It was uncommon in the seventies in India for a girlfriend to move in with a man. When Jane, an obvious foreigner with her long blonde hair, moved into my two-story bungalow in an exclusive Kolkata community, it was seen as outrageous.
What made it worse was that I refused to treat it as anything out of the ordinary. When there was a community event, Jane joined in. If a neighbor invited me for dinner, she came with me.
The chic but firm president of the homeowners’ association put it delicately to me over tea one day, “Is it wise?” An elderly accountant, another association stalwart, told me, “Some of our neighbors are a little upset.” The advertising executive took a different tack, “Do you think it is a good thing for her?”
My response was simple: Given our busy routines, this living arrangement was the only one that made sense. Besides, I wanted her to stay with me.
Banamali, my old domestic on whom I depended and whose opinion mattered greatly to me, adored Jane. Not being used to having a domestic, she always spoke to him gently, and he went out of his way to do things for her.
My office colleagues took a cynical view. They had seen me with other girlfriends before, and they refused to treat this as anything more than a passing affair.
They felt duly vindicated when, eighteen months later, Jane had to return to the US. Her visa had expired, and the deadline was approaching to submit her final report on the project that had brought her to India.
What my co-workers couldn’t have predicted was that within six months I would resign from the job I loved, abandon the editorship of a cherished literary magazine, give up the house that had given me so much joy, and immigrate to the US to move in with the person I would not be without.
The association president's suspicion that it was an unwise liaison was finally validated.
What made it worse was that I refused to treat it as anything out of the ordinary. When there was a community event, Jane joined in. If a neighbor invited me for dinner, she came with me.
The chic but firm president of the homeowners’ association put it delicately to me over tea one day, “Is it wise?” An elderly accountant, another association stalwart, told me, “Some of our neighbors are a little upset.” The advertising executive took a different tack, “Do you think it is a good thing for her?”
My response was simple: Given our busy routines, this living arrangement was the only one that made sense. Besides, I wanted her to stay with me.
Banamali, my old domestic on whom I depended and whose opinion mattered greatly to me, adored Jane. Not being used to having a domestic, she always spoke to him gently, and he went out of his way to do things for her.
My office colleagues took a cynical view. They had seen me with other girlfriends before, and they refused to treat this as anything more than a passing affair.
They felt duly vindicated when, eighteen months later, Jane had to return to the US. Her visa had expired, and the deadline was approaching to submit her final report on the project that had brought her to India.
What my co-workers couldn’t have predicted was that within six months I would resign from the job I loved, abandon the editorship of a cherished literary magazine, give up the house that had given me so much joy, and immigrate to the US to move in with the person I would not be without.
The association president's suspicion that it was an unwise liaison was finally validated.
Jim, my colleague at a US Embassy in Central America, was the toughest consular officer when it came to granting visas to local citizens. Their pleas to visit relatives or to study in an American college, he told the other officers, were spurious: all these “brown people” really wanted was to get into the US and stay there to make money.
Jim enjoyed his reputation as a difficult officer to get by, and he reveled in rejecting the majority of the applicants he interviewed. Over coffee he would recount how he had uncovered their scams and saved our country from intruders. Once, he told me of the local surgeon who had fed him an unconvincing story of wanting to travel to the US to learn a new surgical procedure. What he really wanted, Jim said, was to earn an American surgeon’s large salary. He had denied the man a visa.
One night the next week Jim’s three year old son developed a respiratory problem. By morning he was in a critical state. The nurse practitioner at the embassy’s medical center began calling local doctors, who suggested that the child be taken to a nearby teaching hospital, where a surgeon had treated similar cases. Desperate, Jim and his wife rushed their son to the hospital. The specialist was the young surgeon Jim had denied a visa the previous week. The hurried surgery was a success, and Jim was able to take his son home after a few days.
A week after the surgery, Jim reversed his decision to deny the surgeon a visa.
Jim enjoyed his reputation as a difficult officer to get by, and he reveled in rejecting the majority of the applicants he interviewed. Over coffee he would recount how he had uncovered their scams and saved our country from intruders. Once, he told me of the local surgeon who had fed him an unconvincing story of wanting to travel to the US to learn a new surgical procedure. What he really wanted, Jim said, was to earn an American surgeon’s large salary. He had denied the man a visa.
One night the next week Jim’s three year old son developed a respiratory problem. By morning he was in a critical state. The nurse practitioner at the embassy’s medical center began calling local doctors, who suggested that the child be taken to a nearby teaching hospital, where a surgeon had treated similar cases. Desperate, Jim and his wife rushed their son to the hospital. The specialist was the young surgeon Jim had denied a visa the previous week. The hurried surgery was a success, and Jim was able to take his son home after a few days.
A week after the surgery, Jim reversed his decision to deny the surgeon a visa.
After I received my university degree, I went to work as an intern for a tire company in India. They sent me to a large plant to learn the manufacturing process. I knew nothing about business – people in my family were doctors, teachers and lawyers – but I was keen to learn.
The first day in the factory I noticed two signs everywhere: Danger and Safety First. Our bosses said Safety First meant keeping the workers’ life and limb safe was the first priority of the company, but I couldn’t see how just plastering the Danger signs would accomplish that. How could these protect the workers from the ubiquitous huge fabric cutting shears, giant milling machines and steaming red-hot molding presses? They not only had to work on these machines, they had to do it at a furious pace, producing their shift quota in eight relentless hours, with a short, solitary break. Every day they walked past these machines on dirty, slippery floors, worked with worn gloves and scarcely had time to don protective gear to save their eyes or ears.
My friend, Ari, another intern, to whom I voiced my concern, scoffed at my unease. “Are you a woman?” he asked. “All men’s jobs have minor risks like that. You have to watch out for those.” He concluded, “A job like that makes you strong.” Three weeks later, I was scalded by an accidental contact with a steam pipe and observed that the pipe wasn’t insulated, as it easily could have been. Ari chided me instead on my carelessness and put the injury down to bad luck. “It certainly didn’t threaten your life or limb,” he said with finality.
A couple of months later, Ari was learning how to mix rubber compounds with chemicals on a two-roll mixing mill, when the mixing knife slipped from his hand and started going into the compound. Instinctively he put out his hand to retrieve the knife, and the rolling rubber sheet promptly trapped his hand and started dragging it into the nip of the two massive cast-iron rolling mills. By the time the charge-hand heard his scream and pulled the tripwire to stop the mill, the larger part of his arm had been ground into the mill. A surgeon saved Ari’s life, but it took months of treatment in a hospital and years of practice with a prosthetic device to return to normal life.
I wasn’t surprised to read years later in the company’s journal an article by Ari, emphasizing the need for safety awareness and advocating installation of better protective devices to safeguard workers.
ooo
The first day in the factory I noticed two signs everywhere: Danger and Safety First. Our bosses said Safety First meant keeping the workers’ life and limb safe was the first priority of the company, but I couldn’t see how just plastering the Danger signs would accomplish that. How could these protect the workers from the ubiquitous huge fabric cutting shears, giant milling machines and steaming red-hot molding presses? They not only had to work on these machines, they had to do it at a furious pace, producing their shift quota in eight relentless hours, with a short, solitary break. Every day they walked past these machines on dirty, slippery floors, worked with worn gloves and scarcely had time to don protective gear to save their eyes or ears.
My friend, Ari, another intern, to whom I voiced my concern, scoffed at my unease. “Are you a woman?” he asked. “All men’s jobs have minor risks like that. You have to watch out for those.” He concluded, “A job like that makes you strong.” Three weeks later, I was scalded by an accidental contact with a steam pipe and observed that the pipe wasn’t insulated, as it easily could have been. Ari chided me instead on my carelessness and put the injury down to bad luck. “It certainly didn’t threaten your life or limb,” he said with finality.
A couple of months later, Ari was learning how to mix rubber compounds with chemicals on a two-roll mixing mill, when the mixing knife slipped from his hand and started going into the compound. Instinctively he put out his hand to retrieve the knife, and the rolling rubber sheet promptly trapped his hand and started dragging it into the nip of the two massive cast-iron rolling mills. By the time the charge-hand heard his scream and pulled the tripwire to stop the mill, the larger part of his arm had been ground into the mill. A surgeon saved Ari’s life, but it took months of treatment in a hospital and years of practice with a prosthetic device to return to normal life.
I wasn’t surprised to read years later in the company’s journal an article by Ari, emphasizing the need for safety awareness and advocating installation of better protective devices to safeguard workers.
ooo
