THE PEN PALS

I had joined my first job as an Assistant Geologist at the Ahmedabad Project of the Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) of India on February 10th, 1970, in Ahmedabad, India. I was exactly 21 years, 6 months, and 11 days old on that day. I shared a three-bedroom house in the Usmanpura locality with my fellow ONGC geologists; they were great guys, and all hailed from Karnataka. We used to subscribe to two national newspapers: the Times of India and the Hindu. Sometime in the summer of 1970 I saw the names of people listed under the ‘Pen Friends’ column in the Sunday Times of India. A name with the address was that of Mr. Rajesh Ramcharan of San Fernando, Trinidad, West Indies.

Since my childhood days I have always dreamt of traveling to far-away lands and meeting with people in different parts of the world. During my teenage years I acutely suffered from wanderlust, and I still do as a senior citizen. I had a deep desire to travel, experience this beautiful world and interact with people of different cultures. This has been the driving force that enable me to become a professional geologist. My special interest was the global Indian Diasporas that inhabited almost all parts of the world. I decided to write to Rajesh and showed him my interest in his country and my desire to learn more about Indo-Trinidadians. Being a geologist and a cricket enthusiast, I had some basic knowledge of Trinidad and the Caribbean Islands. About six weeks later I received a letter from Trinidad. The letter was not from Rajesh though, but from his sister Manisha. Just imagine my excitement and happiness receiving a letter from a young girl in Trinidad with a couple of her beautiful photographs and some details about her, her family, and her country. This was the first time I had received a letter from a girl. I could not believe my good luck and promptly shared this lovely news with my roommates; they too were delighted.

It seems that Ramesh had received several letters from India and had discarded most of them in favour of one to which he decided to correspond. My letter was in the discarded bin. In the meantime, Rajesh’s sister Manisha decided that she too would like to have a pen friend in India. It was just a coincidence that she picked my letter for correspondence. This is destiny; neither she nor I had the slightest indication that this coincidental pick of my letter would change our lives forever. Well, that is how I received her first letter written to me. I immediately replied and sent her a couple of my own photographs as well. I wrote her about myself, my education and job, my family, etc. After six weeks I received another letter from her. I remember that she was quite pleased with my photographs and my background and described me as a handsome young man with particularly good looks. During the initial months of correspondence, we shared a lot of information about India, Trinidad, cricket, our hobbies and ambitions and there was a constant exchange of personal photographs as well. I used to receive beautiful picture postcards from Trinidad. She had five brothers, two elder and three younger ones. Her family was male dominated; she and her mother were the only females. I do not yet know why I gave Manisha my office address to correspond although most of mail used to come at my home address.

After about six months of regular correspondence suddenly I stopped getting letters from her. I wrote a couple of letters to her and when she did not reply I thought she may have found a new pen friend in India. I stopped writing to her. It was almost five months without any letter from her and no letters were sent from my side either. I concede that due to my then male chauvinistic behavior I was not proactive to inquire why she was not writing to me. I had given-up on her and had almost forgotten her. In the meantime, there was a labour strike in ONGC, and class 3 and 4 employees of the company had gone on strike. I, being a junior officer at that time, was asked to man the office. Few others like me were asked to do the same in the office as well. I sat on the table of a clerk named Nair who had a big table covered with a green woolen cloth and a table-top sized glass sheet covering it. In that office there was a tradition of eating lunch on your own table. During lunch time one day I removed the files and cleared the table for lunch. To my utter amazement I noticed several beautiful picture postcards of Trinidad under the glass cover of Nair’s table. I collected about ten postcards; all were written to me by Manisha. I cannot explain how angry I was with Nair. I complained to the Chief Geologist and Nair was reprimanded and he apologized to me for not delivering those letters to me. He said he liked them a lot because they were incredibly beautiful pictures and had decided to keep them on his table instead of giving them to me.

I suffered a sense of guilt in me when I read those letters. As a matter of fact, Manisha kept on writing to me even though she did not get my letters. She gave me the benefit of doubt, although she complained in every letter about me not writing to her. She thought that I was too busy in my job, or I was not in my office; or maybe I had moved to some other office or city; or maybe I was sick, etc. But she continued writing to me with a single-minded faith that she would one day get a letter from me. I immediately apologized to her and wrote letters daily for a few days to make up for it and explained to her what had happened. She forgave me; but I have not forgiven myself for my heartless and casual attitude towards her back then. I felt so bad about this event that it brought some long-lasting change in me. I wondered if people behaved the way I had then no human relationship would last long because unforeseen circumstances could create misunderstandings between people. Manisha, though over three years younger and with less formal education than me, proved to be far more mature than I was. I developed not only respect for her but for the first time in my life I felt a special liking for someone i.e., Miss Manisha Ramcharan of San Fernando, Trinidad.

We kept on writing to each other and began to share a lot of personal information about our dreams and the future. Sometimes during 1972 I believe we were more than just pen pals. In 1971 I had won through a nationwide competition the ‘National Scholarship for Study Abroad’ offered by the Ministry of Education, Government of India. I had an offer of admission at a few US universities and at the Imperial College of Science and Technology, University of London, England, but had decided to go to Michigan State University (MSU) to do my Ph.D. under the supervision of an internationally renowned paleobotanist and palynologist Prof. Aureal T. Cross. When I shared this information with Manisha sometimes in 1972, she was thrilled and extremely happy and she wrote me that in America I will be much closer to her, and our letters would reach each other much faster.

I left my parents and sister at New Delhi’s International Airport on December 27, 1972, and landed in New York, USA the next day after a long hopping Air India flight. I flew to Bombay (now Mumbai) and changed the plane to fly to New York after landing in Beirut, Rome, Paris, and London. An official from the Indian Consul General in New York had come to receive me at the John F. Kennedy (JFK) International Airport and he dropped me at the YMCA in Manhattan for an overnight stay. I was extremely tired but overly excited to be finally in my dream country America. I could hardly sleep and kept looking out of my 36th floor window throughout the night. It was all new and strange to me; the ground was covered with snow, extremely cold weather, skyscrapers, expressways, different looking people, bright and colourful neon lights, and people speaking a strange form of incomprehensible English. Next morning, I had to use a common bathroom where for the first time in my life I saw not so friendly looking oversized and tall mostly black and few white people. I felt intimidated with the whole environment of the YMCA. Even now I do not think I would consider staying there even for one night. My initial experience of America was not so pleasant.

Next day I met the Indian Consul General in his office. He was a kind and helpful person. He gave me 250 dollars and asked me when I wanted to fly to Lansing, Michigan. To his utter amazement I told him that I do not want to fly and that he should send me by bus. He said it was an exceptionally long journey and that too in the middle of a severe winter. But I insisted that I wanted to see and experience America without any delay; so, he yielded to my request. An official drove me to Manhattan’s Greyhound Bus Station where I boarded a bus to Detroit. It was already dark, and the city lights were shining bright and colorful; it was a dreamlike experience for me. The bus travelled overnight and reached Detroit next day at 4.30 a.m. and along the way it stopped at Newark, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Toledo. Detroit’s Bus Station is no place to be at 4.30 a.m., especially for a young, inexperienced person with two suitcases and a handbag.

My bus to East Lansing was at 6.30 a.m. so I had to wait for two hours at this place. The bus station was deserted; initially I was the only passenger and a couple of cops were there. After some time, few black people had arrived. I remember a black cop came and gently told me that I should not go away from my baggage or wander around. I had told him that I was a new student from India and was going to MSU for my higher studies. It took me some figuring out how to get a cup of coffee from the vending machine. I had never seen a vending machine before. Finally, my bus arrived, and I got in line to board the bus. I remember an older looking white guy yelled at me with some foul language because one of my suitcases had touched one of his legs. Well, that’s life.