7. The Raj Path and the Assigned Way
THE RAJ PATH
AND THE ASSIGNED WAY
When my father was appointed to the Home Ministry, he moved into an even more powerful sphere of influence. His office was now in one of the wings that was proximate to the presidential residence, the magnificent palatial home built at the turn of the last century for the British viceroy. At the time of India’s independence in 1947, the home was turned over to the new Indian government, and it became known as the Rashtrapati Bhavan. The first word means, literally, “father of the nation”; the second means “house.”
It seemed a fitting environment for my dad. His appointment was the result not only of his brilliance and successes but also of his loyalty to his superiors. My father was very much the foreign-service man. He always stood when he talked to his boss, even on the telephone: “Yes, sir”; “no, sir”; “thank you, sir”; “I’ll be there, sir.” His tone of respect for authority was very much a part of his makeup. It was also a reflection of his own determined, forward-thrust approach to India’s hierarchical culture.
We occasionally visited my dad in his office near the Rashtrapati Bhavan, on the west end of the impressive Raj Path. Translated “the way of the king,” the Raj Path is a long, scenic mall of green stretches, floral gardens, and walking paths at the heart of Delhi’s capital district. If you drive westward along the Raj Path leading up to the president’s home, you pass between what are called the East and West Block buildings. That’s where his office was. These red-stone structures, facing each other in an arc, house the offices of India’s highest government. To pass between them inspires awe in any visitor, even as troops of monkeys make themselves at home everywhere on the grounds.
Even more impressive is the Raj Path itself. Stretching almost two miles, the monumental mall is adorned with beautiful gardens and long, shallow pools filled with colorful boats. The Raj Path ends its eastern point at the massive India Gate, a sandstone arch (reminiscent of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris) that serves as the symbol of India’s freedom. It is the nation’s war memorial, with the names of the fallen from World War I inscribed on it. If you stand on the east side of the gate, you can see the Rashtrapati Bhavan at the other end through the arch. In the film Gandhi, this magnificent stretch is shown teeming with millions of people following the slain leader’s funeral cortege.
This historic part of town was close to where we lived, and we often walked to it on the weekend to buy some hawker’s food sold on the lawns or to enjoy a boat ride. The setting made for bragging rights to a young man whose father’s office was so prestigiously positioned. I remember the other impressive edifices along the Raj Path, including a black stone statue of Edward VII riding a black horse and, in proximity to India Gate, a white marble statue of King George V. My teenage years, the 1960s, saw the rise of Indian nationalism and with it the removal of many of those British symbols, including the magnificent statues, which were packed up and sent back to England.
None of this sat well with my father, who was very respectful of the British. He always believed they did India more favors than people were willing to admit. Indeed, when England began to withdraw its presence after Independence, he felt the ominous approach of events to come.
“The British shouldn’t have left then,” he said. “We were not ready.”
His sentiments reflected those of many Indian civil service workers at that time, and they were right. The partition of India occurred (creating two countries — India and Pakistan), and there followed a bloodbath between Hindus and Muslims in which a half million Indians were killed. My dad recounted horror stories of what he saw taking place. Those were deadly times to be traveling, as mobs would sometimes attack trains or buses. I was too young at the time to remember any of it.
Every January 26, along with millions of other Indians, my family would attend the Republic Day parade down the Raj Path. Bleachers were set up on either side of the mall near the East and West Block buildings, and my father always secured VIP seats for us within eyeshot of the president’s and the prime minister’s platforms. Our family arrived at six in the morning, shivering, our teeth chattering and our breath forming vapor as we huddled under blankets to warm ourselves from the January cold. There we waited for three to four hours alongside other officers’ families to watch the great dignitaries pass before us in the parade.
India is such a multicultural country that those parades were filled with costumes, bands, and styles of dancing that reflected a multitude of peoples. Sometimes schools would be asked to take part, and on one occasion I had the privilege of marching in the parade. Three days following the parade, on the 29th of January, the ceremonial “Beating Retreat” was held. Bands from the armed forces performed, and as a finale two buglers stood atop the minarets of the East and West Block buildings to mark the end of the celebration. Each year on this occasion, as the sun set, the bands played two hymns that Gandhi loved — “Abide with Me” and “Lead, Kindly Light.” “Abide with Me” always brought back memories of my grandmother’s funeral.
The “Last Post” sounded the finale, bringing to an end the days of celebrating the Republic. As a historic footnote, the very tune of the Last Post was composed during the days of the Raj and was the signal on military bases to end the day’s activities, return to the barracks, and rest. It is interesting that now, when it is played at funerals, people do not realize the symbolism of the Creator calling a life to its eternal rest.
At this point in his career, my father began to have contact with ambassadors and heads of state from other countries. Our family got used to seeing world leaders at various receptions, which were held at the president’s palace and at Prime Minister Nehru’s home. My siblings and I visited the prime minister’s home on a few occasions and were even privileged to shake his hand, experiencing up close the combination of immense charisma and great humility that won the hearts of the Indian people. I remember his booming voice when he spoke to the nation. Little did we know then the legacy he would leave — at least two further prime ministers, Indira Gandhi, his daughter, and Rajiv Gandhi, his grandson, both of whom would be assassinated by extremists.
To us, the whole world seemed to pass through the portal of our father’s life. Our dad was part of the host committee for a reception to welcome Nikolai Bulganin, the president of the Soviet Union at that time, and his associate, Nikita Khrushchev. On other occasions, he was with the president of Laos and Marshal Tito of Yugoslavia. Even little Ramesh, my younger brother, got to meet Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, who attended the service at our church one Sunday. Ramesh had been chosen to be presented to them because he was the youngest member of the choir. (To this day he gets a lot of mileage out of that introduction!) When the event was telecast in England, many people wrote to India’s broadcasting station, asking if there was any possibility of adopting that little boy. As the years went by, any time he misbehaved one of us would quip, “We should have taken the British up on their offer!”
It was around this time, when I was an adolescent, that I began going to the Cathedral Church of the Redemption with a greater purpose, sometimes just to kneel. I didn’t know why I was compelled to do this, but I did it. There were times I knelt there, leaning against the rail as if I had thrown myself at the mercy of whomever was in control of the universe. The quietness of the cathedral made honest reflection possible, especially as I came away from the din and noise of everyday life.
In many ways, Indian culture is a melodramatic one. Life is snuffed out so easily by so many things, and that reality itself becomes a part of the cultural consciousness. This may be the result of the severe extremes of life in India. At one end is the escapist dream portrayed in the cinema, with its grand endings of wishes fulfilled. At the other end is a deep inner sense that there is nothing beyond the grave and that life itself is protracted grief. Many of India’s movie songs capture this angst of extremes.
I found myself caught between these two poles. Whenever I saw movies with a happy ending, I longed for that; and when I saw one with a tragic ending, I placed myself in those scenes. The latter was more of a constant fear, however, and, as far as I could discern, my life was without any purpose and going nowhere. I had nothing ultimate to hope for and no one to counsel me either — nobody to put an arm around me and offer, “Can I help you through this? Can I walk with you through it?” There simply were no glimmers of truth or optimism for me in anything.
None, that is, except in escape.
Beyond my friendships, I continued to find my greatest fulfillment in sports. I loved them deeply, and by my midteens I had begun to excel in them at a serious level. I had blossomed as a tennis player and at sixteen was playing competitively in clubs. But as I have said, cricket remained the game for me. It was always my greatest love, and I poured all my aspirations into it.
I was known to my teammates as an all-rounder, someone who could do several things well on the cricket field. I bowled some and was also a good fielder, but batting was my greatest strength, for which I was always selected. We played our matches all day long on Saturday and Sunday, from nine in the morning until well into the evening. Even though these matches often took place at the very height of the summer heat, we never seemed to tire. My mother would ask me, “How can you play for hour after hour in such heat?” But I was hardly aware of it.
I recall one year when our team had a flawless record going into one of our toughest matches against a strong team from the other side of the city. Something happened at the time that revealed to me, at least subconsciously, how important cricket had become to me. Sunder was our captain, but he fell ill as the match approached, and I was asked to step in and lead in his place.
The anticipated match ended up being very close. Sunder was a great bowler, the equivalent of an ace pitcher in baseball, and during the match we missed him badly. He was our opener — a speedster who could be counted on to knock off the top opposing batters at the beginning. That’s a crucial strategy in cricket. But in this match, we weren’t able to do it. Their batters scored against us almost at will.
As the match wore on, we began to realize that we were likely facing our first defeat. It all came down to this: we could salvage a win, but we needed to get one more opposing player out. As captain, I wasn’t sure what to do, what call to make. Finally, I decided to put myself in as bowler.
This was not a rash or panicked decision, as I was confident in my abilities. Yet with each step I took to bowl, the possibility grew in my mind that I was on the verge of blowing the match for my whole team. I wondered, “Would we have been able to win if Sunder were here?” This match no doubt meant more to me than to any of my teammates, as I thought of sports as my only strength. And now, once again, I was facing failure.
At my first bowl, the batter skied the ball overhead, and my heart fluttered. Unlike baseball players, cricket players don’t use mitts; they use their bare hands. In sheer desperation, before I could even think what to do, I leaped skyward, hoping somehow to alter the ball’s flight. While in midair, I felt a sting against my palm. And as I came down, I looked into my hand. I’d caught it — we had rescued our streak!
In cricket parlance, the batsman is out — caught and bowled. In this instance, he was caught and bowled by me. The ball was in my hands — and the ecstasy I felt was both from delight and relief.
Sunder’s father had come to cheer us on that day, even though his own son wasn’t playing. It was a wonderful gesture from an extraordinary man. In fact, he had led the cheering from the sidelines throughout the entire match. This was not out of character for Mr. Krishnan, a roundly respected man who was also an incredibly devoted Hindu. His character was his most striking feature, as he was not blessed with the finest of physical features and had a very high, shrill voice. We used to unthinkingly chuckle about it, because at times it could sound almost freakish.
Sunder’s dad’s story is a textbook example of how things go in the Indian culture. He never met his wife until the day they were married, which was the Hindu cultural way, at least at that time. After the wedding ceremony, the couple went to the home where they would now live out their years together, and it was then his wife saw him for the first time. She was deeply disappointed by his awkward physical appearance.
When he saw the look on her face, he was silent. “I’m sorry” was all he could bring himself to say. After he gathered his thoughts, he told her, “I can see why you have reacted as you have. I want you to know, you don’t owe me anything. We have one bedroom, and that will be yours. I will sleep in the verandah.”
Then he made her a promise. “I will treat you with dignity and respect,” he said, “and do all for you that you ask of me.”
One thing everyone knew about Sunder’s father was that, despite his status in the community, he never put on airs. This man held as high and influential a position as my own father. Yet, each day, as Sunder’s dad went to work, he never went by car. He always took the bus, which was the way of the common people. It was something he didn’t have to do but chose to do.
Day after day, his wife watched this man conduct himself honorably, and over time his character won her over. She began to see him for the extraordinary human being he was — and ultimately the marriage worked.
Honor — it was the way Mr. Krishnan carried his life, and I responded to that. Indeed, one aspect of cricket that I have always loved is its sense of honor. Cricket is a very fair-minded sport, and if you play it you would never think of cheating. Often when your opponent does something extraordinary, your own team cheers him. That’s just the way cricket is played all over the world.
I recall a conflict that took place in a match between India and the West Indies when I was growing up. The West Indian bowler bowled what’s known as a “bodyline bowl,” where the ball — bowled at lightning speed — comes close to hitting the batter’s head. It was one of those Roger Clemens – type pitches, aimed at the head of the opponent.
When this happened, the West Indian captain, a player named Franz Alexander, walked out to speak to his bowler. He clearly reprimanded him for bowling in a way that could endanger the batsman and cautioned him against repeating it. But the bowler did it again. Alexander came to him the second time and now warned him. Batsmen didn’t wear helmets then, and a direct hit could be debilitating, if not fatal. Alexander went back to his fielding position (he was the wicket-keeper, similar to the catcher’s position in baseball) and the bowler once more bowled the ball at breathtaking speed, aimed at the batsman’s head. At that point, Alexander walked up to him, took the ball out of his hand, and ejected his own teammate. I well remember seeing a picture in the newspaper of that ejected world-class bowler sitting in a train headed to Mumbai to be flown home. He was allowed to play in no more matches on that tour.
That was cricket. You played it fair and square.
In many ways, life was given to us — at least in theory — with such a strong moral standard. My buddies and I understood the moral standards of our culture, and we held to them rather innately. There were things we never had to discuss, certain boundaries we simply wouldn’t cross. In relationships between fellows and girls, for example, we never would have thought of crossing lines of intimacy. We abided by the moral imperatives, and that counted for every one of us, as far as I knew. We would go out in large groups for an evening, boys and girls together, but none of the fellows had immoral intentions on those outings. Frankly, we had led sheltered lives and didn’t know enough. Later, college days would lead some astray.
India prides itself on being a highly moral culture, so I knew early on that there was a moral framework through which I had to look at life. Yet I didn’t know the “why” behind that framework. To me, it was merely pragmatic: you don’t hurt people, you don’t use them, you don’t abuse them. Thus, I knew from the very beginning that the way my dad handled his relationship with my mother was wrong.
At the same time, I knew things weren’t adding up in my own life. I don’t recall connecting this to any kind of moral failure on my part; if I did, it must have been trumped in my mind by what I saw as a matter of survival.
My father’s beratings continued. Yet now they came more frequently as I got older, at an age of adult responsibility.
“Why are you such a failure?” he would begin. This didn’t come as a question but a character statement. “I could help you, if you succeeded only this much,” he said, holding up his finger and thumb. “I could make a phone call and get you somewhere.” I never felt this was an offer so much as it was a condemnation.
He knew correctly that I would never be admitted to a university with the grades I was making, so he saw community college as my only hope of salvaging a future. Hence, I was enrolled at sixteen, a year earlier than most students, to begin my shortcut to a university degree. Yet even this would short-circuit before long. The grading in India is very different from in the United States; you simply didn’t score in the 80s and 90s. Forty was a pass, and 60 was a pass with distinction. Despite my father’s plans for me and efforts on my behalf, my undisciplined study habits continued as they had. If I needed 40 percent to pass, I would study to earn 45 percent, and let it go at that. In some ways, I didn’t know how to study. No one had ever taught me. On the other hand, learning wasn’t an innate skill for me, and I wasn’t very retentive.
Yet it wasn’t just my passionate dislike for school that drove me away from studies. It was the depths of the emptiness welling up within me. Deep down, I knew there was no longer anywhere to turn for answers. I didn’t even know if the answers to my deepest hungers actually existed. Life had simply stopped making any sense.
That frustration and hopelessness drove me with even more determination to the cricket field. It was the only place I could find that offered any kind of hope or reason to exist. I began skipping my classes regularly, wandering the streets on my bicycle, in search of a cricket match I could watch or take part in. And soon, I was absent for every class I was taking. I showed up only for exams and barely squeaked by. I was on a collision course.
One day, after cycling home, I turned into our backyard as usual, only to find my father standing in the doorway. He wasn’t normally home at that hour, and the sight of him startled me. He stood with his arms stretched across the open doorway, as if to block my entry into the house.
“Hi, Dad,” I said as innocuously as I could as I parked my bike against the neem tree in our backyard.
I felt his glare bearing down on me.
“How was school?” he asked.
A terror rose in my heart. He had never asked me such a question before. His interest surprised me.
“Fine,” I answered as I approached the door. I tried to act as I normally would, but I couldn’t help trembling as I got within his reach. He would not move to allow me to enter the house.
I was face-to-face with him now, as uncomfortable as I had ever been in my life. The moment of truth had come.
In an instant it dawned on me that my report card must have arrived. The absences!
He literally grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and dragged me into the house — and the torrent of anger my father unleashed on me was like none before. The beating began, and the hits and kicks were descending in unmitigated wrath. In the beginning, I raised my hands instinctively to protect myself, but it did no good.
Soon I had turned and was crouching, taking his blows on my back. With each attempted answer I gave to his raging questions, another hit followed. Once he got going, he didn’t know when to stop. I knew I could no longer do anything against him, and I crumpled to my knees.
“Enough!” a voice cried. “Please stop! Please stop!”
It was my mother. She came between us, and my father relented while trembling and breathless with rage. He was also asthmatic and was now wheezing heavily. I could hear him and his heavy breath.
As I felt my mother’s comforting warmth over me, it was as if a violent storm had ended, leaving devastation behind. Yet I remember sobbing and not being able to stop.
Some of this is still a blur to me, except that I know my mother came in the way of the beating and brought it to an end. I don’t remember when my father stopped, nor do I remember how badly my mother suffered herself. I only know that if she hadn’t stepped in, he would have done serious damage to me.
Just telling this story now, in written form, has been painful.
That night, I stood punished and facing a wall — a fitting metaphor of my life. My charade was over, but that had done nothing to free me. I was more imprisoned than ever by the pressing struggles within me.
My father’s thrashings had never worked; they only increased my malaise. Yet a terrible truth had begun to dawn on me. I knew that in this one area of my life, he was at least partly right. I had never taken my studies seriously and, therefore, there was no future for me. I seemed destined to be an academic vagabond.
I was the one among our band of friends who had the least promise of a future. Sunder was obviously headed for a great academic career. He had been accepted to the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology on the outskirts of Delhi. My other friends on our cricket team all had something at which they were good.
But cricket was all I had. And all I could imagine for myself was a professional career in the sport. I wanted very seriously to play, not taking into consideration how tough it would be to make the lineup. What I didn’t consider as well was that professional players at that time didn’t make a living at their sport in India; their primary profession was in some other area. Some worked for the rail lines, others for firms that allowed them time off to play professional matches.
My dad obviously knew this. If he suspected that I had any such aspirations, he would have known it was no way for me to make a living. Now, more than ever, his haunting summation of my life came back to me: “You’ll never make anything of yourself.”
And now I was convinced: He’s right!
That is probably why I’ve never held it against him. I wasn’t doing well. And I wasn’t making it. Why should I expect to have a future?
Still, his words carried a heavy, double-edged blow. First, he was right. And, second, this was all he had to say to me. He had nothing else to offer.
I don’t blame my father for my failures up to that point in my life. But I do believe he made a mistake. I am a father myself, and I believe my dad should have taken me aside to talk. As best as he was able, he should have said, “Son, sit down, I want to speak with you. Tell me, what’s going on inside you? Why are you living this lie? Why are you doing this to yourself? Where is it you want to go in life? And how can I help you get there?”
I think that, in general, many fathers don’t want to have this talk. For whatever reason, they would rather avoid it. They seem to think that things will correct themselves. Or, they hope someone else will come along who can enter their son’s or daughter’s life and offer some answers and direction.
I have no doubt that the way my father related to me then was not uncommon for his time and context. And it was certainly true that, in terms of the culture, I was a source of shame for him. But the fact remains that he extended no genuine help to me. Nor was there any offer of hope. That was a heartbreaker.
Both my sisters had been going to a Catholic school all this time, by my parents’ choice. One day, in an unusual event, a group of young visitors under the ministry of Youth for Christ was introduced at an assembly and were given the opportunity to present in song and testimony their faith in Jesus Christ.
I’m not sure exactly what my sister Sham was going through in her own life then, although she was much more successful in her studies than I was. As was typical, we didn’t talk about very personal things. But my sisters became the trailblazers for the family, although they didn’t exactly know to what degree. Sham loved music, and listening to the presentation this visiting group made undoubtedly piqued her attention. And at some moment during that assembly, something in her heart seemed to have been touched by it all.
As the program wound down, the speaker asked, “Who among you here today would like to have peace with God?”
Sham was one of those who raised her hand. Frankly, I don’t know of anyone in India who doesn’t want peace with God.
The Youth for Christ team followed up on the spot with the students who responded. They were so thrilled with Sham’s “commitment to Jesus” that they invited her to join the Youth for Christ group, and some weeks later they asked her to share her testimony at a youth gathering. Sham was thrilled at the thought and agreed to do it, even though she had no idea what it all meant and what exactly to say. In fact, she didn’t know what it meant to “give a testimony.”
She got all excited about the evening and asked me if I would accompany her to that “Youth Rally” — a term quite foreign to her and to me. After much discussion back and forth, I agreed to go because she said there would be refreshments served after the event. So I, in turn, asked my buddy Sunder Krishnan to go with me. Sunder had a soft spot for Sham and he liked being with me; and, of course, the refreshments were no small attraction. So off we went, with no clue what we were going to. As it turned out, Sham didn’t give her testimony at that particular meeting. Yet, while she was at the rally, it began to dawn on her that a new life had begun within. Thus began my sister’s months-long process of settling in to what a decision for Christ meant.
The rally was held at an auditorium called the New Delhi Ministry Corporation. As was typical of an Indian auditorium, it was pretty plain: whitewashed walls and ceiling fans spinning to cool off the high summer heat. A lot of noise in the halls, cobwebs in the ceiling corners, green fungus here and there on the walls — it was just a typical public auditorium with acoustics better for outside sounds than inside ones. But there we sat waiting for the program to begin, and I was immediately impressed by the large number of young people who were there. I wondered, “What am I doing here? What is this evening all about?”
As the program began, the most unforgettable part of the evening left me completely amused. A soloist stepped up and, with an accordion wrapped around his chest, sang a song, “There Is a Balm in Gilead.” I looked toward Sunder, wondering what on earth this song was about? I thought he was saying, “There is a bomb in Gilead,” and my only hope was that we weren’t sitting in Gilead! Putting my face in my hands, I shook in absolute bewilderment and smothered laughter, thinking that I had come to a place I knew nothing about and was listening to what made no sense, only so I could have refreshments at the end of it all. God’s little twists of humor in the shadows still amaze me.
A few minutes later in the program, a man stepped up to the podium and began to speak. After listening a while, Sunder and I glanced at each other once more with a knowing look. We both were bored by this; in fact, we didn’t much care for the whole scene. And to finish off what we felt was a wasted evening, no refreshments ended up being served either. Utterly disappointed, we left. There was only one bright light in the experience. There were some pretty nice-looking young people there, and that did serve as a possible reason to return.
Some time later, with Sham’s trademark persistence, she asked me to go to another Youth for Christ rally. “This time,” she informed me, “the young people will be singing. And I’m going to be one of the singers.” She beamed with delight. Music was always an attraction for me, so again, for my sister’s sake and Sunder’s eye for her, we went.
As we walked into the auditorium that night, I was keenly aware of the struggle that was going on in my soul and of my continuing clouded thinking about Jesus Christ. Maybe the presence of some happy young people and a buzz of excitement put me on notice that all was not well with me. I knew something had reached the crossroads inside me, but I was not sure what to make of it in terms of a clear answer of what and why. I knew my real reason for wanting to be there that night: I was seeking an escape from my pain, and a reason to live.
I remember very clearly the speaker that night. He was quite different from the previous speaker, with not quite as dynamic a personality. There was a calmness about him and a saintliness to his demeanor. This man delivered his sermon in measured tones, carefully, deliberately, as if laboring to get across what he wanted to say. He was speaking on John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” At this point, it was more the man than the message that was getting through. I was truly drawn to him. He seemed so authentic, so caring. The message in parts was almost penetrating my soul.
His slow delivery (by Indian standards) made no difference to me. What I heard him say was planted within me to flower later. I faintly recognized truth, as God sought to break open my undisciplined heart. Although I didn’t understand much of what this speaker was saying, it was enough to alert me to the fact that I was not right with the world and that God had the answer.
When he finished, he invited anyone who wanted to know Jesus Christ to come forward. I raised my hand — the only hand in the whole place to go up. About that time, a song began, with a group of young people singing. I rose from where I was sitting and made my way to the front of the auditorium.
Standing alone at the front of that big place made me feel a bit awkward. But inside, I was not wavering in the least. Somehow I knew this was what was needed — and what I wanted — in my life. A counselor approached me, and without hesitation I said, “I want to be like the man who just spoke.” He opened a Bible, led me through the Scriptures that I needed to hear, and told me how I could have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. “Yes, that is what I want,” I responded, “but I don’t know what to say or how to pray.” He was a very kind man and led me in a simple prayer of commitment to Jesus Christ.
My halting prayer that night didn’t seem to make a dramatic difference right away. It was more like a speck of salt being dropped into a vast tub of water. There was really a battle going on for my soul. Very little seemed different to the naked eye, but things were changing nonetheless. This is important to know. When someone from another culture hears the simple strains of Jesus’ message, there is a vagueness in the beginning because you are not quite sure how it all fits into your culture’s context. You just add anything new; there is never a subtraction. Something happened for me that would make a difference, but the road was still foggy. Nothing had emerged from the shadows yet. I left that night half aware of what happened but half in a blank about what it really meant.
All this time, my dad had been expecting me to attend Madras Christian College, like my brother had done. He foresaw me following in the distinguished path of my grandfather, who had been a student there prior to his professorship, and the path of my dad himself, who had matriculated there before going on to Nottingham in England. My mother also had gone to university in Madras.
As I made the leap from community college, I’m not sure why I chose to make the break from family tradition and attend Delhi University instead. Maybe it was because my friends were in Delhi. Or maybe I just was a homebody who didn’t want to go away to college. In any case, my father pulled all the strings he could to get me into the university. His plan was for me to become a premed student and to go on to a career as a doctor.
Once I was admitted to Delhi University, it was my mother who went with me to enroll me and help me fill out the forms. That’s the way it always was: my mom was the one who went with me to do such things, whether I needed to buy books or to get clothes for school. There was never a time when my dad went with me to do any of those things, as he did with my siblings.
By this time, everything was falling into a seemingly inevitable pattern that was becoming clearer to me by the day. There is an accepted understanding in Indian culture that you are assigned a path. Such a path is called a marg, meaning “the way.” You hear a lot of talk about the way of devotion, the way of knowledge, and the way of meditation. And because marg is an assigned way, you don’t question whether it’s true or false. It is simply the way that’s laid out for you.
To me, the way that was laid out ahead seemed littered with rubble and pitfalls. After only a few months at Delhi University, I began to repeat my pattern of not studying. I was already flunking my premed courses, and I didn’t know what to do. At the community college, I had always found a way to get out of what was required, to meet only the minimum standards. Now I realized I didn’t even have what it took to get by.
In retrospect, my father wasn’t the only one who had reached the end of his wits that terrible day; something had reached finality in me as well. Whenever I considered the imposing figure of my father, I felt only the burden of what he represented to me: Life has purpose, and mine clearly has none.
Everyone else around me had success, but no matter how deeply I searched my life for a shred of it, all I saw was failure.
There is nothing ahead for me. That became my summation of all things, and I had no idea where to turn for hope.
Religion had not made any sense; I couldn’t buy into the mythological stories of the worldview of my culture, and nothing seemed to have come from the prayer I had prayed after the youth rally. All the movies and plays I’d seen were just that — entertainment and make-believe. I didn’t think for a moment that any of it was true. Even the learned Hindu priest who oversaw the shoveling of my friend’s ashes hadn’t offered any ray of hope.
“There are no answers,” I concluded. None.