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.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
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.
The LIves of the Elderly & Friends
Our Landlord and Landlady
Our landlord and landlady lived on the ground floor in our first apartment – very old and practically tied to the house. They used to get “Meals on Wheels' daily, perhaps except for once a week, when they must have eaten leftovers or sandwiches. While living at this apartment, we often helped them with her shopping needs – she otherwise went with a friend. Her husband who was a bit older than her early 80s, was almost senile and could do nothing. We generally took their list too when we went grocery shopping and occasionally checked upon them to see if they were ok.
This was the first time we had seen for ourselves the lonely limited life of the elderly in the USA, and it was really barren. Another view that we got was when we went on our foreign students' Thanksgiving holiday trip when a group of us were taken to visit an old lady in a nearby town. She was eagerly waiting for her only son, who had recently remarried, with her new daughter-in-law too perhaps, and finally he did turn up alone and to her disappointment, announced he could only stay for a few hours as he had some work! It did not look much of a Thanksgiving for her. Nor did we savour much of its togetherness that visit, as she handed out only a cup of soup that we two, as vegetarians, could not taste anyway.
We went on many such trips the first year or so. One included a number of interesting places in the South, Georgia, South Carolina etc. Happening to meet an octogenarian woman rejoining the university for her basic degree on one occasion really thrilled me! On the same trip, we gawked at the Smoky Mountain caves, with their stalagmites and stalactites [am sure you are aware that when the mites go up, the tites [tights] come down!]. Some of these were quite huge and the caves were meandering and fascinating. So many shapes and colours the mites and tites seemed to have!
Despite our avidly soaking in all these new and rich experiences, these trips also brought home to us the problems of being veggies in the USA at that time. Mostly, the group was taken to a college or university canteen, and the only edible dishes for us were bread, salads, cottage cheese and jello [not vegetarian, for sure, but we were used to eating it]. Not one dash of honest to goodness spicy ingredient in any of these! We felt almost nauseated by the thought of yet another go at this food. Hunting in local shops was not productive either. No pickles or hot sauces, not even Tabasco! You can be sure we did not forget our own stock of pickles and podis [spiced powders to mix with rice etc.] on our trips after the first one.
Our Host Family
The host family institution in US universities is a most welcome tradition. Occasionally, the host family and the foreign student may not hit off together, but I have not heard of any major disasters. Our family, the Steinbecks, became good friends. Alan was in the University Publishing dept., while Cecile too worked –I think in the foreign student section. We quite often spent an evening with them and their young children, or had a meal at their place of a weekend. One such meal, Cecile produced triumphantly a veg casserole, explaining she had it in the deep freezer waiting for us for the past several months! I was amused – no Indian would admit this even if they did thaw out any food frozen even for a day, to serve guests . Anyway it tasted fine, and since then, I too have often frozen leftovers and served them up both for family and company.
One another occasion, I was chatting with Cecile in the kitchen while she busy there, and she asked me about Vatsayana's Kamasutra – was it very old? I mused aloud, 'No,I do not think so; maybe about 600-700 years old, that is, around the 12th-13th century perhaps'. She burst out laughing, ' Now that shows the difference in our time perspectives. Our country itself is only two hundred odd years old and anything near a hundred years is old, really old, and here you said so casually, even 6 centuries back was not!'
Our landlord and landlady lived on the ground floor in our first apartment – very old and practically tied to the house. They used to get “Meals on Wheels' daily, perhaps except for once a week, when they must have eaten leftovers or sandwiches. While living at this apartment, we often helped them with her shopping needs – she otherwise went with a friend. Her husband who was a bit older than her early 80s, was almost senile and could do nothing. We generally took their list too when we went grocery shopping and occasionally checked upon them to see if they were ok.
This was the first time we had seen for ourselves the lonely limited life of the elderly in the USA, and it was really barren. Another view that we got was when we went on our foreign students' Thanksgiving holiday trip when a group of us were taken to visit an old lady in a nearby town. She was eagerly waiting for her only son, who had recently remarried, with her new daughter-in-law too perhaps, and finally he did turn up alone and to her disappointment, announced he could only stay for a few hours as he had some work! It did not look much of a Thanksgiving for her. Nor did we savour much of its togetherness that visit, as she handed out only a cup of soup that we two, as vegetarians, could not taste anyway.
We went on many such trips the first year or so. One included a number of interesting places in the South, Georgia, South Carolina etc. Happening to meet an octogenarian woman rejoining the university for her basic degree on one occasion really thrilled me! On the same trip, we gawked at the Smoky Mountain caves, with their stalagmites and stalactites [am sure you are aware that when the mites go up, the tites [tights] come down!]. Some of these were quite huge and the caves were meandering and fascinating. So many shapes and colours the mites and tites seemed to have!
Despite our avidly soaking in all these new and rich experiences, these trips also brought home to us the problems of being veggies in the USA at that time. Mostly, the group was taken to a college or university canteen, and the only edible dishes for us were bread, salads, cottage cheese and jello [not vegetarian, for sure, but we were used to eating it]. Not one dash of honest to goodness spicy ingredient in any of these! We felt almost nauseated by the thought of yet another go at this food. Hunting in local shops was not productive either. No pickles or hot sauces, not even Tabasco! You can be sure we did not forget our own stock of pickles and podis [spiced powders to mix with rice etc.] on our trips after the first one.
Our Host Family
The host family institution in US universities is a most welcome tradition. Occasionally, the host family and the foreign student may not hit off together, but I have not heard of any major disasters. Our family, the Steinbecks, became good friends. Alan was in the University Publishing dept., while Cecile too worked –I think in the foreign student section. We quite often spent an evening with them and their young children, or had a meal at their place of a weekend. One such meal, Cecile produced triumphantly a veg casserole, explaining she had it in the deep freezer waiting for us for the past several months! I was amused – no Indian would admit this even if they did thaw out any food frozen even for a day, to serve guests . Anyway it tasted fine, and since then, I too have often frozen leftovers and served them up both for family and company.
One another occasion, I was chatting with Cecile in the kitchen while she busy there, and she asked me about Vatsayana's Kamasutra – was it very old? I mused aloud, 'No,I do not think so; maybe about 600-700 years old, that is, around the 12th-13th century perhaps'. She burst out laughing, ' Now that shows the difference in our time perspectives. Our country itself is only two hundred odd years old and anything near a hundred years is old, really old, and here you said so casually, even 6 centuries back was not!'
Swimming Rather than Flailing About - '71
When I had to choose my one course to keep my status as a Research Assistant,I happened to see in the list classes on swimming. I was told that swimming proficiency was a must, a lifesaving skill, for under-graduates but graduate students could 'audit' them, meaning that no credit would be given for them and the achievement level would not count towards the Grade Point Average [GPA]. So Ramu and I signed up for beginners' level. I was thrilled to be able to learn the skill scientifically at last, and even if I was the last in the class [what chance did I, a semi-sedentary 35-year old, have against the sprightly 18 year old freshmen?], I did learn the basic strokes, the life-saving techniques and some endurance. Ramu, unfortunately, was allergic to the indoor chlorinated pool and dropped out after a few weeks – he learnt some floating and the 'frog stroke'.
It was a treat to see Seymour's face when he had to be sign my semester report card! Annoyance and the horrified exclamation,'You cannot get a C so long as you are an RA; only As and Bs are permitted!' . Then, perplexity, 'But why swimming?'I explained that ever since I missed the chance of having my father teach me to swim at the age of seven, I had been longing to learn the skill and had in fact tried often but ended up only at the float and flail levels. He relaxed and dismissively said, ' O.K., it does not count towards your GPA – you can get a D or an F in it for all I care'.
An All-round Sportswoman?
Not me! In Urbana,I tried my hand at bowling, and while some ninepins fell down occasionally, most of the time they just rattled and stodgily balanced back. I proposed to Ramu that we, or at least I, try skating, but he rudely, if rightly, retorted, 'You better learn to walk steady first!' This was in view of my already noticeable tendency to stumble over the slightest unevenness in the roads. Later I graduated to slithering in the melting snow or the ice-covered pavements. Every year without fail! In any case, we were quite busy with work, studies, household work, etc. leaving us only a small window of time to relax. We did manage to see some shows or hear some music that came to town – memorably, the Swan Lake ballet and Harry Belafonte.
But such treats were rare and most evenings we came back ready to relax, but instead had to contend with cooking a simple meal. This was at first a big chore, but soon we found it manageable, and my innate love of cooking took over. It was only on the weekends, tho' that one had really time to do anything more than the simplest dhall-sabji-chaval-salad combination that often lasted for two to three days. Our breakfasts were invariably some form of eggs, toast and orange juice, and while I prepared that, Ramu packed our routine cheese and pickle sandwiches and an apple each in brown bags. I downed this with cold milk or choclate milk from the ubiquitous vending machines found in each university building, while he similarly went for coffee. I soon got into the very American habit of eating lunch at my work desk, or at a meeting [the brown bag lunch]. In summer, sometimes, one could sit on the lawns and nibble at it while reading a book.
Weekends were busy too, with the house cleaning, the grocery shopping and perhaps the monthly trip to the department stores for clothes and household needs – mostly with friends who had cars as the U-C bus service was almost non-existent then. In fact, it was due to waiting for one on the first wintry day with a litle bit of snow flakes to boot that I decided we had to move closer to campus the next academic year!
It was a treat to see Seymour's face when he had to be sign my semester report card! Annoyance and the horrified exclamation,'You cannot get a C so long as you are an RA; only As and Bs are permitted!' . Then, perplexity, 'But why swimming?'I explained that ever since I missed the chance of having my father teach me to swim at the age of seven, I had been longing to learn the skill and had in fact tried often but ended up only at the float and flail levels. He relaxed and dismissively said, ' O.K., it does not count towards your GPA – you can get a D or an F in it for all I care'.
An All-round Sportswoman?
Not me! In Urbana,I tried my hand at bowling, and while some ninepins fell down occasionally, most of the time they just rattled and stodgily balanced back. I proposed to Ramu that we, or at least I, try skating, but he rudely, if rightly, retorted, 'You better learn to walk steady first!' This was in view of my already noticeable tendency to stumble over the slightest unevenness in the roads. Later I graduated to slithering in the melting snow or the ice-covered pavements. Every year without fail! In any case, we were quite busy with work, studies, household work, etc. leaving us only a small window of time to relax. We did manage to see some shows or hear some music that came to town – memorably, the Swan Lake ballet and Harry Belafonte.
But such treats were rare and most evenings we came back ready to relax, but instead had to contend with cooking a simple meal. This was at first a big chore, but soon we found it manageable, and my innate love of cooking took over. It was only on the weekends, tho' that one had really time to do anything more than the simplest dhall-sabji-chaval-salad combination that often lasted for two to three days. Our breakfasts were invariably some form of eggs, toast and orange juice, and while I prepared that, Ramu packed our routine cheese and pickle sandwiches and an apple each in brown bags. I downed this with cold milk or choclate milk from the ubiquitous vending machines found in each university building, while he similarly went for coffee. I soon got into the very American habit of eating lunch at my work desk, or at a meeting [the brown bag lunch]. In summer, sometimes, one could sit on the lawns and nibble at it while reading a book.
Weekends were busy too, with the house cleaning, the grocery shopping and perhaps the monthly trip to the department stores for clothes and household needs – mostly with friends who had cars as the U-C bus service was almost non-existent then. In fact, it was due to waiting for one on the first wintry day with a litle bit of snow flakes to boot that I decided we had to move closer to campus the next academic year!
Swimming Rather than Flailing About
When I had to choose my one course to keep my status as a Research Assistant,I happened to see in the list classes on swimming. I was told that swimming proficiency was a must, a lifesaving skill, for under-graduates but graduate students could 'audit' them, meaning that no credit would be given for them and the achievement level would not count towards the Grade Point Average [GPA]. So Ramu and I signed up for beginners' level. I was thrilled to be able to learn the skill scientifically at last, and even if I was the last in the class [what chance did I, a semi-sedentary 35-year old, have against the sprightly 18 year old freshmen?], I did learn the basic strokes, the life-saving techniques and some endurance. Ramu, unfortunately, was allergic to the indoor chlorinated pool and dropped out after a few weeks – he learnt some floating and the 'frog stroke'.
It was a treat to see Seymour's face when he had to be sign my semester report card! Annoyance and the horrified exclamation,'You cannot get a C so long as you are an RA; only As and Bs are permitted!' . Then, perplexity, 'But why swimming?'I explained that ever since I missed the chance of having my father teach me to swim at the age of seven, I had been longing to learn the skill and had in fact tried often but ended up only at the float and flail levels. He relaxed and dismissively said, ' O.K., it does not count towards your GPA – you can get a D or an F in it for all I care'.
An All-round Sportswoman?
Not me! In Urbana,I tried my hand at bowling, and while some ninepins fell down occasionally, most of the time they just rattled and stodgily balanced back. I proposed to Ramu that we, or at least I, try skating, but he rudely, if rightly, retorted, 'You better learn to walk steady first!' This was in view of my already noticeable tendency to stumble over the slightest unevenness in the roads. Later I graduated to slithering in the melting snow or the ice-covered pavements. Every year without fail! In any case, we were quite busy with work, studies, household work, etc. leaving us only a small window of time to relax. We did manage to see some shows or hear some music that came to town – memorably, the Swan Lake ballet and Harry Belafonte.
But such treats were rare and most evenings we came back ready to relax, but instead had to contend with cooking a simple meal. This was at first a big chore, but soon we found it manageable, and my innate love of cooking took over. It was only on the weekends, tho' that one had really time to do anything more than the simplest dhall-sabji-chaval-salad combination that often lasted for two to three days. Our breakfasts were invariably some form of eggs, toast and orange juice, and while I prepared that, Ramu packed our routine cheese and pickle sandwiches and an apple each in brown bags. I downed this with cold milk or choclate milk from the ubiquitous vending machines found in each university building, while he similarly went for coffee. I soon got into the very American habit of eating lunch at my work desk, or at a meeting [the brown bag lunch]. In summer, sometimes, one could sit on the lawns and nibble at it while reading a book.
Weekends were busy too, with the house cleaning, the grocery shopping and perhaps the monthly trip to the department stores for clothes and household needs – mostly with friends who had cars as the U-C bus service was almost non-existent then. In fact, it was due to waiting for one on the first wintry day with a litle bit of snow flakes to boot that I decided we had to move closer to campus the next academic year!
It was a treat to see Seymour's face when he had to be sign my semester report card! Annoyance and the horrified exclamation,'You cannot get a C so long as you are an RA; only As and Bs are permitted!' . Then, perplexity, 'But why swimming?'I explained that ever since I missed the chance of having my father teach me to swim at the age of seven, I had been longing to learn the skill and had in fact tried often but ended up only at the float and flail levels. He relaxed and dismissively said, ' O.K., it does not count towards your GPA – you can get a D or an F in it for all I care'.
An All-round Sportswoman?
Not me! In Urbana,I tried my hand at bowling, and while some ninepins fell down occasionally, most of the time they just rattled and stodgily balanced back. I proposed to Ramu that we, or at least I, try skating, but he rudely, if rightly, retorted, 'You better learn to walk steady first!' This was in view of my already noticeable tendency to stumble over the slightest unevenness in the roads. Later I graduated to slithering in the melting snow or the ice-covered pavements. Every year without fail! In any case, we were quite busy with work, studies, household work, etc. leaving us only a small window of time to relax. We did manage to see some shows or hear some music that came to town – memorably, the Swan Lake ballet and Harry Belafonte.
But such treats were rare and most evenings we came back ready to relax, but instead had to contend with cooking a simple meal. This was at first a big chore, but soon we found it manageable, and my innate love of cooking took over. It was only on the weekends, tho' that one had really time to do anything more than the simplest dhall-sabji-chaval-salad combination that often lasted for two to three days. Our breakfasts were invariably some form of eggs, toast and orange juice, and while I prepared that, Ramu packed our routine cheese and pickle sandwiches and an apple each in brown bags. I downed this with cold milk or choclate milk from the ubiquitous vending machines found in each university building, while he similarly went for coffee. I soon got into the very American habit of eating lunch at my work desk, or at a meeting [the brown bag lunch]. In summer, sometimes, one could sit on the lawns and nibble at it while reading a book.
Weekends were busy too, with the house cleaning, the grocery shopping and perhaps the monthly trip to the department stores for clothes and household needs – mostly with friends who had cars as the U-C bus service was almost non-existent then. In fact, it was due to waiting for one on the first wintry day with a litle bit of snow flakes to boot that I decided we had to move closer to campus the next academic year!
The Survey Research Laboratory [SRL]
I first reported to Dr. Ferber at SRL, who appeared both soft-spoken and strict. He introduced me around SRL. Soon I had settled down in that small group, and was assigned some tasks in field operations including framing of questionnaires for the public surveys that the Lab undertook, and the training of interviewers. Most of the regular staff at SRL were Americans, but with a few foreign and national research assistants like myself. I recall with warmth Seymour Sudman, my adviser, a Sampling expert, Matt Hauck, the head of field operations, Peggy Greene, the secretary to Ferber, Judy Fiedler and Matti Frankel, wives of professors at the university and working in SRL. All of them taught me a lot about life in the States and SRL and the university town of Urbana-Champaign [Matti became a close friend]. The women, like so many others in America, came back to work after a break of years, while they raised their families; once the youngest was old enough to be left home on his or her own, they often continued their studies or took up a job. Mary Black, who came into SRL later, I think, was never close but a very interesting person..
A Serendipitous Class Paper
I had to take that one mandatory course every semester, so among those in the social sciences that were being offered that semester, I chose Research Methodology. It was taught by Seymour himself. What a fortunate choice it was! It laid a good foundation for my understanding of the subject - not just the topic, but the way Seymour handled it. The first class was a lecture on the principles of research methods, and then he asked us to choose our topics. We were just about eleven in that class, and when he noted that most of us, nine I think, were foreign students, he exclaimed, 'Good, you can each choose your topic from your own countries and that will make it more interesting'. He then said that he would not be lecturing the next or in later classes, except one on sampling designs, but he would give us weekly assignments and we were each to present at every succeeding class, our work orally and written [typed copies for all the class, and of course himself]. The class would critique each of the presentations so that they could be improved upon. He would also be available to us individually for any clarifications or comments in between. The end result would be a research proposal.
I wanted to take up the topic 'Factors influencing food habits in India' as I had always wondered why some groups and individuals were more open to trying new foods or varieties, but I was worried about getting the needed information for it. Well, I found that the university had a full set of the latest available census tables! [This was the 1961 census, as the 1971 one was still being tabulated]. So I could choose a design that called for sampling of the wheat and rice eating areas, the forward and backward states, and even districts within them, etc. My Indian Statistics Certificate course came in very handy in this part of the work. At the same time, I was most impressed with the types and range of resources the library had, the easy access we students had to the materials, the long hours it was open [well past midnight]! As the semester progressed, I really got into the topic and in the end had quite a respectable proposal.
The tale has a sequel. But of that later.
A Serendipitous Class Paper
I had to take that one mandatory course every semester, so among those in the social sciences that were being offered that semester, I chose Research Methodology. It was taught by Seymour himself. What a fortunate choice it was! It laid a good foundation for my understanding of the subject - not just the topic, but the way Seymour handled it. The first class was a lecture on the principles of research methods, and then he asked us to choose our topics. We were just about eleven in that class, and when he noted that most of us, nine I think, were foreign students, he exclaimed, 'Good, you can each choose your topic from your own countries and that will make it more interesting'. He then said that he would not be lecturing the next or in later classes, except one on sampling designs, but he would give us weekly assignments and we were each to present at every succeeding class, our work orally and written [typed copies for all the class, and of course himself]. The class would critique each of the presentations so that they could be improved upon. He would also be available to us individually for any clarifications or comments in between. The end result would be a research proposal.
I wanted to take up the topic 'Factors influencing food habits in India' as I had always wondered why some groups and individuals were more open to trying new foods or varieties, but I was worried about getting the needed information for it. Well, I found that the university had a full set of the latest available census tables! [This was the 1961 census, as the 1971 one was still being tabulated]. So I could choose a design that called for sampling of the wheat and rice eating areas, the forward and backward states, and even districts within them, etc. My Indian Statistics Certificate course came in very handy in this part of the work. At the same time, I was most impressed with the types and range of resources the library had, the easy access we students had to the materials, the long hours it was open [well past midnight]! As the semester progressed, I really got into the topic and in the end had quite a respectable proposal.
The tale has a sequel. But of that later.
Culture Shocks Galore!
Landing at our apartment, the first floor of an old ramshackle house owned by an old couple who lived on the ground floor, we found a spacious, but to our eyes, weird place. The 'kitchen' was just a counter at the end of the corridor with a stove/range, a sink and frig and some shelves stacked in it and just off the bathroom! The very idea of cooking next to a bathroom was anathema to us - years later, I have had to cook even in bathrooms when on budget travels! The floor boards creaked and already in September it was pretty chilly. It was nearly a mile away from the office, but that did not seem a problem at the time. Anyway, we realised that for 80 $ a month rent, it was a good deal, and furnished at that!
Foreign students at large US university locations get a lot of very handy support from both the varsity groups like the Foreign Students Welfare Association, or whatever it was called, and their own national associations if they are around. One got briefing materials from the former where to buy or rent essential goods and importantly, a set of utensils and even linen and overcoats one could use while one laid by enough to buy for oneself. This facility is quite regularly used by new foreign students. In turn, when the students leave, they donate such items to the same groups. We decided to make full use of these offers -we got some basic utensils, and an overcoat each, rather shapeless by now, but anyway, one takes the coats off on reaching one's destination. Of course we soon had to get some supplies apart from the regular shopping for veggies, fruits and dry culinary items.
Our first major brush with 'Americanisms' was on such an early incursion to a store - it was after a bewildered wandering aisle after aisle, our first experience with self-service, that at the check-out I remembered and asked where I could find a torch. There was a puzzled look on the shop assistant's face, and we went back and forth as I tried to explain what I wanted. Finally, in desperation, I said, by then convinced that she was either a moron, or that the US was much less civilized than I had been led to expect, 'you know, it is a thing you hold in your hand, and when you press a switch on it, in a flash, the light comes on'. At that instant, the light came to me in a flash, and I exclaimed ,'what I mean is a flashlight!' Much relieved, she echoed, 'Oh, a flashlight, why didn't you say so in the first place?'
But the major shock for us was that the university demanded all foreign students to undergo a language proficiency test. I, felt especially insulted that my request for a waiver due to my English language and literature masters degree and university teaching experience in India was not heeded. The actual test was so basic that we had to rack our memories to write the correct answers - the kind that normally we would automatically use in either conversation or writing. Such as 'where' or 'were'; 'that' or 'which', or 'bare' or 'bear', depending on the context and the rest of the phrase. Fuming, I completed that test and then there was a vocal one - understanding spoken English, and speaking into a device some sentences that were written out. The tester said at the end in a satisfied tone that I had a score of 1. Curious, I asked what would it mean if one got 0 or 2. She said, the lower the score, the better it was, and zero meant an American accent while 1 was an equally intelligible and 'acceptable' one. I congratulated myself inwardly on not achieving a zero, for with my leaning for the English of 'Ye Olde England', I had no great penchant to sound or speak like an American. Ramu too came off with flying colours, obviously, and we then could turn to other immediate concerns.
He soon landed a part-time assistantship under a professor of economics to do some comparison of Indian and Japanese finances, and also enrolled in a public finance class that semester.
Foreign students at large US university locations get a lot of very handy support from both the varsity groups like the Foreign Students Welfare Association, or whatever it was called, and their own national associations if they are around. One got briefing materials from the former where to buy or rent essential goods and importantly, a set of utensils and even linen and overcoats one could use while one laid by enough to buy for oneself. This facility is quite regularly used by new foreign students. In turn, when the students leave, they donate such items to the same groups. We decided to make full use of these offers -we got some basic utensils, and an overcoat each, rather shapeless by now, but anyway, one takes the coats off on reaching one's destination. Of course we soon had to get some supplies apart from the regular shopping for veggies, fruits and dry culinary items.
Our first major brush with 'Americanisms' was on such an early incursion to a store - it was after a bewildered wandering aisle after aisle, our first experience with self-service, that at the check-out I remembered and asked where I could find a torch. There was a puzzled look on the shop assistant's face, and we went back and forth as I tried to explain what I wanted. Finally, in desperation, I said, by then convinced that she was either a moron, or that the US was much less civilized than I had been led to expect, 'you know, it is a thing you hold in your hand, and when you press a switch on it, in a flash, the light comes on'. At that instant, the light came to me in a flash, and I exclaimed ,'what I mean is a flashlight!' Much relieved, she echoed, 'Oh, a flashlight, why didn't you say so in the first place?'
But the major shock for us was that the university demanded all foreign students to undergo a language proficiency test. I, felt especially insulted that my request for a waiver due to my English language and literature masters degree and university teaching experience in India was not heeded. The actual test was so basic that we had to rack our memories to write the correct answers - the kind that normally we would automatically use in either conversation or writing. Such as 'where' or 'were'; 'that' or 'which', or 'bare' or 'bear', depending on the context and the rest of the phrase. Fuming, I completed that test and then there was a vocal one - understanding spoken English, and speaking into a device some sentences that were written out. The tester said at the end in a satisfied tone that I had a score of 1. Curious, I asked what would it mean if one got 0 or 2. She said, the lower the score, the better it was, and zero meant an American accent while 1 was an equally intelligible and 'acceptable' one. I congratulated myself inwardly on not achieving a zero, for with my leaning for the English of 'Ye Olde England', I had no great penchant to sound or speak like an American. Ramu too came off with flying colours, obviously, and we then could turn to other immediate concerns.
He soon landed a part-time assistantship under a professor of economics to do some comparison of Indian and Japanese finances, and also enrolled in a public finance class that semester.
Innocents Abroad
Our first stopovers in Geneva and Rome went off smoothly and most enjoyably. We were most exhilarated with both the famous historical sculptures and architecture in Rome and the natural beauties of Switzerland. For me, in addition, one of the most memorable experiences was our first meal in Europe. We asked the American Express person who changed our travellers' cheques where we would find a vegetarian meal,and he suggested, after finding out from us if we did eat cheese, a fondue. I have been a votary of this Swiss dish ever since! So much so that when we left Urbana, my colleagues at SRL presented me with a fondue pot.
After Rome, we spent a few days in London at our own expense, staying at the relatively cheaper Indian YMCA. Our last stop before embarking on our trans-atlantic flight was in Paris, and we were so keen on enjoying the Left Bank and Montmarte by night that we did not sleep much that night. Our various stopovers had been all very enjoyable and we were elated, even though quite a bit tired.
When we landed in JFK, we were told we had to take a bus to another terminal and the American accent confused us, leading us to get down at the wrong one! The jet lag did not help. When we made it to the check-in desk we found we had missed our flight to Chicago [which we was where we had to change planes for Urbana] and was I in a panic?! I babbled to the agent that we had no money to buy another ticket and kept 'sir'ring him lavishly, pleading, and almost missed his saying calmly, 'Don't worry, lady, we'll put you on another flight'. Even when that penetrated my head, I said plaintively, 'But we have no money and have to get to Urbana, sir'. He kept repeating - Not to worry, he would put us on the next flight, till finally, I asked him incredulously, 'You mean we do not have to pay for it?'.
That was not the end of our travails. We had plenty of time to change planes at Chicago, but this time we were careful to check the departure gate over and over again. Still, we did manage to lose that connection too! We had not realised that O'Hare was such a large airport that even if they were all in one building, one had to walk miles to get from gate to gate sometimes. Once again high drama, with me almost in tears now, for the last flight to Urbana for the day had left! This time I understood that they would put us on another flight on the same ticket the next day, but what about night stay? Don't worry, said this agent, another angel come alive, he would get us a room in the airport motel, the Ramada Inn. When I whined that we did not have any money, and he said reassuringly, 'It's on us', I did not catch it till the third time. Then I said' wow' to myself. I was most impressed by the casual generosity of the American airline staff! [This kind of generosity does not occur nowadays, of course].
Finally, we arrived at Urbana the afternoon of the day following our expected arrival date. The secretary at SRL, Peggy Green, and an Indian student who had been assigned to meet new Indian arrivals, had diligently come to meet us on the scheduled flight and even later ones on that day, but on the next, day they gave up, and we had to call the SRL office to find out where they had found some digs for us.
After Rome, we spent a few days in London at our own expense, staying at the relatively cheaper Indian YMCA. Our last stop before embarking on our trans-atlantic flight was in Paris, and we were so keen on enjoying the Left Bank and Montmarte by night that we did not sleep much that night. Our various stopovers had been all very enjoyable and we were elated, even though quite a bit tired.
When we landed in JFK, we were told we had to take a bus to another terminal and the American accent confused us, leading us to get down at the wrong one! The jet lag did not help. When we made it to the check-in desk we found we had missed our flight to Chicago [which we was where we had to change planes for Urbana] and was I in a panic?! I babbled to the agent that we had no money to buy another ticket and kept 'sir'ring him lavishly, pleading, and almost missed his saying calmly, 'Don't worry, lady, we'll put you on another flight'. Even when that penetrated my head, I said plaintively, 'But we have no money and have to get to Urbana, sir'. He kept repeating - Not to worry, he would put us on the next flight, till finally, I asked him incredulously, 'You mean we do not have to pay for it?'.
That was not the end of our travails. We had plenty of time to change planes at Chicago, but this time we were careful to check the departure gate over and over again. Still, we did manage to lose that connection too! We had not realised that O'Hare was such a large airport that even if they were all in one building, one had to walk miles to get from gate to gate sometimes. Once again high drama, with me almost in tears now, for the last flight to Urbana for the day had left! This time I understood that they would put us on another flight on the same ticket the next day, but what about night stay? Don't worry, said this agent, another angel come alive, he would get us a room in the airport motel, the Ramada Inn. When I whined that we did not have any money, and he said reassuringly, 'It's on us', I did not catch it till the third time. Then I said' wow' to myself. I was most impressed by the casual generosity of the American airline staff! [This kind of generosity does not occur nowadays, of course].
Finally, we arrived at Urbana the afternoon of the day following our expected arrival date. The secretary at SRL, Peggy Green, and an Indian student who had been assigned to meet new Indian arrivals, had diligently come to meet us on the scheduled flight and even later ones on that day, but on the next, day they gave up, and we had to call the SRL office to find out where they had found some digs for us.
Winds of Change
Soon after our marriage Ramu mooted the idea of going abroad to work in either the USA or England or any other place. He said he was tired of slogging away at government jobs and badly needed a change. So we wrote to various organisations around the globe including some universities and research institutes, but to no avail. It was when my cousin, Chandru, wrote to Dr. Robert Ferber, who headed the Survey Research Laboratory [SRL] at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, [his family had been Chandru's host family when he was studying there] that we got a positive reply.
SRL, wrote Dr. Ferber, could offer me a position and he was sure Ramu could get one after coming over. The next part of the letter was to us most hilarious while reassuring. He said that all research assistants [R.A.s] had to take at least one course each semester, and suggested that I take a ¾ time assistantship and take one course the first semester as I might be the only earning member at first, but that I could move down to a 2/3 time one from the second and more courses since by that time Ramu would certainly get some assignment. How we laughed at these fractions! In India, we had never heard of 2/3 time and ¾ time - even the idea of part-time jobs were then unknown!
Ferber had also meticulously worked out a budget based upon ¾ time pay for an R.A. at that time.It came to about 350 $ p.m. After the basic household expenses and possible health costs, he had left us about 10$ for recreation and entertainment! When we landed in Urbana, we found his estimates pretty accurate as befitted a premier economist. His predictions were vindicated more than fully, as our vegetarianism helped us manage even lower food costs than expected.
We made our preparations to leave in time for the 1968 fall semester. Ramu took a two year leave of absence without pay. The major problem was hard currency. In those days, the RBI allowed us only $ 250, upon a deposit of the equivalent rupees in certain specified banks. The deposit was reclaimable only after the $250 was sent back to India by wire transfer! Another Rs. 200 worth or about 8 $ per person in foreign exchange was obtainable at the airport after checking in! We managed to get another 50$ through a friend. So, altogether we had $ 316 only to tide us over for the first month after travel costs - and this was about the same amount as Ferber had predicted as our monthly need. Yet, never having been abroad before [if one does not count my Ceylon trip], we were eager to see a bit of Europe en route. Who knew if we would have another chance! Luckily, Diana, our new sister-in-law, worked in a travel agency and she was able to swing three stopovers at airlines' expense in Rome, Geneva and Paris, while in London, we were to stay at the Indian YMCA at a nominal cost.
SRL, wrote Dr. Ferber, could offer me a position and he was sure Ramu could get one after coming over. The next part of the letter was to us most hilarious while reassuring. He said that all research assistants [R.A.s] had to take at least one course each semester, and suggested that I take a ¾ time assistantship and take one course the first semester as I might be the only earning member at first, but that I could move down to a 2/3 time one from the second and more courses since by that time Ramu would certainly get some assignment. How we laughed at these fractions! In India, we had never heard of 2/3 time and ¾ time - even the idea of part-time jobs were then unknown!
Ferber had also meticulously worked out a budget based upon ¾ time pay for an R.A. at that time.It came to about 350 $ p.m. After the basic household expenses and possible health costs, he had left us about 10$ for recreation and entertainment! When we landed in Urbana, we found his estimates pretty accurate as befitted a premier economist. His predictions were vindicated more than fully, as our vegetarianism helped us manage even lower food costs than expected.
We made our preparations to leave in time for the 1968 fall semester. Ramu took a two year leave of absence without pay. The major problem was hard currency. In those days, the RBI allowed us only $ 250, upon a deposit of the equivalent rupees in certain specified banks. The deposit was reclaimable only after the $250 was sent back to India by wire transfer! Another Rs. 200 worth or about 8 $ per person in foreign exchange was obtainable at the airport after checking in! We managed to get another 50$ through a friend. So, altogether we had $ 316 only to tide us over for the first month after travel costs - and this was about the same amount as Ferber had predicted as our monthly need. Yet, never having been abroad before [if one does not count my Ceylon trip], we were eager to see a bit of Europe en route. Who knew if we would have another chance! Luckily, Diana, our new sister-in-law, worked in a travel agency and she was able to swing three stopovers at airlines' expense in Rome, Geneva and Paris, while in London, we were to stay at the Indian YMCA at a nominal cost.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
The Cooperatives Study
By now, with the ICSSR [Indian Council of Social Science Research] grant having come through, I set about doing the sampling work, questionnaire finalisation and recruiting and training six investigators [all Maratti speaking men] and starting the actual survey.
We had to travel to four or five districts, and to villages or centres within them that housed the Joint Farming, Lift Irrigation, Sugar and other Cooperative Societies that we had in our sample. All this type of travel, accommodation and food was quite familiar to me. But it seemed not go so well with Annaiya. One day, I happened to hear him say to Seetha, my younger sister-in-law, who was then visiting us, that it was fine for a woman to be a teacher, but a job that involved being away from home! Seeing me go past them then, he stopped and I pretended not to have heard. It was after all, a very normal view in India then. I did not mention the incident to Ramu, and the matter ended there.
But I have to admit all was not smooth sailing with the team. One day, on a trip, I got very wild with them, for whatever reason, and ranted at them. Very rightly, they took umbrage and en masse handed me their resignations. I had to climb down and apologise, after which we worked well together.[I really felt ashamed of myself]. The survey finished more or less in time, and we did the preliminary analysis but had not written the report when my work got interrupted for more than one reason. What did we find?: Surprise, Surprise! The members of the Coops did not have any social reason for being in them, but purely economic ones, and the office bearers campaigned and grabbed the votes more for greed and power than from any altruistic motives. In fact, we could sense misappropriations and use of undue influence, though we did not lay our hands on solid evidence. The study of sugar societies, in fact, bore out their reputation for being stepping stones in the power ladder in the state.
one day, Iravati Karve called me in, and I could sense her fury. She told me that the Shiv Sena faction in the college were demanding to have me removed from the project as neither did I have a social science degree nor was I a Maharastrian [ This was in the heyday of Shiv Sena chauvinism. One of their failures was to rid Bombay of all Udipi hotels! That would have been a disaster for thousands of Bombayites as they would have nowhere to go for their daily breakfast – the South Indian idli or dosa!] Pune was the stronghold of the SS and they were now targeting me!
IK had already thought of the solution - I should register for my M.A. in the university as an external candidate and then she could counter the rabid chauvinists by stating that as a post graduate student, I was doing some related research. As I had always been interested in the social sciences and found my lack of a degree in that field a handicap when I had earlier wanted to move out of HLL, I readily agreed.
As per her advice, I attended the head of the department's lectures whenever I was in town. The subject was the fundamentals of Sociology, and the text was a classic by Johnson on the theories of Talcott Parsons. It was terribly boring though very thorough! Luckily I was so often on tour that I missed most of the classes. I read up on the other subjects on my own, and passed this exam with a II rank though again in II class - Good progress considering I had a IV rank for my B.A. Hons and a III rank for my M.A. in English from Nagpur Unversity. This degree and my certificate in Statistics were to stand me in good stead later.
The field work was finished by then, and most of the team were disbanded. One of them helped me with translations from Marathi, and another staff member with the tabulations. These were the days before computerisation, at least in Indian academic circles. so everything was slow, laborious and often had to be corrected painstakingly. In the end, I had to leave Pune before submitting the report. That had to wait two years!
We had to travel to four or five districts, and to villages or centres within them that housed the Joint Farming, Lift Irrigation, Sugar and other Cooperative Societies that we had in our sample. All this type of travel, accommodation and food was quite familiar to me. But it seemed not go so well with Annaiya. One day, I happened to hear him say to Seetha, my younger sister-in-law, who was then visiting us, that it was fine for a woman to be a teacher, but a job that involved being away from home! Seeing me go past them then, he stopped and I pretended not to have heard. It was after all, a very normal view in India then. I did not mention the incident to Ramu, and the matter ended there.
But I have to admit all was not smooth sailing with the team. One day, on a trip, I got very wild with them, for whatever reason, and ranted at them. Very rightly, they took umbrage and en masse handed me their resignations. I had to climb down and apologise, after which we worked well together.[I really felt ashamed of myself]. The survey finished more or less in time, and we did the preliminary analysis but had not written the report when my work got interrupted for more than one reason. What did we find?: Surprise, Surprise! The members of the Coops did not have any social reason for being in them, but purely economic ones, and the office bearers campaigned and grabbed the votes more for greed and power than from any altruistic motives. In fact, we could sense misappropriations and use of undue influence, though we did not lay our hands on solid evidence. The study of sugar societies, in fact, bore out their reputation for being stepping stones in the power ladder in the state.
one day, Iravati Karve called me in, and I could sense her fury. She told me that the Shiv Sena faction in the college were demanding to have me removed from the project as neither did I have a social science degree nor was I a Maharastrian [ This was in the heyday of Shiv Sena chauvinism. One of their failures was to rid Bombay of all Udipi hotels! That would have been a disaster for thousands of Bombayites as they would have nowhere to go for their daily breakfast – the South Indian idli or dosa!] Pune was the stronghold of the SS and they were now targeting me!
IK had already thought of the solution - I should register for my M.A. in the university as an external candidate and then she could counter the rabid chauvinists by stating that as a post graduate student, I was doing some related research. As I had always been interested in the social sciences and found my lack of a degree in that field a handicap when I had earlier wanted to move out of HLL, I readily agreed.
As per her advice, I attended the head of the department's lectures whenever I was in town. The subject was the fundamentals of Sociology, and the text was a classic by Johnson on the theories of Talcott Parsons. It was terribly boring though very thorough! Luckily I was so often on tour that I missed most of the classes. I read up on the other subjects on my own, and passed this exam with a II rank though again in II class - Good progress considering I had a IV rank for my B.A. Hons and a III rank for my M.A. in English from Nagpur Unversity. This degree and my certificate in Statistics were to stand me in good stead later.
The field work was finished by then, and most of the team were disbanded. One of them helped me with translations from Marathi, and another staff member with the tabulations. These were the days before computerisation, at least in Indian academic circles. so everything was slow, laborious and often had to be corrected painstakingly. In the end, I had to leave Pune before submitting the report. That had to wait two years!
A Bitter Lesson from a Bitter Loss
Towards the end of '66, I became pregnant. Sometime in the first few months, I caught a very bad cold, probably due to the great fluctuations in daily temperatures that Poona is subject to [30*C during the day and 4* at night was a common phenomenon]. The doctors at the government hospital at Pimpri prescribed an antibiotic for that. During the fifth month, my uncle, Ramaswamy and aunt, Seethalakshmi [Chittappa and Chinnamanni to me] passed through Pimpri, after a visit with Malathi, their daughter in Bombay. Chinnamanni immediately told me I should seek another opinion as she found my lack of weight gain worrying.
There was one embarrassing moment for me when Chinnamanni stayed with us. She asked me what caste Gabbar Singh was, and when I told her he was a Garhwali, and that I did not know more than that, she knew he was not a Brahmin. She then told me that she would have to do her own cooking. I decided that I could not let her, our guest, do that and I would have to cook instead; but how was I going to break this to GS? Since I abhorred the idea of caste barriers, I could not tell him the real reason. I finally told him my aunt was very particular about eating food cooked by her own family and none other. He nodded in acceptance, and betrayed no anger, but I suspect he knew the real cause. A couple of years later, I had the same experience when Vaman's parents stayed with us for a couple of days.
Well, I went to the KM hospital where the most reputed gynaecologist in Pune was. She was concerned about the lack of growth of the foetus, and also a suspected faintness of the heartbeat. When she learnt that the doctors at Pimpri had given me tetracycline for my cold and cough during my pregnancy, she was very upset. That, she said, might be the cause for the poor development and might even have affected the heart. She added, however, that there was still a good chance of catching up and remedial actions. so, thereafter I consulted her alone and it seemed all was ok. She even okayed my going on a car trip in the seventh month, which was uneventful as far as my health went.
All this time our proposal that Iravati Karve sent to ICSSR was still pending, for which I was thankful. I did collect some secondary data in the meantime and pretested the questionnaires, but had to wait for the grant to embark on the study proper.
I was in the very last month of my pregnancy and Lallukka came down to Pune to be with me for the delivery. She and I stitched quite a few cute baby clothes. When I began having labour pains, and we called up the doctor, to our consternation, we were told she was away in Bombay as she was an examiner at a medical college there. She had not warned me, almost full term at the time, and somehow, it did not occur to me to ask who her stand-in was. I meekly turned to the government doctors in Pimpri. My contractions were obviously increasing, but surprisingly, I did not feel any pain at all, though I too could feel them as some sensation! Unfortunately, even after several hours and an injection to induce labour, it did not progress, and then they discharged me!
An interesting side observation: I asked Lallukka if this was how labour pains felt, and if so, why were they supposed to be so unbearable that most women screamed out again and again! Her answer, “ You know, Paddu, I can't remember – I've had four kids, and had a lot of pain each time, but now I don't recall the pain at all!” She added, “ Maybe that is how I faced up to each new pregnancy”
When I contacted my gynaecologist upon her return a few days later, she was furious. The doctors had no business to halt the induction process half-way, she said. They should have gone on to an operation. I thought to myself, well that is as irresponsible as your going off without clearly telling your patients who would care for them while you were away. But I said nothing aloud – so reverent were we in those days to our doctors! Anyway, she told me to see her every week thereafter.
So a couple of weeks passed, and when I worried I was going beyond term, she grilled me as to my last period, and she just would not believe me when I said that I was sure of my dates [due to my frequent travel in HLL, I had to be very precise]. She seemed to be used to women who were not so precise, and felt I still had time to go for my delivery. A couple more weeks passed, and then one day I noticed that my weight, taken on my own initiative, was less than it was the week before. Alarmed, I called up the doctor and she too reacted then with alacrity. Examining me, she found the heart beat a bit too faint, and so decided to do a Caesarian.
A baby boy was born, well beyond term, as the doctor surmised due to his withered state, and with a heart problem. She was however sanguine he would do well with help. However, he died within 24 hours.
Ramu and I were devastated, as were the two grandfathers to be [Lallukka had had to return to Madras during that long month of waiting]. There were still more problems to come. Nature had its way, and my breast-milk started flowing. To stop that, I was given an injection. However, it was not done properly, and I developed an abscess in my thigh, where the needle went in and I had to have that operated upon! All this made me most depressed. Both doctors had failed me and my faith in that profession was zero. As I slowly recovered, I turned my energies to the study, now funded.
There was one embarrassing moment for me when Chinnamanni stayed with us. She asked me what caste Gabbar Singh was, and when I told her he was a Garhwali, and that I did not know more than that, she knew he was not a Brahmin. She then told me that she would have to do her own cooking. I decided that I could not let her, our guest, do that and I would have to cook instead; but how was I going to break this to GS? Since I abhorred the idea of caste barriers, I could not tell him the real reason. I finally told him my aunt was very particular about eating food cooked by her own family and none other. He nodded in acceptance, and betrayed no anger, but I suspect he knew the real cause. A couple of years later, I had the same experience when Vaman's parents stayed with us for a couple of days.
Well, I went to the KM hospital where the most reputed gynaecologist in Pune was. She was concerned about the lack of growth of the foetus, and also a suspected faintness of the heartbeat. When she learnt that the doctors at Pimpri had given me tetracycline for my cold and cough during my pregnancy, she was very upset. That, she said, might be the cause for the poor development and might even have affected the heart. She added, however, that there was still a good chance of catching up and remedial actions. so, thereafter I consulted her alone and it seemed all was ok. She even okayed my going on a car trip in the seventh month, which was uneventful as far as my health went.
All this time our proposal that Iravati Karve sent to ICSSR was still pending, for which I was thankful. I did collect some secondary data in the meantime and pretested the questionnaires, but had to wait for the grant to embark on the study proper.
I was in the very last month of my pregnancy and Lallukka came down to Pune to be with me for the delivery. She and I stitched quite a few cute baby clothes. When I began having labour pains, and we called up the doctor, to our consternation, we were told she was away in Bombay as she was an examiner at a medical college there. She had not warned me, almost full term at the time, and somehow, it did not occur to me to ask who her stand-in was. I meekly turned to the government doctors in Pimpri. My contractions were obviously increasing, but surprisingly, I did not feel any pain at all, though I too could feel them as some sensation! Unfortunately, even after several hours and an injection to induce labour, it did not progress, and then they discharged me!
An interesting side observation: I asked Lallukka if this was how labour pains felt, and if so, why were they supposed to be so unbearable that most women screamed out again and again! Her answer, “ You know, Paddu, I can't remember – I've had four kids, and had a lot of pain each time, but now I don't recall the pain at all!” She added, “ Maybe that is how I faced up to each new pregnancy”
When I contacted my gynaecologist upon her return a few days later, she was furious. The doctors had no business to halt the induction process half-way, she said. They should have gone on to an operation. I thought to myself, well that is as irresponsible as your going off without clearly telling your patients who would care for them while you were away. But I said nothing aloud – so reverent were we in those days to our doctors! Anyway, she told me to see her every week thereafter.
So a couple of weeks passed, and when I worried I was going beyond term, she grilled me as to my last period, and she just would not believe me when I said that I was sure of my dates [due to my frequent travel in HLL, I had to be very precise]. She seemed to be used to women who were not so precise, and felt I still had time to go for my delivery. A couple more weeks passed, and then one day I noticed that my weight, taken on my own initiative, was less than it was the week before. Alarmed, I called up the doctor and she too reacted then with alacrity. Examining me, she found the heart beat a bit too faint, and so decided to do a Caesarian.
A baby boy was born, well beyond term, as the doctor surmised due to his withered state, and with a heart problem. She was however sanguine he would do well with help. However, he died within 24 hours.
Ramu and I were devastated, as were the two grandfathers to be [Lallukka had had to return to Madras during that long month of waiting]. There were still more problems to come. Nature had its way, and my breast-milk started flowing. To stop that, I was given an injection. However, it was not done properly, and I developed an abscess in my thigh, where the needle went in and I had to have that operated upon! All this made me most depressed. Both doctors had failed me and my faith in that profession was zero. As I slowly recovered, I turned my energies to the study, now funded.
The Mugur Daughters-in-Law
Ramu was the third in a family of ten, three of whom were girls, the first of whom was the sixth child. One brother has remained a bachelor. The rest have married from among quite a range of communities and linguistic groups. After most were married, I once heard Annaiya rightly remark that 'Not one of my daughters-in-law is from the same community' Almost proudly!
When the eldest son, Sundara, married a Maratti speaker, Prabha, way back in the forties, the parents not only concurred with his choice but also attended and participated in the wedding. That was quite something in those days! The second d-i-l, Shantha, is from the same community as the Mugur family, while I, the third. The Tamilian, was followed by Seetha, a Kannada speaker. Asha, a Maratti speaker again, was Raja's choice. However, with the marriage of Raghu, the youngest in the family, history was created with the first dissent from Annaiya. Since then, the family has seen Bengali, Gujarati [Parsi],Telugu, U.P. and Punjabi additions – quite a cosmopolitan mix, and mostly very smoothly! Among the very recent additions is an American but all these come years later!
Raghu's marriage came about two years after ours. He worked and lived in Bombay then. One day he wrote us all that he had decided to marry Diana, a Bene Israeli Jew [many of whom had been settled in Bombay and around for years, perhaps centuries, or migrated from Cochin and other Kerala towns which had been their home since the Diaspora]. Almost immediately, Annaiya penned his reply and showed it to me. I tried to remonstrate with him as he had written that if Raghu did marry Diana, he would disown him! But Annaiya was adamant saying, 'he can marry whomever he wants, but why does he have to convert to Judaism!' [Apparently, Diana's family insisted on this. I had till then thought that like Hinduism, Judaism also did not allow conversion to it, but it seems some reform sects allow it, as do some Hindu sects]. Even after this fiat, I pleaded with my f-i-l that he should not act so severely with his own son, but send it he did that very day.
Raghu went ahead with his marriage arrangements and invited all his family to the event. When Gopala said he would not go, for he disapproved of Raghu going against Father's wishes, and asked us what we would do, R and I said well, we would attend. We did so, along with Vivek and Kalpana, Sundara's young children, who were in Bombay for a holiday at that time, and had been deputed by Sundara and Prabha to represent them. Much later, I learnt from Tripuri, R's youngest sister, that Annaiya, who had gone to Delhi for a while at the time of the wedding and was staying with her, asked her if she would accept the invitation, implying that he did not think she should. To which she replied that she would have if she could, but her very young baby was the reason she did not plan to travel for the wedding. So we had the full range of reactions in one family!
The wedding itself was a fascinating ceremony, especially for us, who were totally unfamiliar with the Jewish customs and ritual. We had never been inside a functioning synagogue [the Cochin synagogue is a major tourist attraction with its lovely blue and white tiles, and both of us had seen it on our own, but tourists were not allowed during prayers or ceremonies].
The impasse between Annaiya and Raghu continued till a fortuitous circumstance soon after. Ramu and I decided to go to the USA for a few years, basically to get a new work experience, though it did not work out as just that. In those days, travel abroad had to be meticulously planned. Everything took time and follow-up till the last moment. Worst of all were the very strict exchange regulations even for the niggardly amounts that were sanctioned in those days.
Anyhow, finally, we were ready to leave after a few last days in Bombay to tie everything up. We stayed in a govt. guest house in the island/fort area. One day, we told Annaiya who had come up with us to see us off, that we were planning to visit Raghu in Juhu in the evening. He promptly said he would join us! We had no way of warning Raghu and Diana as they had no home phone, and Diana, we knew was already out of the office; Raghu was on his sales beat. It would have seemed odd to Annaiya if one of us had gone ahead from some place near the house, so we just prayed silently and went on. So, when we stood at their doorstep, Diana opened the door, and on seeing Annaiya, she went deathly pale. As soon as we were seated, she beckoned to me to the kitchen. She was trembling all over!
'Padmini, what shall I do? Is it ok to offer him something - what if he takes offence?', she babbled. I told her to calm down, and suddenly remembering my mother's practice and statements, advised her, ' Offer him some fruit and milk [ as they are not cooked, even the orthodox do not mind taking such things from other castes or religious groups. Now that I think of it, in India, we do boil the milk – even if it is pasteurised, but somehow that was ok to the orthodox]. I added that she should not take it to heart if he refused - after all, he had at least stepped into their house after earlier declaring Raghu was no longer his son!
Annaiya did take the fruit and milk, and soon Raghu joined us and the greetings and conversation were pretty normal. That was the beginning of the thaw, which culminated in Annaiya staying with them some years later, after their daughter, Abigail [Abby] was born!
When the eldest son, Sundara, married a Maratti speaker, Prabha, way back in the forties, the parents not only concurred with his choice but also attended and participated in the wedding. That was quite something in those days! The second d-i-l, Shantha, is from the same community as the Mugur family, while I, the third. The Tamilian, was followed by Seetha, a Kannada speaker. Asha, a Maratti speaker again, was Raja's choice. However, with the marriage of Raghu, the youngest in the family, history was created with the first dissent from Annaiya. Since then, the family has seen Bengali, Gujarati [Parsi],Telugu, U.P. and Punjabi additions – quite a cosmopolitan mix, and mostly very smoothly! Among the very recent additions is an American but all these come years later!
Raghu's marriage came about two years after ours. He worked and lived in Bombay then. One day he wrote us all that he had decided to marry Diana, a Bene Israeli Jew [many of whom had been settled in Bombay and around for years, perhaps centuries, or migrated from Cochin and other Kerala towns which had been their home since the Diaspora]. Almost immediately, Annaiya penned his reply and showed it to me. I tried to remonstrate with him as he had written that if Raghu did marry Diana, he would disown him! But Annaiya was adamant saying, 'he can marry whomever he wants, but why does he have to convert to Judaism!' [Apparently, Diana's family insisted on this. I had till then thought that like Hinduism, Judaism also did not allow conversion to it, but it seems some reform sects allow it, as do some Hindu sects]. Even after this fiat, I pleaded with my f-i-l that he should not act so severely with his own son, but send it he did that very day.
Raghu went ahead with his marriage arrangements and invited all his family to the event. When Gopala said he would not go, for he disapproved of Raghu going against Father's wishes, and asked us what we would do, R and I said well, we would attend. We did so, along with Vivek and Kalpana, Sundara's young children, who were in Bombay for a holiday at that time, and had been deputed by Sundara and Prabha to represent them. Much later, I learnt from Tripuri, R's youngest sister, that Annaiya, who had gone to Delhi for a while at the time of the wedding and was staying with her, asked her if she would accept the invitation, implying that he did not think she should. To which she replied that she would have if she could, but her very young baby was the reason she did not plan to travel for the wedding. So we had the full range of reactions in one family!
The wedding itself was a fascinating ceremony, especially for us, who were totally unfamiliar with the Jewish customs and ritual. We had never been inside a functioning synagogue [the Cochin synagogue is a major tourist attraction with its lovely blue and white tiles, and both of us had seen it on our own, but tourists were not allowed during prayers or ceremonies].
The impasse between Annaiya and Raghu continued till a fortuitous circumstance soon after. Ramu and I decided to go to the USA for a few years, basically to get a new work experience, though it did not work out as just that. In those days, travel abroad had to be meticulously planned. Everything took time and follow-up till the last moment. Worst of all were the very strict exchange regulations even for the niggardly amounts that were sanctioned in those days.
Anyhow, finally, we were ready to leave after a few last days in Bombay to tie everything up. We stayed in a govt. guest house in the island/fort area. One day, we told Annaiya who had come up with us to see us off, that we were planning to visit Raghu in Juhu in the evening. He promptly said he would join us! We had no way of warning Raghu and Diana as they had no home phone, and Diana, we knew was already out of the office; Raghu was on his sales beat. It would have seemed odd to Annaiya if one of us had gone ahead from some place near the house, so we just prayed silently and went on. So, when we stood at their doorstep, Diana opened the door, and on seeing Annaiya, she went deathly pale. As soon as we were seated, she beckoned to me to the kitchen. She was trembling all over!
'Padmini, what shall I do? Is it ok to offer him something - what if he takes offence?', she babbled. I told her to calm down, and suddenly remembering my mother's practice and statements, advised her, ' Offer him some fruit and milk [ as they are not cooked, even the orthodox do not mind taking such things from other castes or religious groups. Now that I think of it, in India, we do boil the milk – even if it is pasteurised, but somehow that was ok to the orthodox]. I added that she should not take it to heart if he refused - after all, he had at least stepped into their house after earlier declaring Raghu was no longer his son!
Annaiya did take the fruit and milk, and soon Raghu joined us and the greetings and conversation were pretty normal. That was the beginning of the thaw, which culminated in Annaiya staying with them some years later, after their daughter, Abigail [Abby] was born!
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Issues in the Fifties and Sixties
In the introduction itself, I have mentioned that these 'Ramblings' are more in the nature of personal memoirs and that I would only occasionally divert my attention to the broader scene. I should here confess that there is another dimension to such omissions. As a young carefree girl and woman, I was only vaguely interested in national and other public affairs. This is not to say that I was not assiduous in reading my daily newspaper or listening to Akashvani daily; or time and again get into hot discussions about the issues of those times when some major event or issue was in the air. But I was not as involved in, or concerned about, them as I later became.
What were some of the issues after our attainment of independence [ I was just 14 when that happened]:
The constitution-making and on the international arena, post WW II division of the global power structure and the beginnings of the Cold War; the first elections in which I was too young to take part in, but an interested observer; India as one of the leaders of the non-aligned movement [NAM]; the newly freed countries of the South, our national plans – all these I recall as being interested in [i did follow some of these with more than mere interest] but now I can recall no more of my feelings or opinions regarding them. Gandhi's assassination touched me as many others of my generation more personally and we for days we all were immersed in our national mourning and the hot debate about the role of the RSS and the consequences.
The next big event I recall is the Sino-Indian battle for the Himalayan space near NathuLa pass in 1962. After the effusive Bhai-bhai of the NAM at Bandung, that was a severe shock! And when we got so roundly beaten, and beaten back, it was worse. Licking our wounds, the scapegoat was of course Nehru. Perhaps that was the beginning of the end of the country's honeymoon with this charismatic leader. Today, it is fashionable to blame him for all our ills, the slow progress we made over the decades when he was the unquestioned leader. For me, as perhaps for many of my generation, the aura of his fiery oration, his gentle international policies and his image can never be totally erased, despite my coming to terms with the realisation that not all his policies were solid or far-sighted. Anyway, he died a couple of years after that disastrous war.
My one active foray into national patriotic endeavours was the blood donation I made in Bombay during the 1965 war with Pakistan. I also made up my mind to volunteer for some nursing aide work if it came to that. But of course the war ended too soon for such needs from outside the regular forces. I think that it was around this time that I started veering towards what has now my very firm pacifist stand, but I am not sure.
Living the Good Life
During this period, I was mostly focused on work and sports, friends and the cinema, or, of course, shopping! But my spending sprees were never in town; on each trip, the entire Marketing Research team would head for the sari shops. After all, one would find a totally different genre - the materials, the designs and textures were so new each town and the local prices so inviting that we ended up with a sari in every town we went to! Even today, after so many emporia from the different states and better advertising and marketing strategies, one still can find some special local ethnic varieties on travels within the country.
We did need a large number of saris [cotton usually] as we used them for work and even play! As I have mentioned before, we practically lived and died in a sari, once we graduated from the skirt and blouse, as do millions of Indian women today. But this must soon be a situation of the past, as the salwar kameez is fast becoming the choice of almost all youngsters in even small towns, and even in the deep south.
Though I had worn this attire even in college, it would have been absolutely unacceptable to wear it on work in those days. Nor did it even occur to me to brave it and try. I stitched myself a couple off and on, and basically used it to lounge at home. I also used to wander around in a housecoat for a while in Madras, much to Amma's horror [ that has now transmuted to a 'Nightie', the favorite of the Indian middle class woman at home to sleep and during waking hours: many even go for their morning walks in it; sometimes, they even pop out to do their immediate neighbourhood shopping. I prefer my casual pyjama-like pant and top.
I did decide on one official trip to don the salwar suit for the train journey to a mofussil town in Tamilnadu. When Mrs. Paul, our 'Brother' saw me, she was scandalised and exclaimed, “You are not going to meet the Dealer in that!'. I assured her that I would change into a sari on the train itself before arrival at our destination so that I looked respectable enough to meet our wholesale dealer to check on our lodging!
My literary Ventures
About this time, I started working on a novel, with a difference, I proudly decided – it would not play on sensationalism, sex and sob stories as so many cheap novels did, but would revolve around a solid plot, strong characterisation and a light, lucid style. I showed the draft to Beno, who thought it very good, but Kumar laughed at some sentences in it, and I lost interest in it [only due to that? - I am not sure]. It is lying somewhere ever since. Beno recently asked why I never published it – she said she had thought it was good; maybe I should look at it again so that I will not deprive posterity of that jewel! Trouble is it is all handwritten [scribbled, rather] and nowadays that seems so tiresome to key in on a computer! If I ask for someone to do it for me, they may not follow my handwriting.
I had had a poem published in a journal that a Mysore University professor was editing some years earlier – it was inspired by Vinoba Bhave, the Gandhian who called for land reforms and allocation of cultivable land to the landless. Somehow, I never tried my hand at more poetic outpourings.
I used to read voraciously still. All sorts of fiction, poetry, occsionally non-fiction. I recall Annathatha once telling me he could not imagine how I could read all those novels and short stories; he could at his age [I guess he was around 70 then] only take to serious stuff. I replied that I could read fiction all my life. But later, as I neared that age, I too find I prefer non-fiction, and serious works. Almost all my reading was in English, though as I have mentioned before, I got to buying Kannada novels at railway platforms – these were on social themes, probably a forecast to my tastes later. As for Tamil, I only managed to be able to read Ananda Vikatan jokes and snippets – the limitations of the alphabet made my reading so slow that I got frustrated and went back to racing in English.
In the introduction itself, I have mentioned that these 'Ramblings' are more in the nature of personal memoirs and that I would only occasionally divert my attention to the broader scene. I should here confess that there is another dimension to such omissions. As a young carefree girl and woman, I was only vaguely interested in national and other public affairs. This is not to say that I was not assiduous in reading my daily newspaper or listening to Akashvani daily; or time and again get into hot discussions about the issues of those times when some major event or issue was in the air. But I was not as involved in, or concerned about, them as I later became.
What were some of the issues after our attainment of independence [ I was just 14 when that happened]:
The constitution-making and on the international arena, post WW II division of the global power structure and the beginnings of the Cold War; the first elections in which I was too young to take part in, but an interested observer; India as one of the leaders of the non-aligned movement [NAM]; the newly freed countries of the South, our national plans – all these I recall as being interested in [i did follow some of these with more than mere interest] but now I can recall no more of my feelings or opinions regarding them. Gandhi's assassination touched me as many others of my generation more personally and we for days we all were immersed in our national mourning and the hot debate about the role of the RSS and the consequences.
The next big event I recall is the Sino-Indian battle for the Himalayan space near NathuLa pass in 1962. After the effusive Bhai-bhai of the NAM at Bandung, that was a severe shock! And when we got so roundly beaten, and beaten back, it was worse. Licking our wounds, the scapegoat was of course Nehru. Perhaps that was the beginning of the end of the country's honeymoon with this charismatic leader. Today, it is fashionable to blame him for all our ills, the slow progress we made over the decades when he was the unquestioned leader. For me, as perhaps for many of my generation, the aura of his fiery oration, his gentle international policies and his image can never be totally erased, despite my coming to terms with the realisation that not all his policies were solid or far-sighted. Anyway, he died a couple of years after that disastrous war.
My one active foray into national patriotic endeavours was the blood donation I made in Bombay during the 1965 war with Pakistan. I also made up my mind to volunteer for some nursing aide work if it came to that. But of course the war ended too soon for such needs from outside the regular forces. I think that it was around this time that I started veering towards what has now my very firm pacifist stand, but I am not sure.
Living the Good Life
During this period, I was mostly focused on work and sports, friends and the cinema, or, of course, shopping! But my spending sprees were never in town; on each trip, the entire Marketing Research team would head for the sari shops. After all, one would find a totally different genre - the materials, the designs and textures were so new each town and the local prices so inviting that we ended up with a sari in every town we went to! Even today, after so many emporia from the different states and better advertising and marketing strategies, one still can find some special local ethnic varieties on travels within the country.
We did need a large number of saris [cotton usually] as we used them for work and even play! As I have mentioned before, we practically lived and died in a sari, once we graduated from the skirt and blouse, as do millions of Indian women today. But this must soon be a situation of the past, as the salwar kameez is fast becoming the choice of almost all youngsters in even small towns, and even in the deep south.
Though I had worn this attire even in college, it would have been absolutely unacceptable to wear it on work in those days. Nor did it even occur to me to brave it and try. I stitched myself a couple off and on, and basically used it to lounge at home. I also used to wander around in a housecoat for a while in Madras, much to Amma's horror [ that has now transmuted to a 'Nightie', the favorite of the Indian middle class woman at home to sleep and during waking hours: many even go for their morning walks in it; sometimes, they even pop out to do their immediate neighbourhood shopping. I prefer my casual pyjama-like pant and top.
I did decide on one official trip to don the salwar suit for the train journey to a mofussil town in Tamilnadu. When Mrs. Paul, our 'Brother' saw me, she was scandalised and exclaimed, “You are not going to meet the Dealer in that!'. I assured her that I would change into a sari on the train itself before arrival at our destination so that I looked respectable enough to meet our wholesale dealer to check on our lodging!
My literary Ventures
About this time, I started working on a novel, with a difference, I proudly decided – it would not play on sensationalism, sex and sob stories as so many cheap novels did, but would revolve around a solid plot, strong characterisation and a light, lucid style. I showed the draft to Beno, who thought it very good, but Kumar laughed at some sentences in it, and I lost interest in it [only due to that? - I am not sure]. It is lying somewhere ever since. Beno recently asked why I never published it – she said she had thought it was good; maybe I should look at it again so that I will not deprive posterity of that jewel! Trouble is it is all handwritten [scribbled, rather] and nowadays that seems so tiresome to key in on a computer! If I ask for someone to do it for me, they may not follow my handwriting.
I had had a poem published in a journal that a Mysore University professor was editing some years earlier – it was inspired by Vinoba Bhave, the Gandhian who called for land reforms and allocation of cultivable land to the landless. Somehow, I never tried my hand at more poetic outpourings.
I used to read voraciously still. All sorts of fiction, poetry, occsionally non-fiction. I recall Annathatha once telling me he could not imagine how I could read all those novels and short stories; he could at his age [I guess he was around 70 then] only take to serious stuff. I replied that I could read fiction all my life. But later, as I neared that age, I too find I prefer non-fiction, and serious works. Almost all my reading was in English, though as I have mentioned before, I got to buying Kannada novels at railway platforms – these were on social themes, probably a forecast to my tastes later. As for Tamil, I only managed to be able to read Ananda Vikatan jokes and snippets – the limitations of the alphabet made my reading so slow that I got frustrated and went back to racing in English.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Pimpri and A Taste of a Life of Leisure
Staff quarters at Pimpri [where Hindustan Antibiotics, manufacturers of Penicillin, and where Ramu was the Financial Adviser and Chief Accounts Officer] were spacious, for the officers at least. We also had a large garden with a number of roses and other flowers, and some fruit trees and a vegetable patch at the back. The household help the three men had had was equally luxurious – Gabbar Singh, the Garhwali Jeeves, did not only the cooking [three new meals each day!] but also dusting, car washing, ironing and what not; Gangu Bai, the part-time maid, swept and swabbed and washed utensils; and a 'mali' looked after the garden. But, when we came back after the wedding, we found that our Jeeves had fled with Mohan, Gangu Bai's son, also a youth and Gabbar Singh's pal. So I began to do the cooking, with GB's help with the rotis and the vegetable cutting. Within a week, however, the two runaways returned. They had been unsuccessful in their attempts to join the film world! Apparently, Mohan was the more interested; I always thought GS went off with him as he did not relish a 'memsahib' ruling the household where he had hitherto been king.
Whatever the reason, he worked with our family for years – even after Ramu and I left a couple of years later for the USA, he stayed on with Gopala and Annaiya in their Poona flat for a couple more. Then he decided to go back to his village and we never heard from him again. [However, just recently, in the new millenium, we came across a minister in the newly carved out state of Uttaranchal named Gabbar Singh! Who knows it might our ex-Jeeves!].
On my part, I realised he was a gem of a person, and handled him with 'TLC' , specially as, much as I loved cooking, I was frankly aghast at the thought of cooking three separate meals each day [morning breakfast being Indian tiffin type, and the other two meals with two sabjis, one or two rasdars/dhalls/sambars and rotis plus rice, a salad or raita, and curds, of course]. Later on, I tried reasoning with the men that they could easily eat the afternoon left overs at night [Annaiya would not eat, I knew, the previous day's, as Amma would not have], but even at that the two brothers demurred. I even pointedly asked if this had been the pattern in Mysore when the large family of twelve had to manage on Annaiya's schoolteacher's salary even if he used to moonlight, keeping the accounts for a local shopkeeper [who gave him credit most helpfully when he wanted]. Of course not, they agreed, the night meal was generally only the reheated lunch. But now, when they could afford it, and had a cook to do it, to boot, why not? I left it at that. But their views would change soon enough!
R's Colleagues Wait for the Reception
We both had agreed that in Pimpri also we would rather not have a reception, but meet R's colleagues a few at a time. Well, we did not get around to inviting anyone over for a while, what with settling down to our new life together. One day, the Works Manager invited us all to dinner and presented us a gift, and I had to apologise for our delay in having them over ourselves. Ramu explained to me later that they were keen to have their daughter marry Gopala. In fact, some time later, the mother approached me to broach the matter with G. Innocently, I agreed but G firmly told me I was never to raise the matter of his marriage again, and that was that! It was soon after this dinner that the MD and his wife came over and exclaimed they had waited first for our reception. So we explained, and later we did invite these and other senior colleagues' families, one or two at a time.
Time Pass
What did we do to relax, or as the current favorite phrase goes, what did we do for our 'Time Pass'? Ramu and I tried to play badminton at the colony recreation club, but we did not persist. He had been a keen bridge player, but I just could not summon up any interest in any card game except for an occasional fun activity. We did play a lot of scrabble that I introduced into the household. When Vaman [Ramu's sister, Tripuri's husband], was posted for three months to Pune, it became such a rage that some evenings three games were played in a row! I almost wished I had never let them in on this game!
We also went into town, some 15 km away, all three of us – R, Gopala and myself, to see a cinema [usually only English movies as we did not like the run of the mill Indian ones with so much singing and dancing and little by the way of fresh plots or strong characterisations]; or, just to loaf around on the M.G. Road or the Bund gardens, and so on.
One day, Gopala, who had joined a yoga class, invited us to see a demonstration by his Guru, the already famous B.K.S. Iyengar, and some of his advanced students. The show was truly impressive. What took my imagination was the master doing the shirasasana [headstand] and continuing his explanations while in that pose for several minutes, without becoming breathless. Ramu and I decided to join the class, and that led us to practice yogasanas for years. Even now I do some, but not very regularly.
Was I cut out to be a housewife after all?
My high hopes of finding a Marketing Research job in Pune were soon dashed. I did get one consultancy, a short one, but after that, for months, kept waiting. To while away the time, I tried to be the genteel housewife, supervising the servants including the Mali, making some fancy dishes occasionally, arranging flowers, and so on. One afternoon, Mrs. MD dropped in and in a relieved tone, said it was great that I was in, as her circle of friends were all out that afternoon, so she could neither play her usual cards, or chat. At that moment, I knew that this life was not for me – who knows, I too might be driven to seek solace in cards, gossip, and flower arrangements!
The next day, I drove to the Deccan College to meet the redoubtable Iravati Karve, doyen of Indian anthropologists and sociologists, who was the head of the then joint department in Poona University. She was the daughter-in-law of Maharishi Karve, who had defied social taboos by marrying a widow. IK herself also broke unwritten rules by zooming around Pune on a motorbike long before we thought of riding on scooters that did not need the sari to be looped up. The Maharashtrian way of wearing the sari must have helped. She was a path- breaker in the social sciences field also, being an authority on Indian Kinship patterns.
When I apprised her of my survey background, she was interested, and in her inimitable decisive way, outlined a study she had been planning to launch, and then asked me to give her a proposal for a grant she could then peddle around. Well, the long and short of it was that I developed, under her guidance, a proposal to the Indian Council of Social Science Research [ICSSR] to study the 'Sociological Aspects of Cooperative Societies' in Maharashtra. But first I had to do the pretests with the help of a staff member in the college so as to finalise the outline of the study and the questionnaires etc.
It was on one of my trips along the normally busy Bombay – Poona national highway that I almost had a freak accident. The road that day was peculiarly bereft of the jostling trucks and buses that usually made the 15 km a nightmare but on the otherwise empty road I saw to my horror a truck coming toward me, and I mean, toward me on the wrong side of the road for him! I honked and honked, and it seemed that I would have to move off the road, but to what? There was only a dip and trees to my left, and i said, well this is the end. Suddenly the driver woke up and veered away from me at the last moment!
Whatever the reason, he worked with our family for years – even after Ramu and I left a couple of years later for the USA, he stayed on with Gopala and Annaiya in their Poona flat for a couple more. Then he decided to go back to his village and we never heard from him again. [However, just recently, in the new millenium, we came across a minister in the newly carved out state of Uttaranchal named Gabbar Singh! Who knows it might our ex-Jeeves!].
On my part, I realised he was a gem of a person, and handled him with 'TLC' , specially as, much as I loved cooking, I was frankly aghast at the thought of cooking three separate meals each day [morning breakfast being Indian tiffin type, and the other two meals with two sabjis, one or two rasdars/dhalls/sambars and rotis plus rice, a salad or raita, and curds, of course]. Later on, I tried reasoning with the men that they could easily eat the afternoon left overs at night [Annaiya would not eat, I knew, the previous day's, as Amma would not have], but even at that the two brothers demurred. I even pointedly asked if this had been the pattern in Mysore when the large family of twelve had to manage on Annaiya's schoolteacher's salary even if he used to moonlight, keeping the accounts for a local shopkeeper [who gave him credit most helpfully when he wanted]. Of course not, they agreed, the night meal was generally only the reheated lunch. But now, when they could afford it, and had a cook to do it, to boot, why not? I left it at that. But their views would change soon enough!
R's Colleagues Wait for the Reception
We both had agreed that in Pimpri also we would rather not have a reception, but meet R's colleagues a few at a time. Well, we did not get around to inviting anyone over for a while, what with settling down to our new life together. One day, the Works Manager invited us all to dinner and presented us a gift, and I had to apologise for our delay in having them over ourselves. Ramu explained to me later that they were keen to have their daughter marry Gopala. In fact, some time later, the mother approached me to broach the matter with G. Innocently, I agreed but G firmly told me I was never to raise the matter of his marriage again, and that was that! It was soon after this dinner that the MD and his wife came over and exclaimed they had waited first for our reception. So we explained, and later we did invite these and other senior colleagues' families, one or two at a time.
Time Pass
What did we do to relax, or as the current favorite phrase goes, what did we do for our 'Time Pass'? Ramu and I tried to play badminton at the colony recreation club, but we did not persist. He had been a keen bridge player, but I just could not summon up any interest in any card game except for an occasional fun activity. We did play a lot of scrabble that I introduced into the household. When Vaman [Ramu's sister, Tripuri's husband], was posted for three months to Pune, it became such a rage that some evenings three games were played in a row! I almost wished I had never let them in on this game!
We also went into town, some 15 km away, all three of us – R, Gopala and myself, to see a cinema [usually only English movies as we did not like the run of the mill Indian ones with so much singing and dancing and little by the way of fresh plots or strong characterisations]; or, just to loaf around on the M.G. Road or the Bund gardens, and so on.
One day, Gopala, who had joined a yoga class, invited us to see a demonstration by his Guru, the already famous B.K.S. Iyengar, and some of his advanced students. The show was truly impressive. What took my imagination was the master doing the shirasasana [headstand] and continuing his explanations while in that pose for several minutes, without becoming breathless. Ramu and I decided to join the class, and that led us to practice yogasanas for years. Even now I do some, but not very regularly.
Was I cut out to be a housewife after all?
My high hopes of finding a Marketing Research job in Pune were soon dashed. I did get one consultancy, a short one, but after that, for months, kept waiting. To while away the time, I tried to be the genteel housewife, supervising the servants including the Mali, making some fancy dishes occasionally, arranging flowers, and so on. One afternoon, Mrs. MD dropped in and in a relieved tone, said it was great that I was in, as her circle of friends were all out that afternoon, so she could neither play her usual cards, or chat. At that moment, I knew that this life was not for me – who knows, I too might be driven to seek solace in cards, gossip, and flower arrangements!
The next day, I drove to the Deccan College to meet the redoubtable Iravati Karve, doyen of Indian anthropologists and sociologists, who was the head of the then joint department in Poona University. She was the daughter-in-law of Maharishi Karve, who had defied social taboos by marrying a widow. IK herself also broke unwritten rules by zooming around Pune on a motorbike long before we thought of riding on scooters that did not need the sari to be looped up. The Maharashtrian way of wearing the sari must have helped. She was a path- breaker in the social sciences field also, being an authority on Indian Kinship patterns.
When I apprised her of my survey background, she was interested, and in her inimitable decisive way, outlined a study she had been planning to launch, and then asked me to give her a proposal for a grant she could then peddle around. Well, the long and short of it was that I developed, under her guidance, a proposal to the Indian Council of Social Science Research [ICSSR] to study the 'Sociological Aspects of Cooperative Societies' in Maharashtra. But first I had to do the pretests with the help of a staff member in the college so as to finalise the outline of the study and the questionnaires etc.
It was on one of my trips along the normally busy Bombay – Poona national highway that I almost had a freak accident. The road that day was peculiarly bereft of the jostling trucks and buses that usually made the 15 km a nightmare but on the otherwise empty road I saw to my horror a truck coming toward me, and I mean, toward me on the wrong side of the road for him! I honked and honked, and it seemed that I would have to move off the road, but to what? There was only a dip and trees to my left, and i said, well this is the end. Suddenly the driver woke up and veered away from me at the last moment!
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Chapter 4 - The Later Sixties - A New Life
Arranged or not?
When someone asks me if my marriage to Ramu was an arranged or a love marriage, I am at a loss to answer honestly yes or no. What exactly is the line between these two types as understood in India [or if that is too large a canvas, considering our bewildering diversity, in urban middle-class India]? When child marriages were first banned under the law during the nineteenth century, thanks to the then Governor-General Benedick and Raja Ram Mohan Roy, the social reformer, the age limit for girls was set at 16 years. But in the early part of the 20th century, my aunt got married at 8 years of age and my mother at 12 [just to cite two instances, even if they were actually just betrothals, and not consumated till the girls came of age]. Even today nearly 2 out of every 5 girls are married before the present legal age of 18 in the country! In some cases, they and even the boys are just past the todder stage! Well, such marriages are clearly arranged.
The confusion starts when the views of the one or both the key parties to the union, the girl and the boy, are obtained. In the case of my two sisters, they both did have a say, and certainly, my two brothers-in-law to be. But for me, these are still arranged marriages. Then and also nowadays, in general, this is how an arranged marriage is worked out. First the horoscopes are compared and only if they agree in some crucial aspects according the astrologer, is the next step taken - either one of the two parties, the elders of each side, usually the girl's family, contact the other and if they get a good feel, the proposition is put before the boy and girl by their respective families. Photos may be exchanged and then, if all this evoke positive vibes, a meeting is arranged between the two families, now including the g and the b. Not the two of them on their own, no, not yet, and in some families, not at all. In many familes, it is taken for granted that the power of refusal resides wholly in the boy, and his family, and that the girl's family should be grateful that this 'demi-gods' have deigned to consider this match!
In our familes, there might not be any pre-determined view that the girl will not say 'No' but I have not myself heard of any such instance . It is also not unusual for the the two youngsters to go off for an evening to talk alone, get to know each other better than in the midst of so many others – something harmless, like a walk in the park or on the beach, a visit to an ice-cream parlour or a bookshop, etc. i have narrated earlier on how Lallukka and Jay Athimbere did that in 1940, to the horror of my grandmother who was totally oppposed to such new -fangled ideas. My second sister, Hema married a second cousin, and Chandru Athimbere came to stay at our place for a few days, view marriage, and then it was settled.
On the other hand, Kumar met Revathi, his future wife, in LA and JA's home, with a full house of relatives from both sides, and that was it. Both decided 'yes' with that one encouter! I even asked Kumar how he could decide like that! He replied in his inimitable was, 'What right do I have to say 'No' to any girl?' Obviously, I was projecting my own concerns about such a situation and decision-making process. Luckily, it turned out to be as good a way to pick a mate as any other.
In our immediate family, there was neither talk of, nor an actual payment of dowry, but that was not and is, even more so today, not the norm! What is more, the amounts demanded are going up and up and up still, with no end to the cupidity of those who have outstripping that of the have-nots. Unfortunately, the poor too try to keep up with the Joneses! I know of communities where there was no tradition of any dowry, especially in Kerala, and to some extent in Karnataka and A.P. But even they have succumbed to the lure and are now demanding dowry. Of course, dowry receiving and giving being illegal in India for decades, it is called a gift or sometimes subsumed under the name of marriage.
In any case, none of these marriages were without the pre-arranged moves of other family members, and were made within the community we belonged to. Moreover, the two families expected, and got, some decision immediately or within some short period – a day or two, generally [Recall how our family, especially my grandmother and mother too were upset when JA did not say 'yes' or 'no' for a few days?] . What if the boy and girl met within the circle of family or friends but there was no such plan or if they even grew up together or went to school together or with one's sibling etc. - that is how a number of non-arranged or 'love' matches click. Many of the recent marriages in our families have occurred this way. But our own case was not so clear-cut.
I leave it to you to decide what our [Ramu's and my] marriage was. This is how it came about....
So, what category did this Marriage belong to?...
Sometime in '65, my friend Ramani wrote to me suggesting I meet a batch-mate of her husband, Murthy. Her sister, Vatsala, and she had each tried before to interest me in such meetings ['view matrimony' as the newspaper matrimonial columns put it], for me to come back always with the objection that I could not decide after a meeting or two. But now, Ramani wrote that we could just meet on our own and as many times as we wanted, and we need not get back to Murthy or her as to what happened, etc. For a change, I too felt, what did I lose, anyway. So when a phone call came to me at office one day, I said, yes, I would meet Ramaswamy for lunch the same day at a nearby popular restaurant. We talked quite openly and met again the next evening before he returned to Pimpri [near Poona] where he was working as the Financial Adviser in the Hindusthan Antibiotics Factory.
As Ramu came up to Bombay often on work, we met again a couple of times, if I recall correctly, before I went off on a motoring vacation in Kerala with Vatsala, her husband Sastry and my father. In the meantime, we both corresponded. That gave me, especially, the opportunity to unburden myself of some of my phobias about marriage. I wrote firmly that I wanted to continue working after marriage, that I was an agnostic, that I valued my independence, etc. Maybe my fears were exaggerated, but the general expectation in our society those days was for a woman to submerge her personality and interests in her husband's or even in those of his family [to a lesser extent, this is still true nowadays, even among the educated, urban middle and upper classes]. The replies I got were most reassuring. This correspondence and occasional meetings continued in the beginning of '66. Ramu admits he was ready to say 'yes' long before I was. But then he did not have the same causes for worry that I had!
The Kerala Trip
Appa at this time had only a BSA bantam and no car. But my uncle, also a Ramaswamy, was prepared to let me have his car for the trip. Appa said he could no longer think of driving long distance. No matter, there was Sastry and myself. As we started on our 1,000 km journery however, he mentioned he did not have a drving licence. At once, I vetoed his driving even for a short while. I did not want to take a risk, especially with a borrowed car! Actually, I did quite well, both on the plains and the twisting hill roads of Wynad, but the very last day, with just a couple of hours to go, I felt so sleepy, I had to ask Appa to drive for an hour. We had a great time on this week long trip.
I had already written to Appa that I was fed up with my work in Levers, and was contemplating returning to Bangalore to take up Marketing Research consultancies, and help him in his business at the same time. When we were on our trip in Kerala, we talked about it more and he was quite supportive of the idea. So, beginning March, I did resign and put in my request for my effects to be sent to Bangalore at company expense as I was entitled to.
Decisions
Meantime, Ramu was now pressing for an answer and I decided to agree. Soon after, Appa came to visit me in Bombay, and I told him, to his surprised delight. I must say that when I told Ramu that I had resigned, he was in turn surprised and did not look too approving. Perhaps he thought that after all, I was going to be a fully dependent housewife. Later I learnt that he used to tell his brothers and sisters that his dream was to have a working wife while he could spend his time lying on a stone bench in the shade! Good this did not come out at that time, as for all that I wanted to keep working, I might not have relished being the sole breadwinner with a lazy husband at such a young age. Anyway, he did not break off the engagement after this news. CORRECTION: When I passed on this bit to Ramu a few weeks back, he came back with some, luckily few, corrections that I readily accept. The other corrections have been incorporated into the revised version but I am quoting him on this. He wrote “ I really wanted a person who would be able to survive on her own, in case I popped off. Sleeping on the stone bench was to be when I decided to retire--not dependent on a working wife!!
If you wonder at this parallel set of developments [thinking of joining Appa in his business and seriously dating, 'view matrimony'] I truly cannot say what was actually going on in my mind. All I know is that the six-month deadline was so firmly internalised that I was not going to be shaken in that resolve, and I was not depending on getting hitched as a way out. A job had to be in the offing and the Bangalore option was my solution. Once I agreed to marry, that was however forgotten. I told Ramu I would do consultancies in or from Poona if I did not get a regular job.
And Reactions...
As soon as word of my engagement got around in HLL, Dr. Rajni Chadha, the psychologist in the Marketing Research Department, popped her head into my room and asked me how much of my trousseau had been collected! Astonished, I retorted 'what trousseau? Maybe, just maybe, I will get myself a sari.' She was aghast, and told me that among Punjabis, a bride was supposed to be given enough good saris and suits [salwar-kameezes] to ensure that she wore a dressy new one each day for the entire year! This, apart from enough linen for the household, etc. Now, I was aghast, and assured her that far from being stirred to emulate this example, I was very glad that such customs were not known in the south, and that even if they were, I would have no compunction in ignoring them.
A very different reaction came from Prakash Tandon, the chairman of HLL. He called me in and asked if I was resigning because I was getting married or for other reasons. So I narrated what and how, but could not convince him that the two decisions were coincidental, till I asked that he check with the shipping department if I had not first requested shipping of my effects to Bangalore, and only after a few weeks, changed the destination to Pune. Vasumati told me why he was so concerned. A number of women officers and trainees had recently quit HLL, and the organisation was getting the reputation of being unfriendly to women. The management's stand had been in the past [when they rarely recruited women officers] that they would leave after marriage and it was a waste to invest in them. Tandon was keen to find more evidence to bolster this argument.
Years later, I met Tandon at a STC party [By then he was no longer a director in HLL, but had become one in the State Trading Corporation [STC] for a while. Ramu was at this time a director at STC]. I reminded Tandon that I had been in HLL long before. He asked me what I was doing, and I told him that I was with UNICEF. He then asked after several other women colleagues of my time, and I recounted each one's present position. I could not resist the temptation to add, 'So, you see, Mr. Tandon, that all the women who left HLL then are still working and not just in any odd job, but in areas of their expertise'. He smiled wanly and said , 'Ah, yes'. That was just like him!
Getting Ready for the Change
Going back to '66, when Appa was due to return to Bangalore, I went with him up to Poona, as he had to change trains there in those days. Chandru, Surimama's son, worked as a biochemist in the same organization as Ramu. So, we both stayed with him for a few days. I got to meet Ramu's father and younger brother, Gopala, who was setting up the TELCO plant and offices [he is a Civil Engineer] in Chinchwad, just next to Pimpri. I got on well with both of them. I recalled Ramani's anxious question during the period when I was silent and undecided if the fact that these two were staying with Ramu was my problem. I had written to her that it had never even crossed my mind.
Many years later, I heard from one of my family that the general belief was that Ramu and I had met through Chandru, or even that he had been responsible for arranging our marriage. Like the whispering game, I guess surmises and rumours have a way of getting transformed in passing from person to person!
An RP-style Wedding
There was one final hurdle before we did get married. We were both keen to have a registered wedding and both our fathers were upset. They said, 'Make the ceremony as simple as you want, but let it be a Hindu wedding'. Still, we tried, and how! No luck. Things must have changed now, but then we drew blank in three towns. In Bombay, they said Ramu was not resident there, and vice versa in Poona. So we enquired in Bangalore. Well the problem there was that neither of us had been living in the state for years and so even though we 'belonged' to it, we needed to wait for a month after giving notice, with one of us living there, before we could get hitched. Since, we had decided to get married before the month was out after my departure from HLL and Bombay, and Ramu had even got his leave sanction, we reluctantly gave in to the idea of a religious ceremony. The fathers must have heaved a collective sigh of relief.
We had however full leeway to lay down terms and conditions. Appa was only too happy to oblige – anything so long as...our guest list was limited to our immediate families – the two parents, our siblings and their offspring. We then included any local aunts and uncles. The only non-family members were Vatsala, Ramani's sister and also my friend and Sastry – this was in lieu of Ramani and Murthy who had brought us together, but who were in Delhi. We would inform them by letter and print no invitations. There would be only as brief a ceremony as essential and no reception.We had already planned to get away on our honeymoon by the afternoon. We wanted our marriage to be a model of simplicity in an era when, as we then thought these events were gaudy, expensive, noisy, keeping up with the Joneses affairs. Little did we realise that the trend was in the direction of ever more gaudy and costly weddings with no seeming end to it.
Ramu came down a week or so before the wedding date and we set to work on the priest who was to officiate at the ceremony. Luckily he was my father's tennant and more important, a very open-minded man. He heard us calmly when we asked him if he could not finish the ceremony in a matter of minutes instead of hours as usual, and said he would look into the rules and get back to us. Next day, he told us that the absolute minimum according to the Vedas were the Agni [the sacred fire] which was the chief witness and sanctifier of a Hindu marriage, the Saptapadi [seven steps] or going around Agni seven rounds, hand in hand, and the placing of the yoke on our shoulders to signify a concerted action in life. Even the tying of the 'thali' [or yellow thread with the marriage symbol'] around the bride's neck by the groom was a later introduction, he added. How long would all this take, we asked – 15 minutes, he promised. In fact, he did in 14 flat. One aunt came too late as she had never expected a weddding to finish or come to the main event either so soon.
And this did include my gingerly sitting on my father's lap as even in those slender days, I felt I might be too heavy for him while Ramu tied a thali while Appa and he repeated some of the key sanskrit mantras that go with that part of the ceremony . I agreed to the thali as the parents wanted it, and each gave me one that our mothers had worn. [Soon after, though, I found the gold chain on which the thalis were hung too irritating especially in summer, and I took it off telling Ramu if that was the only thing that made me married to him, the marriage was not worth protecting]. Only one other ceremony we had was that we exchanged garlands before sitting before the fire. Lallukka tried to put on a casette of the drums beating the marriage beat, but Ramu gave such a scowl that she hastily turned it off!
We had planned to have early lunch as the ceremony was over by 10 am or so. This too was as simple as we could get it to be. One masala rice, one sweet etc. Apart from my saris, the total cost was about Rs. 1,000, I think, for the fifty or so guests [our combined families were large, even though not all from Ramu's side could come!].
'Saris' needs another story. When Ramu came down to Bangalore, Appa asked him to choose a suit, a ring and a watch [the usual presents the bride's father gave the groom]. He refused – it smacked of dowry! Despite pleas, he refused to budge, and so Appa had to accept. I was watching from the sidelines. Then came the issue of what Ramu would wear for the ceremony. He said he would be in a pant and shirt, and here I drew the line. If he did not want to wear a dhothi, he should at least wear a churidhar or pyjama and a kurta. Ramu finally agreed to this, and wore his then usual white loose pyjama and kurta, saying that he had not worn a dhothi for ages.
A couple of days before the wedding, we both went to receive Annaiya, Ramu's father at the station. No sooner had we greeted him than he said ' it is our tradition to get the bride a sari for the wedding'. Ramu agreed to buy me one. I kept mum then, but turned on him the moment we were by ourselves, ' If I accept a sari from your father, you have to accept a suit from mine!' In the end, Ramu agreed to an odd pant and shirt, as he insisted that a suit definitely smacked of dowry!
Our wedding day had a bit of gaiety added to it, after all, when some of the guests had left, My two brothers-in-law and my nephews and nieces declared that this was too quiet and sedate a wedding to be fun and started a 'bylla' in their own style. So we watched and enjoyed the dancing and singing for a while before Ramu and I left by car for Mysore, the first leg of our honeymoon.
The Scent of Coffee Blossoms!....
....is something one has to experience. When we went from Mysore to Mercara [Madikere now], it was just the right time. We stayed at a coffee plantation guest-house for a few days and enjoyed the smells and sights all around. Then we moved to Ooty before returning to Pimpri via Bangalore. Ramu and I shared the driving, even though I found his Ambassador pretty heavy to steer. [Thereafter, I managed to avoid that car as much as possible in town. Gopala had a fiat,but hardly used it to work, as the Telco jeep would take him on the rough site roads. So I preferred to take that when I went to Poona, about 15 km. on the horrendously busy Bombay-Poona road. However, the Ambassador was inevitable for outside trips].
On the last leg of our trip, I debated whether I should wear a sari, a salwar suit or my only pair of slacks. I decided it would be the slacks, as I felt I would not have the courage to wear such an attire if I did not do it then. What a mountain of a molehill I made it now seems! But at that time, I had to make this non-conformist statement. Not that I got any reaction whatsoever from Annaiya or Gopala – maybe they did not even notice!
When someone asks me if my marriage to Ramu was an arranged or a love marriage, I am at a loss to answer honestly yes or no. What exactly is the line between these two types as understood in India [or if that is too large a canvas, considering our bewildering diversity, in urban middle-class India]? When child marriages were first banned under the law during the nineteenth century, thanks to the then Governor-General Benedick and Raja Ram Mohan Roy, the social reformer, the age limit for girls was set at 16 years. But in the early part of the 20th century, my aunt got married at 8 years of age and my mother at 12 [just to cite two instances, even if they were actually just betrothals, and not consumated till the girls came of age]. Even today nearly 2 out of every 5 girls are married before the present legal age of 18 in the country! In some cases, they and even the boys are just past the todder stage! Well, such marriages are clearly arranged.
The confusion starts when the views of the one or both the key parties to the union, the girl and the boy, are obtained. In the case of my two sisters, they both did have a say, and certainly, my two brothers-in-law to be. But for me, these are still arranged marriages. Then and also nowadays, in general, this is how an arranged marriage is worked out. First the horoscopes are compared and only if they agree in some crucial aspects according the astrologer, is the next step taken - either one of the two parties, the elders of each side, usually the girl's family, contact the other and if they get a good feel, the proposition is put before the boy and girl by their respective families. Photos may be exchanged and then, if all this evoke positive vibes, a meeting is arranged between the two families, now including the g and the b. Not the two of them on their own, no, not yet, and in some families, not at all. In many familes, it is taken for granted that the power of refusal resides wholly in the boy, and his family, and that the girl's family should be grateful that this 'demi-gods' have deigned to consider this match!
In our familes, there might not be any pre-determined view that the girl will not say 'No' but I have not myself heard of any such instance . It is also not unusual for the the two youngsters to go off for an evening to talk alone, get to know each other better than in the midst of so many others – something harmless, like a walk in the park or on the beach, a visit to an ice-cream parlour or a bookshop, etc. i have narrated earlier on how Lallukka and Jay Athimbere did that in 1940, to the horror of my grandmother who was totally oppposed to such new -fangled ideas. My second sister, Hema married a second cousin, and Chandru Athimbere came to stay at our place for a few days, view marriage, and then it was settled.
On the other hand, Kumar met Revathi, his future wife, in LA and JA's home, with a full house of relatives from both sides, and that was it. Both decided 'yes' with that one encouter! I even asked Kumar how he could decide like that! He replied in his inimitable was, 'What right do I have to say 'No' to any girl?' Obviously, I was projecting my own concerns about such a situation and decision-making process. Luckily, it turned out to be as good a way to pick a mate as any other.
In our immediate family, there was neither talk of, nor an actual payment of dowry, but that was not and is, even more so today, not the norm! What is more, the amounts demanded are going up and up and up still, with no end to the cupidity of those who have outstripping that of the have-nots. Unfortunately, the poor too try to keep up with the Joneses! I know of communities where there was no tradition of any dowry, especially in Kerala, and to some extent in Karnataka and A.P. But even they have succumbed to the lure and are now demanding dowry. Of course, dowry receiving and giving being illegal in India for decades, it is called a gift or sometimes subsumed under the name of marriage.
In any case, none of these marriages were without the pre-arranged moves of other family members, and were made within the community we belonged to. Moreover, the two families expected, and got, some decision immediately or within some short period – a day or two, generally [Recall how our family, especially my grandmother and mother too were upset when JA did not say 'yes' or 'no' for a few days?] . What if the boy and girl met within the circle of family or friends but there was no such plan or if they even grew up together or went to school together or with one's sibling etc. - that is how a number of non-arranged or 'love' matches click. Many of the recent marriages in our families have occurred this way. But our own case was not so clear-cut.
I leave it to you to decide what our [Ramu's and my] marriage was. This is how it came about....
So, what category did this Marriage belong to?...
Sometime in '65, my friend Ramani wrote to me suggesting I meet a batch-mate of her husband, Murthy. Her sister, Vatsala, and she had each tried before to interest me in such meetings ['view matrimony' as the newspaper matrimonial columns put it], for me to come back always with the objection that I could not decide after a meeting or two. But now, Ramani wrote that we could just meet on our own and as many times as we wanted, and we need not get back to Murthy or her as to what happened, etc. For a change, I too felt, what did I lose, anyway. So when a phone call came to me at office one day, I said, yes, I would meet Ramaswamy for lunch the same day at a nearby popular restaurant. We talked quite openly and met again the next evening before he returned to Pimpri [near Poona] where he was working as the Financial Adviser in the Hindusthan Antibiotics Factory.
As Ramu came up to Bombay often on work, we met again a couple of times, if I recall correctly, before I went off on a motoring vacation in Kerala with Vatsala, her husband Sastry and my father. In the meantime, we both corresponded. That gave me, especially, the opportunity to unburden myself of some of my phobias about marriage. I wrote firmly that I wanted to continue working after marriage, that I was an agnostic, that I valued my independence, etc. Maybe my fears were exaggerated, but the general expectation in our society those days was for a woman to submerge her personality and interests in her husband's or even in those of his family [to a lesser extent, this is still true nowadays, even among the educated, urban middle and upper classes]. The replies I got were most reassuring. This correspondence and occasional meetings continued in the beginning of '66. Ramu admits he was ready to say 'yes' long before I was. But then he did not have the same causes for worry that I had!
The Kerala Trip
Appa at this time had only a BSA bantam and no car. But my uncle, also a Ramaswamy, was prepared to let me have his car for the trip. Appa said he could no longer think of driving long distance. No matter, there was Sastry and myself. As we started on our 1,000 km journery however, he mentioned he did not have a drving licence. At once, I vetoed his driving even for a short while. I did not want to take a risk, especially with a borrowed car! Actually, I did quite well, both on the plains and the twisting hill roads of Wynad, but the very last day, with just a couple of hours to go, I felt so sleepy, I had to ask Appa to drive for an hour. We had a great time on this week long trip.
I had already written to Appa that I was fed up with my work in Levers, and was contemplating returning to Bangalore to take up Marketing Research consultancies, and help him in his business at the same time. When we were on our trip in Kerala, we talked about it more and he was quite supportive of the idea. So, beginning March, I did resign and put in my request for my effects to be sent to Bangalore at company expense as I was entitled to.
Decisions
Meantime, Ramu was now pressing for an answer and I decided to agree. Soon after, Appa came to visit me in Bombay, and I told him, to his surprised delight. I must say that when I told Ramu that I had resigned, he was in turn surprised and did not look too approving. Perhaps he thought that after all, I was going to be a fully dependent housewife. Later I learnt that he used to tell his brothers and sisters that his dream was to have a working wife while he could spend his time lying on a stone bench in the shade! Good this did not come out at that time, as for all that I wanted to keep working, I might not have relished being the sole breadwinner with a lazy husband at such a young age. Anyway, he did not break off the engagement after this news. CORRECTION: When I passed on this bit to Ramu a few weeks back, he came back with some, luckily few, corrections that I readily accept. The other corrections have been incorporated into the revised version but I am quoting him on this. He wrote “ I really wanted a person who would be able to survive on her own, in case I popped off. Sleeping on the stone bench was to be when I decided to retire--not dependent on a working wife!!
If you wonder at this parallel set of developments [thinking of joining Appa in his business and seriously dating, 'view matrimony'] I truly cannot say what was actually going on in my mind. All I know is that the six-month deadline was so firmly internalised that I was not going to be shaken in that resolve, and I was not depending on getting hitched as a way out. A job had to be in the offing and the Bangalore option was my solution. Once I agreed to marry, that was however forgotten. I told Ramu I would do consultancies in or from Poona if I did not get a regular job.
And Reactions...
As soon as word of my engagement got around in HLL, Dr. Rajni Chadha, the psychologist in the Marketing Research Department, popped her head into my room and asked me how much of my trousseau had been collected! Astonished, I retorted 'what trousseau? Maybe, just maybe, I will get myself a sari.' She was aghast, and told me that among Punjabis, a bride was supposed to be given enough good saris and suits [salwar-kameezes] to ensure that she wore a dressy new one each day for the entire year! This, apart from enough linen for the household, etc. Now, I was aghast, and assured her that far from being stirred to emulate this example, I was very glad that such customs were not known in the south, and that even if they were, I would have no compunction in ignoring them.
A very different reaction came from Prakash Tandon, the chairman of HLL. He called me in and asked if I was resigning because I was getting married or for other reasons. So I narrated what and how, but could not convince him that the two decisions were coincidental, till I asked that he check with the shipping department if I had not first requested shipping of my effects to Bangalore, and only after a few weeks, changed the destination to Pune. Vasumati told me why he was so concerned. A number of women officers and trainees had recently quit HLL, and the organisation was getting the reputation of being unfriendly to women. The management's stand had been in the past [when they rarely recruited women officers] that they would leave after marriage and it was a waste to invest in them. Tandon was keen to find more evidence to bolster this argument.
Years later, I met Tandon at a STC party [By then he was no longer a director in HLL, but had become one in the State Trading Corporation [STC] for a while. Ramu was at this time a director at STC]. I reminded Tandon that I had been in HLL long before. He asked me what I was doing, and I told him that I was with UNICEF. He then asked after several other women colleagues of my time, and I recounted each one's present position. I could not resist the temptation to add, 'So, you see, Mr. Tandon, that all the women who left HLL then are still working and not just in any odd job, but in areas of their expertise'. He smiled wanly and said , 'Ah, yes'. That was just like him!
Getting Ready for the Change
Going back to '66, when Appa was due to return to Bangalore, I went with him up to Poona, as he had to change trains there in those days. Chandru, Surimama's son, worked as a biochemist in the same organization as Ramu. So, we both stayed with him for a few days. I got to meet Ramu's father and younger brother, Gopala, who was setting up the TELCO plant and offices [he is a Civil Engineer] in Chinchwad, just next to Pimpri. I got on well with both of them. I recalled Ramani's anxious question during the period when I was silent and undecided if the fact that these two were staying with Ramu was my problem. I had written to her that it had never even crossed my mind.
Many years later, I heard from one of my family that the general belief was that Ramu and I had met through Chandru, or even that he had been responsible for arranging our marriage. Like the whispering game, I guess surmises and rumours have a way of getting transformed in passing from person to person!
An RP-style Wedding
There was one final hurdle before we did get married. We were both keen to have a registered wedding and both our fathers were upset. They said, 'Make the ceremony as simple as you want, but let it be a Hindu wedding'. Still, we tried, and how! No luck. Things must have changed now, but then we drew blank in three towns. In Bombay, they said Ramu was not resident there, and vice versa in Poona. So we enquired in Bangalore. Well the problem there was that neither of us had been living in the state for years and so even though we 'belonged' to it, we needed to wait for a month after giving notice, with one of us living there, before we could get hitched. Since, we had decided to get married before the month was out after my departure from HLL and Bombay, and Ramu had even got his leave sanction, we reluctantly gave in to the idea of a religious ceremony. The fathers must have heaved a collective sigh of relief.
We had however full leeway to lay down terms and conditions. Appa was only too happy to oblige – anything so long as...our guest list was limited to our immediate families – the two parents, our siblings and their offspring. We then included any local aunts and uncles. The only non-family members were Vatsala, Ramani's sister and also my friend and Sastry – this was in lieu of Ramani and Murthy who had brought us together, but who were in Delhi. We would inform them by letter and print no invitations. There would be only as brief a ceremony as essential and no reception.We had already planned to get away on our honeymoon by the afternoon. We wanted our marriage to be a model of simplicity in an era when, as we then thought these events were gaudy, expensive, noisy, keeping up with the Joneses affairs. Little did we realise that the trend was in the direction of ever more gaudy and costly weddings with no seeming end to it.
Ramu came down a week or so before the wedding date and we set to work on the priest who was to officiate at the ceremony. Luckily he was my father's tennant and more important, a very open-minded man. He heard us calmly when we asked him if he could not finish the ceremony in a matter of minutes instead of hours as usual, and said he would look into the rules and get back to us. Next day, he told us that the absolute minimum according to the Vedas were the Agni [the sacred fire] which was the chief witness and sanctifier of a Hindu marriage, the Saptapadi [seven steps] or going around Agni seven rounds, hand in hand, and the placing of the yoke on our shoulders to signify a concerted action in life. Even the tying of the 'thali' [or yellow thread with the marriage symbol'] around the bride's neck by the groom was a later introduction, he added. How long would all this take, we asked – 15 minutes, he promised. In fact, he did in 14 flat. One aunt came too late as she had never expected a weddding to finish or come to the main event either so soon.
And this did include my gingerly sitting on my father's lap as even in those slender days, I felt I might be too heavy for him while Ramu tied a thali while Appa and he repeated some of the key sanskrit mantras that go with that part of the ceremony . I agreed to the thali as the parents wanted it, and each gave me one that our mothers had worn. [Soon after, though, I found the gold chain on which the thalis were hung too irritating especially in summer, and I took it off telling Ramu if that was the only thing that made me married to him, the marriage was not worth protecting]. Only one other ceremony we had was that we exchanged garlands before sitting before the fire. Lallukka tried to put on a casette of the drums beating the marriage beat, but Ramu gave such a scowl that she hastily turned it off!
We had planned to have early lunch as the ceremony was over by 10 am or so. This too was as simple as we could get it to be. One masala rice, one sweet etc. Apart from my saris, the total cost was about Rs. 1,000, I think, for the fifty or so guests [our combined families were large, even though not all from Ramu's side could come!].
'Saris' needs another story. When Ramu came down to Bangalore, Appa asked him to choose a suit, a ring and a watch [the usual presents the bride's father gave the groom]. He refused – it smacked of dowry! Despite pleas, he refused to budge, and so Appa had to accept. I was watching from the sidelines. Then came the issue of what Ramu would wear for the ceremony. He said he would be in a pant and shirt, and here I drew the line. If he did not want to wear a dhothi, he should at least wear a churidhar or pyjama and a kurta. Ramu finally agreed to this, and wore his then usual white loose pyjama and kurta, saying that he had not worn a dhothi for ages.
A couple of days before the wedding, we both went to receive Annaiya, Ramu's father at the station. No sooner had we greeted him than he said ' it is our tradition to get the bride a sari for the wedding'. Ramu agreed to buy me one. I kept mum then, but turned on him the moment we were by ourselves, ' If I accept a sari from your father, you have to accept a suit from mine!' In the end, Ramu agreed to an odd pant and shirt, as he insisted that a suit definitely smacked of dowry!
Our wedding day had a bit of gaiety added to it, after all, when some of the guests had left, My two brothers-in-law and my nephews and nieces declared that this was too quiet and sedate a wedding to be fun and started a 'bylla' in their own style. So we watched and enjoyed the dancing and singing for a while before Ramu and I left by car for Mysore, the first leg of our honeymoon.
The Scent of Coffee Blossoms!....
....is something one has to experience. When we went from Mysore to Mercara [Madikere now], it was just the right time. We stayed at a coffee plantation guest-house for a few days and enjoyed the smells and sights all around. Then we moved to Ooty before returning to Pimpri via Bangalore. Ramu and I shared the driving, even though I found his Ambassador pretty heavy to steer. [Thereafter, I managed to avoid that car as much as possible in town. Gopala had a fiat,but hardly used it to work, as the Telco jeep would take him on the rough site roads. So I preferred to take that when I went to Poona, about 15 km. on the horrendously busy Bombay-Poona road. However, the Ambassador was inevitable for outside trips].
On the last leg of our trip, I debated whether I should wear a sari, a salwar suit or my only pair of slacks. I decided it would be the slacks, as I felt I would not have the courage to wear such an attire if I did not do it then. What a mountain of a molehill I made it now seems! But at that time, I had to make this non-conformist statement. Not that I got any reaction whatsoever from Annaiya or Gopala – maybe they did not even notice!
Preface
This blog has gone through many avatars, and the earlier chapters are now not online, but i mean to retrieve them from my files later. However, I am now just getting on with the story,as it unfolds in the Sixties. I cannot even find out at which point I have stopped blogging the sections I have on file, but it appears it was when I decided to leave Levers. So I am now starting with events of the mid-sities.
I will post earlier chapters by and by, with indication of the sequence so anyone who has not read them can do so now, and those who want to go back too.
One of these days, I mean to post some pictures too - this seems an enless project!
I would welcome reader participation - additional stories from those who know me, comments, critical, snide or appreciative if you feel upto it.
I will post earlier chapters by and by, with indication of the sequence so anyone who has not read them can do so now, and those who want to go back too.
One of these days, I mean to post some pictures too - this seems an enless project!
I would welcome reader participation - additional stories from those who know me, comments, critical, snide or appreciative if you feel upto it.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Rambling Down Rambling Lanes With Random Turns
Down Rambling Lanes I venture
Rejoicing in random turns of memory;
Skipping into the many by-lanes
Pausing at nooks that echo the past -
Sweet, tickling, nostalgic, or sad.
Some by-lanes, too murky to bear, to tread -
Still I shudder at their fierce, burning,
Sometime shameful vision;
They will remain a secret path of self-pity or torment
Their thorns not all to torture.
Some who read this will find yourselves in these lanes
Bear with me kindly
I recount with no malice
To others, but a tale - of passing fancy, I trust
Or amusement, or cheer, or thought.
Join me then
Down rambling lanes, and take
The random turns into bylanes
To savour the nooks and echoes
As each we pass by and go forth to the next.
**
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