Tandoori Texan Tales by Raj Dore
dismissal. I walked out of that place with my chin high up. I
was full of youthful pride and idealism.
Life at CHU, as Cockerell-Hill University in Dallas, Texas
is called, started quite well. My dad had provided me with
enough wherewithal to carry on the first Semester. Later I
managed to get a teaching assistantship. There was also
subsidized student housing on the campus. I shared a two
bedroom apartment with Srinivas, a Chemistry Major.
Altogether I just scraped by with some money left for fun as
well.
‘Fun’ for most part meant some of us Indian boys getting
together in the apartment of one of us, watching Indian
movies on the video and drown plenty of beer. We would
also share in preparing the food. Either we would bring
something or pitch in preparing a curry or sambaar.
There were also TVs and VCRs individually with each of
us. If you had those and could rent X-rated videos you must
belong to the better off elite. If not, you had to make do
with ‘Penthouse’ and ‘Playboy’, which gave more
excitement than a new arrival from India could easily
handle. That was as far as love life went for most guys.
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RAJ DORÉ
The campus was quite segregated and stratified, in terms of
color, ethnicity and cultural background, even though it was
not ‘Politically Correct’ to officially acknowledge that.
There was of course the stratification of Faculty and
different layers of academic standings.
At the top echelon belonged boys and girls of Texan Oil
Barons who drove about in Mercedes Benz and BMWs.
They were there to show some degree of literacy before
taking over their dad’s business and riches. They partied
and frolicked amongst themselves. The Texan girls are
some of the most gorgeous looking in the world. That made
it even more frustrating for the outsiders with whom they
would mix as much as oil with water.
Then there were puddles of people from different
backgrounds like Red China, Korea and the Middle-east,
that would mingle amongst themselves. They also came
from different economic strata from their own countries.
Kareem Al-Saeed was the son of a Kuwaiti Sheikh. He got
an allowance of $40,000.00 per year from his dad. He lived
in a well-furnished apartment and sported very expensive
clothes and haircut. It was a common tale that he would
bring home girls and have romantic evenings. He loved
sipping some nice brew in front of his fireplace with soft
music playing in the background. Even in the middle of
Texas summer when the mercury would be hovering at
100+, he would turn on the fireplace with air-conditioning
turned to full blast. But even with this kind of money
Kareem could hardly make any headway with the local
girls. Texan Oil would not mix with Kuwaiti Oil either. It
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TANDOORI TEXAN TALES
took more than that. As a result he had to drive out in his
convertible to Harry Hines Boulevard at dusk and look
alongside the curb for a good hourly bargain.
On the other end of the scale was Cai from Red China who
was the Teaching Assistant for Dr. Hegde of Chemistry
Department. Cai had to maintain an “A” average to stay on
the Financial Aid. Dr. Hegde originally from Mangalore,
South Kanara in India, was a tenured professor. That meant
in the name of ‘Academic Freedom’, he could not be
shaken from his position of power by anything less than a
Congressional Impeachment. He had made it through to this
position with a lot of hardship. And now it was his turn. It
was a common knowledge that he made Cai wash dishes,
do grocery and laundry for his wife, as a part of academic
exercises. Cai was a person of very modest means but with
a very good-looking wife. She was known to do sewing and
stitching for other students to make some extra buck. You
could also make her go some ‘extra length’ for a few extra
bucks, if you wanted.
Then there was this Dr. Margaret Stich, Professor of the
Computer Science Department. She might have as well
called herself Margaret Thatcher. Just like Dr. Hegde, she
had a lot of pent up anger with this World. She had made it
through this far in a Man’s World suffering plenty of
humiliation and injustice. She was willing to take on any
male thing that moves with cudgels soaked in blood. If you
were a male and one of her wards, you had to take a number
and stand outside her door. Whenever she opened the door
and let you in, you had to prove yourself innocent before
she finished chewing that bit of apple she had just bitten. Or
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RAJ DORÉ
else, the next bite would be of your scalp. It was told, for a
hobby and recreation, over the weekends she fixes an M1tank
parked in her backyard. She wanted to prove to all
those Male Chauvinist Pigs at Pentagon that she could do a
better job of fighting the Soviets than 5-star Generals.
Soviet Union dissolved itself on hearing this.
There were the Fraternities and Sororities, into which the
non-American, especially Indian students rarely participated
because they firmly held that this kind of Western social life
was immoral. They were here just to study and keep their
cultural torch aloft all the time.
Amongst the South-Asian students, including India,
Pakistan, Bangladesh & Sri Lanka, the gender ratio was
something like 2 girls to 100 boys. Statistically there was a
good probability that 1.95 of the 2 girls were already
married. The remaining 0.05 would be the typical Gujju
Behnji type. Of course these two categories are not
mutually exclusive, plenty of them belonged to both.
Even amongst the boys, there were different types. Plenty
came from little towns like Kumbakonam, who would do
their ‘Sandhyavandanam’ and proudly go about with a spot
of Vibhuti on their forehead. For them date was some dry
fruit you could eat with a glass of milk. There were just a
few guys that had experienced some kind of dame chasing
and socializing in Bombay or Delhi.
Indians definitely had an edge over students from some
other countries like China, Japan, Korea and even South
America, due to their familiarity with the English language.
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It was quite heart rending how those other boys and girls
had to work 10 times harder to keep their grades and stay on
the course.
It was common knowledge that Gigi was not one of those
typical Texas girls. She was from Florida and would
condescend talking to specimens of other ilk. She was in
our Project Team. I took some courage and made the first
move of asking her telephone number. I was just testing the
waters if there was any long-term prospects for a soci
I was able to make it through the first hurdle. But invariably
any time I called her either the line was busy or the call
went through to an answering machine. Next time I met her,
what the heck, I jumped right ahead and asked her out,
using the first trick on the book.
“Have you ever tasted Indian cuisine? I know this fine
Indian Restaurant. I wonder if you would want to discuss
this assignment there this Saturday evening. It’s due
Monday, you know?”
Plomp came the response, “I would really love to do that,
Roe-hitt. But this Saturday I am going out with my
boyfriend Leff”. A couple of nights later I was working late
at the Computer Lab and there she was smooching some
guy, definitely not Leff.
They all had this trump card up their sleeves. If they did not
like the looks of you, they would pull this ‘boyfriend’
routine and say ‘we can always be good friends’. In other
words, ‘Keep those candies and flowers coming. But I am
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RAJ DORÉ
not going to bed with you in this lifetime. I am waiting for
Robert Redford in a red sports car’.
On that Holiday Season, Srinivas and I decided to call
another girl Melissa who seemed to be quite nice and
friendly. We planned a cozy evening at our place. We were
going to cook some nice Indian meal. Have some drinks
and music etc. Who knows who would be found wearing
the Pajama Top next morning?
Since we were two of us, we told Melissa to come with a
friend. Much to our excitement, she readily agreed. When
that grand evening finally came, at the appointed time there
was the doorbell. When I opened the door, there she was,
Melissa giving a great smile with another guy.
They drank our expensive bottle of Chardonnay, ate our
food, spilled curry on the carpet, filled the ashtray to
overflowing and went away at 9:30PM to another
discotheque by themselves leaving us behind. Our
apartment looked like a war zone. We two had to clean up
all day next day.
There were also some of those girls who had a well-
determined menu card. You could buy yourself a kiss for a
normal homework assignment. For serious help with
Projects you could negotiate some heavy petting. For
anything more than that, you had to do something really
important like getting a Hot Ticket for a Bon Jovi concert.
Keeping a ‘B’ average in 2 semesters was compulsory.
Otherwise you would be given the boot. The faculty was
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quite aware of how grades could be bought and sold
amongst boys and girls. They would devise different means
to put a check. There would be ‘Surprise Quiz’, ‘Open
Book’ and ‘Closed Book’ exams and Projects. Students
would always try to beat the system one way or another.
After all Faculties consist of humans as well. It is these
same students who later become Faculty. Don’t they?
All in all the system here was better than what I was used to
in India. There we used to kill ourselves in the last few
months before the Final Exams. Two or four years’ worth
of work was being tested in a matter of 3 hours. Which was
a very unfair way to judge, prize or penalize plenty of hard
work. It was more a test of memorizing capabilities than
knowledge. That way many a good life has been ruined or
undeserving rewarded.
I finished my Master’s in Computer Engineering in less
than 2 years of arriving here. We had our Commencement
Ceremony with throwing of hoods up in the air and all the
jubilation. It was a sweet and sour moment. There was a
sense of accomplishment and concern.
Soon after that, Reality started seeping. My student visa
was going to expire in about 6 months. I still did not have a
job. The job market for my skills was quite bad. Market was
flushed with people like me. There was that periodic
downturn in the Economy. Even corporations like IBM
were laying off personnel and announcing hiring freeze.
When a giant like IBM cuts back, it has a ripple effect all
over the job market.
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RAJ DORÉ
There were people with the much-prized Green Card or
U.S. Citizenship staying home expecting the phone to ring.
What chance did I have, with just a Student Visa? Quite
religiously, I was mailing my resume to at least half a dozen
destinations every day. Majority of them did not bother
even to respond. Some would send a curt and crisp letter
very neatly printed saying that my resume would be kept in
their data-base for another 6 months, should any suitable
opening arise.
That summer morning I walked up to Mrs. Barbara Allyson.
She was the secretary of our Dean and Chairman of
Computer Engineering Department, Dr. David Kennington.
I was wearing a red and blue T-shirt with CHU’s mascot
donkey on the back and a large embroidered ‘CHU’ on the
front. My jeans could have used some soap and water very
badly. My ‘Neike’ sneakers were of a comfortable size 9
and half. The baseball cap, with another CHU symbol, had
its hood jetting out on the side over my ear. Who ever said I
had to have a shave every day?
If I showed up like this for a banquet at the Buckingham
Palace, the doorman would have thought I was something
that cat brought in on a rainy day and called the trash-
collector.
Beaming a big smile, I told her, “Barbara, that string of
pearls on that beautiful blue dress makes you look
gorgeous”.
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TANDOORI TEXAN TALES
“Cut it out Rohit. What do you want? What is it this time?”
she asked, wasting no time on small talk trivialities.
“How does David’s schedule look like this week, Barbara?”
I asked, still with that smile broadly pasted on my face.
“I could squeeze you in this afternoon around 4:30. But for
no more than 10 minutes. What is it about now?”
“My life in the Academia seems to be coming to a grinding
halt. Along with that endangerment of self-survival is
looming large. I am kind of wondering, if I should not be
thinking of going on for a Doctorate program”.
“Doctorate programs are for people seeking Knowledge and
Truth, not Sustenance. Do you know the motto of CHU?
‘Veritas Liberitat Voss’, that is Latin for ‘Truth Shall
Liberate You’”.
“Is that so Barbara? I thought it meant, ‘Truthful Fellow
gets liberated from his job by his Boss’. The real reason I
told you, is strictly between you and me.”
Having said that I slowly walked back to my room. My
roommate Srinivas had not yet returned. I opened my
mailbox. There were the usual junk mail and plenty of bills,
credit card statements and the ubiquitous rejection l
my resumes. Then there was an envelope with my mom’s
handwriting on top.
There was the usual sentimental stuff of advising me to eat
well and take care of health. There was also a picture of a
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RAJ DORÉ
demure young lady called Seema Dhillon, second child of
Wing Commander Rajesh Dhillon of Indian Air Force. She
was 21 and an under-graduate student at Lady Shriram
College in Delhi. They were interested in a marriage
proposal.
Seema’s older sister Sangeeta was married to a heart
surgeon, Dr. Arun Varma, in Seattle, Washington. They
were willing to sponsor for a Green Card as well. I shoved
that envelope with its contents into my pocket and tried to
tidy up my appearance.
I had that interview with Dr. Kennington at 4:30. He had
been my advisor through the Master’s program. We had
developed a good respect for each other. He was not one of
those that would make me wash dishes for his wife.
He said, there were a few research projects on which he
could use me. He would run the idea by the Committee.
Once the funding is finalized, I could come on board. This
also meant my Student Visa could be extended until I
finished my Ph.D. That was some reprieve on my life.
That night there was a phone call from Dr. Arun Varma. He
does not waste any time. Does he? He and wife Sangeetha
were passing by Dallas, the following weekend, on their
way to Florida on a trip. They would want to come by and
meet me. The purpose was obvious. They wanted to check
me out and send a confidential report to their folks in Delhi.
I was angry first at this FBI like background checking
business, then at the oncoming onslaught without my
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