gloves too. But despite keeping my hand in my pockets, one thumb was so cold and numb when I reached office after a 30 minute walk that I instinctively tried to warm it at the heater. In a trice, Mary Black, who was luckily then in the room, pulled me away from it to my hurt astonishment. But I was most grateful when she told me I would have had 'a frozen thumb' that might even have to be amputated if I had exposed it to such heat after such a numbing cold. She taught me to gradually bring it to normal by massaging it for several minutes – an useful lifesaving lesson I never forgot.
Even though this was an unusually cold day, Urbana kept one pretty miserable all winter. Also, being a student taking various courses in different disciplines made it worse. I had to go from building to building, and each time, I needed to bundle up in overcoat, headscarf, boots, gloves – oof what a life and then to shred all this in the next classroom, as otherwise, the overheating that Americans are so fond of made one sweat and melt. Then the entire process would start over again. On bad days, one might have to do this four to five times. Further, every winter, I skid on the icy pavements at least once. But then as Shelley said, if winter comes, can spring be far behind? And spring brought the flowers, the bracing air and the spring break when we went off to see various parts of the country.
My Courses
Soc 301
I think it was in my third or fourth semester that I took SOC 301, which was the basic sociology course. I tried to get a waiver as it covered the very same material and used the same text as the one sociology class I had attended in Pune, but I was firmly told that all graduate students had to take it, even if they done its equivalent earlier. My resistance was mainly due to the standard text, by Johnson [based on the famous sociologist, Talcot Parsons] whom I had found dreadfully boring, even if mostly sensible and the orthodox guru, in my Pune days. To my horror, who should the lecturer be, but Johnson himself! He was as erudite and as boring if not more so in person than his book was. So I sat at the far back in the 120 strong class [basic courses often had such huge class strengths] and whiled away my time as I had done years back in my Intermediate class.
On the other hand, my statistics certificate from the Indian Statistical Institute was given full credit for one basic course, while the other that dealt with some updates and new applications I did not balk at, and have found useful since too. I also took a self-study course on social change under Paul Wiebe, who had done some interesting research in South India. [Years later, I found he was the Principal of Meera's school in Kodaikanal]. There were also two classes in economics, one of my minors [the other being marketing, that included both Seymour's courses] I recall the basic economics one I did, which I enjoyed and from which I gleaned some idea of economic theories and trends. So my courses covered the full range - regular lecture, self-study, hands-on research methodology, technical courses, etc.
This incidentally gave me an appreciation of how such courses were handled in the USA as against the way they are typically done in India. The great difference as I saw it was that in the former, the process is more set in the learning mode while in the latter it is set more in the teaching mode, i.e., more is pumped in all the time in India, and one disgorges much of it in one seminal exam, while in the US university, one is guided, persuaded or left to explore one's way to the learning goal, and then judged as much on one's efforts and capacity [as gauged by the teacher] as on the paper one turns in. I was and still am firmly convinced that the US system is vastly superior to ours – maybe things have changed by now, but though this seems clear in IITs and IIMs, it does not seem so in the run of the mill university course.
My social change class was based on Everett Rogers' theory of innovation adopters, which fascinated me. I was to use this as the theoretical basis for my thesis [both the intended one and the actually used one].
I think it was in my third or fourth semester that I took SOC 301, which was the basic sociology course. I tried to get a waiver as it covered the very same material and used the same text as the one sociology class I had attended in Pune, but I was firmly told that all graduate students had to take it, even if they done its equivalent earlier. My resistance was mainly due to the standard text, by Johnson [based on the famous sociologist, Talcot Parsons] whom I had found dreadfully boring, even if mostly sensible and the orthodox guru, in my Pune days. To my horror, who should the lecturer be, but Johnson himself! He was as erudite and as boring if not more so in person than his book was. So I sat at the far back in the 120 strong class [basic courses often had such huge class strengths] and whiled away my time as I had done years back in my Intermediate class.
On the other hand, my statistics certificate from the Indian Statistical Institute was given full credit for one basic course, while the other that dealt with some updates and new applications I did not balk at, and have found useful since too. I also took a self-study course on social change under Paul Wiebe, who had done some interesting research in South India. [Years later, I found he was the Principal of Meera's school in Kodaikanal]. There were also two classes in economics, one of my minors [the other being marketing, that included both Seymour's courses] I recall the basic economics one I did, which I enjoyed and from which I gleaned some idea of economic theories and trends. So my courses covered the full range - regular lecture, self-study, hands-on research methodology, technical courses, etc.
This incidentally gave me an appreciation of how such courses were handled in the USA as against the way they are typically done in India. The great difference as I saw it was that in the former, the process is more set in the learning mode while in the latter it is set more in the teaching mode, i.e., more is pumped in all the time in India, and one disgorges much of it in one seminal exam, while in the US university, one is guided, persuaded or left to explore one's way to the learning goal, and then judged as much on one's efforts and capacity [as gauged by the teacher] as on the paper one turns in. I was and still am firmly convinced that the US system is vastly superior to ours – maybe things have changed by now, but though this seems clear in IITs and IIMs, it does not seem so in the run of the mill university course.
My social change class was based on Everett Rogers' theory of innovation adopters, which fascinated me. I was to use this as the theoretical basis for my thesis [both the intended one and the actually used one].
square One & Some Garbage
Back to Square One
After a couple of weeks, I went back to work at SRL, and found my absence had cost me a promotion from Research Assistant to Research Associate. I thought to myself that RF had also assumed I would not continue after my delivery – he had received the news of my pregnancy coldly, which to me clearly signified disapproval.
In fact, I had no job that summer, and no surety of one in the fall semester. I started to scan the wanted bulletins in the unversity departments, but within a few days,I was assured I would get my place back in SRL in the Fall.
Though Matti and I had to visit a number of towns in Illinois to train interviewers, none of them was specially interesting. Of course, Chicago was the exception but anyway, we had no time for sight-seeing. However, Ramu and I did see quite a bit of Chicago on a couple of visits during our stay in Illinois. We enjoyed the windy city's lake front, great buildings, museums and window shopping. Salem, Abraham Lincoln's hometown, was another fascinating visit for a very different reason. It is a museum piece, where the houses and public buildings have been restored to their original status, and their furniture, household artifacts, kitchen and farm equipment intact. Most interesting to note that just over a hundred years back, these resembled what one finds in our present day small town and villages.
Garbage in, Garbage Out.
Since both office work and later my thesis involved computerisation, I learnt some basic Fortran programming on the job. Not really enough to stick, and later in both spheres we switched to a packaged social science program, SPSS, that made the need it unnecessary to input the Fortran commands as such. One could deal more with recognisable English! However, while using Fortran, I like most people made stupid mistakes like missing a comma or adding it, etc., and so after punching the cards and verifying them, taking them to the computer center, often late at night, one would find the next day that an error message would come back, and one was at square one! We used the phrase 'Garbage in, garbage out!' [gigo] pretty regularly in those days!
Actually, office data were dealt with by other assistants most of the time, and later we got a terminal in our office itself – that communicated with the main frame 360 computer at the center. Nowadays, one may have to describe this setup for those used only to PCs, laptops, hand-helds and mobile email-enabled devices. The main frame computers were as large as a small car and housed in an air-conditioned room that was treated like an ICU. One almost felt like whispering in hushed tones there! The laborious task of punching cards that were physically fed into the machine was followed by an equally tiresome one of verifying them. If all the cards came out undamaged in these two processes, the computer itself sometimes mangled the cards. So on top of gigo, this problem also plagued every user.
Ramu and I took our prelims as by now our respective advisers had convinced us that we might as well go in for our doctorates with the good record we had in our courses. We could have got our masters degrees on the strength of these exams, but we did not bother as we both did have the same degrees already.
After a couple of weeks, I went back to work at SRL, and found my absence had cost me a promotion from Research Assistant to Research Associate. I thought to myself that RF had also assumed I would not continue after my delivery – he had received the news of my pregnancy coldly, which to me clearly signified disapproval.
In fact, I had no job that summer, and no surety of one in the fall semester. I started to scan the wanted bulletins in the unversity departments, but within a few days,I was assured I would get my place back in SRL in the Fall.
Though Matti and I had to visit a number of towns in Illinois to train interviewers, none of them was specially interesting. Of course, Chicago was the exception but anyway, we had no time for sight-seeing. However, Ramu and I did see quite a bit of Chicago on a couple of visits during our stay in Illinois. We enjoyed the windy city's lake front, great buildings, museums and window shopping. Salem, Abraham Lincoln's hometown, was another fascinating visit for a very different reason. It is a museum piece, where the houses and public buildings have been restored to their original status, and their furniture, household artifacts, kitchen and farm equipment intact. Most interesting to note that just over a hundred years back, these resembled what one finds in our present day small town and villages.
Garbage in, Garbage Out.
Since both office work and later my thesis involved computerisation, I learnt some basic Fortran programming on the job. Not really enough to stick, and later in both spheres we switched to a packaged social science program, SPSS, that made the need it unnecessary to input the Fortran commands as such. One could deal more with recognisable English! However, while using Fortran, I like most people made stupid mistakes like missing a comma or adding it, etc., and so after punching the cards and verifying them, taking them to the computer center, often late at night, one would find the next day that an error message would come back, and one was at square one! We used the phrase 'Garbage in, garbage out!' [gigo] pretty regularly in those days!
Actually, office data were dealt with by other assistants most of the time, and later we got a terminal in our office itself – that communicated with the main frame 360 computer at the center. Nowadays, one may have to describe this setup for those used only to PCs, laptops, hand-helds and mobile email-enabled devices. The main frame computers were as large as a small car and housed in an air-conditioned room that was treated like an ICU. One almost felt like whispering in hushed tones there! The laborious task of punching cards that were physically fed into the machine was followed by an equally tiresome one of verifying them. If all the cards came out undamaged in these two processes, the computer itself sometimes mangled the cards. So on top of gigo, this problem also plagued every user.
Ramu and I took our prelims as by now our respective advisers had convinced us that we might as well go in for our doctorates with the good record we had in our courses. We could have got our masters degrees on the strength of these exams, but we did not bother as we both did have the same degrees already.
Another Traumatic Experience
In the beginning of summer, suddenly I had a threatened miscarriage so my doctor, a kindly old man, put me on complete bed rest for a month. When I say complete, I do mean 'complete'. Flat on my back, no pillow under my head, I was not allowed even to lift my head to eat or drink, but had to turn sideways and be fed! Nor could I go to the bathroom. It was humiliating, with me feeling fine otherwise, to be subjected to this continual handling by the nurses [however kind and cheerful they were]. All this was due to the fear that any movement even in bed might trigger the miscarriage that so far had been stayed.
When my doctor wanted to prescribe a diet of rich protein, he was faced by my vegetarianism. He ranted, 'Someone has brought you up badly! What you need is good rare steak!' - which immediately made me feel like throwing up. So he made me eat lots of cottage cheese and jello [ok, it may have gelatin made not from synthetic ingredients but actual hoofs of animals, but like most other items I had been used to and liked, that never mattered to me]. This was so bland that I had to beg him to let me eat some home-cooked spicy food, and he concurred, saying there was after all nothing wrong with my digestion. So Ramu brought me each evening a small jar of sambar or other curry to mix with rice or whatever. Within days, I found the amount had diminished to a mere mouthful, and asked him why he was bringing so little. He protested he was in fact bringing nearly half a jar [usually old jam bottles] each time, so we checked with the nurses and they owned up to taking some each, if I were still sleeping when their own dinner time came around – it was so tasty, while if I was awake and had finished my dinner by then, they used to get some anyway. A good testimonial to R's culinary skills! Thereafter, he had to get a full jar so they and I could both be satisfied.
Another problem was that my hair could not be washed during my daily sponge baths. I could only stand it for a week before the itch got too much. So after my pestering the staff for another week, the nurse wheeled me in a stretcher to a wash basin and washed my hair over it! What ecstasy! But only once in the whole month did they offer me this luxury.
Suddenly one day, Dr. G froze when he checked the baby's heart and then broke the news to me that he could not hear it at all. They did some other tests [no ultrascan in those days] and in a couple of days, he was sure it was no go. He told me calmly I could go home now. But what about 'that'? I asked and was aghast to find that he wanted me to go back to some strenuous activity so that the foetus would come out by itself. I cried at having a dead baby still within me for who knows how long and begged him to force it out, by Caesarean or whatever, but he was unrelenting. He pointed out I had had already one operation and i f I did want a child again, it was not good to do another one unless absolutely necessary.
So I scrubbed the floors and dusted and cleaned and carried heavy grocery bags up our stairs and tried to hasten the delivery. For what seemed ages but probably was just a few days, nothing seemed to happen. One day, without warning, I sensed more than felt the labour pains [I recalled that even in my first pregnancy I had not felt real pain when my labour pains at Pimpri had come on]. Ramu was away at work so I told him and then called a taxi; when I told the driver the destination, he turned around and said, 'But lady, it is just a few blocks from here – you could easily walk it! ' I agreed a bit ashamed that yes, I could, but I was not well at all, and would he please hurry. I had in fact to shout to the hospital attendant at the door that I was going to deliver then and there as I felt it almost coming out, but they managed to get me to the delivery table. Dr. G took one look at the baby and said, 'It is just as well it did not survive – it would have had multiple congenital deformities'.
When my doctor wanted to prescribe a diet of rich protein, he was faced by my vegetarianism. He ranted, 'Someone has brought you up badly! What you need is good rare steak!' - which immediately made me feel like throwing up. So he made me eat lots of cottage cheese and jello [ok, it may have gelatin made not from synthetic ingredients but actual hoofs of animals, but like most other items I had been used to and liked, that never mattered to me]. This was so bland that I had to beg him to let me eat some home-cooked spicy food, and he concurred, saying there was after all nothing wrong with my digestion. So Ramu brought me each evening a small jar of sambar or other curry to mix with rice or whatever. Within days, I found the amount had diminished to a mere mouthful, and asked him why he was bringing so little. He protested he was in fact bringing nearly half a jar [usually old jam bottles] each time, so we checked with the nurses and they owned up to taking some each, if I were still sleeping when their own dinner time came around – it was so tasty, while if I was awake and had finished my dinner by then, they used to get some anyway. A good testimonial to R's culinary skills! Thereafter, he had to get a full jar so they and I could both be satisfied.
Another problem was that my hair could not be washed during my daily sponge baths. I could only stand it for a week before the itch got too much. So after my pestering the staff for another week, the nurse wheeled me in a stretcher to a wash basin and washed my hair over it! What ecstasy! But only once in the whole month did they offer me this luxury.
Suddenly one day, Dr. G froze when he checked the baby's heart and then broke the news to me that he could not hear it at all. They did some other tests [no ultrascan in those days] and in a couple of days, he was sure it was no go. He told me calmly I could go home now. But what about 'that'? I asked and was aghast to find that he wanted me to go back to some strenuous activity so that the foetus would come out by itself. I cried at having a dead baby still within me for who knows how long and begged him to force it out, by Caesarean or whatever, but he was unrelenting. He pointed out I had had already one operation and i f I did want a child again, it was not good to do another one unless absolutely necessary.
So I scrubbed the floors and dusted and cleaned and carried heavy grocery bags up our stairs and tried to hasten the delivery. For what seemed ages but probably was just a few days, nothing seemed to happen. One day, without warning, I sensed more than felt the labour pains [I recalled that even in my first pregnancy I had not felt real pain when my labour pains at Pimpri had come on]. Ramu was away at work so I told him and then called a taxi; when I told the driver the destination, he turned around and said, 'But lady, it is just a few blocks from here – you could easily walk it! ' I agreed a bit ashamed that yes, I could, but I was not well at all, and would he please hurry. I had in fact to shout to the hospital attendant at the door that I was going to deliver then and there as I felt it almost coming out, but they managed to get me to the delivery table. Dr. G took one look at the baby and said, 'It is just as well it did not survive – it would have had multiple congenital deformities'.
Rare Indian Foodstuffs
A tip from Venkateswaran
One evening Ramu came back most amused – he had been accosted by another Indian on the way, who bubbled over in excitement, saying in Tamil that he knew where to get tamarind and asafoetida. Ramu was barely able to follow him not only as it was Tamil but also due to his speed and excitement.Soon we got very friendly with Venkateswaran who was doing his Math Ph.D. He was a storehouse of great ideas. He never bundled up in winter as most of us had to in the sub-zero temperatures, the secret being that he wore his woollens or thermals below his summery cotton shirt and pants and next to his skin thus saving on smart outerwear of different textures and warmth or coolness [ remember Bertie Wooster's old nurse's admonishments!]. For the rest of us, we had to put on layered clothing, which in fact I preferred as inside the buildings, the heat was turned on fully so that one even sweated with just one layer of warm clothes. The reverse was true of summer – outside, one had to strip down – many male students went around in shorts only, while the women occasionally wore only a bikini type swimsuit. We did not go that far, but I put on thinner s-ks or at most shorts and t-shirts. Inside, the AC made the rooms cool enough to have more clo
Another innovation of V's was to keep out the milk and yoghurt out on the window ledge in winter as he switched off his frig in that season to save on frig bills. One day V phoned us very excited – a Korean grocery in town had coriander leaves [cilantro]! So we climbed into someone's car and along with several other Indians raided the store. The owner was amazed at all these Indians mad after 'chinese parsley' as it was known to them. He made a good kill after that, buying huge number of bunches of the stuff, and phoning one or two Indians. Soon the news would travel along the grapevine and he easily reaped a decent profit.
During the second semester, i.e., spring of '69, I joined the intermediate swim class but had soon to drop out as I found out I was again pregnant, and the class being focussed on diving, the instructor said, and I agreed, that I should not continue. This is why I never learnt to dive.
It was in this semester that I took a second class with Seymour, on Survey Sampling. He was a specialist on that and was writing a book on it. As with all professors doing a book or research, he used his students as guinea pigs. Not that I am complaining. Like his previous class, it was both very interesting and useful even later. But it was more technical of course and less fun.
By the end of the academic year, we found an apartment on the edge of campus. It would mean we could walk to campus, and that was worth the extra price [ a stiff 20$ more than the previous one] in itself. Really nice, even fancy by the standards of the previous one - It had a real kitchen and was more modern. We had to spend some money on some furniture, though it was only partially furnished.
One evening Ramu came back most amused – he had been accosted by another Indian on the way, who bubbled over in excitement, saying in Tamil that he knew where to get tamarind and asafoetida. Ramu was barely able to follow him not only as it was Tamil but also due to his speed and excitement.Soon we got very friendly with Venkateswaran who was doing his Math Ph.D. He was a storehouse of great ideas. He never bundled up in winter as most of us had to in the sub-zero temperatures, the secret being that he wore his woollens or thermals below his summery cotton shirt and pants and next to his skin thus saving on smart outerwear of different textures and warmth or coolness [ remember Bertie Wooster's old nurse's admonishments!]. For the rest of us, we had to put on layered clothing, which in fact I preferred as inside the buildings, the heat was turned on fully so that one even sweated with just one layer of warm clothes. The reverse was true of summer – outside, one had to strip down – many male students went around in shorts only, while the women occasionally wore only a bikini type swimsuit. We did not go that far, but I put on thinner s-ks or at most shorts and t-shirts. Inside, the AC made the rooms cool enough to have more clo
Another innovation of V's was to keep out the milk and yoghurt out on the window ledge in winter as he switched off his frig in that season to save on frig bills. One day V phoned us very excited – a Korean grocery in town had coriander leaves [cilantro]! So we climbed into someone's car and along with several other Indians raided the store. The owner was amazed at all these Indians mad after 'chinese parsley' as it was known to them. He made a good kill after that, buying huge number of bunches of the stuff, and phoning one or two Indians. Soon the news would travel along the grapevine and he easily reaped a decent profit.
During the second semester, i.e., spring of '69, I joined the intermediate swim class but had soon to drop out as I found out I was again pregnant, and the class being focussed on diving, the instructor said, and I agreed, that I should not continue. This is why I never learnt to dive.
It was in this semester that I took a second class with Seymour, on Survey Sampling. He was a specialist on that and was writing a book on it. As with all professors doing a book or research, he used his students as guinea pigs. Not that I am complaining. Like his previous class, it was both very interesting and useful even later. But it was more technical of course and less fun.
By the end of the academic year, we found an apartment on the edge of campus. It would mean we could walk to campus, and that was worth the extra price [ a stiff 20$ more than the previous one] in itself. Really nice, even fancy by the standards of the previous one - It had a real kitchen and was more modern. We had to spend some money on some furniture, though it was only partially furnished.
SRL & Driving
Training and Traveling for SRL
Soon after I joined SRL, and was assigned to Field Operations, I was joining Mati Frankel in training the many interviewers we hired, generally for a particular survey, though some were frequent contractees. I found the methods used here were very different from what we knew in India. Almost all interviews were either by mail or on the phone, or the first kind followed by the second. Nobody walked into homes unannounced like we did in HLL or Kumar's Population Survey, or any other that I had known of. Probably would have got a cold shoulder if not, as much later, the extreme treatment meted out to the young Japanese student who was shot dead when he tapped on a Florida house for a Halloween trick or treat! SoI had to also learn some of the key points about such interview techniques . Since SRL did surveys for the State of Illinois, the University, and other public institutions, we sometimes had to train interviewers in different cities in the state.
I also had to help in driving the one office car we had on such trips. One day Matti sat next to me as I practised using a big car and one with power steering and brakes for the very first time. Everything went fine till I decided to try the brakes. There was a screech of tires behind me as I braked as I would do in India and suddenly brought our car to a dead stop. The next second a hard-breathing truck driver was giving me a hostile look, as he demanded to know why I jammed the brakes on a straight empty road! That was however the only incident in all the three years in Urbana with all the driving I did in town and long distance on the office car or others later.
Soon I had to get my local driving licence, having run to the end of the period I could use my Indian one here. As elsewhere in the USA, I had to pass an eyesight test including one for color blindness, and a test upon my ability to recognise the many traffic signs [one cannot get even one wrong] and a multiple-choice test [only 5% off is allowed], before a road test. The inspector sitting next to me on that one commented I was driving fine, and asked who had taught me. So I proudly said it was my father. The very last instruction was to park – the road was fairly empty and I thought this was a cinch. But he gently asked me when I looked at him in expectation after stopping if I had not forgotten something. I then recalled the rule about parking uphill and the other about downhill. So I turned the front wheels away from the curb [we were facing uphill] – this was in case the parking brake got disengaged and the car started to roll down.
Ramu had however to go for a second test, after he was flunked for just one driving 'error' – he turned into the second lane of an one-way road, when he should have been in the closest one. We were told that almost all foreign students, especially men, had to go a second time to get their licences!
But these incidents drove home to me how meticulous the authorities here were – compare these to my own experience in obtaining my scooter and my car licences in India [see above]. As for today, the less said the better!
Perhaps it was the first summer that Ramu and I took our defensive driving course – a great idea that trained us to be always on the defensive on the road, assuming that anything might go wrong any moment. This does not mean that one clamps down on the brake, but to anticipate the other drivers' actions and plan to react as one might need to if they did the wrong thing.
Soon after I joined SRL, and was assigned to Field Operations, I was joining Mati Frankel in training the many interviewers we hired, generally for a particular survey, though some were frequent contractees. I found the methods used here were very different from what we knew in India. Almost all interviews were either by mail or on the phone, or the first kind followed by the second. Nobody walked into homes unannounced like we did in HLL or Kumar's Population Survey, or any other that I had known of. Probably would have got a cold shoulder if not, as much later, the extreme treatment meted out to the young Japanese student who was shot dead when he tapped on a Florida house for a Halloween trick or treat! SoI had to also learn some of the key points about such interview techniques . Since SRL did surveys for the State of Illinois, the University, and other public institutions, we sometimes had to train interviewers in different cities in the state.
I also had to help in driving the one office car we had on such trips. One day Matti sat next to me as I practised using a big car and one with power steering and brakes for the very first time. Everything went fine till I decided to try the brakes. There was a screech of tires behind me as I braked as I would do in India and suddenly brought our car to a dead stop. The next second a hard-breathing truck driver was giving me a hostile look, as he demanded to know why I jammed the brakes on a straight empty road! That was however the only incident in all the three years in Urbana with all the driving I did in town and long distance on the office car or others later.
Soon I had to get my local driving licence, having run to the end of the period I could use my Indian one here. As elsewhere in the USA, I had to pass an eyesight test including one for color blindness, and a test upon my ability to recognise the many traffic signs [one cannot get even one wrong] and a multiple-choice test [only 5% off is allowed], before a road test. The inspector sitting next to me on that one commented I was driving fine, and asked who had taught me. So I proudly said it was my father. The very last instruction was to park – the road was fairly empty and I thought this was a cinch. But he gently asked me when I looked at him in expectation after stopping if I had not forgotten something. I then recalled the rule about parking uphill and the other about downhill. So I turned the front wheels away from the curb [we were facing uphill] – this was in case the parking brake got disengaged and the car started to roll down.
Ramu had however to go for a second test, after he was flunked for just one driving 'error' – he turned into the second lane of an one-way road, when he should have been in the closest one. We were told that almost all foreign students, especially men, had to go a second time to get their licences!
But these incidents drove home to me how meticulous the authorities here were – compare these to my own experience in obtaining my scooter and my car licences in India [see above]. As for today, the less said the better!
Perhaps it was the first summer that Ramu and I took our defensive driving course – a great idea that trained us to be always on the defensive on the road, assuming that anything might go wrong any moment. This does not mean that one clamps down on the brake, but to anticipate the other drivers' actions and plan to react as one might need to if they did the wrong thing.
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