Jennifer was a successful business woman, having some difficult moments in her business. She is strong, independent, articulate, loving and straightforward people I have ever met. She was so supportive of me, driving me to center city and to New York once, that I have always felt that I have taken undue advantage of her generosity. Helping others comes naturally to her. She was involved with a prominent charity and I also went to some meetings to such a charity.
Being an American woman, I would expect her to be materialistic. But she was an exact opposite of what, I imagined an American business women would be. She took care to find about the source that got the profits each time she bought any product. When buying anything, she would find out how the profits were being used by a shop, brand name. She wanted that her money goes to some community-based organizations who earn less profit and support families. I was stunned to hear her theories of how to use money and for what purpose. She absolutely hated big cars, big houses and other fabulous ideas that many fellow American shares.
She was such a source of inspiration and encouragement for me, I felt like I have met an elder sister. Toward the end of the study session, I also met her fiancée Jamie. I was so happy for both of them. I had watched her cheeks go pink and her eyes sparkle and voices drop to whispers whenever she mentioned Jamie. So when I met both of them, I felt they are a portrait of a loving couple, who cared for each other. When they were around each other the room seemed to fill up with happiness, love and acceptance.
Barbara, a nurse by profession was an older member of the group. She was on a brink of retirement and had recently gone through a divorce. She would speak how she took care of her children. She sewed, cooked food, and dropped kids to school and their music lessons. She had never imagined that her marriage would end. She was from the old school where one thinks that marriages are for a life time. As I am an Indian, where divorce rate is still very low, I could easily relate to her feeling of being betrayed, dumped and helplessness when she heard of her divorce.
The design of the course which we were attending is such that each person accepts the challenges and get ready to face life as it is, in its natural way. Barbara’s resolute effort to gather all efforts and face the reality of life was admirable. During the five month of the course we were doing together, she started putting on some makeup, taking care of herself. She was not actually looking for a partner right then. Her attitude towards herself, and even her ex-husband turned positive every day during the time I was meeting her.
Barbara took on going to London by herself when she missed one major session in the entire course. For a lady her age and position, this was a very bold step. She must have always traveled with her husband earlier. And to travel all alone to a foreign land did not deter her from continuing in the course. She soon realized that she had to let go her bitterness for her fate and bring back the positive attitude toward life. She then took time off to be at her grand son’s graduation, spent lot of time with her daughters, redecorated some parts of her house. She was so inspiring and always a source of compassion and affection to me.
Bob is a graduate from MIT. Anyone, who has heard of that institute, can easily understand why I was in awe of him. He is intelligent, kind and an introvert. He was single (at that time) may be in late thirty’s or early forty’s. He was one of the silent members of the group. I had not spoken to him much. But there came an occasion that I had to speak to him.
I was supposed to attend a late session on Friday and be there in the center early in the morning on Saturday. Bob lived at stone’s throw from the place where I was supposed to be. I knew about this schedule well ahead of time. I was discussing about my travel arrangements for that weekend with my coach. I did not drive then. Returning back home well past midnight and then going again before 8:30 a.m. was a challenge for me. Then my coach suggested “why don’t you stay at Bob’s place”. I was stunned, astonished, outraged and silent for moments on the phone when my coach suggested this. How could she suggest I stay over in a guy home? For an Indian female with a traditional mind set this seemed out of bounds. I was single too. If Bob was married and had family, I would have had no hesitation. But know both our situations, I was flabbergasted. My coach reasoned with me and told me to look and think out of the box. I realized that I was making it too much of an issue with his and my single status. So I picked up a phone and called Bob and asked if I could stay over at his place on that Friday. Of course he had no problem. But he had no clue of my struggle with me before I called him.
On that particular Friday, he and I walked up till his apartment. He had cleaned up a room for me to stay. He owned a big huge apartment and did not use all rooms I guess. Before going to bed, I asked him to wake me up early as I had to get ready to go to the study center.
He asked “Early, meaning 4 am?”
I said “NO early means 6:30 am”.
Truly he is a morning person. The next morning I woke up around 6 am. And he was already busy with the weekend chores of cleaning and laundry. Then he offered we go to a nearby Starbucks for coffee. So there we were eating muffins and having coffee on a roadside chairs placed near the Starbucks. And he narrated stories of his college days while I gave details of my family back home. Bob was very amused to know that my sister had masters in Chemistry. That was a cute morning breakfast on a cool summer morning.
When leaving Bob’s apartment, he said “So, it was not bad after all”.
It seems my coach Patricia had already had a conversation with him about my situation and mindset about staying at his place. I was taken aback at that time. Patricia had made sure that he had information how an Indian female would react to staying at a strangers place overnight. Well so the entire Bob experiment was pleasant and as easy as being at my own place.
The Friday night stay at Bob’s apartment gave me an idea how intellectuals live. His house seemed like a mini library full of math and science books. Some art pictures and articles were in the living room. He had a piano which he played at time also in the living room. What impressed me most about Bob was that he was totally committed and devoted toward the work he was doing. His notes were neatly stacked and so were his numerous journals, hand written notes all around the study. It seems like he had read all the books that were around there. Most of the books I picked up had his hand written notes. I had not seen so many books on Science, Math, Chemistry, and Physics at somebody home before. He is a scholar.
My coach Patricia is a kind, gentle, intelligent and ever smiling individual. Coaching in such self development study groups is a difficult position. She was a manager in a software company and did fill time job there. She coached about five persons in my study group including me. She was an active member of the choir group in her church. She is married. She lives at an hour drive from her work and the center city place where this study group was conducted. Her personal schedule seemed filled up to the last minute each day. She is a giver always. Managing a job, being a volunteer in the study group, a singer of choir group, managing her home all at the same time is not easy. And doing all this never did I see her exhausted. She was there every time I met her with a smile on her face and ready to help any member who needed her help. Also her coaching style was being friendly and easy. I had no hesitation talking to her about my deepest of insecurities. And always she came up with a plan for me to overcome each hurdle.
During the five month of that study, I learned many things. I was getting related to some friendly and intelligent people and so USA and Philadelphia no longer appeared cold, rude and indifferent. I felt that human beings are similar all over the world. As there can be in-sensitive people in India, they have their counter parts in USA too. I began to focus on the strengths and qualities of the other positive people I was meeting. I found very kind, supportive persons all around me all the time. When I had to travel to New York, my group members helped me. They would appreciate my efforts at getting related to people and culture around me.
Meanwhile, I was preparing to drive a car. I had cleared the written exam to get a learner’s permit. I took some driving classes from a local driving school. The driving classes were fun and difficult at the same time. Imagine a frightened, shivering female behind the wheel of a car. The driving instructor constantly giving out instructions
“Slow, take a right on the Stop sign”.
“You are going wide on turns. Make it clean”
“NO. NO, I said slow down”
He was more angry and scared about my driving than I was. The first two classes were awful. But on the third driving class I was very determined. I analyzed and convinced myself that driving was not a big deal and it had to be approached as fun and another learning experience and not some Herculean task like climbing Himalayas. In India, the people who cannot do very good become drivers, I wondered and I had not done that bad at school so I should be able to drive. And truly my driving improved from that day onwards. Even my driving instructor saw the difference and complimented me for finally having some confidence.
Then after some more practice and failing the parallel parking test once, I finally got the driver license on my second attempt. I was so happy that I could finally drive on my own. Soon, I was told to go to India office for some work. The office was paying my air fare so I happily agreed. I had a good time visiting my family back home. Although I was working most of the days, it seemed like a vacation to me as I could go home to my family each day after work in Delhi, India. That was a good break and required vacation for me.
After returning from India, I started looking for a car. Obviously I was looking for a used car. I did not want to invest in a brand new car, as it was merely eight months since I arrived in this country. Luckily for me, a colleague of mine, Dori bought a new van and was ready to sell her old car. I got a good deal and I was a proud owner of a car now. By the time I finally bought a car, it was months since I had driven a car. And I was once again scared of driving, roads and traffic. The car stood in the parking lot for weeks, before I had courage to drive to office.
There was another angel waiting in the wing for me. I had become friendly with another working female in the apartment complex named, “Madhu”. Madhu is a hell of a character. Strong willed, practical, polite, intelligent all at the same time. She encouraged me a lot to drive on my own. I began by driving in the parking lot. Then drove to a near by shopping mall. On a weekend, Madhu would sit in the passenger seat and guide me in driving to a shopping complex. After much practice and encouragement from her, I could drive the car to the office. Since then Madhu and I have become close friends and she has been very supportive of me.
At office, I was still facing the fact that I was unable to speak for myself and particularly was not comfortable voicing my opinion when men are around. This short coming led me to hear whatever my boss was saying to me at office. Talking to Bob and asking him if I could put up in his apartment for a day was small step I took. Soon I would be talking in office meetings and agree or disagree with my boss during discussions. The fear that I felt when someone in authority spoke to me was decreasing for me. And I was able to see and realize for myself a person sitting at the other end of the table is also a human being and has some short comings too.
I had learnt a technique called re-generation. According to this technique I need to visualize a situation with a positive attitude. So when I was very angry with my colleagues, instead of giving more reasons to be mad at them, I would think may be they had a bad day at home and so they are behaving that way. Or look into the situation more deeply and analyze why I am reacting negatively to a very small issue. Basically it helped me calm my nerves, face each situation with new strength and confidence. Every morning I visualized that the day would be full of co-operation from my boss and colleagues and I would be able to deliver on the tasks I was assigned. With much determination I was able to keep pace with my work environment.
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