The man spoke quickly, running through a number of details and pulling blueprints out of his desk drawer to show me examples and ask questions to determine my experience level. I kept saying, “Yeah, yeah,” through the whole interview, having no clue what he was talking about. As I ate my meal, I began to panic, hoping he wouldn’t notice my lack of knowledge. By the end, he realized I had not understood anything he said, nor did I know how to read blueprints. He immediately drove me back to the airport and gave me airfare money to fly back to Knoxville—$130, including $10 for dinner.
With $130 in my pocket, an idea hit me. A few months earlier, some friends had told me about hitchhiking. Since I did not get the job, I decided to hitchhike back to Knoxville to save money on the return ticket. I spent four dollars on food and passed the night in a bus station near the airport. At around 6:30 a.m., I drank a cup of hot tea and washed up in the washroom. Still wearing my dark gray, baggy suit, I stood near the main road with my thumb out, hoping someone would give me a ride if I looked educated.
I spent hours on the side of the road trying to hitchhike from Atlanta to Knoxville, Tennessee. Most of the time, no one even bothered to slow down. If someone did stop, they were able to take me only twenty or thirty miles at a time. At 7:00 p.m., I reached Maryville, Tennessee, and after another hour and a half wait, a man driving a small truck agreed to take me the remaining twenty three miles to Knoxville. The entire ride, I struggled to stay awake. I was exhausted from standing for hours, my clothes were sweaty, and I was famished. I couldn’t wait to reach my house, take a shower, and change into clean clothes. Then I would sit with a cold beer and ask Dhesi to fix some good food for me.
The truck pulled into Knoxville and dropped me off on my street at around 9:00 p.m. I walked to where my house should have been, but in the dark, I could not find it. That’s strange, I thought. Maybe I’m on the wrong street. I walked a little farther. Even though I was tired and could not think as clearly as usual, I recognized the other houses, so I could not be on the wrong street. Then I came to where my house should have been. At first I thought it was an illusion. In the dark beneath the moon and scattered streetlights, all that remained were blackened foundation and ash. My house had burned nearly to the ground.
Slumping to the curb with tears in my eyes, the awful reality crashed down on me. I had nowhere to go, and I could not take a hot bath, drink a cold beer, or eat good Indian food. The fire had consumed my belongings, and most importantly, I did not know what happened to my housemate, Jagtar Singh Dhesi.
Half an hour passed while I sat on the curb in despair. After a while, three Indian students approached me coming from the library.
“Are you the guy who lived in that house?” one student asked.
I nodded miserably.
“That fire was a big one. The fire department put it out sometime between ten and eleven last night, but at three o’clock this morning, the fire started again.”
“Do you know where my housemate, Jagtar Singh Dhesi, is?” I asked. “Is he okay?”
“I am sorry. We have not seen him,” they said. “Do you have a place to stay? If not, you can come to our house for tonight. In the morning, you can find your friend and figure out what to do.”
They took me to their house and prepared a meal for me while I cleaned up. Once I ate, they showed me to a bed. Despite my exhaustion, I tossed and turned sleeplessly the entire night, thinking about my belongings and legal documents lost in the fire. Everything was gone. My bistra bandh, the quilt my mother made me, the trunk filled with dal and mango pickles, my hand-stitched suits, the slide rule, and my books. I was particularly concerned about my passport and the certificate of my diploma in civil engineering.
The next morning, I walked past the ruins of my house and up the hill toward campus. In the distance, I saw Dhesi walking toward me. We saw each other at the same time and walked faster. He looked just as bad as I felt. He was still wearing his turban, but it was dirty, and his clothes were wrinkled. We embraced and sat on the sidewalk, unable to keep from crying. Crying felt good. We were still in shock, and although I did not know what would happen, I felt better with Dhesi next to me. After several minutes, Dhesi dried his tears with his shirtsleeve and explained what happened.
“It was awful, Bedi. Two days ago, while I was at the library, the house caught fire. After the firemen put out the fire, they allowed me to enter the house and bring out our important documents. When the owners arrived, they said it was not advisable to sleep in the house, but it would be okay to leave our belongings there. That night, I slept at a friend’s house. At around three o’clock in the morning, the fire started again. Everyone was sleeping, so when someone finally noticed the smoke pouring
